If you listen to the radio enough, you’ve probably heard the ads for Nuvigil (aka armodafinil), a prescription stimulant being heavily marketed toward shift workers as a way to stay alert and awake on the job. But our curious siblings at Consumer Reports Health wanted to know if it really is the cure for “Shift Work Disorder.” [More]
drugs
Feds Make CVS Pay Out $77.6 Million For Not Monitoring Sale Of Meth Ingredients
By 10.15.10
Federal prosecutors shook down CVS for $77.6 million because it did too little to stop meth-makers from hitting up its stores for ingredients. [More]
How To Avoid Scammy Online Pet Drug Merchants
By 10.7.10
It’s tempting to skip an expensive visit to the vet’s office when you can just order the same drugs online. Sites offer the exact medications that the vet’s office sells–at much lower prices, without a prescription. It’s not such a good idea, though. Much like buying human drugs online from shady sources (no prescription needed) you may not get exactly what you ordered. The medications that show up on your doorstep could be ineffective, or may even harm your pet. [More]
Birth Control Pills Change Women's Brain Structure
By 10.6.10
A new study found that the brains of women on birth control have more matter in some parts of their brain, like the pre-frontal cortex. So is “the pill” also a smart pill? Not exactly. Researchers say the brain is like a “neural beehive” and messing with one part can mess with others. Or, as the study’s authors put it, one region being larger could actually mean it’s going “catawampus.” [More]
Drug Rep Accidentally Emails Consumer Truth About Overpriced Pills
By 9.23.10
Reddit user TheKarateKid says he emailed a major drug company asking why their $500 version of a $10 generic is worth the $490 markup. The drug company rep accidentally emailed the customer back this message intended for her colleague. [More]
DEA Will Gladly Take Your Old Drugs Off Your Hands On Saturday
By 9.21.10
Have you been staring at that half-full (or is it 2/4 empty?) bottle of Vicodin sitting on your bedside table and wondering, “Should I throw this in the trash, take a bunch and pretend I’m Hugh Laurie, or sell them to some college kids for a huge profit?” If so, then the Drug Enforcement Agency has an answer: Give the pills to them during this weekend’s National Take-Back Day. [More]
Law Enforcement Group: Legalize Pot So Cops Have Time To Fight Real Crime
By 9.14.10
In November, California voters will have their say on Proposition 19, which would make it legal to grow, possess and use up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use. And as that decision day draws near, a group of law enforcement insiders has come out in support of the proposition, saying it would free up the police to focus its efforts on more serious crimes. [More]
Giant Eagle Dispenses Antidepressants Instead Of Fertility Drugs, Now Taking It Very Seriously
By 9.1.10
The words “Clomiphene” and “Clomipramine” might look similar, but if you work in a pharmacy, you should know that they stand for very different things. Clomiphene is the generic version of the fertility drug Clomid. Clomipramine is a tricyclic antidepressant. A woman in Pittsburgh says that the pharmacy at a Giant Eagle grocery store gave her the antidepressant when she was prescribed the fertility drug. She had a severe allergic reaction and ended up in the emergency room. [More]
Brand Name Drug Prices Rise Significantly In Past Year
By 8.25.10
Here’s yet another reason to go for generic drugs when you can: drug makers keep raising prices on brand name products. If you group generics and brand names together, drug prices rose by 3.4% in 2009, according to an industry report. However, if you look at just brand name drugs as the AARP did in a new report, the average price hike was 8.3%. An earlier AARP report from May points out that if you look at specialty drugs “widely used by people in Medicare” then the hike jumps to 9.2%. [More]
FDA Tries To Break Precedent, Pull Unproven Blood Pressure Drug
By 8.17.10
The Food and Drug Administration is moving to pull ProAmatine, a blood pressure medication that’s been available for 14 years and racked up a quarter billion in sales, because the manufacturer hasn’t submitted a follow-up study that proves the drug is effective. [More]
Hot Flash Spray Evamist Causes Boobs On Pets, Kids
By 8.2.10
I like FDA warnings like this new one about Evamist, because I can file the symptoms away and use them to impress someone with my Sherlock Holmes skills. Friend: “How did you know she used Evamist?” Me: “Note the tell-tale breasts on her grandchildren and her terrier.” [More]
Another Johnson & Johnson Plant Under Investigation
By 7.17.10
The hits just keep on coming for Johnson & Johnson — on the heels of the news that the company would be closing down and laying off some 300 employees at the Philadelphia-area factory that was churning out musty, yucky pills, another plant in Lancaster, Pa., failed to receive a clean bill of health after an inspection by the Food and Drug Administration. [More]
Factory That Made Moldy, Barfy Recalled Tylenol Closes For Upgrades, 300 Lose Jobs
By 7.16.10
Johnson & Johnson announced late yesterday that they will lay off most of the employees of the Philadelphia-area factory that produced the controversial musty, stinky pills recalled earlier this year. Staff have been on full pay and benefits since the plant shut down in April, but the controversial (that is: filthy) facility will close down for upgrades until some undefined point in 2011. [More]
FDA To Farmers: Enough Already With All The Antibiotics
By 6.29.10
After coming to the conclusion that farmers have gone a little hog-wild with their use of antimicrobials — not to cure animals of disease, but to spur animal growth — the FDA has kindly asked them to cut it out because it’s just going to make the rest of us sicker. [More]
Special Lovemaking Coffee Can Cause Sudden Drop In Blood Pressure, Lovemaking
By 6.21.10
If you want to be a passionate lover, or at least a noticeably hyper one, of course you should drink a lot of coffee before hitting the sheets. That’s just common sense. But the FDA says that a specially marketed aphrodisiac coffee, Magic Power Coffee, can interfere with prescription drugs and cause a dramatic loss of blood pressure. [More]
Study Links Popular Blood Pressure Meds To Increased Cancer Risk
By 6.14.10
Because heaven forbid a medicine can do something good without some sort of nasty side-effect, a newly released study claims that a popular class of medications used to regulate blood pressure may also slightly increase the takers’ risk of getting cancer. [More]
Save Money On Head Lice Removal
By 6.2.10
You’re a good Consumerist. You make your own kids at home. You grow your own lice in a coffee can you found on the street. You dump the lice on the kids’ heads before you send them off to school. After all that, the last thing you want to do is spend a fortune on lice removal treatments, right? You’re in luck: the New York Times says you don’t have to spend a lot of money de-lousing your itchy little child. [More]
Unfortunately Named Products: Aciphex
By 6.2.10
Remember how when you were writing essays in school teachers would say that you should read your work aloud before handing it in? To see if you could catch any typos or strange-sounding phrases? Well, the nomenclature-smiths who came up with heartburn drug “Aciphex,” seem to have forgotten that important lesson. Watch the ad and you’ll hear what I’m talking about: “Fred, you have acid reflux disease. I want you to try prescription ass effects.” [More]
