Posts tagged as:

drugs

Discharged from the hospital without answers; the death of Jane Q. Patient

November 20, 2009

by Dan Walter
We found out that her real name was Cindy Chapman, and that she died alone and afraid.
Cindy was a paralegal, an activist and a fighter of lost causes who lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. She was part of an online community called RATEMDs, where she had many soul mates. Her posts on health [...]

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Why you should stop taking Vytorin for high cholesterol

November 16, 2009

by Matthew Mintz, MD
At the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, the results of the ARBITER 6-HALTS study were released. No Vytorin was used in the study, but I am sure that all the headlines will mention Vytorin.
The actual study published ahead of press online in the New England Journal of Medicine. Essentially, they enrolled [...]

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Niacin beats Zetia in the ARBITER 6-HALTS trial, and what this means for ezetimibe

November 16, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor
Boosting HDL cholesterol with extended-release niacin (Niaspan) is a more effective way of slowing atherosclerosis in high-risk patients on long-term statin therapy than seeking additional LDL cholesterol reductions by adding ezetimibe (Zetia), researchers here reported.
Compared with ezetimibe, 2 grams of niacin led to significant [...]

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Patients who want the H1N1 vaccine need to be triaged

November 11, 2009

by Kairol Rosenthal
I am a young adult cancer patient who waited five and a half hours for the H1N1 vaccination along with 1200 other Chicagoans in a city college hallway. I do not have the trained eye of a public health analyst, yet it was easy to spy the glaring flaws that occurred in [...]

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Doctors and patients need to learn to live with health insurance companies

November 10, 2009

by Marie Cooper
Consider two patients with the same managed care plan.
One has multiple sclerosis and receives an infusion of Tysabri every month. It needs pre-certification. The requirements are black and white. The patient qualifies if they have relapsing/remitting MS and have failed other therapies. The drug costs $2,000, the infusion [...]

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H1N1 flu is potentially life threatening to people of all ages

November 9, 2009

Originally published in Insidermedicine
H1N1 flu can cause serious illness, resulting in hospitalization and even death among individuals of all ages, according to surveillance information coming out of California that was published in the November 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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What is the best insulin regimen for patients with diabetes?

November 6, 2009

Originally published in Insidermedicine
The best method for taking insulin among individuals with type 2 diabetes has been identified in research published in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Vaccines do not cause autism in children, whether or not they have inborn errors of metabolism

November 6, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent
Vaccination does not appear to cause autism or other health problems in children with inborn errors of metabolism, a researcher said here.
In a retrospective analysis, children with such conditions were not more likely than normal children to visit emergency rooms or need hospital [...]

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Clostridium difficile infection is spreading from the hospital to the community

November 5, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Clostridium difficile infection has spread from the hospital to the community but has proved manageable thus far.
From 1991 to 2005, the incidence of community-acquired C. difficile in Olmsted County, Minn., quadrupled but still remained less common than the hospital-acquired gastrointestinal infection, Sahil Khanna, MD, [...]

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Do antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain in children?

November 3, 2009

Originally published in Insidermedicine
Second-generation antipsychotic drugs can produce unwanted weight gain and other metabolic effects among children and youths after only a few weeks, according to research published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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H1N1 vaccine adverse events, and how to reassure patients

November 3, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer
Failure to account for background rates when considering adverse events from pandemic H1N1 flu vaccination could spark public panic, researchers cautioned.
Coincidental cases of dramatic events including sudden death, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and spontaneous abortion can be expected to boost the true incidence of adverse [...]

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Rheumatologists debate whether fibromyalgia is really a disease

November 2, 2009

Originally published in HCPLive.com
What defines a “disease?” At what point does a collection of symptoms and causes make the transition from “condition” to disease? Is it when a consensus forms around a concrete, observable, and repeatable set of biochemical and/or physiological processes and outcomes? Surely there is little doubt that diabetes or hypertension qualify as [...]

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Poll: Should boys get Gardasil, the HPV vaccine?

November 2, 2009

The FDA recently approved the vaccine against human papillomavirus for use in boys and men to prevent genital warts. The vaccine has been used successfully in females to prevent cervical cancer, which is associated with the virus.
But should we recommend the vaccine for men?
Studies have concluded that the HPV vaccine was successful in reducing [...]

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