By Rachel Stockton A drug that has just been approved by the FDA to treat schizophrenia and bipolar 1 disorder will hit the US market in the 4th quarter of this year. Saphis is manufactured by Shering-Plough, a pharmaceutical company planning on a merger with Merck in the upcoming weeks. While the FDA endorses the [...]
By Rachel Stockton “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. . .” This cliché-ic admonition may very well be the advice of medical doctors to patients who are suffering from colorectal cancer in the very near future. A new study out of Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has shown an [...]
By Martha Rosenberg Try to access the website of the Archives of General Psychiatry and you may have to abide an ad for the antidepressant Pristiq before you can enter. (JAMA and its Archives Journals “do not endorse the advertised product,” you’ll be assured.) But look for a pharma affiliation for the author of the [...]
By Rachel Stockton Mark Howell, a pastor in a large non-denominational church in Houston, TX, has a history of debilitating migraines. Before the pain sets in, he typically can see only one half of everything in front of him; a shroud of blackness covers the other half. Once the pain sets in completely, he remains [...]
By Rachel Stockton The pharmaceutical company Novartis announced that the FDA has approved a newer version of one of its previously approved blood pressure medications, Tekturna. The new drug, Tekturna HCT, combines Tekturna with hydrochlororthiazide, a diuretic; Novartis claims that in combining the two drugs, blood pressure is treated on two different fronts. Per its [...]
By Rachel Stockton The Journal of the American Medical Association is reporting that a Danish study has confirmed that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) increases a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer. For the study, women who were on HRT were compared to women who had never used hormone replacement therapy at all; researchers determined that those [...]
Sunday May 31, 2009 — A new study published online on Nov 15, 2008 and scheduled to appear in the July 2009 issue of Cancer Causes Control suggests that some vaccines may increase risk of cancers such...
Monday May 11, 2009 — Common genes carried by almost half of the population can lead to high blood pressure, says a new study by two British groups. Identification of these genes may help pave the way...
Monday April 6, 2009 — Every year, thousands of women over fifty receive yearly mammograms to determine whether or not they have breast cancer. If you surveyed the average woman in this age category in the United...
Thursday April 2, 2009 — A recent study conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham calls into question the efficacy of available screening tests for ovarian cancer. The study focuses specifically on the combination of ultrasound...
TUESDAY JULY 15, 2008 — A new study in the British Journal of Cancer suggests that exposure to diagnostic x-ray may increase the risk of young-onset prostate cancer, which accounts for about 10 percent of all prostate...
SUNDAY July 13, 2008 — The prevalence of a form of deadly skin cancer called melanoma has been on the rise, particularly in younger women, according to research by federal scientists, the Washington Post reported. The study...
We have won our ten-year battle to get the Food and Drug Administration to comply with the law and set a date to classify mercury amalgam. On Monday, we settled our lawsuit, Moms Against Mercury et al....
SATURDAY June 6, 2008 — A popular procedure for women who have abnormal cells in the cervix could raise risk of pregnancy complications in the patients, according to a UK study in the medical journal The Lancet....