Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals. There are effective vaccines against anthrax, and some forms of the disease respond well to antibiotic treatment.
Continue reading ‘Antibiotics – A Possible Cure for Anthrax?’
It looks as if user fees really are in the offing for generic drugs. After generics makers said last week that they’re supporting the idea as a way to speed approvals of their products, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg backed it, too. Revamping the current approvals process is “critical,” she said, because agency funding won’t provide the resources to clear the backlog of apps.
Continue reading ‘Generic Fees Gain Traction with FDA Backing’
Although President Obama’s proposed $3.73 trillion budget for 2012 calls for more than $1 trillion in slashed spending, it protects doctors from steep cuts in their Medicare payments with a two year reprieve. The budget delays a scheduled 25 percent cut in the Sustainable Growth Rate, Medicare’s physician payment formula that was slated to go into effect in 2012, The Hill blog reports.
Continue reading ‘Obama’s Budget Delays Deep Cuts to Physician Payments’
President Barack Obama said on Friday his healthcare overhaul is an important part of efforts to cut the budget deficit and insisted he will not “refight” the battle to pass the law. With emboldened Republicans vowing to repeal or replace the healthcare law he signed last March, Obama reiterated his case that the changes it brings are necessary to help rein in the price of the government-run Medicaid and Medicare insurance programs, a huge chunk of the U.S. budget deficit problem. The Congressional Budget Office said the U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.48 trillion for fiscal 2011, up from a $1.07 trillion estimate in August.
Continue reading ‘Obama Will Not Refight Battle Over Healthcare Law’
Researchers surveyed the Facebook activities of 405 postgraduate trainee doctors at Rouen University Hospital in France and found that almost three out of four had a Facebook profile. One in four logged on to the site several times a day, and half logged on several times a week.
Continue reading ‘Doctor-Patient Relationship Compromised by Facebook’
The American Medical Association wants doctors to blow the whistle on their peers who behave badly online. The new policy is likely a response to concerns about patient confidentiality in social media exchanges, writes Colin Zick in the Foley Hoag law blog. ”When physicians see content posted by colleagues that appears unprofessional they have a responsibility to bring that content to the attention of the individual,” the policy reads. “If the behavior significantly violates professional norms and the individual does not take appropriate action to resolve the situation, the physician should report the matter to appropriate authorities.”
Continue reading ‘Docs Must Police Each Other in Social Media’
The FDA’s marathon run toward a new set of regulations to govern the development of biosimilars is official. Regulators will host their first public meeting on follow-on drug regs, and you can expect to hear plenty from big companies like Amgen on the need for lengthy and expensive clinical trials.
Continue reading ‘Amgen Proposes Key Hurdles for Biosimilar Regs’
President Barack Obama said politicians who want to repeal this year’s health-care overhaul should have to explain to people who need insurance that they won’t be able to buy it. “I want them to look you in the eye and say sorry,” he said, “you can’t buy health insurance.” “I don’t think that’s what this country stands for,” the president said at a backyard gathering in Falls Church, Virginia.
Continue reading ‘Obama Steps Up Defense of Health-Care Overhaul Law’
The stimulus bill that pumped more than $8 billion into biomedical research projects in the U.S. is set to end at the end of the month. And the surge of research work that it helped spawn is likely to come to a quick stop, triggering stinging job losses as research scientists jockey for a piece of a much smaller pie.
Continue reading ‘Research Scientists Brace for Layoffs as Stimulus Cash Dries Up’
A relatively recent subgroup of nanotech research is what is beginning to be commonly referred to as “nanotox,” or the study of how nanoparticles react to the environment and human body. It is a line of inquiry that directly arose out of concerns that if engineered nanoscale particles have the potential to do great things in specifically targeted way, then there might be some unintentional harm happening as well. A group of nanotox researchers at North Carolina State University looking into how nanoparticles interact with living things might have also, as a side benefit, made a discovery with applications for drug delivery.
Continue reading ‘‘Nanotox’ Research also has Implications for Nano Drug Delivery’
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