News tagged with 'Defective Drugs'

Gardasil has not been the blockbuster that Merck needed after the Vioxx settlement and other bad news for the company. A label expansion is not predicted to change that. Now the immigration service will require the HPV vaccine before any young female is granted permanent legal resident status to the U.S. 

Genentech is revising the label on its drug Rituxan after a woman who was treated with it died from a rare brain infection known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A federal district court judge granted a motion to unseal hundreds of confidential documents about Zyprexa, Eli Lilly’s popular antipsychotic drug. The decision came as part of another ruling granting class-action status to a case brought by pension funds, labor unions and insurance companies that want Eli Lilly to reimburse them for millions of dollars overspent on Zyprexa.

The FDA will now post quarterly reports of adverse drug reports coming in that the agency is looking into. Cymbalta is one of the drugs, along with revlimid, tysabri and 17 others that appear on the first quarterly report for the year. 

When Merck & Co launched the Advantage study in 1999, it said it was testing the painkiller, Vioxx, alongside its competitor.  Internal company documents now show that the clinical trial was "masquarading as science" and was actually a marketing ploy designed to promote the use of Vioxx among doctors pre-market. Merck denies the allegations in this published study.

You may not know anything about Diana Levine or federal preemption, but her case could impact millions of Americans who take prescription drugs or use FDA-approved medical devices.  Should the FDA be the final word? Should you lose your right to hold corporations accountable? 

In an ongoing investigation that started in November 2004, The Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) has made 68 arrests and 29 convictions of individuals who have deliberately used unapproved, cheaper injections as a substitute for FDA-approved Botox Cosmetic.

For years Parkinson's patients taking the drug Mirapex have noticed they developed compulsive behaviors such as gambling, eating, shopping, porn. Hundreds of lawsuits are on tap in Minnesota District Court, and the first one has been decided in favor of the plaintiff - $8.2 million.

Under a proposal by the governor of Illinois, children with insurance, would have to be covered for the treatment of autism up to $36,000 a year, helping families already devastated by a diagnosis of the mind altering disease.

Naming drugs is a very profitable business. If the right sound and image can be evoked in a name- the sky's the limit in sales. But consumers should be aware that the art and science of naming products such as "Frutopia" are being used to get you to feel good about your prescription drugs. 

The CEO of a Corpus Christi hospital is apologizing for a medication error that may have caused the death of an infant. Another is in critical condition. Meanwhile, caps on damages in Texas mean that many medical malpractice lawsuits will never be filed.

A new low in human behavior is observed in this surveillance videotaped death of a woman in a Brooklyn, N.Y. psychiatric hospital. No one comes to help. While the hospital is instituting changes, how many among us are capable of showing indifference?

The fast-track for Merck's Gardasil slowed a bit today when the FDA denied the drug maker's application to market the drug to older women ages 27 to 45. The FDA says there are "issues" yet to be resolved.

The Justice Department wants to know when GlaxoSmithKline knew about a possible link between Paxil, the antidepressant, and suicidal tendencies. Senator Charles Grassley says GSK "bamboozled" the FDA.

An FDA advisory panel will meet Wednesday to consider the mounting adverse reports on Enbrel and other TNF blockers, used for psoriasis. Drug manufacturers would like to expand the recommendations to include children, but what's concerning is the number of cancer cases reported.