Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
Popular Articles

Salamanders, Regenerative Wonders, Heal Like Mammals, People
The salamander is a superhero of regeneration, able to replace lost limbs, damaged lungs, sliced spinal cord -- even bits of lopped-off brain.
generic viagra online
Obama Starts Interviewing Supreme Court Candidates
President Obama on Tuesday started interviewing potential Supreme Court nominees, the Wall Street Journal reports. Senior White House adviser David Axelrod on Tuesday said that the administration is looking for a candidate who will give the powerless and disenfranchised people "a fair shake." Conservatives have said that the nominee will inevitably be a "judicial activist" because Obama has said that he wants to nominate a candidate who can use past experience and empathy for the underrepresented populations to help guide court decisions.Obama has started calling Republican senators in an effort to prevent the "bruising battles" past Supreme Court nominations have encountered during the confirmation process, the Journal reports. Obama called Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Tuesday, which Cornyn said was a "nice gesture." Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) spoke to Obama last week. Coburn said, "I don"t know that it"s going to be contentious," adding, "A prudent man would say, "I"m going to have a couple of Supreme Court nominees. Maybe I want to defuse the thing, the first one, so I can do what I want to do (with) the second one."" Axelrod said that Obama has spoken to 15 senators from both parties (Weisman/Bendavid, Wall Street Journal, 5/20).
News of the day
Healthy Teen Weight Behaviors Linked To Regular Self-Weighing
In a study of 130 overweight adolescents, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found that frequent self-weighing is associated with positive behaviors and may prove to be a useful weight-control tool.
Public Health

In Thoracic Transplantation More Stringent Evaluation On The Use Of Generic Medications Recommended

A closer look at regulatory and clinical concerns with generic immunosuppression medications in thoracic transplantation is required, according to an educational advisory by the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) in the July 2009 issue of The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, published by Elsevier. Thoracic transplant patients require immunosuppressant medications that are classified by regulating agencies around the world as "critical dose drugs" due to an increase in risk of harm from comparatively small differences in dose or concentration. These "critical dose drugs", however, do not receive any additional testing or evaluation in transplanted patients before being approved by worldwide regulating agencies. Approval for brand names drugs is only given after careful testing by regulatory agencies. These drugs are studied in a stringently controlled format in patients who have the condition for which the drug is to be prescribed. The process for generic drug approval is different. Generic drugs are required to have the identical active ingredients as the brand product in the same strength and rate and extent of absorption. These products are then tested on a small number of healthy volunteers. Evaluating healthy volunteers does not adequately represent the challenges faced in prescribing immunosuppressant medication in transplant recipients. Many times, transplant recipients are far from healthy and face the challenges of chronic disease, effects of drug therapy on non-translated organs, and interacting medications. "A presumably bioequivalent generic product when applied in the setting of transplantation often demonstrates a different and unanticipated pharmacokinetic profile. This issue is of special concern in patients prone to graft rejection and especially in children", said Dr. Patricia A. Uber, Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of Maryland School of Medicine and the lead author of this advisory. The ISHLT Board of Directors assigned a group of transplant practitioners from various countries to develop this educational advisory to inform transplant practitioners about generic immunosuppression. Key recommendations in the educational advisory include: * Education of the patient to inform the health care professionals caring for them if their immunosuppressant medication has been changed * Education of other prescribers of the concerns regarding a switch to a generic immunosuppressant * Awareness that heightened surveillance following a change in critical medication to avoid adverse effects such as toxicity or rejection * Advocacy surrounding notification of an automatic generic substitution from the dispensing agencies to the prescriber Notes: The article is "Generic Drug Immunosuppression in Thoracic Transplantation: An ISHLT Educational Advisory" by Patricia A. Uber, PharmD; Heather J. Ross, MD; Andreas O. Zuckermann, MD; Stuart C. Sweet, MD; Paul A. Corris, MD; Keith McNeil,MD; and Mandeep R. Mehra, MBBS. It appears in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, Volume 28, Issue 7 (July 2009) published by Elsevier. Maureen Hunter Elsevier


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009