People who are more conscientious are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s, according to a study published today in the Archives of General Psychiatry.A high conscientiousness score — which the authors describe as reflecting a “tendency to control impulses and be goal directed” — was associated with an 89% reduction in the risk of disease compared [...]
Walgreens stock was down more than 14% at midday, after the company announced disappointing third-quarter earnings. Part of the problem was weaker margins on generic drugs — an issue that may also have bedeviled other drug retailers and middlemen during the quarter.Despite higher revenues, Walgreen’s net income for the quarter was down 3.8% from last [...]
The Orphan Drug Act has helped bring drugs to patients afflicted with diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in this country. And while the number of drugs treating those diseases has grown to more than 300, the price of progress is often stunningly high. Sometimes the price is so high that it threatens patients’ [...]
The guy who helped build the giant hospital chain HCA then got forced out as the company went under the feds’ microscope for fraud is on the comeback trail with a new health venture: retail clinics. The setting, not surprisingly, is Florida, where Richard Scott, late of HCA and now with an eponymous investment [...]
It’s time to play the pharma M&A game “Who gets bought next?” This morning’s episode is brought to us by the Financial Times, which short-lists a few bite-size companies that could patch up a big suitor’s product portfolio. The contestants include:Sepracor. The company sold $143 million of its flagship product, the sleeping pill Lunesta, in [...]
Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, a 61-year-old former construction engineer and Coast Guard reservist, decided in 2001 to surgically change his gender from male to female. The $25,000 cost of the procedure was partly offset by a $5,000 refund from the IRS, which allows tax deductions for medical expenses.Then the IRS decided it wanted its money back, on [...]
Add another loser to the long list of opponents rolled by USC’s football team. This time the vanquished foe wasn’t some Big 10 opponent. No, the Trojans defeated crafty drug-resistant staph bacteria that landed two players in the hospital in 2002 and led to 11 confirmed infections and six suspected cases in 2003. By 2004, [...]
The Health Blog looked for stories you might have missed over the weekend. Here’s our short list.Drugs that block testosterone from feeding cancerous prostate cells have the same effect on the body as castration. And side effects from treatment, also called androgen-deprivation therapy, can be profound, including night sweats, hot flashes, loss of libido and [...]
Craig Venter made his name sequencing the human genome, and now he’s working on a bunch of big-think projects to push genomic science toward practical applications. He dropped by Health Blog HQ recently to talk about what he’s up to. Click on the video window below to watch our conversation. We covered two areas:1. The [...]
Bristol-Myers Squibb is paying the government more than half a billion to settle charges that the company inflated the prices of its drugs, paid kickbacks to doctors and promoted its anti-psychotic drug Abilify for unapproved uses. The broad outlines of the settlement were announced last December, but the specific accusations weren’t laid out until today. [...]
