Published: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 at 5:28 p.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 at 5:28 p.m. Shop owners in the city of Ocala who sell synthetic drugs, such as those known as bath salts, spice or potpourri, may find themselves at odds with Ocala Police or the city's code enforcement officers. The Ocala City Council on Tuesday voted 4-0 to amend the drugs and prostitution ordinance by prohibiting the sale of synthetic drugs in the city limits. "Hopefully, it will be ground-breaking, if it works," City Attorney Patrick Gilligan said about the ordinance. "It's a difficult prosecution." Gilligan told council members that makers of the synthetic drugs change their formulas faster than federal officials can list them as illegal in the federal statutes' schedule of drugs, which the state adopts. Synthetic drugs often are sold in stores as household items and can have effects similar to and sometimes stronger than illegal drugs such as cocaine. Gilligan explained that when a drug arrest is made, the substance is sent to a laboratory to be tested for composition. The results confirm that a drug is, for example, cocaine. However, if the substance is made of a composition that is not listed … Continue reading →

A new study questions the long-standing practice of prescribing beta blocker pills to patients with heart disease. Analyzing an international registry of 44,708 patients with heart disease or at risk of developing it, a team of researchers compared patients who took the drugs with those who did not and found no difference in their rates of heart attack, stroke or death related to cardiovascular problems. This confirms my intrinsic suspicion, said Dr. P.K. Shah, director of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who was not involved in the study. Beta adrenergic blockers have long been among the bestselling drugs. They counteract the effects of adrenaline, slowing the heart and lowering blood pressure. The first beta blockers were approved more than four decades ago for heart-related chest pain, but the list of approved uses grew to include hypertension, arrhythmia, migraines and heart failure. Those uses are not questioned in the current study, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Some beta blockers are approved for treatment of patients after heart attacks, based on several studies suggesting that they prevent subsequent attacks. Extrapolating from that data, doctors also began prescribing the drugs for heart disease patients who had never … Continue reading →

irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 08:13 Generic drugs company Aspen is to expand its Dublin operation with the creation of 44 jobs. Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton announced plans for Aspen to set up a regulatory, quality assurance and supply projects centre of excellence in Citywest. Pharmaceuticals is a major sector of strength for Ireland, with nine out of the top 10 global companies located here, said Mr Bruton. However a key part of the Governments plan for jobs and growth is targeting the areas of growth within what is a changing sector in particular, generics. Aspen set up shop in Ireland in 2010, which has since become its European marketing and supply chain headquarters. The new jobs, supported by IDA Ireland, will bring the companys total workforce in Ireland to 58. The firm is the worlds largest producer of HIV drugs in South Africa. Aspen group chief executive Stephen Saad said Ireland has a workforce with the specialised skills the company requires. He said it also boasts a strong regulatory and business environment. I am delighted to see the continued growth of Aspen here in Ireland, he added. Meanwhile, IDA chief executive Barry … Continue reading →

The senseless Batman killings in Aurora, Colorado, as well as those that occurred years earlier in Columbine a few miles away, have something in common with the number one cause of overdose deaths in the United States and an important potential cause of teen suicide: prescription drugs approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As an Austrian economist, I am not saying that FDA-approved drugs "caused" these problems. The people who took those drugs and did those things are the people who "caused" those bad outcomes. What I am saying is that the FDA is guilty of manipulating information and people's choices and thereby contributes to all these negative outcomes.[1] I am also not saying that all FDA-approved drugs are inherently harmful, ineffective, or should never be used. Most importantly, FDA-approved drugs and products help to make Americans fatter, weaker, dumber, sicker, poorer, and in general less healthy. We have been lulled into substituting prescription drugs for healthy lifestyles. "You don't need to correct unhealthy conditions in your life, just take this pill everyday for the rest of your life. The experts at the FDA have approved it and your doctor has advised you to … Continue reading →

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Oct 3, 2012) - Methylation treatments that can re-activate stagnant "controller" genes might be a common cancer treatment in the near future, according to Kalorama Information. In a new report, the healthcare market research publisher said that of the rapidly-developing epigenetic approaches -- treatments based on new theories outside of what was previously the mainstream thinking of genomics (not involving DNA base pair alterations), these drugs are the more realistic bet. The report, "Epigenetics: Applications for Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics (Methylation, Histone Modification and miRNA expression)," suggests that most new epigenetic drugs will be methylation-based, while other epigenetic candidates such as miRNA treatments will take longer to see marketability. Methylation of genes is a mechanism that is associated with cancer but can be reversible with the right drugs. It is the process by which stretches of alternating "Cs" and "Gs" -- the cytosine and guanine acids that represent two of the four acids in human DNA -- are modified through the production of methane-derived alkyls and the addition to the "C" acids, the cytosines. When "controller" genes are methylized, they are shut off and in turn, shut down the structural genes that they control. This is not … Continue reading →