Health Tips

Money-Saving Opportunity?: A new report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services says the Medicare program could have saved more than $1 billion over two years if Genentech’s cancer drug Avastin had been prescribed off-label for wet macular degeneration rather than Lucentis, the company’s similar, costlier drug that is approved for the eye condition, the WSJ reports. Medicare patients themselves could have saved an additional $275 million, according to the report. The off-label use of Avastin was recently been linked to eye infections when pharmacies separated large doses into single-use syringes.

Miscarriage Risk?: Research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggest taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in early pregnancy may be associated with a more than doubling of miscarriage risk, the Los Angeles Times’ Booster Shots blog reports. Previous research on NSAIDs and miscarriage as well as birth defects has been inconclusive, and this type of study can’t prove causation.

Device Decision: European Union regulators approved a melanoma diagnostic device made by Mela Sciences on the heels of the FDA’s decision last year that the device is “not approvable” in the U.S., the WSJ reports. The company has said it had reached an agreement with the FDA in 2004 on the type of research it needed to test the product, and that it complied with that protocol, while the FDA said last fall that the company needed further studies, the paper says. The FDA had no comment on the EU decision.

New Generic Head: The Generic Pharmaceutical Association has named Ralph G. Neas, who previously led a civil-rights organization and the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, as its new head, the New York Times reports. Neas tells the paper he plans to highlight the generic drug industry’s role in saving health-care dollars.

Image: iStockphoto

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Civility for Thee, Not for Me: Of course President Obama will not criticize Jimmy Hoffa’s ugly rant. (Rich Lowry, 9/06/11, National Review)

Pres. Barack Obama delivered hi s loviest speech as president in Tucson, Ariz., after the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords. It was moving, pitch-perfect and — in its key passages calling for civility in our political discourse — brazenly insincere.

Obama said we should be sure that “we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.” He framed his call as a way to honor the victims of the Tucson tragedy: “Only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud.”

Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa must have been too busy watching old episodes of The Sopranos that night. In a warm-up act for the president’s rally the other day in Detroit, Hoffa unloosed a witless, stereotypically crude tirade standing at a podium about to be affixed with a presidential seal and graced by the presence of the Master of Civility himself.

Hoffa told the rally that the Tea Party had declared “war on workers,” but told his listeners that organized labor likes “a good fight.” He thundered: “They got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner.” He assured President Obama that “this is your army,” and urged the crowd to vote: “Let’s take these son of a bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong [sic].”

from: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BrothersjuddBlog/~3/P8DFneRKz9I/on_the_other_hand_democrats_ar.html