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Showing posts sorted by date for query drugs. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query drugs. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Pharmacy Executives Face Murder Charges in Meningitis Deaths

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com/

Two senior executives of a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy were charged Wednesday with racketeering and murder in the production of tainted drugs that killed 64 people and sickened hundreds of others across the country with fungal meningitis in the fall of 2012.
The United States attorney’s office here charged Barry J. Cadden, an owner of New England Compounding Center Inc. and the head pharmacist, and Glenn A. Chin, a supervisory pharmacist, with 25 acts of second-degree murder in seven states — Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
“Senior N.E.C.C. pharmacists knew that, despite the filthy conditions at N.E.C.C., the drugs that they made were not property tested for sterility,” said Carmen Ortiz, the United States attorney for Massachusetts.
In all, 14 people were charged in a 131-count indictment, many of them pharmacists at the company, which is now closed. The charges include mail fraud, conspiracy and violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Most were taken into custody at their homes early Wednesday, officials said.


Among those accused were members of the Conigliaro family of Massachusetts — Gregory, Douglas and Carla. The family founded the company in 1998 as part of a broader business organization that included a recycling firm.
Carla and Douglas Conigliaro, a husband and wife, were accused of transferring $33 million in assets to eight different bank accounts after the...
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Read more about meningitis and workers' compensation
Workers' Compensation: Unintended Consequences ...
Oct 22, 2012
Workers' Compensation benefits generally are payable when a condition arises out of the employment including the consequences of medical treatment. Injured workers' who have suffered meningitis as a result of the ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: Fungal Meningitis: One Year After ...
Oct 29, 2013
The clinical paper, focusing on the early stages of the outbreak, describes patients who experienced a wide variety of illnesses, including meningitis, stroke, arachnoiditis (inflammation of one of the membranes around the ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
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Saturday, December 13, 2014

Elizabeth Warren is fighting Wall Street for the soul of the Democratic Party

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com



Bill Clinton changed the Democratic Party, and Elizabeth Warren is trying to change it back — at least when it comes to Wall Street.
The latest intra-party skirmish has come over the so-called "CRomnibus" (don't ask) spending bill that would have funded the government for the next year, as well as, among other pet projects, killed Dodd-Frank's prohibition on big banks using federally-insured money to make exotic bets. Now, that wouldn't gut financial reform by any means, but it would be the latest step in Wall Street's death-by-a-thousand-tweaks campaign against it. And that was too much for Warren, who led a liberal revolt against the bill that ultimately failed.
But what would this derivatives change even do? Well, swaps are just bets on everything from interest rates to currencies to whether a company is going to go under or not. The way they work is one side promises to pay a fixed amount of money every, say, six months, and the other agrees to pay an amount tied to whatever they're betting on. So, for example, if you wanted to hedge your risk against interest rates rising, you might decide to pay a bank $3 million every half-year, and in return they would pay you $100 million multiplied by an agreed-upon interest rate (usually Libor). This might sound complicated, but the idea is simple: you're locking in borrowing costs of 3 percent—that's your $3 million divided by the same $100 million—and the other side is betting that rates won't be that...
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Friday, December 12, 2014

Nursing Homes Rarely Penalized For Oversedating Patients

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.npr.org


NPR's analysis of government data found that harsh penalties are almost never used when nursing home residents get unnecessary drugs of any kind.NPR's analysis of government data found that harsh penalties are almost never used when nursing home residents get unnecessary drugs of any kind.

Antipsychotic drugs have helped many people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. But for older people with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia, they can be deadly. The Food and Drug Administration has given these drugs a black box warning, saying they can increase the risk of heart failure, infections and death. Yet almost 300,000 nursing home residents still get them.
“ There are many near misses, whether it's hospitals or nursing homes, where medication might be given that's not needed and doesn't cause permanent harm. We view that as a learning opportunity.
- Dr. Patrick Conway, chief medical officer, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
So in 2012, the federal government started a campaign to get nursing homes to reduce their use of these drugs. But an NPR analysis of government data shows that the government rarely penalizes nursing homes when they don't get with the program.
Take Texas for example. More than a quarter of nursing home residents there still get antipsychotic drugs. Since the beginning of the federal initiative, the nationwide average has dropped below 20 percent. That puts Texas in last place compared with other states and the District of Columbia.
So Texas is playing catch-up. The state recently conducted a series of trainings to teach nursing home employees that...
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FDA: Idaho Knew About Chobani Mold Problem Before 2013 Recall

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.foodsafetynews.com

A federal report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) indicates that the Idaho Department of Agriculture knew about that moldy Chobani yogurt two months before it was recalled.


The state denies the claim found in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration report by the Twin Falls Times-News, the daily newspaper located near the Idaho Chobani plant.
Moldy Greek yogurt by Chobani made about 300 people sick in an event associated with a September 2013 recalls of the products.
Documents released to the newspaper show that the Idaho Department of Agriculture became aware of the problem during a routine inspection two months before the company’s voluntary recall of 35 yogurt varieties.
The company said that its products were contaminated with a mold commonly found in yogurt production known as Mucor circinelloides.
“In July the routine Grade A sampling and testing samples taken by the Idaho Department of Agriculture (ISDA) from the Chobani Idaho Inc. production were visually noted, by the laboratory technician, that surface defects were present and additional testing was conducted noting a yeast like growth developing in the yogurt samples,” FDA reported.
The Idaho Department of Agriculture claims it never found any mold and does not know the source of FDA’s information. What it knew in July 2013 did not prompt FDA to take any action on its own.
“All of the raw and finished product-testing results met the requirements of the Pasteurized Milk...
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Friday, December 5, 2014

Growth In U.S. Health Spending In 2013 Is Lowest Since 1960

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from kaiserhealthnews.org

National health spending grew 3.6 percent in 2013, the lowest annual increase since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began tracking the statistic in 1960, officials said Wednesday.

Spending slowed for private health insurance, Medicare, hospitals, physicians and clinical services and out-of-pocket spending by consumers.  However, it accelerated for Medicaid and for prescription drugs, according to the report, published online by the journal Health Affairs.

Health care spending has grown at historically low rates for the past five years, which is consistent with declines generally seen during economic downturns, such as the Great Recession that crippled the U.S. economy at the end of 2007.  Looking ahead, “the key question is whether health spending growth will accelerate once economic conditions improve significantly; historical evidence suggest that it will,” noted the authors, who are from the CMS Office of the Actuary.

health spending 570
health spending 570

They also pointed out, however, that in the near term, the health sector will “undergo major changes that will have a substantial impact” on consumers, providers, insurers and sponsors of health care. These are the result of the health law’s creation of online marketplaces, its expansion of Medicaid, a shared federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled, and restraints the law made to the Medicare program, the analysts found.

“The balance of these and many...

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Monday, November 3, 2014

Many On Medicaid See Boost In Benefits As Economy Improves

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org

Short Takes On News & Events


Medicaid chart 500


With an improving fiscal climate, many states are increasing benefits for Medicaid recipients and paying their providers more.
The trend is continuing into fiscal year 2015 for those who rely on Medicaid, the state and federal health insurance program for the poor, according to a survey of 50 state Medicaid programs released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Association of Medicaid Directors. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
The report found that 22 states were expanding Medicaid benefits compared to just two states restricting them in fiscal 2015, which for most states started July 1, 2014. That’s the fewest states cutting or restricting benefits in at least 9 years. The most commonly added benefits were dental coverage, along with mental health and substance abuse services.
However, virtually every state indicated concern about high-cost specialty drugs, especially $1,000-a-pill Sovaldi, approved last year to treat hepatitis C. Officials in 22 states said that new prior authorization rules were in place or under development to restrict use of the drug and New Jersey said it was exploring protocols to do that.
Meanwhile, 14 states were increasing Medicaid fees to specialists in fiscal 2015, compared to three states lowering them. More states were also increasing fees to nursing homes and managed care...
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Sunday, October 26, 2014

Tobacco Settlement Funds Sprinklers, Golf Carts and a Grease Trap

What happened to the tobacco settlement funds? Todsay's post is shared from propublica.org
A central tenet of government finance is that money borrowed over the long term should be spent on projects that will outlast the debt – things like buildings, bridges or other essential infrastructure.
That's not what upstate New York's Niagara County did with much of its money from tobacco bonds.
Golf carts. Computers. Defibrillators. Portable radios. Even a grease trap for the jail's kitchen. The list of goods or projects with just a few years' useful life goes on – all paid for with debt that will last decades.
Nor did the money go toward the health care costs of smoking – as hoped by framers of the 1998 legal settlement with tobacco companies that has paid billions to states, counties and other governments.
Since then, Niagara County repeatedly borrowed against its share of the settlement, about $3.5 million a year. For some of this debt, it borrowed at nearly 8 percent interest and used the proceeds to pay down debts charging half as much.
Niagara's experience shows how "securitizing" the tobacco money – and the windfall of upfront cash it puts at politicians' disposal...
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Monday, October 13, 2014

Formularies in the News

Today's guest post is by The Hon. David Langham who is the Deputy Chief Judge of Compensation Claims for the Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims and Division of Administrative Hearings flojcc.blogspot.com
The California Workers' Compensation Institute (CWCI) released their study of controlling pharmaceuticals on October 6, 2014. They acknowledge that Washington and Texas have each implemented drug formularies, and have enjoyed cost savings as a result. The complete report is here. Their data helps with the question of whether a formulary might be part of the solution elsewhere, California in particular.
Formulary restrictions are not new. Texas enacted legislation in 2005 that led to the deployment of its formulary. The results have been remarkable. Prescription volume has dropped and the cost of "non-formulary drugs" decreased by 80% according to the Workers' Compensation Research Institute. I summarized some of the WCRI findings in a June 2014 post.
Another interesting point on closed formularies is the control they afford regarding specific medications or potentially types of medication. The Texas experience with Zohydro, and its recent approval by the FDA is discussed in a December 2013 post. Essentially, while others have wondered about the effect of "heroin in a pill," Texas simply did not add it to their formulary, and that is that. For a doctor to prescribe it in a Texas Comp case is not impossible, but it will require paperwork and...
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Sunday, October 12, 2014

Is $1,125 hepatitis pill from Bay Area drugmaker worth it?

  • Gilead Sciences won federal approval for the drug Harvoni, a once-a-day Hepatitis C pill, that has a controversial $1,125 price tag. Photo: Gilead Sciences, Courtesy Photo
    Gilead Sciences won federal approval for the drug Harvoni, a once-a-day Hepatitis C pill, that has a controversial $1,125 price tag. Photo: Gilead Sciences, Courtesy Photo
After shaking up the health care industry with a $1,000 hepatitis C pill, Gilead Sciences of Foster City won approval Friday for a new version of that treatment that works faster, drops the usual injections and boasts an already-controversial $1,125 price tag.
The new daily pill Harvoni costs $94,500 for 12 weeks and $63,000 for eight weeks — both cheaper than some existing hepatitis C treatments, according to the drugmaker. But some patient advocates are already upset about the price after nearly revolting against Gilead’s first hepatitis C therapy, Sovaldi, which became the best-selling new drug ever when it hit the market late last year at $84,000 for 12 weeks.
Harvoni, which combines Sovaldi and a new drug called ledipasvir, is expected to push Gilead’s overall hepatitis C drug sales to $12 billion this year and more than $15 billion next year, said Michael Yee, a biotechnology analyst at RBC Capital Markets.
“It is a major breakthrough to have yet another regimen that takes two drugs and combines it into one, and shortens the treatment of care for patients,” he said.
Debates over cost
Sales of Sovaldi were $2.3 billion in the first quarter and $3.5 billion in the second, putting it on track to become one of the world’s best-selling medicines. At the same time, its...
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Read more about Hepatitis:
Workers' Compensation: Maker of Costly Hepatitis C Drug ...
Sep 16, 2014
The maker of one of the costliest drugs in the world announced on Monday that it had struck deals with seven generic drug makers in India to sell lower-cost versions of the medicine — a $1,000-a-pill hepatitis C treatment ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: World Hepatitis Day: Think again
Jul 25, 2014
Hepatitis remains largely ignored or unknown. In April this year, WHO issued new recommendations on treatment of hepatitis C. In May, World Health Assembly delegates from 194 Member States adopted a resolution to ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
What Impact Will Hepatitis C Drugs Have on Medical Costs?
Jun 26, 2014
Medications for other diseases may be more expensive, but insurers worry about the potential outlay, given that approximately 3.2 million people in the U.S. are chronically infected with hepatitis C, according to the U.S. Center ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
1000 a pill: Will that kill or cure workers' compenstion
Aug 02, 2014
They also note that while Sovaldi has a monopoly on the market right now, a half dozen new hepatitis C drugs are excepted to be available in the next 4 years and will likely drive down the cost of the drug as competition ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
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Friday, October 10, 2014

Safety, sanitary problems prompt scores of drug recalls

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.usatoday.com



Eloise Soler at her home near Oso Bay, Texas. Soler was sickened by contaminated medication that she received during heart surgery at the Corpus Christi Medical Center. Tests showed that Soler and others were sickened by Rhodococcus equi, a soil bacteria that typically infects horses and other grazing animals.(Photo: Todd Yates for USA TODAY)
The infection came out of nowhere, 36 hours after Eloise Soler's heart surgery last summer at the Corpus Christi Medical Center in South Texas. As her fever spiked to 103, other patients developed similar symptoms. Doctors raced to pinpoint the cause.
Tests showed that all of the patients had been sickened by the same bacteria, Rhodococcus equi, which typically infects horses and other grazing animals, and they all fell ill after infusions of the same drug, calcium gluconate.
The drug was made 200 miles away by Specialty Compounding, which sits in a category of pharmacies that mix unique or hard-to-find drugs not only for individual patients, but also in batches for doctors and hospitals. By the time the company recalled the medication days later, investigators believed it had sickened at least 15 people; two had died.
"You think because there are so many controls on drugs that you're not going to be given something that will make you sick," says Soler, 60, who spent months recovering. "I just couldn't believe it."
Two years after contaminated drugs linked to a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts killed 64 and...
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….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Medicare Revises Nursing Home Rating System

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.nytimes.com



The federal government on Monday announced substantial changes to the government’s five-star rating program for nursing homes, a widely used consumer tool that has been criticized for its reliance on self-reported, unverified data.
The five-star rating system has become the gold standard for evaluating the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes since it was put in place five years ago, even though two of the major criteria used to rate the facilities — staffing levels and quality statistics — are reported by the nursing homes themselves and generally are not audited by the federal government.
On Monday, officials said they would make several changes, starting in January, aimed at addressing some of these concerns.
Nursing homes will have to begin reporting their staffing levels quarterly using an electronic system that can be verified with payroll data. And officials will initiate a nationwide auditing program aimed at checking whether the so-called quality measures rating — which is based on information collected about every patient — is accurate.
Beginning in January, nursing homes’ ratings will also be based partly on the percentage of its residents being given antipsychotic drugs.
In August, The New York Times reported that the rating system relied so heavily on unverified and incomplete information that even homes with a documented history of quality problems were earning top ratings. The number of homes with above-average ratings...
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Tuesday, October 7, 2014

For most chronic pain, neurologists declare opioids a bad choice

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.latimes.com

Patients taking opioid painkillers for chronic pain not associated with cancer -- conditions such as headaches, fibromyalgia and low-back pain -- are more likely to risk overdose, addiction and a range of debilitating side effects than they are to improve their ability to function, a leading physicians group declared Wednesday.

The long-term use of opioids may not, in the net, be beneficial even in patients with more severe pain conditions, including sickle-cell disease, destructive rheumatoid arthritis and severe neuropathic pain, the American Academy of Neurologists opined in a new position statement released Wednesday.

But even for patients who do appear to benefit from opioid narcotics, the neurology group warned, physicians who prescribe these drugs should be diligent in tracking a patient's dose increases, screening for a history of depression or substance abuse, looking for signs of misuse and insisting as a condition of continued use that opioids are improving a patient's function.

In disseminating a new position paper on opioid painkillers for chronic non-cancer pain, the American Academy of Neurology is hardly the first physicians group to sound the alarm on these medications and call for greater restraint in prescribing them.

But it appears to be the first to lay out a comprehensive set of research-based guidelines that...


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Over Medicating Workers' Compensation Patients

When is it too much? That is the big question. Easy access to medication may also be a major problem. Today' s post is shared from nytimes.com\

A huge number of patients suffer from adverse medication issues that complicate workers' compensation claims even further. New data indicates that over medication of patients even complicates the issues further.
The most common cause of fatal allergic reactions in the United States are medicines, especially antibiotics and radiocontrast agents used in imaging studies, a new analysis found.
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, researchers found 2,458 cases of fatal anaphylaxis from 1999 through 2010. Almost 60 percent of the deaths, or 1,446, were caused by reactions to drugs, and in cases where the specific drug was known, half were caused by antibiotics. The rate of drug-induced fatal reactions almost doubled over the period.
Insect stings caused 15.2 percent of the fatalities and food 6.7 percent. The cause was not recorded in a fifth of the cases.
The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, also found that older age was associated with a higher risk for death and that blacks had a higher risk of dying from drugs and food reactions. For insect sting deaths, rates among whites were almost three times as high as rates among African-Americans.
The lead author, Dr. Elina Jerschow, an assistant professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, said that part of the increase in drug-induced allergic deaths is probably due to changes in the way deaths are coded on death certificates. But, she added, “We are using more imaging studies than other countries, and they’re potentially life-threatening. After antibiotics, radiocontrast was the chief culprit.”
A version of this article appears in...
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Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Merck immunotherapy drug shows promise in bladder cancer

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from whbl.com

MADRID (Reuters) - Merck & Co's new immune system drug Keytruda has produced encouraging results in early tests against bladder cancer, according to a company-sponsored study, prompting the firm to prepare a clinical trial later this year.
Keytruda is the first in a new wave of immune-boosting medicines to be approved for treating melanomas in the United States, but it also has potential in a range of other cancers.
Bladder cancer is seen as a disease that is likely to be amenable to such drugs, which are designed to help the body's own immune system fend off cancer by blocking a protein known as Programmed Death receptor (PD-1), or a related target PD-L1.
Roche has a similar experimental drug that is currently in the lead in addressing the specific indication of bladder cancer.
In Merck's study involving 29 people with PD-L1 positive, advanced bladder cancer, seven patients -- or 24 percent -- saw their tumors shrink after being given Keytruda, Elizabeth Plimack of Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center told the European Society of Medical Oncology on Monday.
Based on this data, Merck said it would initiate a pivotal Phase III study this year to further explore the use of Keytruda in advanced bladder cancer.
Promising results using Keytruda in stomach cancer were also reported on Sunday.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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Monday, September 29, 2014

Study: Cancer costs 'skyrocketed' despite drug cuts

Today's post is shared from thehill.com
The cost of treating cancer has "skyrocketed" despite a 2003 law that sought to control Medicare drug costs, including the cost of chemotherapy, according to a new study.
Research published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that oncologists did not stop prescribing expensive cancer drugs even after Medicare cut the drugs' reimbursements in 2005.
In fact, the aggregate cost of cancer care rose by as much as 60 percent between the passage of the law in 2003 and 2013, the study noted.
"Economists expected a sharp decline in use of the most expensive drugs targeted by the [2003] law, because reimbursement to oncologists for these drugs was reduced, but that did not happen," said Mark C. Hornbrook of Kaiser Permanente Northwest, the study’s lead author.
Cutting drug reimbursements is one way federal health officials seek to influence doctors' prescribing habits.
Profit on Medicare reimbursements for chemotherapy drugs is one way cancer clinics generate profit, making the payments ripe for scrutiny by Medicare.
The study looked at 5,831 chemotherapy regimens for 3,613 patients and found the the law lowered prescriptions for affected cancer drugs "slightly" in fee-for-service cancer clinics.
The 2003 law — the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act — is best known for creating Medicare Part D.
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What We’re Learning About Drug Company Payments to Doctors

On Tuesday, the federal government is expected to release details of payments to doctors by every pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturer in the country.
The information is being made public under a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The law mandates disclosure of payments to doctors, dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists and optometrists for things like promotional speaking, consulting, meals, educational items and research.
It’s not quite clear what the data will show — in part because the first batch will be incomplete, covering spending for only a few months at the end of 2013 — but we at ProPublica have some good guesses. That’s because we have been detailing relationships between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry for the past four years as part of our Dollars for Docs project.
We’ve aggregated information from the websites of some large drug companies, which publish their payments as a condition of settling federal whistle-blower lawsuits alleging improper marketing or kickbacks. Today, in cooperation with the website Pharmashine, we’ve added data for 2013, which now covers 17 drug companies accounting for half of United States drug sales that year. (You can look up your doctor using our easy search tool.)
Here are some facts we’ve learned from the data:
Many, many health professionals have relationships with industry.
Dollars for Docs now includes 3.4 million payments since 2009, totaling more than $4 billion,...
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Sunday, September 28, 2014

Federal research seeks alternatives to addictive opioids for veterans in pain

The National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs this week announced that they will launch a five-year, $21.7 million initiative to study the effectiveness of alternative therapies to opioids through a series of 13 research projects.
Nearly half of all troops returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq are suffering from chronic pain, more than double the civilian population, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Many of those veterans have been prescribed opioids.
The drugs often have disabling side effects, and some studies show they are often addictive and may exacerbate pain conditions in some patients.


The joint research program includes studies on the use of morning light to treat lower-back pain and post-traumatic stress disorder, and the use of chiropractors, self-hypnosis and meditation to reduce pain, said Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH.
Funding for the initiative comes from the NCCAM, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the VA’s Health Services Research and Development Division. The research projects will be done at academic institutions and VA medical centers across the United States.
“This is a very urgent issue for the soldiers returning home – the magnitude of the problem is huge,” Briggs...
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DEA: Vicodin, Some Other Pain Meds Will Be Harder to Get

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from www.kaiserhealthnews.org

Patients who use drugs containing hydrocodone as a pain reliever or cough suppressant are going to have to jump through more hoops to get them starting next month.


The Drug Enforcement Administration is reclassifying so-called “hydrocodone combination products” from Schedule III to Schedule II under the Controlled Substances Act, which will more tightly restrict access. Vicodin, for example, is an HCP because it has hydrocodone and acetaminophen.
The final regulation, which takes effect Oct. 6, will mean that patients generally must present a written prescription to receive the drug, and doctors will no longer be able to call in a prescription to the pharmacy in most instances. The regulation is a response to the widespread misuse of prescription pain killers.
In an emergency, doctors will still be able to call in a prescription, according to the new rule. And although prescription refills are prohibited, a doctor can, at his discretion, issue multiple prescriptions that would provide up to a 90-day supply.
These measures don’t satisfy consumer advocates or pharmacists who are opposed to the new rule.
While acknowledging that there has been an uptick in abuse and adverse events related to opioid painkillers, one patient advocate says the new rule restricts access indiscriminately.
“We certainly want steps taken to reduce...
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Friday, September 26, 2014

Shire to Pay $56.5 Million to Settle False Marketing Claims

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from online.wsj.com

Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC has agreed to pay $56.5 million to settle allegations that it overstated the efficacy of several of its drugs, including the attention-deficit treatment Adderall XR, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
Shire Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Dublin-based drugmaker Shire PLC, allegedly violated the False Claims Act from 2004 to 2007 by promoting that Adderall could "normalize" recipients, making them indistinguishable from non-ADHD peers.
Shire didn't have clinical data to back up the claims, the Department of Justice said. Shire also said in its marketing that Adderall would prevent poor academic performance, loss of employment, criminal behavior, traffic accidents and sexually transmitted disease, the DOJ alleges.
"Shire cooperated throughout this investigation and, in advance of this settlement, began to correct its marketing activities," said U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger in a statement Wednesday.
"We are pleased to have reached a resolution and to put this matter behind us," Chief Executive Flemming Ornskov said. "The company has had, and will continue to have, a comprehensive compliance program and internal controls to ensure we comply with applicable laws and regulations."
Shire hasn't admitted wrongdoing in connection with the settlement, according to the company's statement.
The pact resolves one outstanding issue ahead of Shire's planned $54 billion acquisition by AbbVie Inc.
The allegations stem from...
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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

How Insurers Are Charging You More for Your Generic Drugs

Today's post is shared from propublica.org

The Affordable Care Act bans insurance companies from discriminating against patients with pre-existing conditions. But some policy experts say insurers could be doing just that by forcing people with chronic illnesses to pay more for their drugs.

ProPublica's Charles Ornstein explains that insurers have long used a tiered pricing system to steer consumers away from expensive brand name medications. But according to a recent editorial in the American Journal of Managed Care, several prominent health plans are taking this tactic one step further and charging higher co-payments for some generic drugs.

The editorial's authors examined six health plans to see how much they were charging for generic drugs to treat 10 conditions. For certain conditions like epilepsy and HIV, some plans didn't offer any generic drugs in the preferred category -- leaving patients to pay more or find a new plan.

"There are a number of advocates that contend that insurance companies are, while not explicitly charging people more to sign-up or charging them higher premiums, that they're using the way they structure their drug benefits to in fact charge people with pre-existing conditions more," Ornstein says.

The companies say they aren't targeting patients with pre-existing conditions.

So what can you do to make sure you're getting the best price for your prescriptions?

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