A majority of the Supreme Court seemed inclined on Tuesday to reject a bid to sharply limit access to abortion pills. During about 90 minutes of argument, most of the justices seemed doubtful that the plaintiffs, who do not prescribe abortion pills or regularly treat abortion patients, even had standing to bring the challenge. The […]
Read MoreTag: Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Abortion Pill Mifepristone
The Supreme Court is expected on Tuesday to weigh the availability of a commonly used abortion pill, raising the possibility that it could sharply curtail access to the drug — even in states where abortion access remains legal. The case means that abortion is once again before the court, less than two years after a […]
Read MoreThe Psychedelic Evangelist
Before he died last year, Roland Griffiths was arguably the world’s most famous psychedelics researcher. Since 2006, his work has suggested that psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, can induce mystical experiences, and that those experiences, in turn, can help treat anxiety, depression, addiction and the terror of death. Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues at Johns […]
Read MoreCentene Health Care Fraud Case: How Private Lawyers Profited
In 2018, when Mike DeWine was Ohio’s attorney general, he began investigating an obscure corner of the health care industry. He believed that insurers were inflating prescription drug prices through management companies that operated as middlemen in the drug supply chain. There were concerns that these companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, were […]
Read MoreOregon Decriminalized Drugs. Voters Now Regret It.
Fact-checking by Susan Lee. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle […]
Read MoreWith Cyberattack Fix Weeks Away, Health Providers Slam United
More than two weeks after a cyberattack, financially strapped doctors, hospitals and medical providers on Friday sharply criticized UnitedHealth Group’s latest estimate that it would take weeks longer to fully restore a digital network that funnels hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance payments every day. UnitedHealth said that it would be at least two […]
Read MoreA.L.S. Drug Relyvrio Fails Clinical Trial and May Be Withdrawn From the Market
One of the few treatments the Food and Drug Administration has approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has failed a large clinical trial, and its manufacturer said Friday that it was considering whether to withdraw it from the market. The medication, called Relyvrio, was approved less than two years ago, despite questions about its effectiveness in […]
Read MoreF.D.A. Delays Action on Closely Watched Alzheimer’s Drug
The Food and Drug Administration has decided to delay action on a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug, donanemab, which the agency was widely expected to approve this month. The F.D.A. will instead require donanemab to undergo the scrutiny of a panel of independent experts, the drug’s maker, Eli Lilly and Company, said Friday. “The F.D.A. has […]
Read MoreCyberattack Paralyzes the Largest US Health Care Payment System
An urgent care chain in Ohio may be forced to stop paying rent and other bills to cover salaries. In Florida, a cancer center is racing to find money for chemotherapy drugs to avoid delaying critical treatments for its patients. And in Pennsylvania, a primary care doctor is slashing expenses and pooling all of her […]
Read MorePowerful Psychedelic Drug Gains New Notice as an Opioid Addiction Therapy
Ibogaine, a formidable hallucinogen made from the root of a shrub native to Central Africa, is not for the timid. It unleashes a harrowing psychedelic trip that can last more than 24 hours, and the drug can cause sudden cardiac arrest and death. But scientists who have studied ibogaine have reported startling findings. According to […]
Read MoreWhat to Know About Ibogaine, a Psychedelic
What is ibogaine? A naturally occurring psychoactive compound, ibogaine comes from the iboga tree, a rainforest shrub native to Central Africa. The drug comes from the bark of the root, which is crushed and consumed as a powder or given in an extracted form. Iboga has long been used for medicinal and ritual purposes in […]
Read MoreFirst U.S. Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pill Will Be Available Soon
Why It Matters The medication, called Opill, which was approved for over-the-counter sale by the Food and Drug Administration last year, will be the most effective birth control method available without a prescription, research shows — more effective than condoms, spermicides and other nonprescription methods. Reproductive health experts said that its availability could be especially […]
Read MoreOzempic May Blow the Federal Budget
The U.S. health care system has struggled for decades with the tension between providing incentives for pharmaceutical innovation and keeping breakthroughs affordable for those who would most benefit from them. Even as countries around the world have stepped in to require lower priced drugs for their citizens, the United States has been reticent to do […]
Read MoreCVS Fined $1.5 Million by Ohio Over Staffing Issues
CVS Health, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain with more than 9,000 locations, has been fined more than $1.5 million by Ohio regulators over problems connected to understaffing and patient safety, officials said. The fines are part of a settlement of 27 cases involving various safety concerns that were uncovered during a series of inspections of […]
Read MoreWhat to Know About Xolair and Food Allergies
The Food and Drug Administration approved a drug this month that cuts the risk of severe reactions in children and adults exposed to trace amounts of peanuts, tree nuts, milk, dairy and other food allergens — a move that could dramatically improve quality of life for people coping with these risks. The results of the […]
Read MoreDrug Drastically Reduces Children’s Reactions to Traces of Food Allergens
A drug that has been used for decades to treat allergic asthma and hives significantly reduced the risk of life-threatening reactions in children with severe food allergies who were exposed to trace amounts of peanuts, cashews, milk and eggs, researchers reported on Sunday. The drug, Xolair, has already been approved by the Food and Drug […]
Read MoreDrug Drastically Reduces Children’s Reactions to Traces of Food Allergens
A drug that has been used for decades to treat allergic asthma and hives significantly reduced the risk of life-threatening reactions in children with severe food allergies who were exposed to trace amounts of peanuts, cashews, milk and eggs, researchers reported on Sunday. The drug, Xolair, has already been approved by the Food and Drug […]
Read MoreGene Therapies Could Transform Rare Diseases. Are We Holding Them Back?
On Jan. 8, 2020, as I was parking my car, I got a long-awaited phone call from one of my son’s doctors. She informed me that our 7-month-old son, Eliot, had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a fatal neuromuscular disease. I can still remember the way the Los Angeles winter sunlight hit the dashboard. I can see […]
Read MoreMore Young People Are on Multiple Psychiatric Drugs, Study Finds
The News Growing numbers of children and adolescents are being prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs to take simultaneously, according to a new study in the state of Maryland. The phenomenon is increasing despite warnings that psychotropic drug combinations in young people have not been tested for safety or studied for their impact on the developing brain. […]
Read MoreUS Agencies Start Inquiry Into Generic Drug Shortages
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services said on Wednesday that they would examine the causes of generic drug shortages and the practices of “powerful middlemen” that are involved in the supply chain. The federal agencies’ inquiry is aimed at the group purchasing organizations and drug distributors that have been […]
Read More6 Reasons That It’s Hard to Get Your Wegovy and Other Weight-Loss Prescriptions
Talk to people who have tried to get one of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs, like Wegovy, and they’ll probably have a story about the hoops they had to jump through to get their medication — if they could get it at all. Emily Weaver, a nurse practitioner in Cary, N.C., said she told her […]
Read MoreU.S. Makes Initial Offers in Medicare Drug Price Negotiations
Why It Matters: The price offers kick off negotiations. The medicines selected for negotiations are taken by millions of Americans to treat conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The administration identified them in August, beginning a lengthy process intended to result in an agreed-upon price that would take effect in 2026, assuming the negotiation […]
Read MoreBiogen Abandons Its Controversial Alzheimer’s Drug Aduhelm
The drug maker Biogen said on Wednesday it would abandon its ownership rights to Aduhelm, an Alzheimer’s drug that had provoked fierce criticism of the company and regulators after it was approved based on weak evidence that it would help patients. The company will also stop a clinical trial that the Food and Drug Administration […]
Read MoreBuried in Wegovy Costs, North Carolina Will Stop Paying for Obesity Drugs
In June 2021, the insurance plan for North Carolina state employees was paying for 2,800 people to take weight-loss drugs. Last year, it paid for nearly 25,000. Medications like Wegovy cost the North Carolina State Health Plan $100 million last year, rising seemingly out of nowhere to represent 10 percent of its spending on prescription […]
Read MoreSix Reasons Drug Prices Are So High in the U.S.
Florida’s plan to save money by importing medications from Canada, authorized this month by the Food and Drug Administration, has renewed attention on the cost of prescription drugs in the United States. Research has consistently found that drug prices in America are significantly higher than those in other wealthy countries. In 2018, they were nearly […]
Read MoreFederal Scientists Recommend Easing Restrictions on Marijuana
Marijuana is neither as risky nor as prone to abuse as other tightly controlled substances and has potential medical benefits, and therefore should be removed from the nation’s most restrictive category of drugs, federal scientists have concluded. The recommendations are contained in a 250-page scientific review provided to Matthew Zorn, a Texas lawyer who sued […]
Read MoreWhy Casey Left Substack, Elon Musk and Drugs, and an A.I. Antibiotic Discovery
Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube Casey is taking his newsletter Platformer off Substack, as criticism over the company’s handling of pro-Nazi content grows. Then, The Wall Street Journal spoke with witnesses who said that Elon Musk had used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, worrying some directors and board […]
Read MoreThe Billionaires Spending a Fortune to Lure Scientists Away From Universities
In an unmarked laboratory stationed between the campuses of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a splinter group of scientists is hunting for the next billion-dollar drug. The group, bankrolled with $500 million from some of the wealthiest families in American business, has created a stir in the world of academia by dangling seven-figure […]
Read MoreAn Ultrasound Experiment Tackles a Giant Problem in Brain Medicine
There is a problem with the recently approved Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm. It can remove some of the amyloid that forms brain plaques that are hallmarks of the disease. But most of the drug is wasted because it hits an obstacle, the blood-brain barrier, that protects the brain from toxins and infections but also prevents many […]
Read MoreF.D.A. Warned of Mental Side Effects from Asthma Drug, Singulair. Few Were Told.
In early 2020, the Food and Drug Administration responded to decades of escalating concerns about a commonly prescribed drug for asthma and allergies by deploying one of its most potent tools: a stark warning on the drug’s label that it could cause aggression, agitation and even suicidal thoughts. The agency’s label, which was primarily aimed […]
Read MoreEli Lilly, Maker of Mounjaro and Zepbound, Wades Into Telehealth
The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly wants to make it easier for patients to get its buzzy new weight loss drug, Zepbound, delivered to their door. This week, the company launched a new platform called LillyDirect, which connects people with an independent telehealth company that prescribes obesity medications, as well as third-party services that can fill […]
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