Category: Giant Supermarkets Gives Away Generic Antibiotics

For our final post of 2008, we couldn’t resist hitting one of our favorite subjects: deals on generic drugs.
In this case, they’re free — at least for now. Giant Food is giving away generic antibiotics from Jan. 2 to March 21, including amoxicillin, penicillin and ciprofloxacin. Details are here. The program will also be available […]

Associated Press
Roland Burris has criticized drug-company profits, though the subject wasn’t exactly at the top of the agenda at yesterday’s news conference.

Who knows if Roland Burris, former Illinois attorney general, will ultimately fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat. But since embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich made Burris the man of the moment, we figured we’d take […]

With some data showing that the anti-clotting medicine Plavix may not work well in almost a third of patients with a genetic variant, the FDA may look for changes to the instructions for the drug.
The WSJ reports on talks between the agency and Bristol-Myers Squibb over a revision to the label for Plavix, the second-biggest […]

The FDA is going to get some expert help as it decides whether to finally approve prasugrel, Eli Lilly’s powerful anti-clotting drug and would-be competitor to blockbuster Plavix.
Lilly and partner Daiichi Sankyo said this morning that the FDA’s Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee would meet Feb. 3. The companies didn’t offer any details about […]

Doctors, we warned you: The days of free office supplies courtesy of drug companies are ending.
After the ball drops in Times Square tonight, the pharmaceutical industry’s new ban on pens, staplers, mugs and other giveaways to doctors will be official around here. More than 40 companies have signed on, including Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson […]

Controversial Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman has agreed to stop working on clinical trials funded by industry until Massachusetts General Hospital finishes looking into allegations that he didn’t adequately report the funding he has received from drugmakers.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) has accused Biederman of failing to disclose more than $1.6 million in payments he received […]

Abbott’s been selling its blockbuster drug Humira since 2002. But it was just a few days ago that Bayer sued Abbott in federal court, arguing that Humira infringes on a patent granted to Bayer in 1997.
Here’s a copy of the complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Texas; here’s the Bayer patent.
There’s a simple […]

Richard Daines, the MD who runs the New York State Health Department, has rounded up a few props and grabbed himself a video camera to support a proposed state tax on sugary sodas.
The video, which feels like something we saw on a cable access channel in 1989, has been watched about 16,000 times since […]

The WSJ’s Melinda Beck devotes this week’s Health Journal column to odd ailments. One that caught our attention: foreign accent syndrome.
We’d never heard of it before, but as it turns out the medical literature is full of case reports. The problem typically follows a stroke or head injury, and is the result of brain damage […]

Five … Four … Three … Two … Say, is there time for me to get that hip replacement before my deductible resets?
The end-of-year health-care boom is upon us, as legions of the insured rush in for care before 2008 runs out.
The rush is driven by largely patients who’ve already paid their deductible for the […]