In March, an FDA advisory committee voted that the risks of Opana ER to public health outweigh its benefits as a chronic pain treatment…
Why Rheumatologists Should Care about Zika: How It’s Transmitted & Spreading in the U.S.
Rheumatologists are already familiar with one mosquito-borne virus, chikungunya, whose presentation mimics arthritis. Now, with its recent spread to Puerto Rico and the Southeastern U.S., Zika, another mosquito-borne virus, has become an international public health concern. Sexual transmission of the virus was recently confirmed, expanding the virus’s threat…
Gene Manipulation Has Potential to Alter Genomes, Impact Society
Every so often, a major scientific breakthrough profoundly alters the trajectory of scientific research. In the 1960s, microbiologists sparked the recombinant-DNA revolution with the discovery that bacteria have innate immune systems based on restriction enzymes. These enzymes bind and cut invading viral genomes at specific short sequences, and scientists rapidly repurposed them to cut and…
U.S. Public Health Funding on the Decline
(Reuters Health)—U.S. public health funding, which covers such things as disease prevention, cancer screenings, contraceptives and vaccines, has been steadily falling in recent years and is expected to keep going down, a recent study projects. Real, inflation-adjusted public health expenditures surged from $39 per capita in 1960 to $281 per capita in 2008, then fell…
GSK Shuts U.S. Plant Due to Bacteria
(Reuters)—Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline temporarily closed a North Carolina factory on Tuesday after testing at a cooling tower found bacteria that causes deadly Legionnaire’s disease. The Legionella bacteria were discovered during routine inspections at the site in Zebulon, N.C., the company said. The shutdown is not expected to disrupt supplies of medicines made at the factory, which…
A Regulatory Leader in Rheumatology
Jeffrey Siegel, MD: A rare combination of clinical scientist and regulatory collaborator