Monthly Archives: March 2012

Once-a-month HIV drug maintains good levels for prevention; few side-effects so far

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

The first trial in humans of an injectable, once-a-month formulation of an HIV drug has found that drug levels were maintained at a level that should in theory be high enough to protect recipients against infection, and that the drug has so far produced very few side effects. The research was presented at the 19th Conference on Opportunistic Infections (CROI), in Seattle. The small trial at the St Stephens AIDS Trust (SSAT) at Londons Chelsea and Westminster Hospital gave 27 women and six men a single injection of the long-acting formulation of the drug rilpivirine, which was licensed as an oral HIV treatment last year as Edurant and is also in the tenofovir/FTC/rilpivirine pill Complera. Rilpivirine is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) drug and is especially suitable to be turned into a long-lasting injectable form because the daily dose of it required to suppress HIV is very small. No other HIV drugs are currently in a usable long-lasting injectable form, which will limit the use of long-acting rilpivirine (RPV-LA) in combination therapy, but it could conceivably make an ideal candidate as a prevention drug, as people would not need to remember to take it every day. Other preventative drugs … Continue reading →

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Once-a-month HIV drug maintains good levels; few side effects so far

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

The first trial in humans of an injectable, once-a-month formulation of an HIV drug has found that drug levels were maintained at a level that should in theory be high enough to protect recipients against infection, and that the drug has so far produced very few side effects. The research was presented at the 19th Conference on Opportunistic Infections (CROI), in Seattle. The small trial at the St Stephens AIDS Trust (SSAT) at Londons Chelsea and Westminster Hospital gave 27 women and six men a single injection of the long-acting formulation of the drug rilpivirine, which was licensed as an oral HIV treatment last year as Edurant and is also in the tenofovir/FTC/rilpivirine pill Complera. Rilpivirine is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) drug and is especially suitable to be turned into a long-lasting injectable form because the daily dose of it required to suppress HIV is very small. No other HIV drugs are currently in a usable long-lasting injectable form, which will limit the use of long-acting rilpivirine (RPV-LA) in combination therapy, but it could conceivably make an ideal candidate as a prevention drug, as people would not need to remember to take it every day. Other preventative drugs … Continue reading →

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Dr. Zorba Paster: Be aware of potential risks if you take Lipitor

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

Imagine a drug that cuts heart disease by half. Youd probably take it, but before you started youd probably want to know what the side effects are. Hopefully your doctor would mention the most common serious side effects, and the pharmacist could give you a complete list but those can be a mile long. There often are so many possible side effects, you can get dizzy just reading about them. And then theres the Internet, a mixed bag of good information and junk. Before you see these side effects on that list, the drug is vetted by the Food and Drug Administration. Unfortunately, those lists do not always take into consideration the most up-to-date research because one or two studies arent enough. Concrete evidence is needed before that list is updated. So what should you do? If the side-effect list is always two steps behind, how can you make a reasonable choice on whether to take a medication? My answer: health literacy. Read the newspapers, listen to National Public Radio, surf the Internet and talk to your friends. Taken all together, it improves your odds. Now back to that heart-disease drug. New research published in the Journal of the American … Continue reading →

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Dr. Zorba Paster: Diabetes risk for people taking statins highlights importance of health literacy

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

Dr. ZORBA PASTER | family physician, Dean Health madison.com | | Posted: Wednesday, March 7, 2012 8:00 am Imagine a drug that cuts heart disease by half. Would you take it? Probably. But before you started, you would want to know what the side effects were. Your doctor, if good, would mention the most common serious side effects. The pharmacist could give you a list of side effects but those lists can be a mile long. There are often so many possible side effects you can get dizzy just reading it. And then there's the Web. The Web is a mixed bag, sometimes good information and sometimes junk. Every drug has side effects. Before you see these side effects on that pharmacy list, the drug is vetted by the Food and Drug Administration. Unfortunately, those lists do not always take into consideration the most up-to-date research. Why, you ask? Because one or two studies doesn't merit changing that side-effect list. Concrete evidence is needed before that list is updated. So what should you do? If the side-effect profile list is always two steps behind, how can you make a reasonable choice on whether or not to take a medication? My … Continue reading →

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Switching from OxyContin to other drugs can be challenge

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

Date: Wednesday Mar. 7, 2012 7:16 AM ET TORONTO The overdose death of a Northern Ontario man should be a red flag for primary care doctors who must switch patients from the now discontinued drug OxyContin to another opioid to control their chronic pain, experts say. But knowing which drug to prescribe instead of OxyContin can pose a challenge for overly taxed family physicians, whose training in pharmaceutical equivalents may be inadequate or out of date, they say. The man who died at some point during the last month cannot be identified for privacy reasons. He had been prescribed OxyContin for chronic pain and the drug was paid for under the Non-Insured Health Benefits program, the government plan for Canadian aboriginals and Inuit. But because the intended replacement drug, OxyNeo, is not covered by the program, the man's doctor switched him to another long-acting opioid. The replacement opioid had been prescribed at too high a dose and the man appears to have died from an overdose, which usually involves respiratory failure. "There was an apparent inadvertent or unintentional dose escalation," Dr. Michael Wilson, regional supervising coroner for Northwestern Ontario, said Tuesday from Thunder Bay, Ont. "I spoke to the doctor … Continue reading →

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Switching patient from OxyContin to another opioid can be challenge for doctors

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

TORONTO - The overdose death of a Northern Ontario man should be a red flag for primary care doctors who must switch patients from the now discontinued drug OxyContin to another opioid to control their chronic pain, experts say. But knowing which drug to prescribe instead of OxyContin can pose a challenge for overly taxed family physicians, whose training in pharmaceutical equivalents may be inadequate or out of date, they say. The man who died at some point during the last month cannot be identified for privacy reasons. He had been prescribed OxyContin for chronic pain and the drug was paid for under the Non-Insured Health Benefits program, the government plan for Canadian aboriginals and Inuit. But because the intended replacement drug, OxyNeo, is not covered by the program, the man's doctor switched him to another long-acting opioid. The replacement opioid had been prescribed at too high a dose and the man appears to have died from an overdose, which usually involves respiratory failure. "There was an apparent inadvertent or unintentional dose escalation," Dr. Michael Wilson, regional supervising coroner for Northwestern Ontario, said Tuesday from Thunder Bay, Ont. "I spoke to the doctor and the doctor just basically said that … Continue reading →

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Drugs continue to soar!

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

Gibraltar does not appear to be anywhere near close in getting to grips with this serious social issue. In a social perspective we are experiencing very bad times. This is a disturbing and dangerous period where drug trends are ever changing with high levels of drug abuse now affecting a sizable part of the community, particularly the younger generation! Crime is up to unprecedented levels, the vast majority of crimes are drug or alcohol related. Most worryingly is the fact that it's the next generation of Gibraltarians who are going to feel the brunt of today's excess drug and alcohol abuse, more so, because of the failed and ineffective anti-drug mechanisms put in place to combat this serious problem? Drug arrests and court cases keeping rising! Last week both the supreme and magistrates courts were hard at it, administering justice sending defendants away to prison on lengthy custodial sentences for possession and the supply of illegal drugs, these defendant were all relatively young people. Although there were few surprises with police activity, when you think the RGP had another bumper year where drug arrests are concerned with record highs! Yet as I have said countless times, encouraging as these police … Continue reading →

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Vertex, Merck hepatitis drugs work in HIV patients

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Rival hepatitis C drugs from Merck & Co Inc and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc are effective in patients also infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to data released on Tuesday. The Vertex drug had the more impressive results, the data showed. The results from midstage trials follow notification last month from U.S. regulators and Merck that use of the company's Victrelis drug in such "co-infected" patients could lessen the effectiveness of some medicines used to treat patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Those findings involved "boosted" HIV protease inhibitors. Both Victrelis, also known as boceprevir, and Vertex's Incivek, or telaprevir, are protease inhibitors designed to block an enzyme that the hepatitis C virus requires to replicate. Since key HIV drugs are also protease inhibitors, which use the same pathway as the new hepatitis C drugs, there is a potential for drug interaction, said Dr. Douglas Dietrich, professor of medicine at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine and lead investigator on the Incivek trial. He said 74 percent of trial patients treated with Incivek followed by the standard regimen of interferon and ribavirin were free of the hepatitis C virus, or HCV, … Continue reading →

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Warning out vs 'Google Pharmacy' spam

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

Scammers are exploiting search giant Google's popularity to sell drugs online, a computer security firm warned this week. GFI Labs said the cyberscammers are sending out unsolicited emails pitching drugs via a so-called "Google Pharmacy." "Of course, this time around, online criminals only used Googles name in an attempt to pique users interest and have them start clicking away," it said in a blog post. It cited one sample spam with a Google Pharmacy logo, claiming to have "launched a pharmaceutical interface for Google, as well as several new features that will improve the Google experience for the people buying pills and using pharmaceutical interfaces." GFI said the sample spam - with the sender using an @irs.com domain - claimed Google Pharmacy "will help people use pharmacy and surgery." "The supposed sender is obviously fake, seeing that it used an @irs.com domain. Whats more, this particular email address has been involved in numerous email scams before," GFI noted. On the other hand, it said the link provided in the spam message cannot be clicked since the entire message body is an image. "Spammers designed this spam to bypass normal filters that normally just track texts/URLs within email messages. Such a … Continue reading →

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HRID Launches Plan to Expand Into World-Wide Market

Posted: Published on March 7th, 2012

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., March 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Nouveau Life Pharmaceuticals, soon to be changed from Hybrid Fuels, Inc., (Pink Sheets: HRID) announced today that it is in development of an online pharmacy division to sellAzul Instant world-wide. The site will enable the Company to sell and service internationally while building out is wholesale distribution network. As part of the online pharmacy, the Company will provide consumers with the ability to receive free samples of Azul Instant and the opportunity to sign up for the auto-ship program to receive monthly supplies. "The high demand for Azul Instant has motivated us to expedite the launch of the online pharmacy. The pharmacy will give us a direct connection to our customers not only to sell the product, but to receive feedback as we continue to enhance our product offerings," stated Ramiro Cadena, CEO of Nouveau Life Pharmaceuticals. The Company recently announced the introduction of Azul Instant, an all-natural supplement for erectile dysfunction (ED) that provides the millions of men suffering from the condition with a safe alternative to prescription drugs. Developed by a team of experts, the Company's goal is to create the healthiest and most effective all-natural male enhancer ever formulated. … Continue reading →

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