Medicine

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.

Clear Directions for Rx Drug Users
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The simple and uninformative phrase 'use as directed' will give way to detailed information in nonmedical language on all prescription drugs under a new voluntary plan FDA will monitor.

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.

Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Medicare Part D, the new outpatient drug coverage beginning on Jan. 1, 2006, works like other health insurance plans. Medicare beneficiaries will be able to choose from at least two prescription drug coverage plans.

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.

Taking Your Medicine
by National Institute of Health
The power of our memory often goes down with age. At the same time, aging often brings complicated medication regimens involving several drugs that need to be taken on different schedules throughout the day.

Ways to Speed Treatments to Patients
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
In an effort to help seriously ill people, FDA is devising new ways to get drugs and biologics to them more quickly--sometimes even before final approval.

User Fees to Fund Faster Reviews
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
An average of 22 months goes by from the time a company applies for approval to market a new drug or biologic application to when FDA reaches a decision. But that's about to change, thanks to a new source of revenue to expand FDA's review staff.

On FDA's Front Lines : Trust and Verify, Making the Grade
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
How do investigators get this proof? First they observe actual manufacturing practices to see if the process is being done correctly and according to the company's and FDA's manufacturing standards.

When a Drug Is in Short Supply
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Infantile spasms, or West's syndrome, is a sometimes crippling and even life-threatening seizure disorder that affects about 3,000 babies a year in the United States. The only drug that helps prevent the spasms is Acthar gel (ACTH), and the drug's only

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.

Label Literacy for Over the Counter Drugs, Part 2
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
A person allergic to an ingredient in a drug product needs to know whether the product contains it. Although active ingredients are usually listed on OTC drug products, current rules don't require labels for all drugs to list inactive ingredients.

Unapproved Drugs
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Most prescription drugs marketed in the United States have been reviewed and approved by the Food and Drug Administration as required by law. Thousands of unapproved prescription drugs, however, are still being prescribed and sold.

Medicines from Space : Part 3
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
One NASA spinoff comes from work on the motion sickness astronauts experience. Drug injections are impractical, since the medications may froth under weightlessness. Vomiting can make the use of oral medications also unworkable.

Generic Drugs: Safety and Effectiveness
by Health Canada
More and more, generic drugs are being used to fill prescriptions. Canadians want to be sure that generic drugs are as safe and effective as brand name drugs. Generic drug is the term used for products that contain the same medicinal ingredients

Greater Access to Generic Drugs : Part 2
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
A stay is the term for the delay in generic approval that occurs when a brand-name company files a patent infringement lawsuit. This delay is meant to be a time to resolve issues about whether a generic drug company is infringing a drug patent.

Ensuring Drugs Are Safe and Effective : Reviewing Applications
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Though FDA reviewers are involved with a drug's development throughout the IND stage, the official review time is the length of time it takes to review a new drug application and issue an action letter, an official statement informing a drug sponsor

Ways to Speed Treatments to Patients : Part 3
by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
FDA and sponsors of priority drugs may meet at the earliest stages of clinical testing to plan studies that will help develop the information necessary for a final decision on a product's approvability.

Shots: Immunizations for Adults
by National Institute on Aging
Shots - or immunizations - are not just for children! Adults also need to be vaccinated from time to time to protect themselves against serious infectious diseases. In fact, some shots are more important for adults than for children.

Immunization Registries
by Health Canada
Public health authorities across Canada are working to develop a national network of immunization registries. These registries will help protect your family and community from the threat of vaccine-preventable diseases.