Mental Health Care Still a Stigma
A survey conducted for the American Psychiatric Association has found that workers are more concerned that seeking mental health treatment will affect their employment status than they are that seeking care for a physical ailment will do so. Harris Interactive conducted the national online survey last August with 2,000 adults, 1,100 of whom were employed full- or part-time. Among the respondents, 76% thought their employment status would be affected if they sought treatment for drug addiction, 73% for alcoholism, and 62% for depression. In comparison, 55% said seeking diabetes treatments and 54% said getting heart disease care might affect job status. The APA pointed out that it works to eliminate barriers to mental health care through its Partnership for Workplace Mental Health.
Tobacco Act Gets Singed
A federal district court has struck down parts of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, saying that some of the landmark law violates tobacco makers' free speech rights. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled it unconstitutional for government to ban color and images in tobacco advertising. However, the court upheld provisions of the law requiring large, strongly worded warnings on tobacco packaging, prohibiting companies from making health claims about tobacco products without Food and Drug Administration review, and banning tobacco-branded events and merchandise, such as T-shirts. American Thoracic Society president Dr. J.R. Curtis said in a statement that the society is still “confident that the FDA will exercise its new authority to reduce tobacco use [in the United States] by stopping the efforts of big tobacco to market its dangerous products to minors, and by giving current smokers more motivation to stop smoking.”
No Smoke, No Device Authority
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the FDA does not have the authority to regulate so-called e-cigarettes–electronic cigarettes–as drug-device combinations. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that deliver vaporized doses of nicotine to be inhaled. The FDA had detained multiple shipments of e-cigarettes imported by one company, Smoking Everywhere, saying that they were unapproved drug-devices. Judge Richard Leon disagreed with FDA's justification for its action. However, he didn't address whether the agency has authority to regulate e-cigarettes under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which President Obama signed into law last June–after the e-cigarette shipments in this case had been halted.
'Extraordinary' Drug Price Hikes
The Government Accountability Office said 416 brand-name pharmaceutical products had “extraordinary” price increases from 2000 to 2008. While this represents only 0.5% of all brand-name products, most of the increases ranged from 100% to 499%, the GAO said in a report released in early January (GAO-10-201). More than half of those products were in three therapeutic classes: central nervous system, anti-infective, and cardiovascular. One possible reason for the price inflation, said the agency: The drugs are bought from wholesalers, repackaged and resold at higher prices to physicians or hospitals. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) industry group said the report “focuses only on a small number of selected brand medicines rather than the entire prescription drug market.”
FDA OK'd 26 New Meds in 2009
The FDA approved 19 new chemical entities and 7 new biologics in 2009, according to Washington Analysis, a Washington-based investment adviser. Among the new chemical entities were Eli Lilly's oral platelet inhibitor Effient (prasugrel) and Sanofi-Aventis's antiarrhythmic drug Multaq (dronedarone). In his report, Washington Analysis' Ira Loss said he expected more approvals this year because the agency claimed it wouldn't let statutory approval dates be overridden and it received more money for reviews.
Many Girls Involved in Violence
About one-quarter of all adolescent females engaged in some sort of violent behavior in the past year, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Looking at data from 2006 to 2008, the researchers found that nearly 19% of adolescent girls reported getting into a serious fight at school, 14% participated in a group-against-group fight, and nearly 6% attacked others with the intent to seriously hurt them. Some teens were in more than one category. The teenagers who engaged in violent behavior were more likely to binge on alcohol or abuse drugs, the study showed. “Acts of teenage violence are most commonly associated with boys,” the report said. However, “it is clear that the problem is pervasive among girls as well.” Pediatricians should consider the issue when seeing adolescent female patients, the report concluded.