Category Archives: Medicine

‘Nonsensical’ Limits on Supportive Drugs Complicate Cancer Care

Posted on 01/04/2025 by alicia

November 13, 2024 A young woman with breast cancer was experiencing such intense hot flashes from her triplet chemotherapy regimen, AC-T, that she begged to stop treatment. Her oncologist, Ramy Sedhom, MD, suggested she take oxybutynin, an inexpensive drug for overactive … Continue reading →

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Anthem Reverses Course on Anesthesia Time Limits

Posted on 01/04/2025 by alicia

December 6, 2024 The nation’s second-largest health insurer, Anthem, has rescinded a controversial policy to pay for anesthesia only up to a certain time limit that sparked outrage among anesthesiology professionals and state officials. The company announced November 1 it would deny claims for … Continue reading →

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Gun Violence Researchers Are Making Up for 20 Years of Lost Time

Posted on 01/04/2025 by alicia

August 4, 2021 Depending on who you ask, the end of a 2-decade dry spell in federal funding for gun violence research is a windfall or a pittance. Either way, experts in the field say that renewed funding is especially … Continue reading →

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US Supreme Court unlikely to approve assisted suicide

Posted on 01/04/2025 by alicia

January 18, 1997 Should physicians be allowed to give terminally ill patients lethal doses of medication? This question, more frequently on the minds of people in the US thanks to Jack Kevorkian, came before the Supreme Court on Jan 8. … Continue reading →

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Psychologists and Psychotropic Prescribing: An Old Debate Heats Up

Posted on 01/04/2025 by alicia

December 13, 2024 Earlier this year, Utah became the seventh state to allow psychologists with the proper training to prescribe psychotropic medications, giving supporters reason to hope that more states might support expanding this scope of practice. However, the American … Continue reading →

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Should the FDA Reconsider Antidepressant Boxed Warnings?

Posted on 01/04/2025 by alicia

December 23, 2024 For almost two decades, antidepressants have carried boxed warnings linking the medications to an increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in young people. Paradoxically, and for almost as long, evidence suggests these warnings may have led … Continue reading →

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Cancer Moonshot Effort Unveils Dozens of Initiatives to Speed Research

Posted on 06/29/2016 by alicia

WASHINGTON, DC — US federal officials have unveiled a dozen new initiatives designed to accelerate cancer research, speed new therapies to patients, foster data sharing, and simplify participation in clinical trials, all part of the formal liftoff of the Cancer … Continue reading →

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To Screen, or Not to Screen

Posted on 12/04/2007 by alicia

You walk into the room, but you can’t remember why. You’ve forgotten where you left your keys. Lapses like that seem to be happening more often. The beginnings of Alzheimer’s disease? Maybe, maybe not. Continue reading →

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Equal Coverage For Mental Health?

Posted on 11/06/2007 by alicia

Q Why are my mental health benefits less generous than those that my insurance policy provides for other conditions?

A When mental health coverage was first added to benefits packages a few decades ago, there was still a persistent belief that a condition like depression was not as real as heart disease or cancer. There also were few medications or other therapies that offered significant improvement. Many employers did not offer rich coverage because they assumed the government would eventually pay for treatment of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disease. Continue reading →

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Ventures with Venoms

Posted on 10/11/2004 by alicia

Combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening have been the rage in drug discovery since the late 1990s, but plant and animal sources still hold promise. In particular, venoms have proven to be rich areas for exploitation. Drugs derived from snakes, vampire … Continue reading →

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Shifting Tactics in the Battle Against Influenza

Posted on 02/27/2004 by alicia

When U.S. Food and Drug Administration experts met to pick viral targets for the next flu season, they also discussed a promising new way to create vaccines. Read more…

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Museum of the Medical Macabre Edges Into the Mainstream

Posted on 08/06/2002 by admin

Over its 140 years, the National Museum of Health and Medicine has been a destination for amateur Civil War historians, medical researchers and tourists with a penchant for the macabre. The museum, on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, still has plenty to satisfy the prurient, but over the last five years it has put away more of its gruesome artifacts and edged further into the museum mainstream. “We have moved with the times, so we have a more contextual approach,”said Dr. Jim Connor, assistant director for collections. Continue reading →

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