A cervical cancer vaccine that has been recommended only for U.S. residents has become a requirement for all new female immigrants ages 11 to 26, sparking an outcry over the order’s safety and cost.

“It’s outrageous,” said Sara Sadhwani, project director for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles. “It seems absolutely premature to mandate this for immigrant women.”

The new requirement went into effect Aug. 1 and will affect more than 130,000 immigrants a year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June 2006 approved the vaccine Gardasil for females ages 9 to 26 to block strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer. About 4,000 women in the U.S. die of the disease each year.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that they are going to be working with Medco Health Solutions Inc. to try and improve prescription medications.

The FDA is going to work with Medco Health to try and study how the genetic makeup of patients has an impact on which medications they should be prescribed.

The FDA, by working with Medco health, is hoping to better understand the needs of patients, and how certain medicines may be better for certain patients depending on their genetic make-up.

This could be to custom medicine being developed just for them.

The FDA and Medco Health have entered into this two-year partnership to test how helpful certain prescription medications are for patients, depending on their genetic make-up.

Research and Markets ( http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7c95b2/pharmaceutical_pri) has announced the addition of Decision Resources, Inc.’s new report “Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement News in the Second Quarter of 2008″ to their offering.

The United States stands in stark contrast to Europe and Japan in terms of the freedom that manufacturers have to set–and increase–the prices of branded drugs in the U S market. However, pharmaceutical companies need to give careful thought to their pricing strategies in all markets Payers around the world are constantly adjusting their pharmaceutical cost-containment strategies.
Get the Answers You Need to Shape Your Strategy:

- Leading pharmaceutical benefit management companies (PBMs) in the United States are seeking new ways to contain prescription drug costs. How do recent pricing trends for generics and branded drugs compare? What are PBMs doing to stimulate greater use of generics? What is the outlook for specialty pharmaceuticals? » Read the rest of the entry..

Achoo! It’s flu season, and while fevers, sore throats, muscle aches, headaches and stomach symptoms such as nausea and vomiting can be symptoms of a variety of illnesses, they can also signal the flu.

While some local principals say their schools seem pretty much unscathed by the virus this year, Principal Angelo Kidd says Northwest High School has definitely seen an increase in absences from the flu.

The school’s attendance rate is usually around 95 percent; Kidd recently said that amount dipped to about 91 percent for several days in a row. At a school with more than 2,400 students, that means about 100 more students per day have been out sick. Teachers have also been hit by various illnesses that have been going around, Kidd says. » Read the rest of the entry..

The finally, a safe, environmental way to get rid of old medicine, Group Health Cooperative pharmacies accepting unused prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

Don’t know what to do with your old, expired medications?

Until now, there has been no safe and environmentally benign way to dispose of unused or expired medicine.

Old drugs left in the medicine cabinet are too often used by mistake or by someone seeking a high. If thrown in the garbage or flushed down the toilet, they can give an unintended dose to fish and other wildlife.

That’s beginning to change here, thanks to the nation’s largest program for returning unused drugs. » Read the rest of the entry..

I fear Lindsay Clark in her diatribe directed towards Ian Saint-Yves (Letters, January 19) is being somewhat “economical with the truth”.

She suggested that “the government persuaded GPs to accept the contract in 2004″. Given the uniquely generous nature of the offer, the government didn’t have to “persuade” the GP negotiators to accept the terms on offer; they simply couldn’t believe their good fortune and didn’t hesitate to accept - such an offer isn’t likely ever to come round again in these negotiators’ lifetimes.

Lindsay Clark also makes the point that “NHS 24 was their idea, not ours”. Whoever came up with the idea of NHS 24 as a substitute for GP out-of-hours cover, it certainly wasn’t the patients, whose out-of-hours interests have received scant attention from the government » Read the rest of the entry..

At least 46 educational institutions on health technologies have been operating illegally for the last two years with approval from inappropriate authorities, providing three-year diploma courses to around 6,000 students.

These institutions acquired approvals from the Technical Education Board (TEB) instead of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the lone authority to approve educational institutes of health technologies (IHT).

“At an inter-ministerial meeting on November 18 last year, the education secretary asked the Technical Education Board to stop giving approval to the institutes of health technologies as it was illegal,” said Khondker Shefyetulla, director of Medical Education and Health Manpower Development of the Health Directorate. » Read the rest of the entry..