Demystifying drug development, clinical research, medicine, and the role ethics plays
This week, the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, is always a time for me for reflection on poverty and justice in America. Katrina brought focus to our country’s disparities and the response—or lack thereof—to disasters...
Considerable attention has been given to this week’s news about hospital (healthcare) acquired infections (HAI) at NIH with a “superbug.” *There has been probably misplaced criticism of NIH for not making its finding of transmission of a bacteria between patients public, as well as wonder at the high-tech tools that enabled NIH to track down this killer organism.These articles all overlook the more basic underlying problems, which I am aware of because of my practice as an Infectious Disease physician.These relatively new, highly resistant strains of bacteria—carbapenem resistant Gram negative bacteria as Klebsiella and Acinetobacter—are not just at NIH...
Counterfeit drugs appear to be “all the rage.” For some time there have been problems with counterfeit antimalarials, as I learned when I studied in Bangkok at the Asian Tropical Medicine Course in 2006...
For past decades I’ve vacationed in mid-coast Maine, an enjoyable respite from sweltering Washington, D.C. weather. When I returned to Boothbay Harbor last week, I was dismayed to learn that local St...
As expected, the FDA recently announced approval of a second drug for obesity within a month, Vivus’ Qnexa, now renamed Qsymia. This approval is less of a surprise, as the data appeared somewhat stronger than that for Arena’s lorcaserin (Belviq)...
First, a confession—I’m a mathphobe, traumatized by growing up in a family skewed with an overabundance of math genes for whom math skills came as naturally as breathing.
The FDA has just announced approval for the OraQuick In-Home HIV test, by OraSure Technologies. That’s great news on some fronts, but the test raises new questions, as well.As I’ve just been catching up on my vacation reading with Marya Zilberberg’s helpful new book, “Between the Lines,” the first thing that caught my eye were the statistics on the test’s accuracy...
G'morning! You've already met me, but I'd like to get to know you better and have this column to be a conversation between us. So, in the tradition of Ed Yong's Not Exactly Rocket Science: the Who Are You thread,"1) Tell me about you...
On June 27, the FDA approved the first new weight-loss drug in 13 years, Arena’s lorcaserin (Belviq). The track record for anti-obesity drugs has not been very good—each has been withdrawn from the market, after approval, due to safety concerns...
Sometimes it seems like new drugs suddenly appear like magic. Have you ever wondered if there was something special going on behind the scenes? Earlier in Clinical Trials for Beginners, we looked briefly at why drug studies came into being, then at how a drug is developed, from test tube to your tissues...
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