Posts tagged with ‘drug companies’
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently decided to no longer hold pharmaceutical companies to the standards of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki while conducting human drug trials. The change poses bioethical dilemmas when U.S. companies conduct trials on foreign soil. Merrill Goozner is currently reporting from Russia, which could become “ground zero” for discussion about the shift in policy.
A quick look at some of the policy-related posts in the science and technology blogosphere: synthetic biology, the lack of science coverage on cable news networks, drug-resistant antibiotics, and rethinking the drug development process.
Last week’s stories about the future of grants for the younger generation of NIH investigators is just one piece of the larger puzzle over the state of funding biotech research. The Scientist offers a useful summary of the major stumbling blocks in pharmaceutical development and how they relate to financing questions in the drug industry, in university labs, at the NIH, and at start-up companies.
Allegations of professional baseball players abusing human growth hormone have raised the profile of this heavily regulated substance. The House on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing yesterday to sift through misinformation on HGH and get the scientific facts.
Health coverage inequalities limit patient access to the free drugs pharmaceutical companies distribute, accelerate the illnesses of elderly patients, and limit access to preventative cancer screenings.
The drug maker agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle lawsuits from individuals who say its painkiller Vioxx led to heart attacks and strokes. Predictions put the settlement costs at $25 billion when Vioxx was taken off the market in September 2004.
The University of Virginia is being accused of encouraging doctors to prescribe Johnson & Johnson’s anti-seizure and migraine drug Topamax “off-label” to treat alcoholism. But is the medicine safe for treating alcoholics without FDA approval?
