Medicine

Prescription Drug Use and Abuse : Complexities of Addiction
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
NIDA, along with several health organizations, has launched a national initiative to educate the public about the dangers of the non-medical use of prescription drugs, and the potential for abuse and addiction.

Prescription Drug Use and Abuse
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Most people take medicines responsibly, but about 9 million Americans misuse prescription drugs to get high, calm down, or for other non-medical purposes. Physician supervision and appropriate use is critical for all prescription drugs.

Gleevec: Leukemia Treatment
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The FDA has approved a new oral treatment for people with a rare, life-threatening form of cancer under its 'accelerated approval' regulations. Symptoms of leukemia may include abdominal discomfort, bone and joint pains, and fatigue.

Pregnancy and Drug
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Experts say that while they have certainly learned some useful information for successful drug treatment in pregnancy, their knowledge is limited for the most part. Unless research focuses on a pregnancy-related condition such as labor induction, drugs

Drugs: Serious Liver Injury
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Drug-induced liver injury has become the number one cause of acute liver failure and the leading reason that drugs are removed from the market or require restricted use. People who experience acute liver failure become critically ill in a matter of days

Drug Therapies: Measuring Quality of Life, Lotronex Dilemma
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The World Health Organization defined quality of life in its constitution in 1948 to include physical, mental, and social well-being, and not just the absence of disease or illness.

Drug Therapies: Quality of Life
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The benefits of drug therapies may go beyond disease treatment. FDA and the drug industry are looking at how to evaluate quality-of-life claims. The television commercial portrays an elderly woman on chemotherapy, planning her daughter's wedding.

Phenylpropanolamine in Medicines
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
FDA issued a public health advisory alerting consumers to stop using over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription drug products containing phenylpropanolamine because this ingredient has been associated with an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke

User Fees for Faster Drug Reviews? : Part 2
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
A major concern focuses on the perceived impact of industry money, and there are some who express apprehension about the arrangement. In its report from the Government Performance Project in March 2000, the Maxwell School of Public Administration

User Fees for Faster Drug Reviews?
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Resources provided by user fees helped FDA revive its drug and biologic new product review . But eliminating review delays has not eliminated criticism of the program.

Customizing Prescription Drugs
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Health professionals are compounding when they prepare a specialized drug product to fill an individual patient's prescription when an approved drug can't fill the bill. Compounding sometimes involves nothing more than crushing a pill into a powder

Buying Drugs Online
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The scene is becoming increasingly common in the United States: Consumers are replacing a trip to the corner drugstore with a click onto the Internet, where they find hundreds of Web sites selling prescription drugs and other health products.

Placebos: The Power of Mind
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Even with the powerful scientific advantages of including a placebo control, researchers and FDA must look at each treatment individually to decide if the use of placebos is appropriate and ethical.

Experimental Treatments: A Difficult Decision, Is The Risk Worth It?
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
All things being equal, is it worth it for a patient to get access to an experimental medication? For society the additional safety information about the new drug may prove useful. And sometimes it does make a difference for individual patients.

Experimental Treatments: Getting Access, Beyond Clinical Trials
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
For patients in search of a cutting edge treatment, the possibilities have improved dramatically. First of all, there are more clinical studies under way than ever before. FDA has on file more than 13,000 active drug and biologic studies.

Experimental Treatments: Not Always Unavailable
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Under an FDA program, patients with life-threatening diseases such as AIDS or cancer can receive promising investigational drugs before they are approved for general use.

Using Medicines Wisely
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Amid busy schedules, women may sometimes cut corners when taking medications, causing potential hazards. Women need to play an active role to ensure their own safety when taking medicines.

When Is a Medical Product Too Risky? : Part 3
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
We're making an assumption there, though, that the prescriber, who is the primary risk manager once the drug is on the market, is going to make rational choices, taking into account all the information available.

When Is a Medical Product Too Risky?
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Following the recent withdrawal of several prescription drugs from the market because of adverse effects, consumers may wonder, how safe are approved drugs and other medical products? Safer than ever, says the director of FDA's drug center.

Pediatric Drug Safety
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
More than half of the prescription drugs that children are likely to use have not been adequately tested or labeled for youngsters. But an FDA rule now requires makers of many drugs to provide information on safe pediatric use.