The chemical that gives chili peppers their heat may help fight pain. But results from a recent study of hernia patients who had an experimental pepper-based drug dripped into their groin during surgery failed to prove that it did any good.The findings, presented earlier this month at an anesthesiology conference, compared pain relief for 20 [...]
New York’s public hospitals have their work cut out for them when it comes to treating diabetes, but sometimes it’s the small stuff that counts the most.Behind the scenes, the hospital system has an extensive electronic medical-record system that can help track key tests for thousands of patients. By looking at the data for the [...]
A jury in Massachusetts found that Roche’s anemia drug Mircera infringes Amgen’s patents, dealing a blow to the Swiss company’s efforts to launch a competing medicine to boost the production of red blood cells (pictured) in kidney dialysis patients.Roche said it’s “evaluating its legal options” and may appeal the decision rendered in federal district court [...]
A glowing moth that sells sleeping pills beat a beaver and a bee in an analysis of the memorability of drug ads that aired during the past TV season. Two ads featuring the moth, the silent pitchman for Sepracor’s Lunesta, finished first and second in a ranking of how often people who’d seen drug ads [...]
Hospitals complain regularly about the burden of treating uninsured patients who can’t pay their medical bills. Should hospitals and the local governments that support them send a message by steering their money to vendors that provide employee health insurance?A handful of hospital systems such as Baptist Health South Florida think so. Some politicians are intrigued [...]
Two groups of cancer docs cast the latest stone yesterday in the fight over how to treat anemia in patients getting chemotherapy. The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society of Hematology published revised guidelines (online here) advocating more liberal use of anti-anemia drugs than stricter Medicare rules allow.Citing safety concerns, Medicare tightened [...]
The percentage of breast cancer patients who chose to have both breasts surgically removed more than doubled between 1998 and 2003, according to a new study. The results are particularly striking because having the non-cancerous breast removed hasn’t been shown to reduce a woman’s risk of dying from breast cancer.In 1998, 1.8% of breast cancer [...]
A powerful congressman wants answers from FDA about its approval and monitoring of Medtronic’s Sprint Fidelis products, wires whose sale was suspended last week because of safety concerns. The wires, called leads, connect implantable defibrillators to the heart.“Please provide the summary of the safety and effectiveness data upon which FDA based its approval of the [...]
Dr. Benjamin Brewer now has a simple answer when parents call him asking for suggestions on treating their children’s colds. “It’s just a virus, and, unfortunately, there is no safe and effective cold medication on the market that I can recommend to you,” he writes in his WSJ column,The Doctor’s Office. Brewer wields the advice [...]
Each year, a Dutch insurance company pays $280,000 for care that’s based more on faith than science, John W. Miller writes for the Wall Street Journal. The insurer VGZ lays out the cash to fly 600 of its sickest and most disabled patients to Lourdes, France, where a peasant girl claimed to see the Virgin [...]
