Prescription drug spending has increased sharply in recent years and continues to be the fastest growing segment of healthcare spending. Americans spent $40.3 billion for prescription drugs in 1990; by 2006 that figure had risen to a staggering $216.7 billion.
Research published in the October 2008 issue of Pediatrics says that some of free prescription drug samples being distributed to pediatric patients may be unsafe. The researchers found that one in twenty American children received free drug samples in 2004—and that the most frequently distributed samples were unsafe to children. Four of the 15 most […]
“America has the best healthcare in the world.” But is that true, or just more political jargon? Certainly Americans spend more than any other industrialized country on healthcare. But America falls short in how long we live—or how well.
The investigators and institutions that have been participating in the National Institutes of Health Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) have temporarily and voluntarily suspended enrollment of new participants in the study. The lead TACT investigator, Gervasio Lamas, M.D., of the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, received a complaint from an outside party […]
In recent issues, we have told you about Medicure Pharma’s so-called Citizens Petition to the FDA to ban any dietary supplements containing the natural and active form of vitamin B-6 called pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (P5P). A reader has asked: what is the difference between pyridoxine, the most common form of B-6, and P5P? Most supplements contain […]
Childhood obesity has increasingly been a concern of many. Time magazine recently focused on childhood obesity and according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) 16% of American children and teens are obese and another 32% are overweight.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a Public Health Advisory on Edetate Disodium (EDTA). The advisory reflects FDA’s current analysis of data available concerning this drug. The advisory is meant to alert patients and healthcare professionals about EDTA.