Category: Medications

Are collagen supplements good for you? A physician’s deep dive answer.

I was asked this question at least three times this week, so I think there must be something going around.  It doesn’t help that a Kardashian with 140 million Instagram followers recently signed a deal to become an equity partner and global spokeswoman…

Questions about pharma pricing and marketing

In 2017, Allergan CEO Brent Saunders promised to reign in drug price hikes, and other Pharma companies followed suit. In 2021, it looks like all bets are off. In August, Amgen raised the price of its psoriasis med Otezla by 2.4 percent after raising th…

The abundant and colorful world of pharmaceuticals

Creative photography Year after year, new medications find their way into the market, adding to the abundant and colorful world of pharmaceuticals. Medications play a dual role in our lives, as they represent wellness and illness concomitantly. I am pr…

The ritual of taking medications: the pill wheel

Woodworking / Illustration The problem with the act of taking medications is that it’s so mundane that we don’t see any problem with it. This machine-cut, flat, unemotional, same-size-fits-all object that we defencelessly welcome in our very private bo…

Colorful pills don’t paint my world

Pyrography Medicine bottles are mundane objects tightly woven into our daily lives, with the promise of happier moods, better sleep, and lower blood pressure. Nevertheless, nothing on these objects correlates with hope, faith, or a feeling of healthine…

Federal legalization of cannabis: What does it mean for patients?

I just opened my email inbox to see the following headline: “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) will finally release a draft of their long-awaited federal cannabis…

What you need to know about the updated benzodiazepine boxed warning [PODCAST]

“The FDA recommended an updated boxed warning and standardization of product labels across the drug class. They recommended judicious prescribing and a gradual taper to mitigate withdrawal reactions. While I am optimistic about these changes, the…

The FDA was wrong about Aduhelm

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) negated the recommendation of its expert panel and approved Aduhelm to treat Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), contending that the possible benefit trumped the lack of evidence of efficacy. The FDA was inexcusably in err…

The life cycle of medication consumption

Photography A person’s lifetime medication consumption has a familiar and predictable pattern. The more a person ages, the greater their number of taken medication. However, the public behavior in initiating medication has been changed compared to thir…

These journal ads could not run today

Many drug ads in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s would offend today. In an ad for Valium, we are told that the woman pictured (“Jan”) is “psychoneurotic” because she is unmarried at age 35. “You…