With the entire country struggling to come to terms with the rising cost of healthcare, insurers are increasingly choosing the easy way out – making the sickest patients shoulder more of the cost for specialty drugs. Chronic ailments are undeniably expensive. Conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS, and cancer account for a big chunk of prescription […]
It may be a long way in the future, but stem cell researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel have made a step in that direction. In a fascinating experiment, scientists removed skin cells from two heart failure patients and regressed the cells to an embryonic state. These cells, called induced pluripotent […]
In nearly every episode of Star Trek, somebody had to be injected with something. The hypos were accompanied by a mysterious hissing sound, there were no needles, and they were administered, inexplicably, to the neck. Since the uniforms covered most of the body, we might presume this was to preserve the dignity of the crew. […]
Much to the dismay of independent pharmacists, consumer and patient advocates all over the country, the acquisition of Express Scripts (ESRX) of Medco Health Solutions (MHS), was approved by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission this month. The approval went through without even the regulations proposed by FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz designed to prevent the pharmaceutical […]
On May 2, over 500 law enforcement agents from the FBI, HHS-Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), multiple Medicaid Fraud Control Units, and other law enforcement agencies came down like a ton of bricks on medical professionals in seven cities across the nation. The massive sting nailed 107 doctors, nurses, social workers, and other medical professionals […]
Well, it’s happened. Lipitor, the biggest blockbuster drug in history, went off patent in November, and Pfizer is feeling the pinch. Sales fell off by 42% immediately, and even with sales of other on-patent drugs like Celebrex and Lyrica soaring, overall pharmaceutical sales dropped a full 25%. The first quarter of 2012 saw Lipitor sales […]
Synthetic marijuana: you may know it by such fanciful names as K2, Spice, Spike 99, Genie, Blaze, Red X Dawn, Purple Wave, Vanilla Sky, or Bliss. It’s legal…but is it also lethal? Beginning in 2009, a dangerous substitute for marijuana began showing up across the U.S. – in conveniences stores, gas stations, head shops, […]
While most teenage girls are researching the most flattering lipstick color, 17-year-old Monta Vista High School senior Angela Zhang was using bioengineering to find a cure for cancer. According to Zhang, her breakthrough is a “nanoparticle that’s kind of like the Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment in that it can detect cancer cells, eradicate […]
