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Big Pharma Loses Generic Drug Fight
Big Pharma Loses Generic
Drug Fight
May 17, 2007 10:23 AM CDT

Big Pharma Loses Generic Drug Fight

Deal for developing nations first blow by Dems in Congress

(Newser) - Congress and the White House have agreed to give developing nations more access to affordable generic drugs by easing some patent enforcement rules. Tucked into a broader trade agreement passed last week, the provision is the first blow to American pharmaceutical companies since the Democrats won control of Congress, the ...

Spider Venom the New Viagra
Spider Venom the New Viagra
May 16, 2007 7:31 AM CDT

Spider Venom the New Viagra

(Newser) - Men with erectile dysfunction may get an assist, believe it or not, from the Brazillian wandering spider—also dubbed the banana spider for its propensity to hide in bunches of the fruit. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have isolated a compound in the spider's deadly saliva that causes erections, der Spiegel...

Chemicals in Tap Water, French Fries May Cause Breast Cancer

(Newser) - Hundreds of common chemicals—from a substance used in French fries to one found in tap water—may cause breast cancer, a new report linking the disease to everyday products suggests. Researchers say they've found a link between cancer in animals and more than 200 common chemicals, many of which...

OxyContin Maker Pleads Guilty
OxyContin Maker Pleads Guilty
May 10, 2007 12:01 PM CDT

OxyContin Maker Pleads Guilty

Manufacturer, execs admit misleading public about risky painkiller

(Newser) - The company that makes OxyContin pleaded guilty today to misleading the public about the effects of the potent painkiller. Purdue Pharma and three executives will pay $634.5 million in civil and criminal fines. Federal prosecutors accused the firm of "misbranding" the drug, marketing it as a less addictive...

Doctors Paid Millions To Use Anemia Drugs

Among the world's top-selling medicines, the FDA now says they may be unsafe

(Newser) - Doctors are paid millions of dollars by drug companies to give their patients anemia medicine which regulators now say may be dangerous. Spurred by competiton between several similar drugs, companies reward doctors with rebates, which allow them to make a significant profit, the New York Times reports.

Gluten-Free Sticks for Many Dieters

Mild-mannered wheat protein is the latest dietary scourge

(Newser) - Gluten-free diets, once the purview of those with life-threatening conditions like celiac disease, have hit the mainstream. Docs now estimate that gluten allergies strike one in 100 North Americans, and even those who aren't allergic are turning onto gluten-free, blaming the protein for ailments from infertility to anxiety.

Toxic Cough Syrup Causes Deaths in Panama

How a tailor in China passed glycol off as glycerin, and killed hundreds of children

(Newser) - American drugmakers are on the lookout this week for another in the growing list of potentially deadly Chinese exports. This time, it's diethylene glycol, a sweet-but-toxic chemical that masquerades as glycerin in common medications like cough syrup and that has already killed almost 400 people—many of them children—in...

Melamine Death Toll Passes 8,000 Pets

FDA says health risk for humans unlikely

(Newser) - More than 8,000 deaths of cats and dogs that may be linked to melamine-tainted food have been reported to the FDA in the two months since the pet food recall. The statistics come as the FDA tries to assure Americans that the tainted protein concentrates, also fed to hogs...

Researchers Link Gene, Heart Disease

Common variation dramatically increases risk

(Newser) - A gene that can more than double the risk of heart disease, especially in relatively young people, is present in about half of those of European descent, researchers say. The discovery, reported this week, raises hopes of more accurate genetic testing for heart disease—the world's leading cause of death—...

China Detains Pet Food Contaminator

Beijing cracks down on source of melamine-tainted gluten

(Newser) - Chinese authorities have jailed the head of a company accused of selling pet food makers  the melamine-contaminated gluten that's killed thousands of cats and dogs. The detention of Mao Lijun suggests Beijing is eager to cooperate with the FDA investigators currently on its turf, after initially disavowing any gluten sales...

TB Patient Spends Nine Months In Lockdown

ACLU questions forcible quarantine of man with drug-resistent TB

(Newser) - A tuberculosis patient has been in forced quarantine in an Arizona hospital's jail ward for nine months for failing to wear a face mask and take his medication. Robert Daniels committed no crime, but neither did he follow doctor's orders to avoid transmission of his drug-resistant TB. 

Lefty Women Die Younger
Lefty Women Die Younger
May 2, 2007 12:01 PM CDT

Lefty Women Die Younger

Stunner Dutch study shows 70% higher risk of dying from cancer

(Newser) - Left-handed women have a dramatically higher risk of mortality from just about every disease, a new study reported in the Telegraph shows. Dutch researchers who followed more than 12,000 women for nearly 13 years found lefties had a 40% greater chance of dying from any cause, 70% higher from...

FDA Names Food Safety Czar After Chicken Scare

Democrats seek other roads to effective FDA

(Newser) - The FDA appointed a food safety czar yesterday, as the news that 3 million chickens had been fed melamine-tainted feed exacerbated growing public anxiety about food safety. The FDA said the chickens weren't recalled because most of them would have been sold by now, and the melamine was too diluted...

Preschool Kids Get Socked In the Mouth

Cavities are on the rise for the first time in 40 years

(Newser) - Young children are developing more cavities in their baby teeth than kids were a decade ago, the CDC reported yesterday, a worrisome development that reverses a 40-year trend. Preschool children—"thousands and thousands of kids," in the words of one researcher—were the only age group in which...

Glass Bottles Breaking Into Baby Market

Fears about toxic plastics are turning back the clock

(Newser) - Glass is the new plastic—for baby bottles, at least. A rash of health warnings about plastic—toxicity reports, cancer risks, even longterm fertility problems—is turning many moms on to the glass bottles their own moms dropped as too breakable. eBay prices are soaring, and bottle distributors struggling to...

Pharmaceutical Farming Generates Hopes and Fears

Benefits weighed against risk of food-supply contamination

(Newser) - The battle over genetic modification has a new player: "pharming," or pharmaceutical farming, which uses genetically modified plants to mass-produce drug compounds relatively inexpensively. By altering common plants—for instance, tobacco, which can be engineered to produce an HIV drug—researchers say pharming could transform the treatment of...

Research Gives Alzheimer's Patients Hope

New study suggests disease-related memory loss may be reversible

(Newser) - Alzheimer's patients may be able to recover some memory by using a combo of drugs and mental stimulation, a new study in the journal Nature concludes. Mice with an Alzheimer's-like condition were more likely to remember an electric shock if they had taken a drug stimulating brain-cell growth or lived...

Post-Chemo Memory Loss Isn't All in the Head

Doctors catch onto "chemo brain"

(Newser) - Docs are finally cluing in to "chemo brain," the fuzzy-headed forgetfulness following treatment that cancer survivors have long suffered—and doctors long denied. The condition, suffered by roughly 15% of breast cancer survivors, refers to a laundry list of memory-loss issues that researchers think result from high levels...

Ouch—Doc's Trial Highlights Pain Issues

Was he trafficking narcotics or treating chronic pain?

(Newser) - The drug-trafficking trial of a Virginia pain specialist demonstrates the slippery slope between treating chronic conditions and enabling addicts. Dr. William Hurwitz's jury heard the story of a patient with deblitating migraines who had been treated with anxiety medication that actually caused headaches—by another doctor who happened to be...

Researchers Fight Fat With Baby Formula

Introducing hormone in infancy trims down rats, sparks controversy

(Newser) - The battle to keep pounds off may start with a baby bottle, say a team of British scientists who found that feeding large doses of the appetite-controlling hormone leptin to baby rats led to svelte adult rats. If those results translate to humans, a baby formula that chemically alters metabolism...

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