Posts Tagged ‘pharmaceuticals’

The Washington Post on Medicare eye drugs

Last week the Washington Post flayed doctors who participate in the Medicare program, along with the pharmaceutical company Genentech, because they often prescribe the $2,000-a-dose (and fully FDA-approved) eye drug Lucentis in preference to Avastin, a biologically related compound also made by Genentech that seems to work equally well against “wet” age-related macular degeneration and can be obtained off-label from compounders for only $50 an injection (albeit with some additional risks and hassles). Taxpayers have shelled out billions of dollars, the Post complains with some justice, because many docs (currently close to half) choose FDA-approved in preference to off-label treatments.

Great investigation, guys. Now that you’ve accused doctors of being socially irresponsible and greedy for not going off-label to prescribe, could you investigate who exactly has been demonizing off-label prescribing as a dangerous, unregulated practice that the FDA needs to crack down on? What would happen if you found that that it was some of the Post’s own favorite sources and advocacy groups?

Filed under: FDA, Medicare, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup

“Essentially, the agency wants to ‘protect’ patients from knowing about their own health” [David Rivkin and Andrew Grossman, USA Today, earlier] FDA-defying workaround lets you get your info even if 23andme’s muzzled [Ron Bailey]
“Insane Department of HHS plan would criminalize lifesaving bone-marrow donor incentives out of woolly concern with ‘altruism'” [Steven Pinker, Sally Satel/Bloomberg, Michelle Meyer/Bill of Health]
Affordable Care Act opens up funding stream for alternative medicine. The start of something big? [Kevin Williamson, NRO]
On underused Gotham hospitals, de Blasio is in hole of his own digging [Bob McManus, City Journal]
ADA lawsuit against hospital a harbinger of others to come? [Peoria Journal-Star]
If goal is access to affordable contraception, making Pill available over the counter would seem good first step [Shikha Dalmia/Time, earlier]
Home-health-aide overtime rules are bad news for seniors hoping to stay out of nursing homes, but AARP can’t shake its scripted role as loyal union ally [More: Free Beacon, from 2011 on AARP brief in state overtime case; earlier here, here, and here]

Filed under: FDA, hospitals, NYC, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup

Pressure from HHS leads day cares to ban practice of baby-swaddling, and not everyone’s pleased about that [Abby Schachter, Reason]
“If Big Pharma likes your healthcare plan, you can keep it” [Tim Carney]
For “those of us with polycystic kidney disease… stringent FDA regulation seems to be taking away hope” [Bill Brazell, Atlantic] And: speaking of the FDA, “Dallas Buyers Club Is a Terrific Libertarian Movie” [David Boaz, Cato] Also: New Peter Huber book, “The Cure in the Code: How 20th Century Law Is Undermining 21st Century Medicine” [Basic/Manhattan Institute, Wired]
$7,440 annual expected loss per hospital bed in Florida vs. $810 in Minnesota, and other med-mal loss statistics [Becker’s Hospital Review via TortsProf]
Charge: black lung defense firm finds ways to conceal medical expert reports from adversaries [Center for Public Integrity via Joe Patrice, Above the Law]
Prescribing drugs for off-label uses is perfectly legal, but Johnson & Johnson will pay $2.2 billion for promoting the practice [Ann Althouse]
Jury awards $4 million legal malpractice verdict against prominent D.C.-based plaintiff’s firm [Richmond Times-Dispatch via White Coat]
“Can You Secretly Record the Medical-Legal Exam?” [Eric Turkewitz]

Filed under: FDA, Florida, legal malpractice, medical malpractice, Minnesota, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Expensive asthma inhalers, IP and environmental regulation

A chance for left-right policy alliance might have been missed here [“David Hume,” Secular Right; Coyote]

Filed under: climate change, environment, patent law, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup

Sen.-elect Cory Booker (and Mayor Bloomberg too) on liability reform and fixing health care [NJLRA] How plaintiff’s lawyers get around caps [Alex Stein, Bill of Health] Missouri protects health volunteer workers [John Ross]
Like an Ayn Rand novel: Massachusetts ballot initiative pushes confiscation of private hospital profits [Ira Stoll, NY Sun]
Advice: plan now to lower your 2014 income to get valuable ObamaCare subsidies [San Francisco Chronicle]
Medicare comes off poorly: “Quality Of Care Within Same Hospital Varies By Insurance Type” [Tyler Cowen]
Revisiting a panic over alleged mass drug injury: “Avandia’s posthumous pardon” [David Oliver, earlier here and at Point of Law]
Louisiana lawmakers use malpractice statute to discourage abortion [Alex Stein, Bill of Health]
Georgia committee looks at plan to replace med-mal suits with administered compensation [Georgia Report via TortsProf, Daily Report Online (constitutionality), Insurance Journal]
Uwe Reinhardt on professional licensure and doctors’ monopoly [David Henderson]

Filed under: Avandia, Georgia, hospitals, Louisiana, Massachusetts, medical, medical malpractice, Medicare, Missouri, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup

Crisis of sterile injectables rages on, among victims are premature infants who need parenteral nutrition [Washingtonian (“Even if the FDA’s doing something terrible, we can’t criticize them. They regulate us.”) via Tabarrok, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
“Tweets not medical advice” [@Caduceusblogger via @jackshafer]
“Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease And You Can’t” [Curt Nickisch, WBUR]
Cites distinctive Connecticut law: “Hospital Successfully Sues its Patient’s Attorneys for Filing a Vexatious Malpractice Suit” [Alex Stein, Bill of Health]
Should adversarial medical examinations be videotaped? [Turkewitz]
“Lawyers Have Learned To Distort Pharmacovigilance Signals” [Oliver on FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), earlier]
Causation from nasal decongestant at issue: “Judge orders UW to pay $15M to Snoqualmie family” [KING5]
“The ban on compensated transplant organ donation has led to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. A ban on compensated sperm and egg donation would lead to a dearth of lives.” [Alex Tabarrok, related on Canada]

Filed under: assisted reproduction, Canada, Connecticut, FDA, hospitals, loser pays, pharmaceuticals, Twitter, vaccines, Washington state

Medical roundup

Defense medico-legal expert sees 1,000+ cases a year, testimony infuriates NYC judge [Eric Turkewitz: first, second, third, overview posts]
More commentary on Supreme Court’s generic drug pre-emption case, Mutual v. Bartlett [James Beck, more, Michael Krauss, earlier]
New JAMA paper, “The Looming Threat of Liability for Accountable Care Organizations and What to Do About It” [Bill of Health]
“Obamacare and Activist State Courts Drive Up Health Plan Costs” [Hans Bader, CEI “Open Market”]
New York: emergency medical technicians protected by sovereign immunity principles [Alex Stein, Bill of Health]
“A New FDA for the Age of Personalized, Molecular Medicine” [Peter Huber, Manhattan Institute via Alex Tabarrok]
From an unexpected source? Left-leaning Center for American Progress publishes report on reducing cost of defensive medicine by Ezekiel Emanuel et al. Meanwhile, trial lawyers trumpet study of veterans’ hospitals they say undercuts defensive medicine case [client-recruitment site AboutLawsuits.com] And in the UK: “13,000 died needlessly at 14 worst NHS trusts” [Telegraph]

Filed under: defensive medicine, emergency services, expert witnesses, FDA, medical malpractice, New York, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals, United Kingdom

New Supreme Court decisions: Vance, Nassar, Mutual

I’ve got a new post up at Cato at Liberty on three important decisions for the business community decided today at the Supreme Court, two on employment law and one on pharmaceutical pre-emption: Vance v. Ball State on liability for supervisorial harassment, University of Texas Southwestern v. Nassar on mixed-motive retaliation, and Mutual v. Bartlett (more) on design default preemption for a generic drug. (& welcome Coyote, Point of Law, SCOTUSBlog, Taegan Goddard/WonkWire readers)

Filed under: harassment law, pharmaceuticals, preemption, Supreme Court, workplace

“Alarm fatigue”

Trying to order medications for a heart attack victim using electronic medical records, White Coat is frustrated to run into screen after screen preventing him from completing the order without addressing unlikely allergy issues (and thus protecting the hospital from liability):

For those of you who don’t know what alarm fatigue is, think of a car alarm. The first time you hear it going off, you run to your window to see who’s breaking into a car. Maybe you run to the window the second time and the third time, too. By the tenth time the alarm goes off, you’re thinking that the alarm is broken and someone needs to get that fixed. After about thirty false alarms, you’re feeling like going out there and busting up the car yourself – especially if the car alarm wakes you when you’re asleep.

It’s a concept with many applications beyond the emergency room setting, too, product warnings being just the start.

P.S. Dr. Westby Fisher has some related thoughts about the limits of trying to engineer physician responsibility through electronic records design.

Filed under: allergies, emergency medicine, overwarning, pharmaceuticals

Drug-originator liability for generic-drug injuries

A WSJ editorial and news coverage have called attention to a case from the Alabama high court holding Pfizer liable for a drug it didn’t produce, namely a generic knockoff of its acid reflux drug Reglan. Michael Greve agrees that it’s daffy to allow such suits, but traces the problem to the U.S. Supreme Court’s popular (at least with the media) 2009 decision in Wyeth v. Levine, okaying state tort actions over federally approved labels — and cautions that any victories for regulated business on the issue of federal-state preemption tend to be temporary at best. More: Coyote, FedSocBlog.

Filed under: Alabama, pharmaceuticals, preemption