The Safe Patient Project is a Consumers Union campaign focused on eliminating medical harm, improving FDA oversight of prescription drugs and promoting disclosure laws that give information to consumers about health care safety and quality.
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California Moving Too Slow On Patient Safety Progress
Since 2006, California lawmakers have passed laws to improve patient safety, yet the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has been moving at turtle speed to enforce these laws.
Categories: Doctor Accountability, Hospital Acquired Infections, Medical Errors, MRSA
Tags: CDC, flu, medicare part d
What Vytorin/Zetia Ads Don’t Tell You
Last Sunday a panel of cardiologists told more than 5,000 people that high cholesterol patients shouldn’t take Vytorin and Zetia except as a last resort. Made by Merck and Schering-Plough, these widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs are taken by about four million Americans.
Categories: Medical Devices & Drugs
Tags: FDA, flu, Pharma, Vytorin
Free drug samples hardly help the poor
If you are poor, uninsured, non-English speaking, or an ethnic or racial minority, you are less likely to receive free drug samples, according to a first of its kind study by Harvard researchers at the Cambridge Health Alliance.
Categories: Doctor Accountability, Medical Devices & Drugs
Tags: flu, ICU, Pharma, Vioxx
Statin drug may be approved for over the counter
Merck will be presenting to an FDA advisory committee tomorrow in an effort to get their Statin drug Mevacor approved for over-the-counter.
Categories: Medical Devices & Drugs
Tags: FDA, flu, ICU
A huge victory — and a huge thanks
Your emails, phone calls and visits to legislators helped win new drug safety protections for all Americans
Categories: Medical Devices & Drugs
Tags: FDA, flu, Vioxx
Brilliant biochemical chutzpah
Heartburn meds Nexium and Prilosec have been in the news lately because of the possibility they may increase risk of heart attack. While the jury’s still out on this, it’s fascinating look at the amount of money that’s been poured into the marketing of these drugs.
Categories: Medical Devices & Drugs
Tags: FDA, flu, Pharma, Vioxx
Conflict of Interest
Doctors with Drug Ties Chosen for Avandia Panel
Categories: Medical Devices & Drugs
Tags: FDA, flu, JAMA, medical device, Pharma, Vioxx
Pfizer white coats, why not?
At a U.S. Senate Aging hearing today concerns were raised on doctors’ financial ties to drug companies ($19 billion in ties). One witness even said, “we have reached the point where it would be more convenient for speakers to simply wear NASCAR-style jackets emblazoned with their sponsor’s logos.”
Categories: Medical Devices & Drugs, Uncategorized
Tags: flu, Pfizer, Pharma
Another prestigious institution bans Pharma swag
In what the NY Times calls “a growing movement among academic institutions,” Stanford University Medical Center will ban gifts — even small ones like pens — from pharma sales reps to physicians who work there.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: flu, JAMA, medical device, Patient Safety Day, recall
