Unsafe Drugs & Medical Devices

August 8th, 2012

Do you remember Vioxx, the anti-inflammatory drug recalled and later withdrawn because it was linked with elevated risk of heart attack or Fen-phen, the weight loss drug that was found to cause potentially fatal pulmonary hypertension? These medications were once approved by the Food and …

July 25th, 2012

When we think of robots easing burdens for humans, we may think of Rosie from The Jetsonsor the droids from Star Wars. But robots are already helping us with surgeries in real life. The robotics firm Intuitive Surgical has rolled out a product called the …

July 3rd, 2012

The Guttmacher Institute (a non-partisan reproductive health think tank) conducted a survey from 2006 — 2010 in an attempt to determine how many American women have used birth control at some point in their lives. Birth control advocates trumpeted their findings throughout the media: 99 percent …

June 27th, 2012

In recent months, this blog has covered issues related to birth defects, specifically those that fall under the umbrella of neural tube defects (or NTDs) like spina bifida, anencephaly and encephaloceles, some of which are linked to a lack of b-vitamin folic acid or use …

June 13th, 2012

Some medical errors are more avoidable than others, and some of the most avoidable must be prescriptions. To clarify, the issue is not the drugs themselves, but the slips of paper on which a doctor writes drug information to be decoded later by pharmacists. Many …

May 23rd, 2012

The disease of shingles is a reactivation of the varicella zoster (chicken pox) virus. It is in the herpes family. The herpes diseases like chicken pox remain latent or hidden in certain nerve roots in the spinal cord. With shingles, there is a reactivation of …

April 18th, 2012

Have you ever wondered how well pharmacies are able to detect and protect against drug interactions between the various prescriptions you may be taking? Many pharmacies use computer software designed to search for possible drug interactions between the medications prescribed for you by your various …

April 11th, 2012

Depakote (a pharmaceutical name for valproate semisodium) has been prescribed as a mood stabilizer since the late 1970s, particularly for sufferers of epilepsy. Today, the medication is mostly used to treat bipolar disorder (manic depression) and migraine headaches. It has proven to be incredibly effective …

September 3rd, 0214

On the topic of birth control, this blog has focused much of its attention on the NuvaRing, whose links to deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and death (among other side effects) resulted in a $100 million settlement spread over 700 plaintiffs. Were every patient to …