medical-research
14 stories tagged "medical-research"
A Pill Doubled Survival in Advanced Pancreatic Cancer: Six Months to Thirteen, at $39,800 a Month
The best result advanced pancreatic cancer has seen in a generation, and the FDA cleared it in about five weeks. For patients who have run out of chemo, it turns a median of six months into thirteen, at a list price of $39,800 a month.
Metabolic & WeightThe Standard Treatment for This Fatal Lung Disease Killed More Patients Than Placebo. Now the Theory Behind It Is Back.
Eight patients died on the drugs, one on placebo, and a government safety board halted the trial for harm. Now a Nature Immunology review argues three kinds of inflammation work together in the disease after all.
Metabolic & WeightNew York Let Its Poorest Mothers Breathe Bus and Boiler Soot for Decades. When It Cleaned the Air, Toddler Scores Rose.
Columbia followed more than a thousand poor New York kids for twenty years as soot from buses and heating oil fell, and their age-3 cognitive scores came in 26 percent higher. How much of that the air can actually claim is the open question, and the sharper evidence is buried underneath it.
Infectious DiseaseThe Neuroscientist Who Mapped Fear in the Brain Says a Face Can't Reliably Reveal It
People scowl only about a third of the time they are angry. A multibillion-dollar industry sells software that assumes the other two-thirds are legible.
Drugs & FDANIH Said Its Cervical-Cancer AI Beat Human Doctors. Six Years Later, Its Own Author Called It Overfitting.
In 2019, NIH announced an algorithm that read cervix photos better than doctors, an AUC of 0.91. Its senior author has since written that the number came from overfitting and that the follow-on projects failed. Nature Medicine is now calling the same idea the 'missing piece.'
Infectious DiseaseBritain, France, and Germany Don't Put COVID Shots on the Childhood Schedule. A US Order to Match Them Got Called 'Anti-Science.'
Britain, France, and Germany already keep routine COVID shots off the schedule for healthy children. When a US executive order moved the same way, the AMA, Paul Offit, and the press answered with 'zero data' instead of a debate.
Infectious DiseaseSeven Weeks, 345 People Sick, and Not One Recall Notice With a Lot Code
The FDA said the outbreak jalapeños did not reach grocery stores directly. Two days later the USDA named eighteen grocery products made with them, sold in 23 states. Seven weeks in, not one recall notice carries a lot code.
Metabolic & WeightThe Juice Industry Paid for the Study Telling You a Daily Glass Lowers Depression Scores
In a 42-person trial, the group that added a daily glass of juice improved on depression scores while the group that added only whole fruits and vegetables didn't, and the European juice trade body paid for the whole thing.
Infectious DiseaseThe Screwworm America Eradicated Is Back, and the FDA's First Move Was an Unapproved Spray
The fly the US drove off the continent in 1966 has crossed the border again, and the FDA's emergency answer is a wound spray that never cleared its own approval process. The method that actually won the war is the sterile fly, and Texas is racing to rebuild the factory it let die.
Metabolic & WeightThey Gave PTSD Patients THC Drops at Bedtime. More Than a Third Stopped Having Nightmares Entirely.
Dronabinol beat placebo on the nightmare symptom the VA's longtime standby flunked, and the company that sells dronabinol helped fund the trial that found it worked.
Drugs & FDAGilead Priced Its Near-Perfect HIV Shot Out of the Countries Where the Virus Is Spreading Fastest
Lenacapavir drove new HIV infections to nearly zero across two Gilead trials and a year-long extension. Gilead lists it at $28,218 a year in America; researchers estimate generics could be made for as little as $25, and the fastest-growing epidemics were left off the cheap-generic map.
Drugs & FDAThe FDA Approved the First Cholesterol Pill of Its Kind Before Its Trial Could Show It Prevents Heart Attacks or Deaths
Lipfendra lowers LDL cholesterol by up to 60 percent. The 14,550-patient trial that would show whether that prevents heart attacks or deaths does not finish until November 2029, and Merck is charging roughly $3,800 a year in the meantime.
Metabolic & WeightThe Kratom Crackdown Its Biggest Trade Defenders Wanted
A concentrated 7-OH compound reported at up to 40 times morphine's receptor potency is sold in gas stations as herbal kratom. The plant's biggest trade defenders are cheering the DEA for banning it.
Drugs & FDAThe Immune System's Guardrails Were Too Rare to Study. A Bonn Lab Just Grew Them in a Dish.
A German lab built a way to grow follicular regulatory T cells from precursors in a dish, opening a notoriously hard-to-study brake on antibody production to direct experiment.