Memory Loss Associated With Alzheimer’s May Be Preventable And Reversible

The Cancer Moonshot initiative is an admirable cause, but won’t affect the majority of cancer patients, who live in developing countries.

DEA Argues That Public Comment Is Unnecessary Before Kratom Ban
Since this ruling will not take effect until September 30, 2016, one would think that the agency would implement a public and scientific comment period and field the concerns of those who were blindsided by the announcement.

Be Cautious Buying Drugs For Your Pet Online
Although some veterinary prescription drugs may appear less expensive when purchased online, FDA wants you to know how to be sure your getting the best quality for your four-legged loved ones.

DA Who Said Vaccines Cause Autism Has More To Say And He Is Still Wrong
He has yet to say anything right about vaccines.

Mediterranean Diet May Help Prevent Death After Heart Disease
For people with a history of cardiovascular disease, could changing the diet be the best medicine?

The Insurance Rip-Off At The Heart Of The EpiPen Scandal
Heres another rip-off about EpiPen that nobody’s talking about: there is a free market around drug prices, and many patients are being excluded from it.

Pot User’s Guide To Immigrating To The United States
A new article just published reported that the DEA is looking for candidates to grow marijuana for research but it seems there are few takers. That is probably because marijuana is still a prohibited drug as far as the federal government is concerned. Despite that fact, at the state level the use of marijuana has grown rapidly. Four states: Alaska, Washington, Colorado and Oregon (as well as the District of Columbia) have legalized pot for recreational use, while an additional twenty-five states have adopted laws legalizing marijuana in some other ways. In fact marijuana use  is so widespread in the United States now that there is even a Yelp app for finding the best stores selling pot.

World’s 25 Biggest Drugs & Biotech Companies In 2016

Novartis Dissolves CAR-T Unit, Cutting 120 Positions
Novartis is shutting down the business unit it created to develop white blood cells that can attack certain types of cancer, but continuing to develop such projects known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cells, or CAR-Ts.

Do You Overeat? Blame Childhood Stress
Lots of us eat when we are stressed. But did you know that even when we are not currently under stress, the amount of food we eat might be influenced by the stress we experienced as children? That’s the conclusion Sarah Hill, a psychologist at TCU, wants us to draw from several studies she ran with colleagues from the Universities of Arizona and Minnesota. In the research, Hill brought college students into her lab and left them in front of snack food while they were taking a break between two parts of a research study. She then looked at how much food people ate during this break, as a function of whether they experienced significant financial stress as a child – e.g. whether they reported “having enough money for things growing up.” Hill also asked people how long it had been since they ate and whether they were hungry. She found that among people with more privileged backgrounds, the amount of food they ate depended largely on how hungry they were. On the other hand, for those from less lofty socioeconomic backgrounds, they ate the same amount of food regardless of their hunger, a.k.a. their “energy needs:”

New Opioid Compound Isn’t Addictive, Researchers Say
One problem with opioid analgesics is a patient can become addicted to them long after the underlying pain has been alleviated. Using non-addictive painkillers may be one of the ways to hinder the country’s opioid epidemic.

Billions Of Dollars Of Vaccines Have Gone To Waste
Improving vaccine supply chains could save costs and many lives as well as prevent much suffering.

A Fresh Start in Seattle: Excerpt from “Hood”
Seattle in the early 1990s wasn’t a world-class city in anyone’s book. It bore little resemblance to Los Angeles, the hip and sunny metropolis where Hood had lived most of his adult life. Its culture and history had more in common with Montana, the place where he grew up.

Dear Ben & Jerry’s, Why Is There Seaweed In My Ice Cream?
There’s an odd food additive in the most delicious of desserts — why is it there and should we be concerned?

PBMs Quietly Gain Leverage As Drug Makers Stumble On Price Hikes
Pharmacy benefit managers have created “mega buying groups” In the past four years to combat high drug prices, a new Fitch report says.

Selena Gomez Takes Break From Her Career Because Of Lupus
Last year, Selena Gomez revealed that she has lupus. Now the 24-year old actress and singer is going to take a break from her career to deal with the disease. What exactly is lupus?

Flu Season Isn’t Expected To Begin For At Least A Month, So Is It Too Soon To Get Immunized?
It’s nearly 90 degrees here in D.C. The swimming pools are still open, and–for a few days, at least–it’s still fashionably correct to wear white pants and shoes. So why in the world is Tina Fey urging me to get a flu shot ASAP?

8 Otherworldly Photos of Earth

World’s 25 Biggest Drugs & Biotech Companies In 2016

States With The Most Drug Overdose Deaths

Did Mylan Just Use This One Weird Trick With Their EpiPen?
How does a $300 generic change consumer costs when the brand EpiPen was $300 with Mylan’s coupon?

EpiPen Prices Defied Gravity, Despite Competition
Here’s another rip-off about EpiPen that nobody’s talking about: that there is a free market around drug prices, and many patients are being excluded from it.

DEA To Place Kratom, Mitragynine On Schedule I: Premature Move May Compromise Research, Benefits
With the federal intent to place the herb and its bioactive constituents on Schedule I, the DEA is ignoring the increasing scientific literature on a potential beneficial medical use of the plant. Schedule I classification, used for drugs with no known medical use and high abuse potential, will certainly make subsequent research on the plant more difficult.

Drug Development Is Lagging For The World’s Leading Killer
The number of cardiovascular drugs in the global pipeline across all phases of development has declined in the past 20 years.

Texas DA’s “Politically Incorrect Opinion” On Autism And Vaccines Isn’t Scientifically Correct
“I’m Nico LaHood. I’m the criminal district attorney in San Antonio, Texas. I’m here to tell you that vaccine cannot and do not cause autism.”

KaloBios, Post-Shkreli, Vows ‘Maniacal’ Focus On R&D And Transparency
Can KaloBios recover from the controversy created by former CEO Martin Shkreli? Its new management team is doing everything it can to move forward.

Advice On E-Cigarettes Varies From Doctor To Doctor, Study Suggests
If you’re still unsure of how e-cigarettes affect users, you’re not alone.

Homosexual Termites Kill The King To Mate With Females
Male termites form couples until they conquer another colony, solving a paradox of evolution.

Doctors Who Are Parents Often Get The Worst Of Both Worlds
How do you deal with pregnancy during medical education in the US? This question was originally answered on Quora by Amy Chai.

Guess Who’s The Only Candidate With A Mental Health Agenda?
Of course, it’s Clinton. And of course, it’s wonkish.

The Steve Jobs Of Drawing Blood
The concept from a company called Velano Vascular repurposes the IV most hospital patients already have in their arms so blood can be drawn without having their veins repeatedly stuck by needles.

World’s 25 Biggest Drugs & Biotech Companies In 2016

Hospital CEOs Behaving Badly & The Devastating Consequences On The Middle Class
When big health insurers propose mergers, it makes for good antitrust enforcement theater to try to block their mergers. However, if government officials want to address anti-competitive activities that have a dramatically bigger impact, they should shift their focus to local market provider M&A activity that consistently show prices increase after the deal is done. However, the most rapacious, anti-competitive practices I’ve seen in my entire career have come from hospitals — frequently from tax-exempt “non-profits” that would make John D. Rockefeller blush with their brutal actions. The combined impact has created a middle class economic depression that has driven populist presidential campaign success which was highlighted in a recently released Brookings Study

Electronic Health Records Don’t Exist, I Have A Patient Library
We have heard about this integration of technology and services that would let data flow seamlessly, so that communication between doctors, patients, insurance companies, pharmacies and the workplace would be unhindered. When first introduced, there was a big push for Return on Investment (ROI), but no one seems to mention this now. In fact, there is just dissatisfaction with the existing software. In my opinion, no one offers a truly comprehensive integration to genuinely improve patient care. And for patients, I still see the problems that existed since I started practicing in the 1980s.

The Best- And Worst-Vaccinated States

As More Parents Refuse Vaccines, More Doctors Dismiss Them — With AAP’s Blessing
More parents believe vaccines are unnecessary when they decide to refuse them.

Walgreens Partners With Blue Cross-Owned PBM Prime Therapeutics
Walgreens Boots Alliance has formed a long-term “strategic alliance” with Prime Therapeutics, the pharmacy benefit manager owned by 14 Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans and 22 million members.

A Few Things To Consider Before Buying The Latest Online Insomnia Cure
Online therapy for insomnia is grabbing headlines, but can it really deliver on what it promises?

How Tech Entrepreneurs, Big And Small, Are Helping Solve The Problem Of Organ Donation
Apple is the latest to get into the game. The giant’s entry shows how technology can help bring donors and patients together.

Calculating The Value Of An EpiPen
A timely test case for the math behind “value-based pricing”

Competing for the Big Prize: Excerpt from “Hood”
How does the immune system work? How does it distinguish between friend and foe—the foreign structures worthy of attack, and the healthy tissues to leave alone? What makes the immune system go haywire and start attacking healthy nerve tissue, causing autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis? How does the immune system retain a “memory” to recognize and attack invaders years after an initial exposure?

Innovators vs Exploiters: Drug Pricing And The Future Of Pharma
Pharmaceutical pricing got thrown onto the front page again last week, causing the expected anaphylactic reactions among politicians, practitioners, and parents. The root of this crisis: Epipen’s 600% price increase over the past eight years. The biannual upticks underlying that number finally caused a blowback as back-to-school buyers were faced with big out of pocket expenses this year that their insurers passed onto them.

Smallpox Could Return Years After Eradication
The recent passing of D.A. Henderson reminds us of how bad smallpox was. Here’s how global warming could bring smallpox back in full force.

Trying To Figure Out Whether The Benefits Of Chemo For Early-Stage Breast Cancer Outweigh Its Harms
Many women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer receive chemotherapy to prevent a recurrence, but research suggests that some of them would have done fine without it.

Tom Brady Gets Cut: How Can Others Avoid The Same Fate?
How often does this happen and what happens next?