Medications

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the drugs they prescribe and the ones they cannot get: prior authorization and step therapy, opioid prescribing and the tapers that followed the CDC guideline, the GLP-1 drugs from Ozempic to oral Wegovy and what happens when patients stop them, shortages, compounded versions, and what a prescription costs the patient. Three maintained records draw on this archive: Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words, Prior authorization: what physicians say, in their own words, and GLP-1 drugs: what physicians say about Ozempic and its successors, in their own words.

How psychiatrists may be giving their patients too many drugs

Kevin

Medications

January 16, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by John Gever, MedPage Today Senior Editor

Psychiatrists who prescribe drugs for their patients today usually give more than one at a time, often with little scientific basis, researchers said.

About 60% of patients with psychiatrist office visits leading to a drug prescription received at least two medications in 2005-2006, according to government survey data analyzed by Ramin …

Do neuroenhancement pills really improve attention, memory, or cognition?

Kevin

Medications

January 15, 2010

Originally published in HCPLive.com

by Victor G. Dostrow, MD

The Internet is filled with reports of remarkable cognitive enhancement with various nostrums.

Many are not regulated, and the pages are typically associated with glowing testimonials and a link to sign up for uninterrupted (and uninterruptible) delivery of the miracle substance. More to the point of this post, other blogs, reports, and forum comments opine as to notable benefits of taking prescription medications marketed …

Don’t use kitchen spoons to measure drug dosages

Kevin

Medications

January 15, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Individuals using standard spoons from their home kitchen to dispense liquid medications may be pouring too little or too much of the drugs, researchers found.

Among volunteers trying to pour a teaspoonful of cold and cough medicine, using a slightly larger spoon resulted in underdosing and using a much larger …

What will the next big medical advance be?

Kevin

Medications

January 14, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

That famous observation from baseball great Yogi Berra applies in spades to medicine.

What technological advance or new insight will shape the next few years? As Yogi noted, it’s tough to predict:

It could be — as Leif Ellisen, MD, PhD, thinks — tumor genotyping.

Cardiologists discuss how far myocardial infarction management has come

Kevin

Medications

January 10, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor

“What we did for patients with acute MI was place them in a cool, dark place. Give them morphine for pain and lidocaine to prevent arrhythmias and hope for the best.”

The speaker is Steven Nissen, MD, director of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. He is describing standard care 25 …

How women can benefit from oral contraceptive pills

Kevin

Medications

December 31, 2009

Originally posted in MedPage Today

by Nancy Walsh, MedPage Today Contributing Writer

Hormonal contraceptives have a variety of noncontraceptive uses, ranging from common problems such as dysmenorrhea to severe conditions such as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, according to a new practice bulletin from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

“Combined hormonal contraceptives can correct menstrual irregularities resulting from oligo-ovulation or anovulation and …

How medication mistakes happen in the hospital

Kevin

Medications

December 22, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Katrina Woznicki, MedPage Today Contributing Writer

Hospitalized patients were often clueless when asked about their medications, with almost all of them unable to name all their medications and many leaving out as many as a half-dozen drugs they have been prescribed, according to a small survey of patients in a Colorado hospital.

Ninety-six percent of the …

What the H1N1 vaccine recall means for kids

Kevin

Medications

December 15, 2009

Originally posted in MedPage Today

by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Sanofi Pasteur has recalled about 800,000 pediatric doses of its vaccine against pandemic H1N1 influenza because of low potency, the CDC announced, but the agency is not calling for revaccinations.

The recalled doses come from four lots of 0.25-mL prefilled syringes for pediatric use in both 10-packs (lot numbers UT023DA, …

Tamiflu kills babies, and other H1N1 flu pandemic misconceptions

Kevin

Medications

December 3, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer

As one of the two MedPage Today writers on full-time H1N1 duty since the beginning of the outbreak in April, I feel like I know the issues well enough to help clear up misconceptions when they come up in conversation.

The other day, just such a situation presented itself. An …

Pharma, evidence, and trust

Kevin

Medications

December 2, 2009

by David Rind, MD

A number of the other blogs that have noted the existence of this blog seem to have “Pharma” in their titles in one way or another, and the implication is not that the blogger likes much about Big Pharma.

In the late 1990s, when I was spending much of my clinical time providing HIV care, I was a defender of Pharma on Usenet, at least as it related …

Read more…

Pharma, evidence, and trust

How does Zetia and niacin affect the carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT)?

Kevin

Medications

November 22, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor

By a margin of 0.014 mm in carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT), extended-release niacin (Niaspan) demonstrated superiority over ezetimibe (Zetia) as an add-on for high risk patients on long term statin therapy.

But is a difference of 0.014 mm clinically significant?

The niacin versus ezetimibe findings come from the ARBITER 6-HALTS trial, …

How should the FDA regulate the social media advertising of drugs?

Kevin

Medications

November 20, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Emily P. Walker, MedPage Today Washington Correspondent

Drug and device makers are urging the FDA to establish clear guidelines that will allow the industry to discuss and promote products in the unsettled world of online social media.

The FDA is hearing testimony from drug and device companies, online marketing experts, and consumer groups about what steps the …

Why you should stop taking Vytorin for high cholesterol

Matthew Mintz, MD

Medications

November 16, 2009

At the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, the results of the ARBITER 6-HALTS study were released. No Vytorin was used in the study, but I am sure that all the headlines will mention Vytorin.

The actual study published ahead of press online in the New England Journal of Medicine. Essentially, they enrolled over 200 patients from Walter Reed and Washington Adventist who had known heart disease or were at …

Niacin beats Zetia in the ARBITER 6-HALTS trial, and what this means for ezetimibe

Kevin

Medications

November 16, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor

Boosting HDL cholesterol with extended-release niacin (Niaspan) is a more effective way of slowing atherosclerosis in high-risk patients on long-term statin therapy than seeking additional LDL cholesterol reductions by adding ezetimibe (Zetia), researchers here reported.

Compared with ezetimibe, 2 grams of niacin led to significant reductions in both the mean …

Patients who want the H1N1 vaccine need to be triaged

Kevin

Medications

November 11, 2009

by Kairol Rosenthal

I am a young adult cancer patient who waited five and a half hours for the H1N1 vaccination along with 1200 other Chicagoans in a city college hallway. I do not have the trained eye of a public health analyst, yet it was easy to spy the glaring flaws that occurred in the whimsical distribution of this short supply vaccine. One of these oversights was the absence …

H1N1 vaccine adverse events, and how to reassure patients

Kevin

Medications

November 3, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer

Failure to account for background rates when considering adverse events from pandemic H1N1 flu vaccination could spark public panic, researchers cautioned.

Coincidental cases of dramatic events including sudden death, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and spontaneous abortion can be expected to boost the true incidence of adverse events after immunization, said Steven …

Beware using the web for H1N1 pandemic flu drugs

Kevin

Medications

October 29, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent

The Internet can be a great source of information about the pandemic H1N1 flu, but it’s also the mother lode of swine flu scams, the FDA is warning.

The agency says consumers should beware of products sold over the Internet that claim to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure the …

This is why children need the H1N1 flu vaccine

Crystal Phend

Medications

October 28, 2009

by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer

The pandemic H1N1 influenza virus continues to disproportionately attack the young, the CDC warned.

Children and adults under age 25 have accounted for 53% of hospitalizations for laboratory-confirmed H1N1 and 23.6% of related deaths since Sept. 1, the agency reported at a press briefing.

Seniors, on the other hand, have accounted for just 7% of …

Have drug companies really curbed gifts to doctors at medical conferences?

Kevin

Medications

October 27, 2009

by Roberta Friedman, PhD

Banning pharmaceutical companies from handing out token items to doctors at conferences is so tip of the iceberg.

I have tales to tell of conferences past, where the excesses were beyond farcical. As a medical reporter covering such meetings, I have seen everything. When my kids were young, I enjoyed roaming the floor of the exhibit hall along with the docs, collecting such swag as bouncy balls that …

Is the newest, long-lasting insulin necessarily the best?

Kevin

Medications

October 27, 2009

Originally published in HCPLive.com

by Anita Ramsetty, MD

We are very fortunate to have a number of newer insulins available for our patients.

For years we had animal insulins only. NPH and Regular, then we had Ultralente. The development of analog insulins marked the upswing in technology that we would sustain for a period of time. The most recent big blip in the …

Medications

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