Medicine

Save Money On Prescription Drugs : Communicating With Your Doctor
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
It's a good idea to tell your doctors whether paying for medicine is a problem, says Edward Langston, M.D., a family physician in Lafayette, Ind., and an American Medical Association trustee.

Save Money On Prescription Drugs : Generic Drugs
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Many Americans have been buying prescription drugs from foreign countries as a way to cut costs, but experts at the Food and Drug Administration warn that this practice comes with potential safety risks.

BiDil: Heart Drug for Black Patients
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
BiDil is a combination of two older drugs, hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate. Hydralazine relaxes the arteries so the heart doesn't have to work as hard to push blood through them. Isosorbide dinitrate relaxes both the veins and the arteries.

Drug Name Confusion : Part 2
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Every drug usually has three names: chemical, generic (non-proprietary), and brand (proprietary), and each is subject to different rules and regulations. The chemical name specifies the chemical structure of the drug.

Drug Name Confusion
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Health experts work to minimize the potential for confusion between products with names that look or sound alike. Medication errors can occur between brand names, generic names, and brand-to-generic names like Toradol and tramadol.

Drugs and Gender Differences
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
In 1998, the allergy drug Seldane (terfenadine) was removed from the market, when a safer alternative was approved. It had been discovered that Seldane could cause a life-threatening heart rhythm irregularity when used with certain other drugs.

Buying Medical Products Online : Medical Devices
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Medical devices are pieces of equipment, apparatus, machines, implants, test kits, or other similar articles intended to diagnose, heal, manage, or prevent diseases or conditions.

Buying Medical Products Online : Dietary Supplements
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Dietary supplements are products taken as a supplement to the diet. Examples are vitamins, minerals, herbs, botanicals, and amino acids, the individual building blocks of proteins needed for all life. Dietary supplements are classified as foods

Buying Medical Products Online: Prescription Drugs
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Many legitimate Web sites bring customers health products with the benefits of convenience, privacy, and, sometimes, cheaper prices. 'But consumers need to be aware that the Internet has also created a marketplace for unapproved medical products, illegal

Children and Antidepressants
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Experts give advice on the safe use of antidepressants in children. Concerns about a possible risk of suicidality in children taking antidepressants emerged from an FDA analysis of a May 2003 report on pediatric studies of the antidepressant drug Paxil

Development of Medical Products, Drugs : Part 2
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
To meet the challenge, the FDA is calling for a new focus on modernizing the tools that researchers and product developers use to assess the safety and effectiveness of potential new products and to mass-produce high-quality therapies.

Development of Medical Products, Drugs
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Drugs recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration help children with rheumatoid arthritis walk, prevent or halt heart disease, slow the progression of multiple sclerosis, and cure infectious diseases. New medical devices improve the heart's bloo

Truth in Drug Advertising : Guidance and Violations
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Sometimes marketers combine help-seeking ads with perceptually similar reminder ads in a way that causes the audience to perceive the two pieces as one advertisement. Appearing individually, these ads are exempted by regulation from the risk disclosure

Truth in Drug Advertising : Education or Promotion?
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
At least one patient advocacy group is concerned about what it says are the downsides of advertising prescription drugs directly to consumers, claiming that DTC ads often masquerade as educational tools, but provide more promotion than education.

Truth in Drug Advertising
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
You may have seen the advertisement: A melodrama of crime and corruption, conflict and emotion, centering on indoor hit men like dust and dander, and outdoor hit men such as pollen and ragweed, all threatening to offend a young and very beautiful woman's

Types of Drug Interactions
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Drugs with other drugs: This includes both prescription and over-the-counter medicines. Tricyclic antidepressants such as Elavil (amitriptyline) and Pamelor (nortriptyline) can interfere with blood pressure-lowering Catapres (clonidine).

Dietary Supplements and Serious Drug Interactions
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The FDA focus has been mainly on drug-drug interactions, but interactions between drugs and dietary supplements are gaining more and more attention. A recent Institute of Medicine report, sponsored by the FDA, estimated that Americans spend close

Serious Drug Interactions Prevention : Discoveries After Approval
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Three phases of clinical trials in humans must happen before a drug can be marketed. Phase 1 studies focus on a drug's side effects and how the drug is metabolized and eliminated from the body. Phase 2 studies focus on a drug's effectiveness.

Serious Drug Interactions Prevention
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Mixing two drugs together could make one of the drugs ineffective. The combination also could increase a drug's effect, and be harmful. The result might be mild symptoms such as nausea, stomach upset, or headache, or more serious symptoms

Androstenedione: Andro Products Safety
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
People produce androstenedione naturally during the making of testosterone and estrogen. When people consume androstenedione, it is converted to testosterone and estrogen. Scientific evidence shows that when androstenedione is taken over time