Category: Politics and Regulation

Sen. Ron Johnson: Holding the bill funding the FDA hostage unless the cruel sham that is right-to-try is added to it

Advocates claim that "right-to-try" laws help terminally patients by allowing them access to experimental drugs before approval, when, in fact, such laws strip legal and regulatory protections from patients using such drugs and their purpose is actually to undermine and weaken the FDA. Now advocates led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) are making a new push to pass right-to-try by embedding it...

/ July 17, 2017

Australian review: Get homeopathy out of pharmacies

An independent review of Australian pharmacy practice has recommended that homeopathic products be kept out of pharmacies.

/ July 13, 2017

Trump’s new CDC Director is very pro-vaccine, but was she also at one time a quack?

On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price announced the appointment of Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald to head the CDC. Reassuringly, her record as Georgia Public Health Commissioner was pro-vaccine and relatively non-ideological. Not so reassuringly, a news report yesterday found that before entering public service she was peddling anti-aging quackery at her private practice. Where will her balance fall now...

/ July 10, 2017

Chiropractic clinical training with pediatric patients or complicated cases: slim to none

Chiropractors may never have seen a pediatric patient or a complicated medical case in clinical training, yet they are allowed to go into practice with no age limits on who they see and few on the conditions they treat.

/ July 6, 2017

“Chronic Lyme” VIP Daniel Cameron disciplined by New York medical authorities

"Chronic Lyme" guru Daniel Cameron, MD, has been put on 3-year probation by New York medical authorities. Will fellow "Lyme literate" doctors take note?

/ June 22, 2017

What naturopaths really want

Naturopaths want the same scope of practice as MDs and DOs, allowing them to make important medico-legal judgments that put life, liberty and property at risk.

/ June 8, 2017

When Drugs Cost Too Much

Our ability to develop new drugs is fast outstripping our ability to pay for them; some are exorbitantly expensive and not very effective. Funds are limited, and as a society we need to have a serious discussion about how they are to be allocated.

/ June 6, 2017

A closer look at generic drugs

In the struggle to contain growing healthcare costs, generic drugs have the potential to save millions. What gives us confidence they are equivalent to brand-name drugs?

/ June 1, 2017

Medical marijuana as the new herbalism, part 5: Turning herbalism into science-based medicine

There’s a new clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing a beneficial effect due to cannabidiol, a chemical isolated from marijuana, on drug-resistant seizures due to Dravet syndrome. Although there are a fair number of caveats, this is how you begin to turn the herbalism that characterizes medical marijuana advocacy into science-based medicine.

/ May 29, 2017

Healthcare reform should ditch mandated coverage of CAM providers

Forced insurance coverage of chiropractic, naturopathic, and acupuncture services is not consistent with the goals of either the ACA or the AHCA. Whatever happens to Obamacare in the U.S. Senate, Section 2706 of the ACA should be repealed.

/ May 25, 2017