ScienceDaily — In Alzheimer’s disease, the problem is beta-amyloid, a protein that accumulates in the brain and causes nerve cells to weaken and die. Drugs designed to eliminate plaques made of beta-amyloid have a fatal problem: they need to enter the brain and remove the plaques without attacking healthy brain cells. New research from the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Paul Greengard, however, suggests that treatments modeled on the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec could be the solution. Read article
NY Times – The specialty pharmaceutical company Allergan has agreed to pay $600 million to settle civil and criminal accusations that it illegally marketed Botox, the drug used in antiwrinkle injections, for medical uses for which the drug had not been approved. In the settlement with the Justice Department, the company agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge and pay $375 million to the government for misbranding — making statements about a drug for a use not approved in the product label by the Food and Drug Administration. Read article
NY Times — At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums. Thus began a troubled toddler’s journey from one doctor to another, from one diagnosis to another, involving even more drugs. Autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, oppositional defiant disorder. The boy’s daily pill regimen multiplied: the antipsychotic Risperdal, the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one for attention-deficit disorder. All by the time he was 3. Read article
Reuters – Widely used anticonvulsant drugs, including Pfizer’s Neurontin and Novartis’ Trileptal, may increase the risk of suicide, attempted suicide and violent death in patients taking them for the first time, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. Compared with Johnson & Johnson’s generic epilepsy drug topiramate or Topamax, the team found an increased risk for suicide in new users of Neurontin, sold generically as gabapentin, GlaxoSmithKline’s Lamictal or lamotrigine, Novartis’ Trileptal or oxcarbazepine and Cephalon’s Gabitril or tiagabine. [The] team also found an increased risk of suicide with the drug valproate sold by Sanofi-Aventis as Epilim and as Depakine in the United States by Abbott Laboratories Inc. Read article
Rassmussen – Vaccinations are common requirements for children all over the country in order to attend public school and college. However, half of American adults (52%) say they are concerned about the safety of vaccinations for children, including 27% who are Very Concerned. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 44% are not concerned about the safety of vaccines for children. But this includes just 13% whoa re Not At All Concerned. Read article
ScienceDaily — A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) epidemiologists has found that women who took over-the-counter decongestants during their pregnancies are less likely to give birth prematurely. Read article
AP — Andrew White returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq beset with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness. Doctors tried to ease his symptoms using three psychiatric drugs, including a potent anti-pyschotic called Seroquel. Thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD have received the same medication over the last nine years, helping to make Seroquel one of the Veteran Affairs Department’s top drug expenditures and the No. 5 best-selling drug in the nation. Several soldiers and veterans have died while taking the pills, raising concerns among some military families that the government is not being up front about the drug’s risks. Read article
Related article: Advocates see trouble for misdiagnosed soldiers
NY Times – Sanofi-Aventis, the French drug maker, publicly disclosed its $18.5 billion bid for Genzyme on Sunday, intensifying pressure on the American biotechnology company to engage in discussions about a sale. Sanofi approached Genzyme in June, and the two companies were engaged in friendly merger talks. But, according to Sanofi’s chief executive, Christopher Viehbacher, the discussions were stifled by Genzyme’s management. Read Article
About Lawsuits – The results of two new studies are raising questions about the value of requiring patients to undergo a genetic test to see whether the blood thinner Plavix will be effective in preventing blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes. The studies were introduced last week at the European Society of Cardiologists 2010 Congress in Stockholm, Sweden. One study showed that a proposed AstraZeneca drug, Brilinta (ticagrelor) was more effective than Plavix regardless of the genetics of the patient. Another study that looked at previous research, compared Plavix with a placebo and failed to find a link between a patient’s genetics and whether they received a benefit from the drug. Read article
Daily Mail – Three babies have died at one of Britain’s leading neonatal units after being found to be carrying superbugs resistant to common antibiotics. The outbreak, at University College Hospital in London, affected 15 babies over six weeks, officials have confirmed. Read article
Related article: WHO calls for monitoring of new superbug
Daily Mail – Family rights campaigners have called for a change in the law after it was revealed that girls as young as 12 can be given the cervical cancer vaccine without their parents’ consent. Doctors and nurses have been told they are under no legal obligation to seek the permission of the parent or guardian. Read article
Helsinki Times – The Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) on Tuesday recommended that the use of the Pandemrix vaccine is suspended. The recommendation is a precautionary measure. A possible connection between the swine flu vaccine and narcolepsy is currently being investigated. The THL has stopped the use of Pandemrix until the narcolepsy cases have been studied thoroughly. Read article
Business Week – A diagnosis of AIDS was a death sentence until the advent of drug cocktails in the 1990s allowed patients to suppress the disease indefinitely. Now scientists say a similar combination strategy may change the course of cancer treatment. That’s the bet being made at Roche Holding, AstraZeneca (AZN), and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), whose latest efforts to develop a new generation of combination treatments are prompting the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to rewrite the rules for drug research. Read article
PhysOrg.com – Crohn’s is a condition that affects one in 800 people in the UK and causes chronic intestinal inflammation, leading to pain, bleeding and diarrhoea. Researchers are working with biotechnology company, Provexis, to test a new plantain based food product that could treat patients with the disease. Scientists have previously shown that people with Crohn’s disease have increased numbers of a ’sticky’ type of E. coli and weakened ability to fight off invading intestinal bacteria. The team investigated whether dietary agents could influence E. coli entering the lining of the gut. Read article
PressTV – Children of third world countries and nations in transition have become ‘laboratory rats’ for the US’ clinical tests for new drugs, an Indian newspaper says. Under US’ 1997 legislation called the Pediatric Exclusivity Provision, intended to speed up development of new drugs for American kids, the trials were carried out in countries such as Uganda and India, The Times of India reported. Read article
Reuters – An major trial of Avandia puts patients at risk and should be stopped, a U.S. advocacy group said on Tuesday, calling on regulators to immediately halt the global study of the controversial GlaxoSmithKline Plc diabetes drug. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked the company in 2007 to conduct the trial to compare the drug’s long-term heart effects with those of rival Actos by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd after other evidence suggested Avandia increased the risk of heart attack and chest pain. Since then, even more data have linked Glaxo’s drug to greater heart risks… Read article
Related article: Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data on Risks, Files Indicate
Med News – Global vaccine sales “grew by a healthy 16 percent last year, when sales shot up to $22.1 billion, healthcare market research publisher Kalorama Information reported Friday,” according to the Associated Press. Kalorama is also forecasting sales “will rise at a compound annual rate of 9.7 percent during the next five years,” (Johnson, 8/14).
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WebMD Health News — An FDA advisory panel today [24th August] overwhelmingly rejected the application of Jazz Pharmaceuticals for the approval sodium oxybate (Xyrem) for the treatment of fibromyalgia. The drug is chemically similar to GHB, widely considered a date-rape drug. Approving it for such a large patient population — 5 million people are estimated to suffer from fibromyalgia — would risk flooding the streets with a pharmaceutical-grade version of the highly controlled substance. Read article
Reuters – Tests for a blood-pressure regulating hormone called renin may help doctors decide which blood pressure drugs their patients should take, researchers said on Wednesday. They said a mismatch between drugs and patient characteristics may help explain why many people do not benefit from blood pressure drugs, and testing for renin levels may help. Read article
AFP — The World Health Organisation on Friday called on health authorities around the globe to monitor a multi-drug resistant superbug that surfaced in South Asia and spread to Britain. The WHO said research published in The Lancet medical journal on August 11 identified a new gene that enables some types of bacteria to be highly resistant to almost all antibiotics. “While multi-drug resistant bacteria are not new and will continue to appear, this development requires monitoring and further study to understand the extent and modes of transmission, and to define the most effective measures for control,” it added in a statement. Read article
Related article: New ’superbug’ found in UK hospitals
The Guardian – Doctors today voiced unease over the high cost of a new drug treatment for stomach cancer, which can prolong lives by a few weeks but will be unaffordable in some of the countries where the trials took place. In the Lancet, they also question the extent to which the marketing interests of wealthy pharmaceutical companies dominate the direction of medical research. The drug is Herceptin [trastuzumab], which is licensed for early breast cancer. The manufacturer Roche ran complex and expensive trials in 24 countries across four continents to show that it also improves survival in advanced stomach cancer. Read article
Related article: Novel Drug Combo Improves Breast Cancer Survival
PhysOrg.com – A drug to treat inflammation plays a surprising role reducing the level of infection caused by an opportunistic bug that is deadly for AIDS and cancer patients and others with weakened immune systems. The drug, sulfasalazine, spurs the body to get rid of the fungal evaders by enhancing the body’s ability to chew them up instead of leaving the debris to litter the lungs, where it would continue to provoke an onslaught of harmful inflammation. Read article
ScienceDaily — Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge so that customers can neutralise the heart disease dangers of fatty food, researchers at Imperial College London suggest in a new study. Statins reduce the amount of unhealthy “LDL” cholesterol in the blood. Read article
Related articles: Five out of six new prescription drugs don’t work, doctor claims; Health warning over statin taken by millions; Statins: The side effects ‘are worse than feared’
Daily Telegraph – We all want to believe that for every ailment, there is a magic cure; for every illness, a pill or potion. This applies just as much to doctors as to patients: it’s easy to think that we can offer a panacea for every condition we are presented with in our consulting room, and that as modern medicine strides forward, the remedies we can offer will only get better. However, according to a paper presented to the American Sociological Association this week, we might have to think again. Read article
Daily Telegraph – Large firms hyped-up patented medicines, spent vast amounts on getting doctors to prescribe them and underplayed serious side effects, said Prof Donald Light, a sociologist and professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, US. When the “toxic side effects” of prescription drugs were taken into account, and their misuse, he claimed they were “a signficant cause of death”. Read article
