Posted in Drug & Medical Devices on May 23, 2013

5/23/2013  The U.S. Senate has approved legislation aimed at increasing federal oversight for companies that prepare and sell compound drugs.  One such company, the New England Compounding Center (NECC) was found to have shipped contaminated steroids that killed 55 people and sickened 686 others last fall. According to The Washington Post, the new bill,...

Posted in Health & Wellness on May 7, 2013

Do you know how dangerous tanning beds are? Did you know that they increase your risk of melanoma by nearly 75 percent? We are in the middle of peak tanning season, as teenage girls and young women get ready for prom and summer weddings. However, tanning beds could soon be the latest products to...

Posted in Health & Wellness on May 4, 2013

Most of us enjoy a morning coffee to get the day started, or a bottle of Mountain Dew to help get through the afternoon. Caffeine is part of most of our lives and generally is not thought of as being dangerous. But it can be dangerous if it is used in excess, especially in...

Posted in Drug & Medical Devices on March 22, 2013

Compounding pharmacies are making news again. In October, three lots of injected steroids produced by The New England Compounding Center were recalled after the compounds were linked to a deadly meningitis outbreak. Now, the New Jersey Health Department is advising hospitals, health care providers and pharmacists to immediately stop using all products produced by...

Posted in Drug & Medical Devices on March 13, 2013

By Arthur Elk The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning Tuesday that a common antibiotic can cause a potentially fatal irregular heart rhythm in some patients. Concerns about azithromycin, sold as Zithromax or Zmax, were first raised last May when a study in the New England Journal of Medicine compared the risk...

Posted in Drug & Medical Devices on December 11, 2012

By Arthur Elk If you’re a parent, child safety is a concern and you have probably worried about your children accidentally swallowing something that they shouldn’t and getting sick or dying. More than 60,000 young children end up in emergency departments every year because they got into medicines while their parent or caregiver was...

Posted in Drug & Medical Devices on October 2, 2012

For millions of Americans, a large percentage of their monthly budgets must go toward prescription medications. Millions of dollars are spent on prescription drugs each year in our country. Ninety percent of senior citizens and 57 percent of non-senior citizens rely on at least one prescription drug on a daily basis. Combine these numbers...