On Monday, November 1, an Orange County California Superior Court Judge said, in a tentative decision, that the opioid pharmaceutical companies were not responsible for the opioid crisis.
This particular case, going by the name of “The People of the State of California v. Purdue Pharma,” started in 2014. The judge’s ruling noted that neither party requested a trial by jury. The trial took place before the judge between April 19, …
There is an urgent need for innovation in cancer treatments. Although we’ve seen significant progress in indications for drugs treating particular diseases, cancer research data shows that 10-year survival statistics for cancers such as esophageal and lung cancer, for instance, have shown only a 10 percent increase, while pancreatic cancer has shown no significant improvement since the 1970s. The implementation of targeted therapies in cancer treatment is an …
Ivermectin is an over 30-year-old wonder drug that treats life- and sight-threatening parasitic infections. Its lasting influence on global health has been so profound that two of the key researchers in its discovery and development won the Nobel Prize in 2015.
I’ve been an infectious disease pharmacist for over 25 years. I’ve also managed patients who delayed proper treatment for their severe …
Creative photography
Year after year, new medications find their way into the market, adding to the abundant and colorful world of pharmaceuticals.
Medications play a dual role in our lives, as they represent wellness and illness concomitantly. I am primarily fascinated by the human love-hate relationship with medicine in the form of dependency and liberation, desire and distaste, and hope and despair. On one …
Woodworking / Illustration
The problem with the act of taking medications is that it’s so mundane that we don’t see any problem with it.
This machine-cut, flat, unemotional, same-size-fits-all object that we defencelessly welcome in our very private body has a role. Medications occupy our existence by interlocking with our cells and taking control of our body, fighting, provoking, sedating, and changing the music …
Pyrography
Medicine bottles are mundane objects tightly woven into our daily lives, with the promise of happier moods, better sleep, and lower blood pressure. Nevertheless, nothing on these objects correlates with hope, faith, or a feeling of healthiness. I aspire to affix a face on these bottles to create conversations among medication manufacturers, prescribers, and dispensers, allowing them to explore what really happens …
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) negated the recommendation of its expert panel and approved Aduhelm to treat Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), contending that the possible benefit trumped the lack of evidence of efficacy. The FDA was inexcusably in error in making this decision. Aside from the likely lack of benefit, the use of this drug can result in many negative consequences that make its use ethically questionable.
The manufacturer submitted two …
Photography
A person’s lifetime medication consumption has a familiar and predictable pattern. The more a person ages, the greater their number of taken medication. However, the public behavior in initiating medication has been changed compared to thirty years ago.
Nowadays, parents demand to get their hands on OTC meds for their infants and toddlers.
In this piece, I am interested …
Many drug ads in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s would offend today.
In an ad for Valium, we are told that the woman pictured (“Jan”) is “psychoneurotic” because she is unmarried at age 35. “You probably see many such Jans in your practice,” says the ad—“The unmarrieds with low self-esteem. Jan never found a man to measure up to her father.”
Valium was …
An installation to explore the impact of medications in daily life
Bob is a typical patient at the pharmacy with a chronic illness. Bob, along with 30 other random patients whom I followed in the year 2017, had been picked up to explore the number of medications they consumed in an average year. Bob took 4,280 prescription pills (no data on OTC consumption) …
Ketamine (colloquially called “K,” “Special K,” or “Vitamin K”) is a potent, dissociative anesthetic. More specifically, it is a nonselective NMDA antagonist that initiates a wide array of physiological effects, already having ingratiated itself to a wider audience through its potential for abuse. Once used primarily in veterinary medicine, ketamine in recent years, however, has seen its medical applications extend beyond the realm of anesthesia, with clinical options now including …
When the “opioid crisis” is mentioned, most people think of heroin, prescription pills like oxycodone, or — more recently — the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Fewer people would think of novel opioids like tianeptine, although an increasing number of Americans have taken this substance in the form of over-the-counter supplements like ZaZaRed or Tianna – often without knowing that the substance has opioid properties that can cause dependence and overdose. …
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated America’s health, taking more than 500 thousand American lives, upending the economy, and perpetuating racial
The U.S. …
“I am [sharing] my story as I would like to raise awareness about the dangers of benzodiazepines and advocate for stronger warning labels.”
I paused to wipe away tears before typing the final words of Bobbi’s report into the FDA’s MedWatch online reporting system. Bobbi, a physician assistant, was forced into medical detox by her state medical board after suffering adverse effects from prescription clonazepam. Six years …
In the waning days of the Trump administration, a surprising announcement came down from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that the barrier required to write buprenorphine prescriptions for opioid use disorder would be lifted via reform of the so-called “X-waiver.”
The X-waiver is a rare regulation in American medicine that requires an 8-hour training and documented DEA permission before a medical doctor can prescribe Suboxone to …
Like many scary health scenarios where patients seek some modicum of influence, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to patient demand for “immune-boosting” dietary supplements. Toilet paper wasn’t the only essential item being limited by stores; bottles of zinc and vitamin C flew off the shelves as consumers stocked up. The role of vitamin D in COVID-19 has been conflated and deflated depending on …
It was September 11, 2001. My dad had cheated on my mom again, the building that I worked in at that time had received an anonymous tip that we were a potential target for the terrorist attacks, and my mom, who needed a reprieve from my dad’s crap, was vacationing in Florida and was worried for me and my well-being. Plus, my dad was threatening to kill himself, and I …
An excerpt from Medical Marijuana: A Clinical Handbook.
Imagine two patients sitting in the waiting area of a clinic. The first is a man in his sunset years who has recently begun treatment for stage 2 lung cancer. His treatment involves the use of chemotherapy, which has …
President Trump recently signed two executive orders directly related to prescription drug prices in the U.S.
One order would allow the “reimportation” of prescription drugs from Canada. This longstanding idea would allow U.S. pharmacies and drug wholesalers the ability to pay generally much lower prices for their prescription drugs by getting them from Canadian suppliers who benefit from government management of the system. Many consumers have been buying direct from Canadian …
Sometimes, old ideas and time-tested treatments remain the best. Newer doesn’t always mean better. Except in the case of one of our oldest antihistamines, tried-and-true Benadryl. It is time for that old drug to be retired, sent off to pasture, and never used again. Goodbye, Benadryl. Fare thee well, adieu, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Benadryl (diphenhydramine) was introduced in 1946. The top single that …
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