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Blue Dog Coalition criticizes house health care leaders for developing legislation in secret

Members of the fiscally conservative, Democratic Blue Dog Coalition on Monday sent a letter to the chairs of three House committees who have been tasked with drafting health care legislation, saying they are "increasingly troubled" by the exclusivity of the process, the New York Times reports.

12 May 2009

DHEA supplement combined with vitamin D and calcium significantly improves spinal bone density in older women

"The results of our study are very promising. Similar studies have demonstrated much smaller benefits for bone than we found. However, calcium and vitamin D deficiencies, which are present in half of older adults, may have prevented DHEA from improving bone density in the earlier studies," said Edward Weiss, Ph.D., associate professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University's Doisy College of Health Sciences and lead author of the study.

12 May 2009

Senior Medicare beneficiaries give their coverage higher ratings than do those with ESI

Elderly Medicare beneficiaries are more satisfied with their health care, and experience fewer problems accessing and paying for care, than Americans with employer-sponsored insurance (ESI), according to a study by Commonwealth Fund researchers published today on the Health Affairs Web site.

12 May 2009

High health care costs affecting insured U.S. residents

Across the country, 64 million people younger than age 65 are part of families spending more than 10% of their pretax income on health care, according to a Families USA study, the Boston Globe reports.

5 May 2009

Competition among pharmacies could spur change in industry

The competition among pharmacy retailers such as Walgreen and Wal-Mart "to create more efficient business plans for pricing and selling prescription drugs has the potential to spur change across the pharmacy industry," the Wall Street Journal reports.

5 May 2009

FDA extends action date for inhaled Treprostinil (Tyvaso) NDA by three months

United Therapeutics Corporation has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will require additional time to complete its review of the New Drug Application (NDA) for Tyvaso (inhaled treprostinil).

30 Apr 2009

Out-of-pocket costs reduce patients' willingness to start treatment for their chronic illnesses

Patients newly diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes or high cholesterol are significantly more likely to delay initiating recommended drug treatment if they face higher co-payments for medications, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

30 Apr 2009

New initiative to ensure the safe use of methadone

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched an initiative to help ensure the safe use of methadone.

30 Apr 2009

IBM and Golden State Medical Supply create drug safety model to tackle counterfeiting

IBM and Golden State Medical Supply (GSMS) have announced the two companies have worked together to help drug companies comply with stringent prescription drug pedigree regulations in advance of state and federal mandates.

26 Apr 2009

New drug use screening tools for physicians

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, today unveiled its first comprehensive Physicians' Outreach Initiative, NIDAMED, which gives medical professionals tools and resources to screen their patients for tobacco, alcohol, illicit, and nonmedical prescription drug use.

20 Apr 2009

Medicare payments for outpatient prescription medications jumped $38 billion between 2005 and 2006

Medicare payments for outpatient prescription medications increased by more than $38 billion when comparing 2005 and 2006 data, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

13 Apr 2009

FDA acts to avoid shortage of medically necessary opioid

The U.S Food and Drug Administration today amended its March 30, 2009, action warning manufacturers to stop the production and distribution of certain unapproved prescription opioids, to allow the continued marketing and distribution of one particular type of opioid -- a high concentrate morphine sulfate oral solution -- on an interim basis.

12 Apr 2009

Health problems associated with Chinese slimming capsules

Taking herbal food supplements is certainly not free of risk. Since 2005, the poison emergency centers in the German cities of Freiburg and Gottingen have registered a total of 17 patients with health problems after taking Chinese slimming capsules.

8 Apr 2009

Cost-cutting measures are creeping into the medicine cabinet

Cost-cutting measures are creeping into the medicine cabinet. We split pills in half or take the drugs every other day to stretch our doses. We stop filling the prescriptions for our most expensive drugs. We buy prescriptions from online pharmacies with questionable credentials.

6 Apr 2009

'Well-fortified' drugstores have 'fighting chance' against government reform, Wall Street Journal says

Recent events in Washington state indicate that "well-fortified" pharmacy chains have a "fighting chance" as the health care industry gears up for "an assault of government reform," the Wall Street Journal reports.

6 Apr 2009

Link between widely used osteoporosis drugs and heart problems probed

New research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine evaluated the link between a common class of drugs used to prevent bone fractures in osteoporosis patients and the development of irregular heartbeat.

6 Apr 2009

Congress approves budget resolutions

The House and Senate on Thursday approved their respective versions of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution (HConRes85, SConRes13), both of which include deficit-neutral reserve funds for health care, CongressDaily reports (Sanchez/Friedman, CongressDaily, 4/3).

5 Apr 2009

Most psychiatrists who wrote clinical guidelines had financial ties to drug companies, study shows

Most of the psychiatrists on the American Psychiatric Association panels who wrote the newest clinical guidelines for how to treat depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia had financial ties to drug companies, according to a study by Boston researchers scheduled to be published this month in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, the Boston Globe reports.

5 Apr 2009

URMC to trial minimally invasive device that 'reins in' acid reflux

The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) is one of 15 specialized sites across the U.S. and Europe gearing up to trial a new implantable device that could bring relief to the estimated 25 million American adults who suffer from daily heartburn.

4 Apr 2009

Branding still overshadows critical fine print on nonprescription medications

Medicine packages barrage consumers with information, some required to be "prominent" and "conspicuous."

1 Apr 2009

Prescription Drug News and Research

Blue Dog Coalition criticizes house health care leaders for developing legislation in secret

DHEA supplement combined with vitamin D and calcium significantly improves spinal bone density in older women

Senior Medicare beneficiaries give their coverage higher ratings than do those with ESI

High health care costs affecting insured U.S. residents

Competition among pharmacies could spur change in industry

FDA extends action date for inhaled Treprostinil (Tyvaso) NDA by three months

Out-of-pocket costs reduce patients' willingness to start treatment for their chronic illnesses

New initiative to ensure the safe use of methadone

IBM and Golden State Medical Supply create drug safety model to tackle counterfeiting

New drug use screening tools for physicians

Medicare payments for outpatient prescription medications jumped $38 billion between 2005 and 2006

FDA acts to avoid shortage of medically necessary opioid

Health problems associated with Chinese slimming capsules

Cost-cutting measures are creeping into the medicine cabinet

'Well-fortified' drugstores have 'fighting chance' against government reform, Wall Street Journal says

Link between widely used osteoporosis drugs and heart problems probed

Congress approves budget resolutions

Most psychiatrists who wrote clinical guidelines had financial ties to drug companies, study shows

URMC to trial minimally invasive device that 'reins in' acid reflux

Branding still overshadows critical fine print on nonprescription medications

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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