Whether choosing generics because of cost or availability you would think that their safety and efficacy would be guaranteed by the maker, much like brand name products.

It seems like this is not the case.

Across the country, dozens of lawsuits against generic pharmaceutical companies are being dismissed because of a Supreme Court decision last year that said the companies did not have control over what their labels said and therefore could not be sued for failing to alert patients about the risks of taking their drugs.

Now, what once seemed like a trivial detail — whether to take a generic or brand-name drug — has become the deciding factor in whether a patient can seek legal recourse from a drug company. The cases range from that of Ms. Schork, who wasn’t told which type of drug she had been given when she visited the hospital, to people like Camille Baruch, who developed a gastrointestinal disease after taking a generic form of the drug Accutane, as required by her health care plan.

Medical advances in the new year could have a huge impact on world health.

Vaccines, new regulations and cheaper drugs are just some of the medical advances to come.

Like other vaccines, cancer vaccines use a chemical marker of a disease (in one case, a virus; in another, a malignant tumor) to train a person’s immune system to fight the disease.
But unlike vaccines for the flu or chicken pox, which are preventive, “we almost uniformly vaccinate after cancer is there,” Kwak said.
Some cancer vaccines in development could be administered to many people, while others – including Kwak’s vaccine for follicular lymphoma – would have to be tailored to each patient’s tumors.

There is a lot to look forward to and more choices will be one of the biggest drivers of change and improvement.

The American lifestyle is the biggest threat that our nation faces today.

Better treatments are saving and preserving lives, however, lifestyle and overall health does not account for any drop in fatalities due to cardiovascular illness.

Lives may be saved but the quality of life enjoyed on an expensive diet of pharmaceuticals comes with it’s own disadvantages.

The authors of the report, which appears online Dec. 15 in the journal Circulation, looked at seven markers of cardiovascular health: smoking, weight, exercise, diet, cholesterol, blood pressure and fasting blood sugar levels, as well as whether or not a person had a diagnosis of heart disease.

Using those criteria, 94 percent of U.S. adults — that’s almost everyone — have at least one risk factor for heart disease. For example, one-third of U.S. adults have high blood pressure while 15 percent have high cholesterol.

American’s demand for fast food and sedentary entertainment is undoing the health of men, women and children nation wide.

Ways to save money on pharmaceuticals may be the answer for millions of Americans, especially the elderly who are often prescribed multiple medicines, to make ends meet and still maintain their health.

Coupons, generics, substitution of brands and frank discussions with your physician regarding your ability to pay for your Rx are just a few of the options available.

A weight loss pill which generates results in without any effort is a dream come true, for many.

Although the trials have been successful in monkeys it still needs to be tested on humans.
The researchers, headed by the husband and wife team Wadih Arap and Renata Pasqualini, have been working on the project for years. In 2004 the research team proved the drug could bring substantial weight loss in mice. Now, after the highly successful results in monkeys, they have applied for FDA approval to begin trials in people, possibly within a year.

The “couch potato” weight loss pill could be on the way.

The beauty quotient continues to expand making even brown eyes a condition to be fixed according to pharmaceutical companies.

The “lifestyle” drug market — which was estimated to surpass $29 billion in 2007 — pits problems of a social or cosmetic nature against conditions threatening physical health or well-being.

In a world where baldness and frown lines are medical conditions to be cured the boundaries of real illness and self improvement have become quite blurred.

“The debate is often framed here between treatment and enhancement,” said Dr. Joel Lexchin, a professor of health policy and management at York University in Toronto. “They’re taking what is traditionally considered normal human variation and trying to homogenize the way people look. On an individual level, people can do probably whatever they want, but on a collective level, we have to think about whether producing drugs that enhance people is really the best use of our resources.”

Generic drugs are in high demand in growth markets in Europe and China and will quickly out pace the sale of name brand drugs.

One of the fastest growing markets will be for Type II diabetes medications as Western lifestyles and diseases encroach on the developing world.

Global sales growth of prescription drugs could be cut in half over the next five years as lucrative brands lose patent protection and cheaper generics and emerging markets become the only significant growth drivers, according to IMS Health.

The overall rate of deaths from drugs — including heroin, cocaine, and prescription opioids — is approaching the number of deaths from car crashes each year.

In 2007, there were 28,000 deaths from prescription drug overdoses.

Those deaths were driven largely by the abuse of prescription painkillers.

Prescription painkiller abuse now matches abuse of illegal drugs, and mortality from the prescription drugs exceeds overdose deaths from cocaine and heroin combined

“We are in the midst of a public health crisis driven by prescription drug abuses,”

“In 2007, there were 28,000 deaths from prescription drug overdoses — five times the number in 1990, Kerlikowske said. Those deaths were driven largely by the abuse of prescription painkillers.”