Medications

Why isn’t medical advertising regulated like other advertising?

Meds
September 7, 2024

As long as you live, you will never hear an article from news media contending that “America Runs On Duncan.” Why? Because the line is a marketing allegation created by the advertising company and designed to sell product.

Yet news media repeat medical claims from drug makers found in journals like they are news––which gives Pharma companies free advertising and can mislead consumers and patients.

The most recent example is the “news” …

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A true win for the DEA and society at large

Meds
August 19, 2024

In most physician prosecutions for treating pain or addiction, there is never any actual evidence of criminal intent. Just the nebulous argument that a doctor “ignored the risk of overdose,” “ignored the risk of addiction,” or performed “an insufficient medical exam.” I have a big problem with these because the doctor didn’t ignore anything in about 80 percent of the cases I evaluated. Indeed, the DEA had to lie to …

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From conviction to appeal: a doctor’s opioid case sparks debate

Meds
August 14, 2024

A doctor in Virginia named Joel Smithers was serving a 40-year sentence in an Atlanta prison when he won his appeal to the 4th Circuit. No, he didn’t shoot someone. That’s probably 25 years. He treated patients in pain. Now, he will get a new trial where he will be bludgeoned again with false metrics and innuendo. To ensure that the benefit of the doubt prevails, a Reuters article starts …

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Are you storing your medications wrong?

Meds
August 3, 2024

Today, I want to talk about how creative humans are. As physicians, we encounter patients with ideas that amaze us every day and make our lives interesting, to say the least. The best ones are often the elderly, who have years of experience and unique ways of getting things done that differ greatly from the current generation.

I came across an elderly patient in the office who had previously been diagnosed …

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Young lives at risk: the unseen dangers of fentanyl addiction

Conditions
July 27, 2024

When we go charging in blood vessels at breathtaking speed to relieve the blockade that otherwise may bring a sad end to life, we expect to be doing it for the mature and elderly. The stress and strains upon the heart through the journey that is life upend the natural rhythm and flow, with the turbulence churning up clots like butter from milk that flow downstream till the narrowed channels …

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Cinnamon versus brain cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and insomnia

Conditions
July 13, 2024

I’ve always adored cinnamon. Its aroma warms the cockles of my heart, and its flavor makes me feel as if I’m wrapped up in an old fairy tale. However, I was floored when I reviewed some of the latest research regarding the effects of cinnamon on brain health.

Cinnamon is a type of laurel plant (believe it or not, there are almost three thousand members of the Lauraceae family). Cinnamon happens …

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My fear of pharmaceuticals stole a decade from me

Conditions
June 20, 2024

I have a cat.

That’s my go-to answer when people ask me if I have children. It’s just easier than saying my refusal to take FDA-approved medications for severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) stole a decade of what could have been normal life from me.

Studies show it takes an average of 17 years for patients with OCD to receive adequate therapy. Thankfully, in the past ten years, this duration is starting …

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Transforming liver care: the evolution of MASH diagnosis and treatment

Meds
June 16, 2024

The term “revolutionary” is used too often in health care. New imaging modalities, pharmaceutical breakthroughs, advanced medical devices, and artificial intelligence are all regularly proclaimed to be revolutionary to attract interest and attention. But those of us trained in medicine who work in these fields know that revolutions don’t happen—it takes 17 years for new research to reach the translational stage.

In reality, the best we can hope for is …

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Doctors or criminals? How misleading narratives hurt innocent lives

Physician
May 25, 2024

When it comes to journalism and health care prosecutions, today’s “papers” are so yellow that they could damage vision like a 580 nm laser. I have personally seen and suffered from this unbalanced approach to reporting and felt a need to provide a counternarrative based on reason instead of hyperbole. After studying hundreds of cases, I will argue that in roughly fifty percent of these, the government has paid hundreds …

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Xylazine: the lethal ingredient hiding in your pills

Meds
May 21, 2024

Xylazine has been found to be adulterating pills in America, and doctors will need to understand this new threat. First, xylazine is not “krokodil,” although it produces somewhat similar-looking skin ulcers.  Krokodil is a pseudonym for desomorphine, which is created from a precursor chemical called alpha-chlorocodide. Desomorphine is dihydrodesoxymorphine and was developed in Germany in 1932. It is a very fast but short-acting, semi-synthetic opioid used mainly in Russia.  Xylazine …

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Can weight loss medication interfere with ADHD meds?

Meds
May 20, 2024

Why bother going to work? If I didn’t work, I wouldn’t get paid, so there was that. But it seemed like a pointless exercise. I would stare at my monitor until it was time to go home. On some level I knew I should be, well, working, but I couldn’t collect my scattered thoughts enough to do it. I was also manic. Not the fun kind of mania where everything’s …

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The hidden dangers of mislabeling pain patients: a medical crisis

Physician
May 15, 2024

I am very concerned about the mislabeling of patients who suffer from pain that is being carried out in a wholesale fashion by some in the American medical community. This mislabeling is the result of the most dangerous combination in the world: good intentions and avarice. These two have recently combined to create distortions that are now to the point of wholesale fraud. Calling something what it is not can …

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DEA shuts down pharmacy for fulfilling addiction treatment prescriptions

Physician
May 1, 2024

On August 8, 2023, DEA agents shut down the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy in the Southern District of West Virginia. Their crime? Having filled more than 2,000 prescriptions for Subutex over more than two years “in the face of obvious red flags of drug abuse and diversion,” according to the U.S. Attorney for that district. I guess someone needs to explain to the government what the heck Subutex is prescribed …

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Too many older adults are taking risky sedative medications

Meds
April 14, 2024

A recent investigation in Quebec uncovered a concerning trend: benzodiazepines — medications commonly used for sleep or anxiety — are being overprescribed. This investigation has prompted the Quebec College of Physicians to closely examine the usage of these medications.

But this issue extends beyond Quebec’s borders; across Canada, these medications are being prescribed at alarming rates.

Benzodiazepines and other sedatives are often prescribed to older adults aged 65 and up for …

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Polypharmacy and prescribing cascades [PODCAST]

Podcast
April 11, 2024
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Join us for a discussion on medication awareness and prescribing cascades with Paula Rochon, a geriatrician. As we embark on a new year, many focus on diet and exercise resolutions, but overlooking medication …

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How Enhanced Recovery After Surgery solves our opioid problems

Meds
March 28, 2024

In retrospect, we were an addicted nation waiting to happen. Not from a self-indulgent culture, not from an unwillingness to suffer hardship, nor any of the generational criticisms of lack of grit. Our opioid crisis derives from an impatient culture that fears loss of health more than health care profit. With pain as most people’s proxy for health, we were …

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Topoisomerase inhibitors and chronic pain

Meds
March 23, 2024

Topoisomerase inhibitors emerged in the American medical landscape in 1971, thanks to the discovery by Dr. Jim Wang of the E. coli omega protein. Topoisomerase I, an enzyme identified by Dr. Wang, plays a crucial role in DNA unwrapping from supercoiling. Supercoiling involves tightly wrapping DNA for storage and protection, requiring unwrapping for reading, a process in which topoisomerase is indispensable.

Topoisomerase comprises two main types, aptly named types I and …

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Off-label prescriptions, side effects, and lawsuits: Navigating ethical and legal dilemmas

Meds
March 23, 2024

A recent TV advertisement attempted to recruit clients for a class action suit against a pharmaceutical manufacturer (PM) for a medication side effect (SE). The “cause of action” was unstated: was it the side effect’s existence or that the company failed to emphasize its severity?

The SE was acknowledged not only by the company but also the FDA, which nonetheless approved the medication (RX), determining that its benefits outweighed the side …

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DEA overreach: a threat to doctors’ freedom in American medicine

Meds
March 19, 2024

Today, doctors’ liberty and property are at risk when they choose to treat a patient. Not because of some new law but because of the misapplication of old ones. The current opioid panic has essentially given the DEA free rein to target any physician whose medical practice they disagree with. This has created a serious problem in American medicine and a unique danger to health care providers in this country. …

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Where do they come up with all those goofy names for prescription drugs, anyway?

Meds
February 22, 2024

An excerpt from Pills, Shills, and the Psychiatry Wars: Musings from the Drug Safety & Healthcare News Blog.

I was spreading pine straw around the bushes in my yard in Atlanta, Georgia, when I started thinking about … you guessed it! The goofy names that drug companies come up with for their prescription drugs.

Folks in the blue states are often interested in the customs of us red state folks since …

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