Most of the important communications regarding prescription drug safety and side effects go unnoticed, according to the results of a recent study on their effectiveness. According to a report from the online journal EndocrineToday.com, a University of Chicago team of researchers examined dozens of drug communications issued by the Food and Drug Administration since 1990 [...]

The law firm of Parker Waichman Alonso LLP announced this week it would continue its fight on behalf of native Guatemalans seeking justice from the U.S. government over non-consensual experimentation conducted in the 1940s. The call comes on the heels of an announcement by the Dept. of Justice that it will seek to have an [...]

Health officials in the Netherlands believe women should have the Poly Implant Prosthese (PIP) silicone gel breast implant removed because it is likely to rupture and could pose serious health risks. According to a Reuters report, Dutch Health Inspectorate said in a statement this week that the failed breast augmentations should be removed even if [...]

A New York group home for the developmentally disabled receives more than $25 million a year in state Medicaid funding but consistently fails to meet minimum care standards and is run by executives who reward nepotism and are otherwise unqualified. According to a New York Times investigation, the non-profit group Federation of Multicultural Programs of [...]

A stay in the hospital is supposed to make the patient better, not worse. But according to a study funded by Resources for the Future, in 2006, 48,000 hospital patients who caught infections during their stay died. A staggering $8.1 billion cost was affiliated, reports Reuters. This is the first hospital-acquired infections study to put [...]

A Botox overdose is blamed for the death of a California 7-year-old girl who died in November 2007 of respiratory failure and pneumonia, after Botox injections for her cerebral palsy. The mother has filed a lawsuit against Botox manufacturer, Allergan. Last April, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) ordered a black box warning for [...]

Accidental radiation overdoses can cause serious, painful complications, sometimes resulting in death, according to a recent  New York Times report. Americans are exposed to more radiation than ever before: the lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation increased sevenfold since 1980 and over half of all cancer patients get radiation. Radiation overdoses are more common than one [...]

Medication errors kill one person per day in the U.S., and injure about 1.3 million every year, according to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Those figures compelled two leading medical organizations to begin a national alert system to prevent imminent and repeated medication errors. According to their press release, the American Society of Health-System [...]