The United Kingdom released a five-year and a 20-year plan for combatting antimicrobial resistance. Both are worth a careful read – especially if you're interested in efforts on stewardship and research support. But there's something buried in the five-year version that's less than straightforward. Let's take a look.
Drugs & Pharmaceuticals
Step therapy generally refers to trying one medicine after another, in order to get the best response for your patient. Most insurance companies believe that the lowest cost is the "best" approach. But an often-overlooked issue for both physicians and their patients is stepping down treatments, or eliminating unnecessary meds that are no longer necessary or "align with patient interests."
The price of insulin continues to rise. But before jumping on du jour soundbites, knowing its history may help explain why our first wonder drug is now a chimeric poster child for the best and worse in the pharmaceutical industry.
Reader's Digest recently ran an absurdly biased and misleading article about drugs to avoid. If you follow its advice you're going to have one seriously empty medicine cabinet. And a whole lot of discomfort and pain.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about new approaches to antibacterial therapy. But I keep going back to some old family history ...
Coffee is touted as a prevention remedy or for countless (and unrelated) diseases and conditions. One that isn't on that list is asthma. So, is coffee useful for asthmatics? Scientifically it should be. But you would need to drink a ghastly amount of it. (And at no extra charge we include the always-popular "Chemistry Lesson From Hell.")
Policymakers, providers, insurers and employers continue to complain that the U.S. must curtail spending on drugs to slow down the ever-growing cost of health care. Yet they’re not taking advantage of an innovation that's available to them -- and one that's saving the European Union massive sums.
When pharmaceutical companies jack up prices, it irritates everybody. And when people are irritated, politicians take the opportunity to do some grandstanding to win votes. Just a few days into its term, the House Oversight Committee in the new Congress has already launched an investigation into drug pricing. Is that justified? Not really.
If you're seeking sloppy reporting and sensationalist headlines, recently CNN did not disappoint. "Odds of dying from accidental opioid overdose in the US surpass those of dying in car accident," it stated. Well, maybe so, that is -- unless you take a deeper look and then a very different story emerges. No need. We at ACSH do it for you. Free of charge!
Epic patent gaming, and pay-for-delay agreements to slow-walk introduction of cheaper generics to market, helped bring us to this point. But will a growing behemoth of 750 hospitals actually lower drug prices?
How often do you hear of someone using their spouse's antibiotic from a prior illness? Or, dispensing an Ambien to a colleague or friend? For those practicing medicine without a license in person, or through social media crowdsourcing, the harms can be considerable.
The FDA has recalled medicine used to control blood pressure because it contains contaminants that might be carcinogenic. In the quest for more profit, a Chinese manufacturer broke the rules, thinking the ends justified the means.