China’s Plans for Vaccine Exports Raise Hopes and Fears
Chinese vaccine makers are gearing up to boost their exports over the next few years. The move is raising hopes that lower-cost immunizations will become available for the world’s poor — as well as...
View ArticleSenators Examine Pfizer Deal to Thwart Sales of Rival Generic Drugs
Time ran out this week on the patent for Pfizer’s blockbuster drug Lipitor, the top-selling medication for fighting cholesterol. The marketplace is beginning to open to competing generic versions of...
View ArticleJury Awards $73 Million Over Pfizer Drugs’ Link to Breast Cancer
A Philadelphia jury has awarded $72.6 million to three women who sued Pfizer Inc., claiming that the pharmaceutical company’s menopause drugs caused them to develop breast cancer. The plaintiffs, all...
View ArticleGirls Under 17 Will Still Need a Prescription to Get ‘Morning After Pill’
The Obama administration has scuttled a proposal to make emergency contraceptives available to all women, including girls 16 and younger, without a prescription. In what the Los Angeles Times called an...
View ArticleFDA Advisers Want Straight Talk About Risks on Labels for Birth Control Pills
After weighing the benefits of a new generation of birth control pills against potentially fatal blood clot risks associated with the drugs, federal scientific advisers have called for a regulatory...
View ArticleIncredible Prices for Cancer Drugs
An unusually bold stand by doctors at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York has forced a big drug company to reduce the cost of an overpriced drug for treating colorectal cancer that...
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FDA Panels Vote to Keep ‘Black Box’ Warning on Stop Smoking Drug Chantix
On every package of the quit-smoking drug Chantix, a warning label alerts doctors and consumers that some people taking the tablets have reported “serious neuropsychiatric events.” As FairWarning has...
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As U.S. Bids to Renew Relations With Havana, Heralded Cuban Diabetes Drug...
Cuban postage stamps touting the country’s efforts to save limbs of diabetics (Photo by Andrew Schneider) HAVANA – President Obama’s efforts to renew relations with Cuba may soon allow Americans to...
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Talc-Ovarian Cancer Link Sparks Growing Legal Battle
Deane Berg, who filed a first-of-its kind lawsuit blaming her ovarian cancer on Johnson & Johnson talc powders Deane Berg’s doctor called her in the day after Christmas, 2006, to give her the...
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Colgate-Palmolive Suffers Courtroom Loss in Asbestos-Talc Powder Case
Colgate-Palmolive sold Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder from the late 1800s until 1995. Several lawsuits assert that, in decades past, Colgate got its talc from mines contaminated with asbestos,...
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Jailhouse Medicine
Marsha Dau, an Imperial County Jail inmate who died in 2011 In July 2011, a jailhouse nurse in Imperial County, Calif., found inmate Marsha Dau lying naked and dazed on the concrete floor. Charged with...
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The Hard Truth About the Softest Mineral
Talc mining operation (Frances Comou/iStock photo) We use talc in many up close and personal ways: to powder babies’ bottoms, as an ingredient in cosmetics, a filler in capsules and pills–even as a...
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California Measure Takes Aim at Use of Antibiotics to Fatten Livestock
With the threat of antibiotic-resistant germs on the rise, California Gov. Jerry Brown is poised to sign tough restrictions on administering antibiotics to livestock. Some public health experts contend...
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Johnson & Johnson Dealt $72 Million Courtroom Loss in Talc-Ovarian Cancer Case
Jacqueline Fox Johnson & Johnson has suffered a major courtroom defeat in the first in a wave of lawsuits claiming that talc products marketed by the company for feminine hygiene use caused ovarian...
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For a More Nuanced Discussion of Vaccine Safety
iStock Photo Federal health officials have worked overtime to assure the public that vaccines are safe, and barely acknowledge any exceptions. But there are exceptions, as our family knows well. In...
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Another Big Defeat for Johnson & Johnson in Talc-Ovarian Cancer Case
Johnson & Johnson faces more than 1,200 liability claims from ovarian cancer victims contending that they contracted the disease from feminine hygiene use of the company’s talc powders–Johnson’s...
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Drug Companies Pony Up in Illegal Marketing Cases, But Critics Wonder if...
iStock photo If you make truck deliveries in the overcrowded downtown streets of a big city, parking tickets might simply be a cost of doing business. For top drug companies, critics say, there’s an...
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Swarms of Drug Industry Lobbyists and Campaign Cash Stymie Bid to Restrain...
Quentin Lueninghoener for FairWarning See the editor’s note at the bottom of this story. When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription...
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Brain Boosters a Gold Mine for Supplements Industry But Benefits Are Hotly...
A few years ago, motivated by a family history of dementia, Bea Pena-Reames began using a dietary supplement that promised improved memory and brain health. It was advertised as safe and effective –...
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Johnson & Johnson Wins Its First Talc-Ovarian Cancer Case
Breaking a string of lopsided courtroom defeats, Johnson & Johnson scored a legal victory Friday when a St. Louis jury rejected the claim of an ovarian cancer victim that her use of talc powders...
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