Big Pharma is employing nurses to review charts, a precursor to pushing brand name medications:
One recent 18-month program sponsored by Pfizer and the National Health Service added nurses to hospitals to discuss management of chronic health conditions with patients. Sanofi-Aventis is paying nurses to train doctors' office staffs how to identify patients at risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Last fall, the British drug trade group temporarily suspended ...
An ignorant DA is continuing with charges against diabetic Doug Burns, who was arrested during a hypoglycemic episode:
. . . the authorities pressing charges are publicly chastising Doug for negligence in his diabetes care, on the basis that he was temporarily on injections rather than his usual Animas pump at the time of the incident. This was because he had run out of infusion sets during recent ...
David Phillips rips major media, Steven Nissen and the NEJM in this scathing entry:
Like the yellow journalism that set us on a collision course to war with Spain in 1898, many journalists are sensationalizing Nissen's opinions to sell newspapers and/or magazines"”with little regard for those most likely to be impacted by the findings"”type 2 diabetes mellitus patients currently taking Avandia (and who might make unilateral decisions to stop ...
A more definitive study on Avandia's risks is in jeopardy as patients are starting to drop out:
Dr. Krall said he did not yet know how many patients have withdrawn, but said Glaxo was now worried about whether it could complete the drug trial, which has been scheduled to run through next year. The company has been counting on a successful outcome from the study to dispel widespread concerns ...
More fallout from yesterday's big news about Avandia and its association with heart attacks and cardiovascular death.
Dr. Charles:
"The 43% increase in heart attacks/myocardial infarctions and the 64% increase in death from cardiovascular causes is also sensational. It is the same statistical trick the pharma companies use to promote the efficacy of their products, and the same eye-catching method the Women's Health Initiative reported when hormone replacement ...
Could Avandia be the next Vioxx? The NEJM with some smoke. Will fire be far behind?
Rosiglitazone was associated with a significant increase in the risk of myocardial infarction and with an increase in the risk of death from cardiovascular causes that had borderline significance. Our study was limited by a lack of access to original source data, which would have enabled time-to-event analysis. Despite these limitations, ...
Obesity in kids is leading to diabetes at a younger age:
Now, an analysis of the claims processed by Medco Health Solutions, a manager of pharmacy benefits, finds that the use of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes in kids between the ages of 10 and 19 doubled between 2001 and 2006. The overall numbers remain relatively low "” about 1.47 per 1,000, the Financial Times reports. But the rising ...
A study says that patients can manage some chronic illnesses. It dangerously suggests that patients adjust their own hypertensive medications:
They ask why the methods patients use to take care of their own diabetes -- monitoring blood sugar, injecting insulin, evaluating how well they are doing and adjusting dosage -- can't be expanded to other conditions. In one study they cite, patients with hypertension successfully used home blood ...
A clinical trial studying bariatric surgery as a radical treatment for type 2 diabetes has commenced in Europe:
Instead, investigators have found, bariatric surgery, independent of weight loss, alters metabolic factors such as the hunger-regulating peptide hormone ghrelin (as a result of decreased gastric mass). In addition, bariatric surgery results in increases in peptide YY which has an effect on satiety, and GLP-1, which affects gastric motility and beta-cell ...
Why can't medical devices look more like iPods? (via MedGadget)
The trial showed the benefits of the diabetes drug Byetta. The accompanying editorial is not kind.
Doesn't look good for the insulin-bong:
"I think Pfizer will wish they had never gotten into this. I doubt they'll regain their investment," says Dr. John Buse, president-elect of the American Diabetes Association, who participated in Exubera's trials. "There is no advantage to Exubera and there may be a safety risk. I see it as my job to talk people out of (using) it."
Is drug regulation in the name of safety going overboard? And for those who support "Medicare for all", how is this supposed to be better than the restrictions that are currently in place? Scott Gottlieb in the WSJ:
Once the FDA is granted the authority to simply impose these RiskMAPs on drug companies, there will be a lot of political pressure on the agency to constrain prescription writing in ...
About 60 bucks - something to think about with the drive towards EHRs:
One 57-year-old Florida woman found that after her identity was stolen, the information was used to pay for a costly foot amputation. Worse, after heading in for a hysterectomy, she found that the scammer's medical history was now intertwined with her own -- the records suggesting she had magically acquired some of the scammer's medical conditions ...
Employers are struggling with diabetics in the workforce. Even a diabetic wonders whether she would hire someone with diabetes:
Even an outspoken advocate for diabetics like Fran Carpentier, a Type 1 diabetic and a senior editor at Parade magazine, understands the implications for business. "Knowing what it's like to live with the disease hour by hour, day by day, I wonder if I owned my own company if ...
Insulin pumps can be life-safers in cases of refractory diabetes. The safety feature preventing this hypoglycemic complication is defaulted to "off" - it's a good thing to know.
News that is being covered by the medical blogosphere. Dr. Charles and #1 Dinosaur with more.
Some are capitalizing on the uninsured, a variation on the in-store urgent care clinics:
This year, a company called QuickHealth opened several clinics in Northern California "” some in pharmacies, one inside a Wal-Mart "” offering primary care on a pay-as-you-go, first-come-first-served basis seven days a week. For $39, a patient can have a 15-minute consultation with a licensed physician. A comprehensive physical is $59, while on-the-spot cholesterol tests, ...
(Update 12/04 - This breaking news blog entry is moved to the top as the blogosphere continues to react.)
More on this HDL-raising drug's stunning collapse. There's talk Pfizer stock will drop to $20. I'm disappointed myself, since there is no reliable way to raise HDL, save for niacin and fibrates. I thought they were idiots not to test it alone, but only in conjunction with Lipitor. ...
Not sure what kind of prenatal care was done, but gestational diabetes was missed, leading to the birth complication:
Birmingham's High Court heard Daniel's family GP and community midwives had failed to spot his mother, Ingrid, had developed gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
She was encouraged to have a home birth, but because of her condition, Daniel was born weighing 11lb 8oz and his shoulders became stuck during labour.
