Healthcare reform isn’t just about the public option and paying for doctor’s visits — it’s also about equal, affordable access to life-saving medications for all Americans. That’s why many Big Pharma watchdogs are so disappointed with a recent amendment slipped into healthcare legislation that proposes extending patent protection on biologic drugs, delaying for years the [...]

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Some people have very sparse eyelashes, and this can cause functional problems with the eye as well as anxiety about one’s appearance. Fortunately for people suffering from ” eyelash hypotrichosis,” a brand-new treatment was approved by the FDA in December 2008. The product is called Latisse, it has sultry-eyed Brooke Shields as a spokesmodel, and [...]

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Long-term sufferers of insomnia who have not found lasting relief from such sleep aids as Ambien or Sonata should consider researching Rozerem, the only medication of its type approved in the treatment of sleeplessness.
Rozerem (ramelteon) is the first of a new class of insomnia drugs: melatonin receptor agonists. These are similar to the naturally-produced sleep [...]

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Sometime back, Effect Measure posed a question many of us have pondered about direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical commercials: What’s with the side-by-side bath tubs in the Cialis ads?
Here are some of the answers given in comments –

“Cialis really gets your pipes flowing or plumbing flowing…”
“Bathtubs — because you can’t show naked, mutually aroused adults on the [...]

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I read the following disturbing Q&A in Joe and Teresa Graedon’s People’s Pharmacy column this morning:
Q: I once worked for a pharmaceutical company that ordered a raw ingredient, diphen-hydramine, from China. I was a quality-assurance inspector and had to inspect incoming material.
That ingredient was trashy, with what looked like a lot of floor sweepings and [...]

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When the topic of Americans buying drugs from Canadian pharmacies comes up, one company whose name is rarely mentioned is Google. That’s odd to me, since (1) Google is such a news magnet, and (2) without Google, far fewer Americans would be buying their prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies.
Big Pharma despises Google for [...]

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Despite celebrity endorsements courtesy of Photoshop (above), and a real endorsement by eDrugSearch.com and others, Pfizer whistleblower Dr. Peter Rost came up short in his bid to become the next FDA commissioner. President Obama on Saturday announced the selection of Dr. Margaret Hamburg for the top food and drug post.
We knew Peter was a longshot [...]

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The Day of New London, Conn., has a nice article on Dr. Peter Rost’s bid for FDA commissioner. Here’s an excerpt referencing our interview with Peter:

If Pfizer Inc. were to describe its worst nightmare, it might very well be seeing former company whistleblower Peter Rost become commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
So [...]

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It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog that we are delighted about the prospect of a new FDA commissioner in 2009 — one who we hope will put the interests of the people above those of large pharmaceutical companies.
We have also been pleasantly surprised to see the groundswell of [...]

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An Associated Press analysis last week concluded that millions of Americans are being prescribed drugs — including those covered under Medicaid — that have never been reviewed by the FDA for safety and effectiveness. The FDA admits there may be thousands of such drugs on the market. Reports the AP:
“At a time when families, [...]

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