Category: FDA Questions Benefit of Amgen Bone Drug in Certain Cases

MEwens
The Food and Drug Administration questioned the clinical benefit of using Amgen’s bone drug Xgeva to prevent or delay the spread of prostate cancer to the bones.
Xgeva is currently approved to delay fractures and other bone injuries in patients whose cancers have already spread to the bones.
The company is seeking approval for use […]

MEwens
Social Media and Funding Brouhaha: Social media helped galvanize supporters of Planned Parenthood last week after Susan G. Komen for the Cure said it would cut off funding for the women’s health nonprofit — and then reversed its stance, the WSJ reports. According to social-media monitor NetBase Solutions, Komen-related chatter rose 80% from […]

MEwens
The overall economy added 243,000 jobs last month — with the health-care sector continuing to show strength — while the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%.
As the WSJ reports, that’s the lowest the jobless rate has been since Feb. 2009. (Here’s the full report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
The health-care industry added 30,900 […]

MEwens
A Komen fundraising race from the fall.
It hasn’t been a great week for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the breast-cancer advocacy group known for its pink-ribbon fundraising efforts.
Today the group reversed a decision — made public only Tuesday — to end Planned Parenthood’s eligibility for grants. Critics had said Komen planned to […]

MEwens
Medical Device Price Gap: A report from the Government Accountability Office finds that some hospitals pay thousands of dollars more than others for the very same medical device, the WSJ reports. The higher prices could affect Medicare spending, since payments to hospitals are in part based on the institutions’ costs, the paper says.
New […]

MEwens
There are many mysteries when it comes to understanding Alzheimer’s disease, with one of the biggest questions centering on how the memory-robbing disease progresses.
Decades ago, researchers discovered that the damage starts in the same part of the brain in all patients and systematically moves on to affect nearby regions. It wasn’t clear, however, why this progression […]

MEwens
Tobacco, alcohol … and sugar?
A new commentary published in Nature argues that just as the first two substances are regulated in various ways by government authorities, so should be sugar. While acknowledging that food, unlike alcohol and tobacco, is required for survival, the authors say taxes, zoning ordinances and even age limits for […]

MEwens
By Louise Radnofsky
The Obama administration is touting good news for seniors from the health-care overhaul law, pointing to $2.1 billion in discounts on prescription drugs for 3.6 million older consumers in 2011.
Part of the law was intended to fill the gap in prescription-drug coverage, the so-called doughnut hole, when Medicare beneficiaries have to […]

MEwens
Some of Komen’s funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates went towards referrals for mammograms.
The controversy over the defunding of Planned Parenthood affiliates by breast-cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure is showing no signs of cooling off.
A spokeswoman for Komen, Leslie Aun, told the Associated Press — which broke the story Tuesday — […]

MEwens
Birth-Control Recall: Pfizer has recalled about a million packs of birth-control pills on concerns that incorrect packaging could lead to unplanned pregnancies, but says it believes only 30 packs actually had the troublesome glitches, the WSJ reports. Pfizer has identified three production problems that could permit pills to be placed incorrectly in the […]