Opinions
Opinions
| Date | Opinions | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 20, 2012 |
''Get Antibiotics Off the Farm'' "Earlier this month, a federal magistrate judge in New York told the Food and Drug Administration to quit dillydallying on its three-decade effort to curb indiscriminate use of antibiotics in farm animals to spur their growth. He set a timetable for the agency to follow in withdrawing two important drugs — penicillin and two forms of tetracycline — from widespread use in animals. The trouble is, that timetable will give the FDA. five more years to complete the process." |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Aug 13, 2012 |
''Food Safety Delay Puts Lives at Risk'' "It's been a year since a tragic listeria outbreak in cantaloupes began on a Colorado farm, claiming at least 30 lives and infecting nearly 150 people in the largest outbreak of foodborne illness in almost 90 years. Yet, even as we've entered another summer outbreak season, important provisions of a landmark food safety law are still not implemented." |
Food Safety |
| Aug 13, 2012 |
''Rules Delayed, Governing Denied'' "It has been 19 months since President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act, the first overhaul of the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety laws since the 1930s. But if you think the food supply has become markedly safer since then, think again." |
Food Safety |
| Aug 7, 2012 |
''Will Humans Lose the Battle With Microbes?'' Bacteria have become increasingly resistant to the drugs we've come to rely on. Only a concerted effort can avert a public health crisis. |
Antibiotic Innovation, Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Aug 6, 2012 |
Biomedical Science Programs Make a Positive Impact on Research The Pew Scholars Program and The Pew Latin American Fellows Program support promising early-career scientists from North, South and Central America in the health sciences — particularly young researchers with innovative approaches and ideas. Anita Pepper, Director of the Pew Programs in the Biomedical Sciences, explains the benefits of the programs. |
Biomedical Research |
| Jul 26, 2012 |
''Washington's election-year paralysis hurts the nation'' "A federal food safety law shifting the government's focus from responding to dangerous contamination to preventing it has been heralded as the most sweeping food security reform in decades. But 18 months after the law was enacted, the rules needed to put it into effect are nowhere to be seen. That inaction is just one example of a disheartening election-year paralysis in Washington." |
Food Safety |
| Jul 24, 2012 |
A Healthy Dose of Bipartisanship Passed by Congress on June 26 and signed by President Obama on July 9, the FDA Safety and Innovation Act will increase inspections of foreign manufacturers that supply 80 percent of the ingredients in our pharmaceuticals, putting American companies on the same footing as their foreign competitors. In addition, it requires drug makers to hold their suppliers to high standards. |
Medical Safety |
| Jul 17, 2012 |
"About six years ago my mother-in-law and I were both sickened by E. coli in bagged spinach we had in our home. I survived a painful illness, but my mother-in-law perished eight days after eating the tainted food." |
Food Hazards |
| Jul 16, 2012 |
''Delays and Difficulties in Assessing Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants'' More than 500,000 U.S. patients have received metal-on-metal hip prostheses, most of which were implanted between 2003 and 2010. These prostheses entered the market through the 510(k) pathway at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whereby manufacturers need only demonstrate substantial equivalence to a device already on the market to gain approval. Unfortunately, there is now compelling evidence that these implants fail at a higher rate than hip prostheses made of other materials. |
Drugs and Devices at the FDA |
| Jul 11, 2012 |
''Resistance to antibiotics is becoming a crisis'' In an editorial stressing the need for new antibiotics, the Washington Post cites that some bacteria have become resistant to multiple antibiotics while the pipeline of new drugs is drying up. But a promising step by Congress could give pharmaceutical companies the incentive they need. |
Antibiotic Innovation |
| Jul 3, 2012 |
''Drug, device reform gets bipartisan push'' "The U.S. Supreme Court's eagerly awaited Affordable Care Act ruling unfortunately overshadowed the unusually bipartisan work underway at the U.S. Capitol last week, where Congress finalized sweeping legislation crammed with smaller-scale but still vital health reforms." |
Drug Safety, Drugs and Devices at the FDA |
| Jul 2, 2012 |
"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in 1977 that it would begin prohibiting the use of some antibiotics in agriculture, but Congress objected and nothing happened. Since then, the need for restraint has grown. The wonder drugs of the 20th century have been so widely used that germs are becoming resistant to them, giving rise to “superbugs,” bacteria that are immune to one or more antibiotics. Tens of thousands of people die every year from hospital-acquired infections, the vast majority of which result from such resistant bacteria." |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Jul 1, 2012 |
''Next steps to thwart 'superbugs''' "An old saying goes, you don't miss your water till your well runs dry. When it comes to antibiotics, we're not only running out of water but there are no rain clouds on the horizon. The overuse and underdevelopment of these drugs have brought us close to the brink of a world without cures for deadly infections." |
Drug Manufacturing and Distribution, Antibiotic Innovation, Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Jun 26, 2012 |
''Disclosure can address doctors' conflicts of interest'' Pew Prescription Project Director Daniel Carlat opines in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Monetary relationships among doctors and drug and device companies are not inherently bad; in fact, they are crucial for advancing medical research and patient care. Yet they can also skew prescribing practices and research results. That's why transparency and education are such an elegant solution: They allow these often important relationships to exist, but only on the condition that other professionals and patients are fully informed about them." |
Medical Safety |
| Jun 6, 2012 |
''Ignoring salmonella inexcusable'' "Just when you think the Jack DeCoster egg empire couldn't look more rotten ... well, this just in: Court records managers at one of DeCoster's Iowa egg farms knew its hens were "almost certainly" laying contaminated eggs months before one of the nation's largest outbreaks of food-borne illness." |
Food Safety |
