FDA Panel’s Crestor Vote is More About CRP

Yesterday afternoon, Dec. 15, an FDA advisory panel voted 12-4 in favor of AstraZeneca’s application to broaden its labeling for rosuvastatin (Crestor) to include patients who meet enrollment criteria from the company’s large JUPITER study.
In short, the new indication would approve use of rosuvastatin for patients who have “normal” blood levels of LDL cholesterol (less than 130 mg/dL), but [...]

Complementary, My Dear Doctors

From a workshop celebrating the 10th anniversary of the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Bethesda, Md.:
Believe it or not, the National Institutes of Health has had a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for 10 years. To celebrate, they hosted a workshop with several speakers who addressed some big topics in [...]

H1N1 Vaccine: The Slow Supply Slogs On

It had been a month since I wrote about the H1N1 influenza vaccine supply, and I was curious what had happened during November. The numbers aren’t pretty.
According to a Dec. 4 Webpost by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Dec. 3, a total of 63.3 million H1N1 doses had shipped to U.S. providers. Shipments [...]

Got Those Post-Partum Below-The-Belt Blues?

From the 38th Global Congress of Minimally Invasive Gynecology, Orlando, Fla.
Life, Before Kids: Movie. Attraction. Passion. Sex. Pregnancy. Childbirth. Life, After Kids: Pregnancy. Childbirth. Passion? Sex?? Attraction… Movie!!
Women’s No. 1 postpartum complaint – before stubborn baby fat and even before urinary incontinence – is poor sexual satisfaction due to vaginal laxity.
That’s according to marketing research [...]

Beauty and the Beast: Two Side Effects of Bariatric Surgery

From the annual scientific meeting of the Obesity Society, Washington, DC–
Like it or not, bariatric surgery is becoming more common as a treatment for morbid (and even not so morbid) obesity, especially in adolescents and young adults.
Bariatric surgery sounds like a quick and easy fix–have surgery, lose weight, feel great. But, of course, it’s not that [...]

A Global Health Agenda

From the World Diabetes Congress, Montreal
“Improving the quality of life for people with diabetes at all levels,” Dr. Jean Claude Mbanya replied when I asked him what his primary goal would be over the next 3 years of his term as president of the International Diabetes Federation.
The steps to achieving that goal, which he outlined [...]

Treating Rheumatic Diseases: The Sooner the Better

from the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Rheumatology in Philadelphia
During the past 5 months, rheumatology societies issued substantively updated criteria for classifying two major rheumatic diseases. In June, the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS) published new guidelines for classifying axial spondyloarthritis. And earlier this week, a collaborative group from the American College of [...]

To Cut or Not to Cut

from the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C.
We had protesters today here at the AAP meeting.  Three of them.  They were urging pediatricians not to perform circumcisions, likening the procedure to torture.  Given my gender (that’s Ms. Wachter, thank you very much) and my lack of male offspring, it’s not [...]

Rheumatoid Arthritis 5.0

From the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Rheumatology in Philadelphia
Rheumatologists have remade rheumatoid arthritis, a pretty big deal for them if only because it’s “the major systemic rheumatic disease that we as a specialty treat,” said Dr. Michael E. Weinblatt, a Harvard rheumatologist, at the end of a 90-minute session on Sunday [...]

Hurry Up… and Wait

From the American Academy of Family Physicians Scientific Assembly in Boston.
There was an awful lot of frustration and confusion from the family physicians who turned out for a session at the AAFP meeting about the federal funds available for doctors who adopt health information technology.
It was late afternoon and by my count more than 70 [...]