December 27, 2024
(The Guardian) – Drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro are an attractive prospect for online businesses and traditional pharmacies as well as the firms that make them It is a trend rooted in profit-making. Adverts featuring prescription-only weight-loss medications are … Read More
December 27, 2024
(The Washington Post) – Overdose deaths have reached record levels in the United States in recent years. Despite signs of decline, the number of people dying nationwide from overdoses has eclipsed 100,000 annually between 2020 and 2023, according to national … Read More
December 27, 2024
(New York Times) – Since the late 1990s, drug companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on television ads, drumming up demand for their products with cheerful jingles and scenes of dancing patients. Now, some people up for top … Read More
December 27, 2024
(ABC) – From a pig kidney transplant to restoring genetic deafness, 2024 was a year full of medical breakthroughs. The breakthroughs include the discovery of a cause of an autoimmune disease, the development of a “game-changing” drug and potential hope … Read More
December 27, 2024
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 391, no. 20, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
December 24, 2024
(USA Today) – In a move that could eventually make weight loss drugs cheaper and easier to access, the Food and Drug Administration Monday approved a second generic in the category of medications known as GLP-1s. The drugs were first … Read More
December 23, 2024
(New York Times) – Shuttered drugstores pose a particular threat to older adults, who take more medications than younger people and often rely on pharmacies for advice. Nearly 30 percent of pharmacies in the United States closed between 2010 and … Read More
December 23, 2024
(New York Times) – The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the weight loss drug Zepbound to treat obstructive sleep apnea. It is the first prescription medication approved to treat the common sleep disorder. The drug’s maker, Eli Lilly, … Read More
December 23, 2024
(CNBC) – “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution.” “The potential to deliver ‘one shot cures’ is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy … Read More
December 23, 2024
(NPR) – What’s happening in the Philippines is part of a seismic shift in the global HIV/AIDS landscape. Sub-Saharan Africa has long been the epicenter of the HIV crisis. But in recent years, new infections and AIDS-related deaths have plummeted. … Read More
December 23, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – No vaccine is perfect, but these medicines are still saving millions of lives. This year marks the 50-year anniversary of an ambitious global childhood vaccination program. The Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched by the World … Read More
December 20, 2024
(NPR) – A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events. Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the … Read More
December 20, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – US doctors write billions of prescriptions each year. During 2024, though, one type of drug stood out—“wonder drugs” known as GLP-1 agonists. As of September, one of every 20 prescriptions written for adults was for one … Read More
December 19, 2024
(Quartz) – The pharma giant denied the allegations. The feds said CVS also filled “thousands” of prescriptions from so-called pill mills CVS and its subsidies unlawfully dispensed “massive quantities” of opioids and other controlled substances over more than a decade, … Read More
December 18, 2024
(Quartz) – Demand for weight loss drugs like Ozempic is also boosting diagnoses of conditions such as sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease Popular weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound are boosting the use of healthcare in the U.S., leading to … Read More
December 18, 2024
(Washington Post via MSN) – A panel of independent health experts recommended Tuesday against older adults using vitamin D and calcium supplements to prevent falls and fractures, citing inadequate evidence to support their effectiveness. The guidance from the U.S. Preventive … Read More
December 18, 2024
(New York Times) – Problems with getting vaccines to families have left many children unvaccinated and in danger of contracting the virus. There were more than 311,000 reported cases of measles in Congo last year. Some 6,000 of them ended … Read More
December 17, 2024
(New York Times) – Drugmakers including Purdue Pharma paid pharmacy benefit managers not to restrict painkiller prescriptions, a New York Times investigation found. Why hadn’t the middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, acted sooner to address a crisis that had … Read More
December 17, 2024
(Wired) – The proliferation of open drug dealing on Instagram, Snapchat, and X—as well as on encrypted messaging platforms Telegram and WhatsApp—has transformed the fabric of illegal substance procurement, gradually making it more convenient, and arguably safer, for consumers, who … Read More
December 17, 2024
(DNYUZ) – In the months since, the angst and depression triggered by his cancer diagnosis no longer hound him, Mr. Blechman said, and he has gained profound insights into aspects of his personality he believes negatively affected his relationships. “Psilocybin … Read More
December 13, 2024
(The Atlantic) – West Virginia gave obesity drugs to teachers and state employees—then took them away. The program was, by health measures, a success. Patients shed as much as 120 pounds, their cholesterol dropped, their prediabetes faded, and they cut … Read More
December 13, 2024
(Vox) – Here are three possible explanations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s preliminary data on the 12-month period ending in June showed that overdoses dropped about 15 percentage points from the previous period. There were still roughly 94,000 … Read More
December 12, 2024
(NPR) – Can we eliminate the HIV epidemic? It’s a question that dates back to the start of the epidemic in the 1980s. With 1.3 million new infections a year, the epidemic continues … and the world is not on … Read More
December 12, 2024
(The Atlantic) – Doctors might be slow to admit it, but Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs are making dieting and exercise obsolete. This insistence on the status quo has begun to seem a little strange. It’s long been known that … Read More
December 9, 2024
(New York Times) – Acadia Healthcare falsifies records at its methadone clinics and enrolls patients who aren’t addicted to opioids, a Times investigation found. Every day at dawn, tens of thousands of people begin lining up at Acadia Healthcare’s addiction … Read More
