http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Once famously described as "orphan diseases, too small to be noticed, too small to be funded" in the Hollywood drama Lorenzo's Oil, rare diseases are getting unprecedented attention today among drug manufacturers, who are ramping up research efforts and marketing new medicines that promise fuller lives for children and other patients with these heartbreaking conditions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-renaissance-drugs-rare-diseases.html Medications Mon, 13 May 2013 08:36:10 EST news287652957 Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans. The researchers believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-potential-diabetes-breakthrough-hormone-spurring.html Medical research Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:00:08 EST news286108507 (HealthDay)—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it is asking manufacturers of sleep medications containing zolpidem—including Ambien—to lower the recommended doses and to provide more safety information to patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-fda-requires-doses-medications.html Medications Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:50:01 EST news277040406 US federal health inspectors said Monday they have uncovered serious problems at a second Massachusetts pharmacy run by some of the same people whose tainted drugs caused a deadly meningitis outbreak. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-problems-firm-tied-meningitis-outbreak.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 12 Nov 2012 18:10:01 EST news271965626 (Medical Xpress)—Getting high-quality anti-malarial drugs to people in places like Zanzibar and Mozambique is a tricky business. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-perils-anti-malarial-drugs-private-sector.html Medications Fri, 09 Nov 2012 06:26:52 EST news271664801 The death toll from a meningitis outbreak linked to tainted drugs rose to 30 as the number of cases climbed to a whopping 419, US health officials said Monday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-meningitis-death-toll.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:20:40 EST news271362028 Clinical drug trials are a vital part of pharmaceutical manufacturers gaining approval for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A Commentary scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics assesses the issues surrounding the lack of clinical trials on medications used by children, most notably neonates, and how drug manufacturers and academic researchers could work together to create clinical trials that would benefit this underrepresented population. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-experts-neonatal-inclusion-pediatric-drug.html Pediatrics Thu, 25 Oct 2012 03:42:04 EST news270355265 You get what you pay for. This maxim is proving true all over again when it comes to steroid injections used to alleviate back pain. Making safe and effective versions of such drugs involves manufacturing steps that aren't trivial. The cost of the medicine has to match the care that goes into creating it and the oversight required to ensure that the standards are maintained. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-heavy-price-cheaper-drugs.html Medications Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:30:07 EST news270216953 The death toll in the United States from an unprecedented outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to a contaminated drug has climbed to 23 people, health officials said Saturday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-meningitis-death-toll-cdc.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:23:52 EST news269972622 The death toll from an unprecedented US meningitis outbreak tied to a tainted steroid jumped to 15 after another person died from a fungal form of the disease, health authorities said Saturday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-meningitis-outbreak-death-toll.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Sun, 14 Oct 2012 05:55:42 EST news269412935 Thousands of Americans who may have been injected with a tainted steroid will have to wait weeks to see if they have been infected with meningitis as investigators seek answers to a widening outbreak. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-tainted-drug-outbreak.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Sat, 13 Oct 2012 05:30:02 EST news269323703 The number of people believed to have been sickened by a contaminated drug rose to 185 Friday, but US health officials said the death toll from the rare meningitis outbreak held steady at 14. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-tainted-drug-outbreak-cases.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:15:03 EST news269280898 A deadly meningitis outbreak in the United States blamed on a tainted drug has triggered outrage and calls for tighter regulation of the loosely controlled pharmaceutical compounding industry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-oversight-tainted-drug-outbreak.html Medications Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:08:47 EST news269194120 The death toll from a deadly meningitis outbreak in the United States blamed on a tainted drug rose to 14 Thursday as the number of cases jumped to 172 in 11 states, health officials said. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-tainted-drug-death-toll.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:43:26 EST news269192596 A virtual monopoly held by some drug manufacturers in part because of the way treatment protocols work is among the reasons cancer drugs cost so much in the United States, according to a commentary by two Mayo Clinic physicians in the October issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Value-based pricing is one potential solution, they write. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-mayo-clinic-physicians-id-high.html Cancer Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:52:04 EST news268278685 Bangladeshi doctors Wednesday asked the government to halt permits for Viagra to be mass produced for the domestic market, fearing it could lead to the anti-impotence drug becoming available over the counter. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-bangladesh-doctors-urge-viagra-production.html Medications Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:02:46 EST news267876161 Breast-cancer researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that two related receptors in a robust signaling pathway must work together as a team to maintain normal activity in mammary stem cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-breast-stem-cell-receptor-teamwork-required.html Cancer Wed, 30 May 2012 13:40:01 EST news257602172 A Colorado School of Public Health researcher has found that laws designed to illuminate financial links between doctors and pharmaceutical companies have little or no effect on what drugs physicians prescribe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-federal-disclosure-law-impact-drugs.html Medications Tue, 29 May 2012 12:39:00 EST news257513930 India's Health Ministry said Friday it had set up an expert panel to review the operations of its drug regulatory agency, accused of colluding with pharmaceutical firms to approve drugs without trials. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-indian-expert-panel-probe-drugs.html Medications Fri, 11 May 2012 09:41:02 EST news255948057 India's Health Ministry said Thursday it was examining charges that the government's top drug regulatory agency had colluded with pharmaceutical firms to approve drugs without proper clinical trials. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-india-probes-violations-drugs.html Medications Thu, 10 May 2012 08:50:01 EST news255856758 Drug manufacturers and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scrambled earlier this month to address a sudden shortage of methotrexate, a 60-year-old drug that treats children with severe cases of leukemia and sarcoma. Graham Jones, the chair of the chemistry and chemical biology department in the College of Science, said the problem is likely to continue as fewer pharmaceutical companies produce drugs with slim profit margins and a small patient base. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-3qs-sudden-drug-shortages.html Medications Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:13:20 EST news249635584 (AP) -- Efforts by India and the European Union to strengthen trade are threatening India's ability to deliver lifesaving medicines to the world's poorest, analysts say as the two sides push through protracted negotiations on a free-trade pact. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-india-global-pharmacy-role-threatened.html Medications Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:30:02 EST news248074058 GE Healthcare, a branch of General Electric, has paid the government a settlement of $30 million plus interest for improper billing by a company it bought in 2004, officials said Thursday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-ge-healthcare-million-overpaying-case.html Health Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:40:07 EST news244438796 (AP) -- In a case that could affect India's role as drug provider to the developing world, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments Tuesday over whether the government had the right to deny a patent to Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG for its lifesaving cancer treatment Gleevec. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-novartis-patent-indian-court.html Medications Tue, 06 Sep 2011 10:22:55 EST news234523359 Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have made a discovery in the lab that could help drug manufacturers develop new antiepileptic drugs and explore novel strategies for treating seizures associated with epilepsy – a disease affecting about two million Americans. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-neuroscientists-discovery-relief-epilepsy.html Medical research Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:57:45 EST news227879848 Medical students in the United States are frequently exposed to pharmaceutical marketing, even in their preclinical years, and the extent of their contact with industry is associated with positive attitudes about marketing and skepticism towards any negative implications. These findings from research led by Kirsten Austad and Aaron S. Kesselheim from the Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, suggest that strategies to educate students about interactions with the pharmaceutical industry should directly address widely-held misconceptions about the effects of marketing. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-medical-students-substantial-exposure-pharmaceutical.html Other Tue, 24 May 2011 17:48:06 EST news225478065