Are Two Targeted Cancer Drugs Better Than One?

In the years before targeted biotech drugs stormed the cancer scene, progress came in small increments, as doctors slowly worked out which combinations of chemo medicines worked best for which patients.
Now that there are several targeted biotech drugs on the market, researchers are starting to test whether two targeted drugs are better than one. The [...]

Erbitux in Lung Cancer: ‘Ground-Rule Double’

Erbitux extends the life of lung cancer patients — a little. Word on what may be the most-discussed study at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology conference leaked out early today, with results showing that the drug extended survival for lung cancer patients by just over a month.
Roy Herbst, an M.D. Anderson lung cancer [...]

A Bone Drug Prevents Breast Cancer’s Return

A drug called Zometa significantly reduces the risk that breast cancer will return in certain patients, researchers said this morning.
The Novartis drug is approved to treat the bones of cancer patients, but hasn’t previously been shown to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence. The study was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference. [...]

Will Erbitux Results Put Pressure on Genentech’s Avastin?

The Health Blog is on location in Chicago, blogging the big American Society of Clinical Oncology conference. Two of the most important studies being presented this weekend involve Imclone’s drug Erbitux.
One study is in patients with colorectal cancer, and the other is in lung cancer — diseases often treated by Genentech’s Avastin, a successful cancer [...]

New Bullseye for Cancer Treatment: A Gene Called KRAS

Among the 5,000 studies being discussed by 30,000 oncologists at this weekend’s meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology, listen for the buzz over a single gene. It’s called KRAS, and a growing body of evidence suggests that cancers with the standard form of this gene respond better to an important class of cancer drugs [...]

A Post-Game Report on the Merck-Vioxx Reversals

We at the Health Blog noted the Vioxx rulings yesterday that saw appellate courts in both Texas and New Jersey overturn jury verdicts awarding plaintiffs millions of bucks. Our pal Ashby Jones, a lawyer who edits the WSJ Law Blog, sorted through the coverage of those decisions today. Pretty thorough job, as usual. So here’s [...]

As Bad News Mounts, Chantix Prescriptions Crumble

Pfizer is standing firmly behind Chantix, the smoking-cessation pill now under a cloud of concern about a range of health risks. But prescriptions have been slipping since early this year, despite the drugmaker’s confidence in the medicine.
More than 6 million people have been prescribed the pill since it was launched in August 2006. But the [...]

How Health Reform Could Hurt Military Recruitment

If a Democrat wins the contest for the White House and then does something serious about gaps in health coverage, the Army could be the big loser. Get your health insurance here–for now, anyway. How’s that? Floyd Norris of the New York Times lays out the case. Polls show the proportion of young people who’d consider [...]

Why Young Adults Go Without Health Insurance

Do young adults go without insurance because they feel invincible? A report from the Commonwealth Fund suggests the answer is more complicated, and based heavily in circumstances and finances.
Some 13.7 million adults aged 19 to 29 lacked health insurance in 2006, up from 13.3 million in 2005, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Even though they [...]

Liver Damage: Scare Organs at UCLA Went to Japanese Criminals

UCLA Medical Center performed a life-saving liver transplant on one of Japan’s most powerful gang bosses a few years back, the Los Angeles Times reports. Yakuza shrine, Snaja festival, Asukusa, Tokyo Three other men, now prohibited from entering the U.S. due to rap sheets or suspected ties to Japanese organized crime, also got liver transplants at [...]

McCain and Obama: Heart to Heart

Now that the campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama have each released details of the candidates’ health records, the Health Blog decided to see how they match up when it comes to heart risk. McCain and Obama talking cholesterol? (AP Photo) Cardiologists typically assess a person’s risk of heart attack using the Framingham Risk Score, [...]

Surgeons Oppose Plan to Pay More for Primary Care

Plenty of people are saying the U.S. should ante up for primary care. But where are we going to get the money?
A couple of months back, the group that advises Congress on Medicare funding suggested raising payments for primary care in a “budget neutral” way. Translation: Somebody else’s payments would be reduced. Surgeons aren’t too [...]

Obama’s Health Is Great, but What About Those Cigarettes?

Sen. Barack Obama leaves the Russell Senate Office Building after a workout. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke) Barack Obama’s doctor just released a one-page letter describing the senator’s health as “excellent.” To read the letter, click on the PDF icon at left.
He exercises and eats well. His blood pressure is 90/60, his LDL cholesterol is 96 [...]

Did Merck Settle Vioxx Cases Too Soon?

Appeals courts have overturned two big jury verdicts against Merck, the WSJ is reporting. Things already looked pretty good for the company’s Vioxx cases, all things considered — but we can’t help but wonder if Merck might have cut a better deal if it waited a few months longer on the multi-billion settlement it announced [...]

One Less Primary Care Doctor

“I have had three different primary care doctors over the past 10 years,” said Mrs. J. “You can’t leave now. I was just starting to feel comfortable. I am getting older now. I can’t keep changing doctors!”
Today’s primary care lament comes to us via a Boston Globe op ed by Annie Brewster, who left primary [...]

Aetna, Cigna Most Efficient Insurers for Docs

Aetna is No. 1 among big health insurers in how quickly and accurately it pays doctors, according to data from Athenahealth, an outfit that helps doctors manage their practices.
Athenahealth’s ranks insurers based on the experience of doctors on a range of measures, including how long carriers take to pay bills, the percentage of claims they [...]

Pfizer Counterattacks on Smoking-Cessation Drug Chantix

A week after Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix got knocked around for side effects, the company is coming back with a PR blitz backing the drug.
Full-page ads in five major newspapers lay out Pfizer’s take on the drug’s upside — “There are few things that provide greater health benefits than quitting smoking” — and include fairly [...]

Oh, Doctor, There Was One Other Thing…

The doc does the exam, and it seems straightforward enough. A toddler, about a year and a half old, has been vomiting and has a fever. The boy’s ears look infected, a reasonable explanation for both the temperature and the vomiting. But as the consult is wrapping up, the mother says “Doctor, let me ask [...]

Health Industry Donations Favor Democrats Over Republicans

For more than a decade, the health business has been solidly behind Republicans. Not anymore.
From Jan. 1, 2007 through March of this year, people and political action committees in the health sector have contributed $42 million and to Democratic candidates for congress and the presidency, compared with $34.6 million to Republicans, Dow Jones Newswires reports.
That’s [...]

Coming Soon: 1.5 Million New Statin Patients in the U.K.

Lots more middle-aged folks in the U.K. may soon find themselves taking statins. The influential National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, based in London, is issuing new guidance (online here) that says patients should go on the cholesterol-lowering drugs if their 10-year risk for serious cardiovascular problems is 20% or greater.
The guidance does say [...]

How Do American Journalists Cover Medicine? Not Very Well

Journalist, heal thyself. When it comes to covering the medical news of the day, journalists could do a much better job.
An independent analysis of 500 stories about medical topics by major consumer print and broadcast outlets in the U.S. found “journalists usually fail to discuss costs, the quality of the evidence, the existence of alternative [...]

Childhood Obesity: Bad, But Not Getting Worse

Roughly 16% of kids are obese. That’s bad, but it’s nothing new. Yet in what passes for good news on the fat front, the proportion of overweight American kids has been holding steady since 1999. After a generation of constant rises in the childhood obesity rate, going several years without a further rise at least [...]

Indian Drugmakers Threaten to Strike

The Indian drug industry says it will quit making dozens of bulk drugs unless the government increases prices. It’s hard to tell from here if the industry is serious about this threat, but the story does point to lots of interesting issues in the drug business today — how globalized it is, the tense relationships [...]

Untitled

Journalist, heal thyself. When it comes to covering the medical news of the day, journalists could do a much better job. A
# he daily delivery of news stories about new treatments, tests, products, and procedures may have a profound—and perhaps harmful—impact on health care consumers.
# A US Web site project, HealthNewsReview.org (http://HealthNewsReview.org/), modeled after similar [...]

Drugmakers’ Me-Too Medicines Face Tough Customers

Big Pharma’s pitches for new and improved versions of old drugs aren’t working the magic they used to. Johnson & Johnson still hopes for better sales of Invega (AP) New York psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman has heard Johnson & Johnson’s spiel for schizophrenia medicine Invega, a derivative of the company’s blockbuster Risperdal, that was launched last year. [...]

After Taser Shot, Fugitive’s Irregular Heartbeat Becomes Normal

A 28-year-old man with a history of mental problems fled from the cops and spent 40 minutes hiding in a lake before they collared him and hauled him to the ER. His body temperature had fallen to a chilly 89 degrees. Docs found speed and cocaine in his blood, and an ECG showed an irregular [...]

Move to Lucrative Specialties ‘Severely Crimping’ Primary Care

So it’s gotten to the point where even the SEC says getting health coverage to more people is a big deal. But what good is coverage if you can’t get in to see the doctor?
This morning, another voice joins the chorus warning of a coming shortage of primary care doctors. This time, it’s Joseph B. [...]

Memorial Day

Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, May 1943. (Photo: John Collier/Library of Congress) In observance of Memorial Day, the Health Blog will not publish today.

Alnylam Deal With Takeda Embodies Two Trends In One

A drug licensing pact announced this morning has not one but two hot trends in drug deals these days: Japanese Pharma players making deals with U.S. companies, and big drug makers lining up to invest in biotech shops developing RNA-based drugs.
In today’s deal, Takeda will pay Alnylam $100 million upfront, plus another $50 million in [...]

Coming Soon: Shareholder Votes on Universal Health

Shareholder activists have been clamoring for a while to have big corporations vote on universal health insurance — not for company employees, but for American society as a whole. The SEC had blocked those efforts in the past, as an issue not appropriate for a shareholder vote. But the Commission has reversed course, recently telling [...]

Memorial Day

Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, May 1943. (Photo: John Collier/Library of Congress) In observance of Memorial Day, the Health Blog will not publish today.

One More Guy Who Switched Off Vytorin: John McCain

Leave it to John McCain to revive the Vytorin controversy.
The senator’s presidential campaign released nearly 1,200 pages of medical records today. One juicy detail showed that until a couple months ago he’d been on Vytorin, the cholesterol pill co-marketed by Merck and Schering Plough. But like many other patients, he switched off of the drug [...]

Glaxo Leaps Into Chantix Smackdown

Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix has taken a few licks this week, with federal regulators limiting the drug’s use by pilots and air-traffic controllers.
Just in time for the holiday weekend, GlaxoSmithKline has jumped into the fray, offering its own smoking cessation product — free of charge, for all licensed pilots and air traffic controllers.
Call the toll [...]

Job Search Advice for Young Doctors: Negotiate Everything

After years of being a medical grunt, Erica Sun was surprised at how the tables turned when she went to find her first real job as a doctor.
“You go through college, medical school and residency always trying to prove yourself, trying to sell yourself,” Sun told the Health Blog in a recent conversation. “When you’re [...]

What’s McCain’s Risk of Skin-Cancer Recurrence?

The chance that Sen. John McCain’s melanoma will return is less than 10%, a skin-cancer expert told the Health Blog.
The Arizona Republican is showing his health records to the media today, and publishing an overview online. McCain is 72, and he had surgery in 2000 to remove an invasive melanoma from his left temple. A [...]

Activists Push Bush to Cut Funds for Abortion Clinics

The feds distribute some $280 million a year to subsidize birth control and other reproductive and preventive health care for low-income patients. The money can’t be used to pay for abortions, but it can go to clinics that use other sources of funding to perform abortions. Anti-abortion groups are pushing President Bush to change that [...]

More Trouble for Pfizer’s Smoking Cessation Drug Chantix

First pilots, now truckers. The feds said yesterday that people shouldn’t be qualified for trucking licenses while they’re taking Pfizer’s smoking cessation drug Chantix, the WSJ reports.
The warning came from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees the interstate trucking and bus industry. A day earlier, the FAA said pilots and air traffic controllers [...]

Drug & Device Industries Support Disclosure of Payments to Doctors

Big business is lining up behind a Senate bill that would require drug and device makers to publicly report their payments to doctors.
If that seems surprising, consider that Vermont, Minnesota and a few other states already have such laws in place, and others are considering legislation. Industry may have decided it’s better to deal with [...]

FDA to Mine Medicare and Insurer Data for Drug Problems

Our national system for detecting drug risks isn’t much of a system at all. Doctors and sometimes consumers haphazardly report potential problems, and the FDA sifts through those reports looking for signs of trouble. It sounds like that’s about to change. Starting next month, FDA will begin actively mining the massive databases of more than [...]

Hijacking a Deadly Bug to Attack Cancer, HIV

Listeria is a nasty bacterium that’s a rather common cause of food-borne illness, especially in pregnant women and immuno-compromised patients. But some researchers are trying to turn the pathogen into a messenger that compels the body to attack cancer and other diseases, Scientific American reports.
Advaxis, a New Jersey biotech shop, said this week it’s moving [...]

Massachusetts Doctors Sue Over Cost, Quality Rankings

The rolling national debate over how to rank and rate doctors pulled into Massachusetts this week, as the state medical society filed a lawsuit to block or change a ranking program it says harms doctors and patients.
The program, used by the agency that oversees health insurance for state and local employees, ranks doctors in three [...]

Academic Honesty, Hepatitis B & China’s Missing Women Problem

There are more men than women in China. That’s usually attributed to a cultural preference for boys, which leads in some cases to selective abortion or even infanticide. But a few years back a young economist made a name for herself by arguing that the viral liver infection hepatitis B played a major role as [...]

Survey: Laid Off Pharma Employees Finding New Gigs

It’s the era of layoffs in Big Pharma, with nearly every major player cutting thousands of jobs. In the past few months alone, Merck, Schering Plough and Wyeth have all announced cuts.
But most of the people losing their jobs seem to be landing on their feet, according to a survey of 1,282 pharma folks who [...]

Glaxo Shareholders Grumble Over Viehbacher’s Retention Bonus

Chris Viehbacher’s consolation prize for losing GlaxoSmithKline’s CEO horse race was a stock bonus worth somewhere between $4 million and $5 million. More than a third of shareholders who voted on that retention package this week refused to endorse it. The Financial Times calls that “a strong protest,” given that shareholder votes tend to rubber [...]

For Hospitals, It’s Not Easy Being Green

You’d think that health care, of all industries, would have been the first to hop on the green bandwagon. While some pacesetters, like Kaiser Permanente and Dartmouth-Hitchcock, began the move to “sustainable” design a few years ago with solar panels and natural lighting, a quick stroll down the halls of the average hospital shows how [...]

FAA Bans Chantix for Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers

Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix came in for a bit more trouble today, as a research group cited reports of physical side effects associated with the drug. The FAA, which reviewed the report, barred pilots and air traffic controllers from taking the drug, the WSJ reports.
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices examined adverse-event reports turned into [...]

Sen. Ted Kennedy: Health Policy Power Broker

While he has never stopped being a liberal and a partisan, Ted Kennedy also evolved into one of the Senate’s most important deal makers. This morning’s WSJ called him “the liberal legislator whom the White House has most relied upon for help on social-policy legislation.”
Nowhere has his role as power broker been more apparent than [...]

Targeted Drugs Take a Crack at Brain Cancer

The prognosis for Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was diagnosed yesterday with a malignant glioma, isn’t good. But research into this relatively common form of brain cancer is showing new possibilities for treating the disease.
A wave of cancer drugs that target a molecule called VEGF appears especially promising, Timothy Cloughesy, director of neuro-oncology at UCLA, told [...]

Savings from Health-Care Computerization May Be Overstated

Whizbang computer systems are taken almost on faith as the solution to all sorts of ills in health care. In Washington, just about everyone supports the notion of beefed-up health information technology, at least in the abstract. The pitch has been that innovations like electronic health records and e-prescribing will improve patient care and safety [...]

Once Bitten, Merck Halts Cholesterol Drug Study

Imagine a clinical trial of a experimental cholesterol drug that looked an awful lot like a study of a top-selling cholesterol fighter that just turned into a widely publicized debacle for your company. Now throw in the fact that the unapproved cholesterol drug you’re testing in the trial was recently rejected by the FDA. What [...]

More Drama Over Generic Protonix

After Teva launched generic Protonix on Christmas Eve, fought with Wyeth about it, then made a surprise exit, we thought the drama was over. But this week we get another act, thanks to the the injectable form of the drug Wyeth sells as Protonix I.V.
This act has an Et tu, Brute? vibe, with Wyeth suing [...]

Health Care Billing: ‘A Giant Shell Game’

Health wonks sometimes talk about bringing transparency to health care pricing as if it were a simple matter of pulling back the curtain to reveal hidden costs. But in many cases, pulling back the curtain reveals only a jumbled mess of complicated billing codes.
As family doc and WSJ.com columnist Ben Brewer notes today:
I’m required to [...]

A Red Sox No-Hitter Punctuates a Long Road Back from Cancer

Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester is a modest baseball hero. By all accounts, he’s an even more reluctant cancer-survivor.
Both of those roles came into glorious celebration last night when the 24-year-old southpaw pitched a no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals at Boston’s Fenway Park. The momentous achievement comes about 20 months after he was [...]

Understanding Sen. Kennedy’s Brain Tumor

Sen. Ted Kennedy had a seizure last weekend and was just diagnosed with a brain tumor. In a statement today, Kennedy’s doctors said he has “a malignant glioma.” Public details are still sketchy, but that diagnosis usually indicates a very aggressive type of tumor known as a glioblastoma. “Unfortunately, the older you are, the more [...]

In Latest Vioxx Settlement, Merck Swears Off Ghostwriting

Merck has agreed to pay $58 million to settle allegations by a few dozen states that the company used deceptive advertising to promote Vioxx. That’s relatively small potatoes considering Merck has put up $4.85 billion to settle thousands of personal-injury claims over the discontinued painkiller.
But a detail in the states’ deal caught our eye: The company has agreed to “no longer engage in [...]

‘House’ Episode Sparks Google Frenzy for Flu Drug

A generic drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease and flu got a ride on Google last night, when it played a key role in the TV medical drama “House.” The drug shot to the top of Google’s hot trends list, WSJ’s Buzzwatch reported, before falling off by midday today. For an explanation of how the drug, [...]

Virtual ICU Brings Specialty Care to More Hospitals

Small and rural hospitals can have a tough time keeping patients. Many will drive an hour or two to the nearest city for all but the most basic — or most urgent — care. And the sickest patients may have to be shipped out anyway, to reach the specialists that might save them.
What if high-tech [...]

Harvard Pianist-Surgeon Studies Music for Patients & Docs

An accomplished pianist who is also a third-year surgical resident at Harvard is trying to figure out how music helps both patients and surgeons, the New York Times reports. Lots of pieces of the puzzle are already out there — it’s been shown that music can alleviate pain for patients, and surgeons have long been fond [...]

Why Selling Drugs is Like Selling Ketchup

Joe Jimenez, the guy who recently took charge of Novartis’s pharmaceutical division, spent most of his career in the packaged goods business. He hopes to bring some of the tricks of that trade in selling to supermarkets to bear on the prescription drug business, the WSJ reports as part of look at Novartis and CEO [...]

Amgen Bone Drug Beats Fosamax in Trial

Amgen’s experimental bone drug denosumab took another small step toward the market yesterday, as the company said the drug outperformed Merck’s Fosamax in a head-to-head trial.
Amgen tested the drug on post-menopausal women with low bone mineral density (the standard test for bone strength) who were already taking Fosamax. Half of the women were switched to [...]

Rep. Stupak Nudges FDA Toward Subpoena Power

Now that Rep. Bart Stupak has helped push FDA Chief Andrew von Eschenbach into asking for more money for inspections, the congressman wants to prod the commissioner into asking for something else new: subpoena power. Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who runs the investigations panel of the House Commerce Committee, wrote von Eschenbach last week formally [...]

Drumroll, Please: Google Health Launches!

The curtain in front of Google Health finally came up today.
On a tour, Google explains that, yes, this is another “personal health record,” a way for patients to store and manage their medical information in one place. But Google seems to be trying to address one of the big problems with PHRs: maintaining them is [...]

Obama Likens McCain’s Health Plan to Bush the Sequel

Barack Obama speaks to supporters at a rally in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo)
Barack Obama has already argued a lot with Hillary Clinton about their respective health-care plans. Now he’s shifting the debate to John McCain, with whom he has much broader policy differences.
Obama and rival Hillary Clinton are both pushing universal health-care plans that would [...]

McDonald’s CEO Queasy Over Restaurant Calorie Counts

McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner isn’t too keen on efforts to force restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus. The marquee of a Times Square McDonald’s in New York (Associated Press) At a restaurant trade show in Chicago this past weekend, Skinner called those pushing for such regulations “professional naysayers” and “CAVE people,” meaning “Citizens [...]

Should Vytoringate Cost Fred Hassan His Bonus?

Schering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan looked like quite the turnaround artist as he nursed the company back to health after it had been battered by generic competition for Claritin and regulatory problems. Lately, though, things have taken a gloomy turn for Schering-Plough as cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia — and the company’s stock price — have [...]

Medical Marijuana Users Denied Organ Transplants

In a handful of states, it’s legal for doctors to prescribe use of marijuana for medical purposes. But some patients who partake are paying a big price: transplant denials.
The Los Angeles Times details such cases this morning, including that of Timothy Garon, a 56-year-old Seattle musician who was rejected for a liver transplant in part [...]

Calif. Proposal Tries to Stop E.R. Payment Headaches

Health plans these days are always talking about turning patients into consumers who “shop” more carefully for their care as one way to contain costs. But let’s be honest, how much medical shopping can you do if you’re unconscious after an auto accident or bleeding profusely from a mishap with power tools?
In California, the Department [...]

Hospital Night Shift Needs Attention

If you’ve ever had to stay in the hospital for a while, you know how different night and day can be. After sundown the doctors get scarcer, the nurses fewer and the waits for just about everything get longer. There aren’t many bosses or seasoned pros around when things get sticky. The result is a [...]

Buffett Buys on Health Insurance Dips

Textbook Buffett: If shares are plummeting, it might be a good time to buy more.
That, perhaps, explains Berkshire Hathaway’s additions to its holdings of UnitedHealth and Wellpoint during the first quarter of this year, as both companies’ stocks fell sharply. Berkshire Hathaway bought 300,000 shares of WellPoint and 400,000 shares of UnitedHealth, according to this [...]

AMA, Congressional Committe Challenge UnitedHealth Acquisition

A long-running fight over a UnitedHealth deal in Nevada revved up yesterday, with some marquee opponents filing court papers in DC in an effort to block the deal.
The insurer’s $2.6 billion acquisition of Sierra Health has already been approved by the Department of Justice and by state regulators. But that hasn’t stopped opponents including the [...]

Why Are More Breast Cancer Patients Having Mastectomies?

The percentage of breast-cancer patients choosing to have an entire breast removed is increasing, and it’s not entirely clear why, Mayo Clinic doctors say.
In 1990, the NIH said that for women with early-stage disease, a mastectomy (removing the entire breast) was basically equivalent to removing a lump from the breast combined with radiation therapy. That prompted mastectomy [...]

Cash, Not Goodwill, Can Solve Organ Shortage

Gavin Carney, an Australian nephrologist, has a solution for the perennial shortage of kidneys for transplant: let people sell theirs for $50,000. “We’ve tried everything to drum up support” for organ donation, Carney told the Sydney Morning Herald, but “people just don’t seem willing to give their organs away for free.” Plus, let’s [...]

Nursing Homes Targeted in Congressional Inquiries

Congress, apparently still with time left over after all those hearings dissing the drug industry, is beginning to turn up the heat on nursing homes.
Today, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations took its first swing at the target, with a hearing that focused on problems with regulation and full disclosure of [...]

Judge Pitches Out Most of J&J Suit Against Red Cross

Remember that truth-is-stranger-than-fiction drama that featured Johnson & Johnson suing the American Red Cross over the use of the red cross logo? Turns out it’s not going so well for J&J. A judge today threw out most of what was left of the case, the Associated Press reports.
J&J brought the suit to stop the Red [...]

Pfizer = Viagra; J&J = Baby Powder

A clever marketing guy just launched a Web site where Freudian free association meets 21st-century consumerism. You go to the site — brandtags.net — and some brand name (like Wal-Mart or VH1) pops up on the screen. You submit the first word or phrase that comes to your mind when you see the brand. Then [...]

New York Hospitals Curb Infections in Intensive Care

Nobody wants to wind up in the ICU. But if you find yourself in intensive care in one of New York City’s public hospitals, your chance of catching some nasty infections is way down. And you can thank some pretty simple measures for the improvement. Kings County Hospital Center (Photo: NYHHC) “It’s not rocket science,” Alan Aviles, [...]

Stent Skeptic Blasts J&J Cypher Ad

“When your arteries narrow, so does your life,” says a TV ad from Johnson & Johnson. “It’s time to open it up.” Cue the kaleidoscopic image of the company’s Cypher drug-coated stent. And then come the shots of remarkably buff people, presumably with Cypher stents, doing things we couldn’t even dream of trying in our [...]

FDA: Bisphenol A in Plastic Bottles is Safe

Bisphenol A, a chemical that shows up in hard plastic baby bottles, sippy cups and water bottles, has come under scrutiny lately, with some public health agencies saying it may present health risks. A Massachusetts woman contemplates alternatives to baby bottles made from polycarbonate plastic. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole) But a senior FDA scientist yesterday told Congress [...]

All of the Medical School, None of the Tuition

The Cleveland Clinic’s med school is going tuition free. Starting this summer, the school will give all incoming students scholarships to cover the annual tuition of more than $40,000. The hope is that students who graduate with less debt will be more likely to go into academic medicine, which tends to be less lucrative than [...]

Drug Spending Moves Up for Diabetes, Down for Cholesterol

In health spending, how many people are being treated for a disease can be a lot less important than how much it costs to treat each person. That’s what we took from this report out today from Medco, the pharmacy benefits manager.
Use of diabetes drugs increased only 2.3% last year, but spending rose 12%. The [...]

Shifting Health Costs Pinch Family Budgets

Consumers are shelling out more than ever for health care.
Even as the growth of total spending on medical care slows, an analysis from the actuaries at Milliman shows the bite on household budgets keeps getting bigger.
The cost of medical services, including health insurance premiums, for an average family in an employer-sponsored health plan will hit [...]

Another Health Reform Plan Bites the Dust

That was quick. Yesterday, we wrote the Minnesota Legislature had just passed an ambitious health reform bill, 15 months in the making. But today’s Star Tribune informs us that Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed the bill, which would have expanded a state insurance program that covers the working poor.
“The state cannot afford to further expand subsidized [...]

Reversal in $32 Million Vioxx Case Is Icing on Merck’s Cake

Merck already cut a deal to settle its outstanding Vioxx liability for $4.85 billion, far less than industry observers thought likely.
Now a Texas appeals court has reversed a $32 million verdict that came down against Merck in one of the handful of cases the company litigated before announcing the big settlement deal last year. The [...]

Awash in Counterfeit Drugs, India May Pay More for Foreign Approval

India, a rising star in the global pharma firmament, may be flooded with counterfeit drugs, the Times of India reports.
The paper cites various estimates that suggest between 5% and 20% of the medicines sold in the country are fake. The figure should be easier to pin down soon, after a six-month government study that will [...]

Does Your Medicine Make the Grade?

With hospitals, doctors and nursing homes all getting the consumer-ratings treatment, it was inevitable that drugs would also get graded. Now Health Grades, already an arbiter of hospitals and nursing homes, has launched a drug-rating service. Unlike some of the company’s other offerings, the drug ratings won’t cost consumers anything. But there’s no such thing [...]

Wall Street Drug Analysts to Pull All-Nighter Tomorrow

Tomorrow night, at 9 p.m. Eastern, American Society of Clinical Oncology is going to release the results of thousands of cancer studies that will be presented at the group’s big annual meeting. At least a few of those are likely to be market-moving, especially the ones that involve small biotechs whose future rests on a [...]

For the Ill, Guidance in Finding a Clinical Trial

There are lots of clinical questions doctors would like to answer, but they’re left waiting at the gate because they can’t find enough patients to sign up for studies. Meanwhile, lots of patients who might benefit from experimental treatments go without because they don’t know where to look.
A bunch of non-profit organizations and at least [...]

FDA Backs Off Warnings On Ultrasound Imaging Drugs

The FDA has eased restrictions on drugs used to enhance ultrasound images of the heart.
Citing “serious cardiopulmonary reactions” and deaths, the agency slapped a black-box warning last fall on Definity, formerly sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Optison, sold by GE. The warning said the drugs, known as contrast agents, shouldn’t be given to acutely ill [...]

Study: Mass. Malpractice Premiums Have Fallen Since 1990

Given how often we hear complaints about rising malpractice premiums, we couldn’t help but notice a study out today that suggested rates have actually fallen slightly in Massachusetts over the past 15 years or so.
Researchers focused on premiums for policies that covered up to $1 million per claim and $3 million per year. In inflation-adjusted [...]

Abbott Shines as Xience Stent Beats Taxus

Abbott said this morning that its Xience stent outperformed Boston Scientific’s Taxus on several measures in a two-year study. The results mean the stent is likely to get the green light from the FDA soon — and they also evoke an interesting backstory that reads like a who’s who of the medical device industry. A [...]

In Pennsylvania, Insurers Pay Primary Care Docs to Do More

From Minnesota, the Health Blog State Health Reform Tour now heads to Pennsylvania, where big insurers have signed on to the governor’s plan to try changing the way primary care docs are paid.
The insurers will spend $13 million over three years to finance the program, which will include more than 150 docs and over 200,000 [...]

Lance Armstrong’s Prescription for Cancer Victory

Legendary cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong is a winner. Now Armstrong, a seven-time champion of the Tour de France, is asking Americans to make victory against cancer a national priority on the opinion pages of the WSJ. Lance Armstrong chats with cancer patient Debbie Truelove while visiting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston last [...]

Minnesota May Publish Doctor Info, Expand Insurance for Poor

The Health Blog’s never-ending tour of state health reform efforts pulls into Minnesota this morning, where the state Legislature just passed a big health bill. Though it was scaled back in 15 months of negotiations, the bill would still add some 40,000 people to MinnesotaCare, a state insurance program for the poor, the Star Tribune [...]

Health Blog Obit: Murray Jarvik Studied LSD, Developed Nicotine Patch

Murray Jarvik, a UCLA pharmacologist who did early research on LSD and later contributed to the invention of the nicotine patch, died last week of congestive heart failure. He was 84. His work on LSD began in 1953, when he accepted a fellowship at Mount Sinai in New York. Though he didn’t know it at [...]

Celebrex, Naproxen Strike Out in Alzheimer’s Prevention

Common anti-inflammatory drugs have been bandied about as a potential way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. But fresh results from a randomized study are throwing cold water on the concept.
Researchers tested cognitive function in people 70 and older with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease. To enter the study, the subjects couldn’t have been diagnosed [...]

Has Dementia Become a Dirty Word?

The time may have come to retire dementia from the diagnostic lexicon. An essay in the current Archives of Neurology argues that besides being used so generally as to have lost much of its precision, dementia as a diagnosis “often carries with it unintended cruel connotations” for patients and their families. The dementia label strikes [...]

Doctor Shortage is ‘Coming On Like A Freight Train’

Phillip Burns, a University of Tennessee surgical department chairman, doesn’t mince words when it comes to physicians’ growing reluctance to enter practice as general surgeons.
“We have a shortage of surgeons, and physicians in general, that is coming on like a freight train in this country,” Burns told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. (Chattanoogans seem to [...]

Schering-Plough May Settle for Less on Clotting Partnership

Schering-Plough has been playing hard to get when it comes finding another company to help commercialize an experimental anti-clotting drug that looks like a jewel in the drugmaker’s pipeline. But Schering-Plough might settle for a less than ideal candidate as the company muddles through a slump in sales of cholesterol drug Vytorin sales and a [...]

Squeaky Hips Get the Looks

Watch the man in this video walk. Or rather, listen to him walk.
What’s that sound, you ask? It’s his artificial hip.
Squeaky hips have become an unexpected problem linked to use of ceramic hip replacements, the New York Times reports. Some patients who’ve gotten that type of replacement — thought to be more durable than older [...]

WellCare Rises on Deal Talk

Takeover rumors do wonders for a stock. Take a look at WellCare Health Plans, up 12.9% last week, thanks to chatter about reports of rumors of a possible deal for the managed care company.
But is there any there there? The market bump up could be nothing more than wishful thinking for now. “When there’s a [...]

For-Profit Buyer of Nuns’ Hospital Faces Test

Transition Healthcare, the for-profit hospital operator that’s buying what looked like an unsellable non-profit hospital from nuns in Chicago, has a tough job ahead. For all of the problems that St. Francis Hospital & Health Center has faced as rival hospitals have drawn more lucrative, insured patients, the troubled hospital can’t blame its tax status [...]

Arthritis and Diabetes: Imperfect Together

We couldn’t let the week pass without a look at the findings that arthritis and diabetes are fellow travelers in this country.
More than half of Americans diagnosed with diabetes also have arthritis, according to telephone survey data analyzed by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Arthritis, broadly defined to include rheumatic conditions [...]

Patients Sue Icelandic Drugmaker Over Recalled Heart Drug

Out goes the drug, in come the lawsuits. On April 25, Icelandic generic drug maker Actavis recalled its heart drug Digitek, or digoxin, over concerns that some batches of the medicine may have contained tablets that were twice the normal thickness and strength. Common Foxglove, a flowering plant that was the original source for the heart [...]

M.D. Congressman Goes Without Health Insurance

Steve Kagen, a Wisconsin Congressman who is also an M.D., is going without health insurance to prove a political point. Sure it’s something of a gimmick, but it’s a pretty compelling one — the guy is 58 years old, and he has no coverage.
Kagen, a Democrat and an allergist, is the only Congressman to refuse [...]

What IBM Has to Do With Consumer-Driven Health Care

Consumer-driven health care took another step forward this week, and IBM will be a little bit richer as a result.
Georgia will pay Big Blue $5.2 million to build a Web site that will let consumers compare hospitals on cost, quality and ratings by patients, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Plenty of docs and hospitals say health-care quality [...]

Nuns Sell Unsellable Hospital

The hospital the nuns couldn’t give away for free is getting bought.
St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois, has problems plenty of facilities can relate to: After a successful run through the 20th century, it’s faced tough times as other hospitals siphon off people with good insurance, and patients with conditions that tend to be [...]

More Hepatitis C Cases Tied to Las Vegas Clinic

The hepatitis C outbreak tied to unsafe practices at a Las Vegas clinic got uglier yesterday, as health officials said some 77 cases of the chronic liver disease may be tied to the facility.
Those cases represent people who were treated at the clinic, tested positive for the disease and did not report other common risk [...]

Willkommen, Generic Plavix!

Sometimes selling a $7 billion blood thinner sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis just finished cleaning up the mess from botched negotiations trying to keep generic Plavix off the market in the U.S. Today, word comes out of the blue that a copycat version of the drug from a Swiss [...]

Department of Justice Gets in On Vytoringate

Add a few U.S. attorneys to the long list of folks looking into what happened with that failed trial of Vytorin, the cholesterol drug from Merck and Schering-Plough.
There was a flurry of action in the early months of the year, as the company reported that the drug failed to show a benefit over a generic [...]

Health Blog Q&A: A U.S. Medical School in the Middle East

A few years back, Cornell’s med school launched a new campus in Doha, Qatar. This isn’t a semester abroad kind of thing, but a full-fledged school of medicine that grants the M.D. and qualifies grads to apply to U.S. residency programs on par with grads of U.S. med schools. Backed by a foundation created by [...]

Amgen CEO: ‘Last Year Was Awful’

With Amgen’s stock down and the outlook still pretty grim for the company’s anemia drugs, CEO Kevin Sharer took his licks at yesterday’s annual meeting. The LA Times was there, and reports a few choice lines in today’s paper.
“You say you are looking out for the best interest of shareholders. I don’t believe you are,” [...]

In Georgia, Millions in Tax Breaks for Insurers on High-Deductible Plans

High-deductible insurance plans got another boost yesterday, as Georgia’s governor signed a bill that will give insurers millions of dollars in tax breaks for selling the plans. Many conservative health wonks say the plans, which are tied to health savings accounts, will drive improvements in efficiency and quality by bringing market forces to health care [...]

Lipitor, Vytorin & Procrit Commercials Scrutinized in Congress Today

Even as we type, Rep. Bart Stupak is delivering opening remarks in a Congressional hearing on “potentially misleading and deceptive tactics” in direct-to-consumer drug ads. Watch the hearing online here.
Stupak (D-Mich.) aims to lay the groundwork for legislation to clamp down on drug marketing, including giving the FDA the power to force changes in TV [...]

Is Bush Softening In Fight Over Children’s Health Insurance?

In the long fight over expanding government insurance to cover children from middle-income families, the Bush administration may be backing down a bit.
A letter the feds sent to state officials this week suggests a somewhat softer tone than the administration set last August, when it said it would require states to cover 95% of eligible [...]

Ex-Pfizer R&D Chief LaMattina Joins Human Genome Board

Old researchers never die, they just join corporate boards. John LaMattina (Photo: Pfizer) John LaMattina, a chemist who retired as head of Pfizer R&D last year, has been named to the board of directors of Human Genome Sciences, a biotech company still looking for its first product. In announcing LaMattina’s appointment, HGS praised for his work [...]

Six Rules of Doctor Etiquette

Not every doctor’s going to be the sweetest person in the world. But as a patient, you don’t have to be Emily Post to expect a basic level of courtesy from your doctor. To that end, Harvard psychiatrist Michael Kahn has a less-is-more suggestion: A basic checklist. Kahn, who lays out the idea in this [...]

A Clue for Tumor Survival Lies in How Sweet It Is

Researchers have long been puzzled by the fact that some of medicine’s most touted new cancer drugs work only 10% to 20% of the time against many common tumors. Now scientists at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have come up with a possible explanation that could reshape thinking about one of [...]

Platypus: Weird Down to the Genes

It has hair but it also lays eggs! It nurses its young but has webbed feet and a bill! It has poisonous venom! And look at that punim!
The gee-whizness of the platupus entered the genetic era today, with the publication in Nature of the complete genome of Glennie, a female platypus from New South Wales, [...]

How to Catch Up on Lost Sleep: Don’t Rush It

Sleeping too little messes with your mind and hurts your body.
Sleep not only makes you feel sharp and rested; it seems to play a key role in how the brain sorts out information and lays down long-term memories. And a lack of sleep has been associated with maladies ranging from cardiovascular disease to depression the [...]

Where Doctors Are Most (And Least) Likely to Get Busted

Ah, spring, when health wonks parse states’ disciplinary actions against doctors. It may not have the ring of flowers and romance, but it does make for an interesting look at how state medical boards balance protecting patients from bad doctors against the inevitable mishaps that are part of even the best care. Nationwide, disciplinary actions [...]

When Times Are Bad, Nursing Looks Good

The weak economy is easing the nursing crunch, the WSJ reports. It’s a welcome side effect from inflationary pressures on families across the country and pinches on employment in other fields.
When money is tight many nurses with flexible schedules take on extra shifts, moving from part-time to full-time. Other nurses are postponing retirement or returning [...]

Retail Clinic Closures ‘Not Unlike the Dot Com Bubble’

Retail clinics are hitting some tough realities as they move past the era of hype.
Like the Internet, the clinics aren’t going away. But an initial wave of enthusiasm does seem to be passing, as some clinics go bust and others scale back expansion plans, the WSJ reports.
In the past few years, hundreds of clinics, typically [...]

Glaxo Names Grieg to Head Beefed-Up Venture Fund

Eager to get in on new drugs at their start, GlaxoSmithKline is stepping up its efforts to invest in early-stage ventures that might just pay off big down the road.
The company is launching a new venture fund and appointing top-level exec Russell Greig to run it, a Glaxo spokesman said Tuesday. Greig (pictured) previously ran [...]

No Shock: Medtronic Cuts 1,100 Jobs As Heart Device Market Lags

Medtronic said today it’s cutting 1,100 jobs. The news comes as no surprise, given the long-term doldrums in the market for implantable cardioverter defibrillators, expensive devices that monitor the heart and deliver a restorative shock if it falls into an abnormal rhythm. Medtronic is the biggest fish in the ICD pond (see chart, taken from [...]

Betting That a House Call Is Cheaper Than a Trip to the ER

You twist your ankle, or you get a nasty flu and spike a high fever. It doesn’t feel like a life-and-death situation, but it’s pretty bad the middle of the night, or you can’t get in to see your doctor. So you head for the emergency room. Not only is this unpleasant and inconvenient; it [...]

Breastfeeding Makes Babies a Little Smarter

Babies of mothers who were pushed to breastfeed wound up a bit sharper on average than a comparable group of babies whose mothers received routine care, researchers are reporting.
“We’re not talking about making a child who has trouble in school and is dropping out into a genius,” the lead author, a pediatrician at McGill University [...]

Vendors Fight Medicare on Competitive Bids for Medical Equipment

Medicare figures it can save money by getting vendors to submit competitive bids for products like walkers and wheelchairs. Industry says that could drive down quality and selection. Congress is holding hearings to hash it out.
Competitive bidding for medical equipment is set to start in 10 cities in July and expand to 70 more cities [...]

California Doctors, Hospitals Sue State Over Medicaid Cuts

It seems like just yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger was pushing an ambitious plan to remake health care in California. But his plan stalled, California hit some serious economic turbulence and the Governator started cutting budgets left and right — including a planned 10 percent cut in rates paid by Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid.
Now a group [...]

Expert Panel Skeptical About Abuse-Resistant OxyContin

Purdue Pharma went before an FDA panel yesterday to make its case for a rejiggered form of the painkiller OxyContin that the company says is harder to abuse. The panel wasn’t buying it. “I’m fascinated with the poor scientific rigor” of the data presented the company, one panel member reportedly said. “It’s almost insulting.” That’s [...]

Medical Tourism: Don’t Believe the Hype (Yet)

The cost of health care may a growing burden for lots of Americans, but not many of us are going overseas to get cheaper care.
A McKinsey report on global medical tourism says most medical tourists are leaving home to seek more advanced and higher-quality care — often the wealthy in the developing world traveling to [...]

Merck Cuts Sales Force After Recent Woes

The unwinding of the Big Pharma sales armies continues apace, with Merck saying late today that it’s cutting its U.S. sales force by 1,200 positions, or about 14% from 8,500 reps at the start of 2007. Merck headquarters in a Whitehouse Station, N.J. (AP Photo, file) The company has been beset by problems. The biggest ones [...]

Adoptees More Prone to Mental Health Problems

Adopted children seem to use mental health services more than other kids. But is that because they really have higher rates of mental health problems, or are their adoptive parents just predisposed to seek such care for them? Results from a study in the current Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine suggests the parents’ decisions [...]

Psychatrists Grumble About Cardiac Testing for ADHD Drugs

The American Heart Association’s controversial new recommendation that children get a heart work-up before receiving stimulant medications for ADHD took some hits at an American Psychiatry Association conference symposium Saturday night, suggesting that the debate about ADHD medication safety is far from over. In a talk sponsored by drugmaker Abbott Laboratories on pediatric and adolescent [...]

Do Drug Companies’ Patent Filings Hint at Stock Moves?

Drug companies’ shares have been pretty volatile in recent years, some climbing on deal speculation while others have plunged on controversies over drug safety or efficacy. How then to gauge the true measure of a drugmaker over the long haul? Some say check out the research labs, and one way to take their temperature is [...]

Do Drug Companies’ Patent Filings Hint at Stock Moves?

Drug companies’ shares have been pretty volatile in recent years, some climbing on deal speculation while others have plunged on controversies over drug safety or efficacy. How then to gauge the true measure of a drugmaker over the long haul? Some say check out the research labs, and one way to take their temperature is [...]

I, Doctor, er, Robot

The robot will see you now. At least in the operating room, where more and more often robots stand between doctor and patients, the New York Times reports.
At many hospitals robots, under the control of doctors, are performing some of the precision work of prostate and gynecological surgery, for instance. In their favor, robots’ “hands” [...]

Wal-Mart Expands $4 Generic Program

Wal-Mart gets a lot of negative publicity, but one one story that draws plenty of positive coverage is its roster of $4-a-month generic drugs. And this morning the company said it’s expanding the cut-price drug program.
Here are the latest pharmaceutical bargains unveiled by the megaretailer: Prescriptions for up to 350 generic drugs will cost $10 for [...]

Docs and Hospitals Protest Some ‘Never Events’

Should “never events” really never happen? Eliminating some mishaps that should never happen is a laudable goal, but just isn’t possible 100% of the time, some inside the medical establishment say.
Last year, Medicare said it would stop paying to treat a bunch of hospital problems that included bed sores, certain catheter-associated infections and leaving objects [...]

Doctors Shun Less Lucrative Specialities

Larry Frohman, a neuro-ophthalmologist, is part of a dying breed. He often spends more than an hour with new patients, asking questions about their sight and performing dozens of low-tech tests.
His diagnoses of vexing vision problems rely, in part, on how well patients can track the movement of his finger with the eye and whether [...]

Mental Disorders in Parents Linked to Autism in Kids

Parents of children with autism are about twice as likely to have been hospitalized for mental disorders than parents of other kids, says a study published in the journal Pediatrics.
Depression and personality disorders were more common among mothers but not fathers of autistic kids. The researchers found that schizophrenia was about twice as common in [...]

Pfizer Starts Cutting Deals on Celebrex & Bextra Lawsuits

Pfizer has reached tentative settlements with lawyers representing hundreds of people who say the painkillers Celebrex and Bextra caused heart attacks and strokes, the WSJ is reporting this afternoon. Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP) Celebrex and Bextra are in the same class of drugs as Merck’s Vioxx, but Pfizer is taking a different legal path than Merck to [...]

Why More Med Students Won’t Mean More Doctors

After 25 years without much growth, the U.S. is about to start cranking out lots more young MDs. The number of first-year med students will grow 20% between 2002 and 2012, according to a report out this week (online here) from the Association of American Medical Colleges. UVA School of Medicine, 2006. AP photo. As new schools [...]

Bill Would Slash Hospital Charges for Uninsured in Illinois

The uninsured often get billed for hospital care at the list prices, rates that nobody with insurance would ever have to pay. An Illinois legislator aims to change that with a bill that would cap what hospitals can charge the uninsured, the Chicago Tribune reports. AP Photo The bill would allow hospitals to charge for their cost, [...]

Meanness and Psychiatry Don’t Mix

Surgeons tend to be tough guys and gals. And we’re glad for that. Who wants a ditherer wielding a scalpel? Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil (AP Photo/Walt Disney Pictures) Psychiatrists, well, they can be a little weird, as one of the shrinks on the lively blog Shrink Rap acknowledges in an intriguing post headlined “My Therapist [...]

Should Drugmakers Pay FDA to Inspect Foreign Factories?

The drug industry may pony up so the FDA can inspect foreign manufacturing plants.
Three big trade groups (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association and the Biotechnology Industry Organization) yesterday told Congress they may be willing to pay new “user fees” so the FDA can beef up its overseas inspections, the Newark [...]

Washington Pharmacists Can Refuse to Dispense Plan B Contraception

Pharmacists in Washington don’t have to dispense Plan B emergency contraception if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs.
A federal judge last year suspended a state law that required pharmacists to give out the drug. Yesterday, an appeals court refused to suspend the ruling while the case is under appeal, Reuters reports.
The drug, sold by [...]

For Lipitor King, It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

Four years ago, Roger Newton was the envy of the pharmaceutical industry when Pfizer bought his startup biotech Esperion Therapeutics and a handful of experimental compounds that raised good cholesterol for a cool $1.3 billion. Esperion CEO Roger Newton (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) Little came of the venture for Pfizer, which shut the operation down last year amid [...]

Merck’s Clark on PR Woes: ‘I Can’t Blame the Media’

Merck CEO Richard Clark has taken some hard knocks since the results of the Enhance study raised questions about the effectiveness of cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia. At a Morgan Stanley conference today, Clark was asked about all the bad press the company has been getting: Is Merck not providing the positive stories or are [...]

Medicaid Meets Health Savings Accounts in Indiana

The feds said yesterday that Health Savings Accounts — tax-sheltered savings tied to high-deductible health insurance — are best for the rich. But an Indiana policy wonk lands on the Health Affairs blog today describing a state program that combines HSAs with Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor.
We take the post with a [...]

Smith & Nephew Finds ‘Unacceptable’ Sales Practices in Europe

More questionable sales practices popped up in the medical device business.
This time, word comes via the U.K., where device maker Smith & Nephew dropped $900 million last year to buy the Swiss implant maker Plus. Today, the company’s CEO said that Smith & Nephew, in integrating its operations with Plus, “uncovered certain sales practices in [...]

Medicaid Meets Health Savings Accounts in Indiana

The feds said yesterday that Health Savings Accounts — tax-sheltered savings tied to high-deductible health insurance — are best for the rich. But an Indiana policy wonk lands on the Health Affairs blog today describing a state program that combines HSAs with Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor.
We take the post with a [...]

Smith & Nephew Finds ‘Unacceptable’ Sales Practices in Europe

More questionable sales practices popped up in the medical device business.
This time, word comes via the U.K., where device maker Smith & Nephew dropped $900 million last year to buy the Swiss implant maker Plus. Today, the company’s CEO said that Smith & Nephew, in integrating its operations with Plus, “uncovered certain sales practices in [...]

Drugmakers Beat NICE in U.K. Court on Alzheimer’s Limits

Pfizer and Eisai of Japan won an appeal against a recommendation by the U.K. government that discouraged use of the Alzheimer’s drug Aricept. The Times of London called it a “stunning victory” for the drug industry. At issue was the refusal by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, to give the companies [...]

FDA Warns Merck on Vaccine Plant Problems

The FDA warned Merck this week by letter that the company has serious problems at its big vaccine manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania.
Among the long list of deviations from manufacturing standards, the agency said Merck’s laboratory procedures weren’t “scientifically sound” when it came to assessing the “strength, quality and purity” of products manufactured at the [...]

Drugmakers Beat NICE in U.K. Court on Alzheimer’s Limits

Pfizer and Eisai of Japan won an appeal against a recommendation by the U.K. government that discouraged use of the Alzheimer’s drug Aricept. The Times of London called it a “stunning victory” for the drug industry. At issue was the refusal by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, to give the companies [...]

Clinton, McCain & Obama Tiptoe Toward Middle on Health Insurance

Yes, there are big, fundamental differences between the Clinton and Obama health-care plans on the one hand and the McCain plan on the other. Yet each side is implicitly giving a nod to some of the rival’s bedrock ideas, the WSJ’s David Wessel notes in his column this morning.
McCain’s plan to get rid of the [...]