In retrospect, we were an addicted nation waiting to happen. Not from a self-indulgent culture, not from an unwillingness to suffer hardship, nor any of the generational criticisms of lack of grit. Our opioid crisis derives from an impatient culture th…
Topoisomerase inhibitors emerged in the American medical landscape in 1971, thanks to the discovery by Dr. Jim Wang of the E. coli omega protein. Topoisomerase I, an enzyme identified by Dr. Wang, plays a crucial role in DNA unwrapping from supercoilin…
A recent TV advertisement attempted to recruit clients for a class action suit against a pharmaceutical manufacturer (PM) for a medication side effect (SE). The “cause of action” was unstated: was it the side effect’s existence or tha…
Today, doctors’ liberty and property are at risk when they choose to treat a patient. Not because of some new law but because of the misapplication of old ones. The current opioid panic has essentially given the DEA free rein to target any physic…
An excerpt from Pills, Shills, and the Psychiatry Wars: Musings from the Drug Safety & Healthcare News Blog. I was spreading pine straw around the bushes in my yard in Atlanta, Georgia, when I started thinking about … you guessed it! The goof…
Gene therapy is starting to come into its own, and it will change medicine more profoundly than anything that came before. Just like when antibiotics were discovered almost exactly a century ago, we are on the cusp of another revolution in medicine. On…
In 1736, Ben Franklin famously advised Philadelphians that preventing fires is better than fighting them. Mr. Franklin’s advice is just as applicable today in addressing America’s opioid crisis. Billions of opioid settlement dollars are bei…
The German pharmaceutical company Grunenthal has announced the start of a human addiction potential (HAP) trial of a first-in-class analgesic called cebranopadol, described as “less addictive” than previous medications. We’ve been dow…
An excerpt from The Power of Placebos: How the Science of Placebos and Nocebos Can Improve Health Care by Jeremy Howick. Copyright 2023. Published with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press. “When he had asked me if I knew the cure for hea…
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! Join L. Joseph Parker, a research physician, as we explore a recent study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. Discover how two compounds found in cannabis, cannabidiol (C…
