Try to get a hold of the article by Eichacker et al in today’s NEJM (sub. req.) entitled: ”Surviving Sepsis: Practice Guidelines, Marketing Campaigns, and Eli Lilly”. They give the most detailed published account that I can recall that attempts to show how industry influences clinical practice guidelines. They do so by temporally aligning communications made at scientific [...]
Dennis Nowak reports on the rampant dissatisfaction with working conditions among German doctors in the Oct 12th issue of the (”Doctors on Strike — The Crisis in German Health Care Delivery). If you care about the future of healthcare delivery, and you’re not already familiar with the German healthcare system, read this brief and compelling [...]
It’s been a while coming, but 2006 has finally seen the introduction of legislation to the U.S. Senate that, if passed, would create a statutory pathway for FDA review and approval of genuine generic biologic drugs. The Act, which the sponsors have asked be called “Access to Life-Saving Medicines Act,” was read into Congress yesterday. [...]
FDA’s crack down on compounding has apparently been dealt a setback according to this FDA News Story describing a U.S. District Court opinion. I had previously discussed FDA’s recent crackdown on national compounders, which FDA claimed were behaving more like drug manufacturers than compounders, risking patient safety. Let’s have a brief look at the lawsuit and opinion itself [...]
It’s a sign o’ the times, as I’ve said countless times in these pages. Payors are attempting to squeeze every last penny from between the links of the prescription-drug value chain. I single out the case of IBX (that’s Independence Blue Cross, the Philadelphia Region’s largest insurer with coverage of ~3.5 million lives) only because [...]
