Drugs
revere | December 5, 2008So what does heartburn have to do with diabetes? Funny you should ask. Big Pharma giant AstraZeneca is being sued by 15,000 people who claim that their atypical antipsychotic, Seroquel, causes diabetes. Seroquel is approved for bipolar disorder, but unless there are a lot more people with bipolar disorder than we know, it is clearly being use off label because it is AstraZeneca's second best selling drug. What's the best seller, at least for now? The heartburn/ulcer drug, Nexium:
Seroquel, used to treat bipolar disorder, brought in $4.03 billion last year, making it AstraZeneca's second-…
moleculeoftheday | December 3, 2008Levamisole is one of those drugs that was discovered quite awhile ago, when we had even less idea what target things were hitting. It's not used often in people these days. What's interesting about it is that it is occasionally found as an adulterant in cocaine (PDF) - and it popped up again recently.
It is truly bizzare what people use to cut drugs. I once heard of a chemistry professor who told his class about how he walked into a head shop and saw a big sack of mannitol behind the counter (which is used as a cutting or bulking agent for street drugs as well). He marvelled that he had just…
purepedantry | December 1, 2008Drug companies are not publishing all the trial data that they submit to the FDA, and those trials that are published are more likely to show positive results.
Rising et al. compared all the New Drug Applications (NDAs) (the vehicle for initiating a new clinical trial) given to the FDA in 2001 and 2002 to subsequent published literature. They found that only about 3/4 of the trials were later published in journals, and those that were published were 5 times as likely to show favorable results for the drug being tested by the drug company as those that were not:
The researchers identified…
moleculeoftheday | November 17, 2008Loratadine is an antihistamine used for treatment of allergies. Its main distinguishing characteristic is that it is nonsedating, because the molecule minimally penetrates the barrier separating the brain from the bloodstream.
revere | November 13, 2008If there's an influenza pandemic in the near future all bets are off when it comes to unplanned for consequences. Well, maybe not all bets. Right now the only oral antiviral likely to have any effectiveness in a pandemic is oseltamivir (Tamiflu), although how effective and how long it would retain any effectiveness is in question. But there's a lot of it out there and it will be taken in high volume and, either in its capsule form [oseltamivir ethylester-phosphate (OE-P)] or its active form [oseltamivir carboxylate (OC)], excreted into the sewer system in massive quantities (discussed here…
revere | November 13, 2008Last spring NIH scientist Charles Natanson published a meta-analysis of studies on hemoglobin-based blood substitutes in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Natanson, C., Kern, S. J., Lurie, P., Banks, S. M. & Wolfe, S. M. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 299, 2304-2312 (2008)). Blood substitutes are . . . well . . . blood substitutes. Like blood, they carry oxygen, but have long shelf lives, don't need refrigeration, don't require cross-matching and meet the need for situations where there is a shortage of fresh whole blood. A meta-analysis is a systematic summary, often expressed…
moleculeoftheday | November 7, 2008Cyprodenate is an old antidote for benzodiazepene overdose:
It is a relatively rare drug that doesn't have a single aromatic ring - steroids are the broad class of exceptions that come to mind. It looks like this is some sort of cholinergic compound, but that's just an educated guess. Doesn't look like anyone uses it anymore, except some of the "smart drugs" crowd. Anyone know anything about it?
revere | November 4, 2008The tort system is the favorite whipping boy of the anti-regulation crowd. That's because once you remove regulation, something the Bush administration has championed and done effectively, the only recourse someone injured by the fraud or negligence of a product or drug manufacturer is through a lawsuit for damages. Since the anti-regulation crowd serves Big Pharma and their cronies, this is the perfect solution: no constraints. The propaganda machine, aided an abetter by a compliant congress and a business dominated media, has been extremely successful in promoting the idea that tort suits…
edyong | October 19, 2008
We've all acted impulsively before, and we have the horrendous clothes, echoing bank accounts and hilarious memories to show for it. But science is beginning to show that impulsive people may be particularly vulnerable to drug addiction, and there is little funny or harmless about that.
According to Government statistics, half a million people in the UK are addicted to class A drugs like cocaine, heroin and amphetamines. All too often, drug addiction and other compulsive disorders like obesity are dismissed as issues of 'willpower' and those who succumb to temptation are labelled as '…
purepedantry | October 13, 2008John Tierney reports this shocking revelation: our marijuana control doesn't work and no one -- particularly the government -- wants to admit it.
Now that the first five years' results are available, the campaign can officially be called a failure, according to an analysis of federal drug-use surveys by Jon Gettman, a senior fellow at the George Mason University School of Public Policy. The prevalence of marijuana use (as measured by the portion of the population that reported using it in the previous month) declined by 6 percent, far short of the 25-percent goal, and that decline was…
edyong | October 12, 2008
It's mid-October. For most of us, our New Year's resolutions have long been forgotten and our bad habits remain frustratingly habitual. The things that are bad for us often feel strongly compelling, be they high-fat foods, gambling or alcohol. And nowhere is the problem of addiction more widespread, serious and dangerous than the case of cigarette smoking.
Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the developed world, and in the UK, it kills five times more people than all non-medical causes combined. The dangers of smokers are both well-established and well-known, and…
mikethemadbiologist | October 9, 2008Since it's election season, it's pretty much guaranteed that the price of medical drugs will come up. While I'm on vacation, this post from the archives is pretty interesting. Keep in mind, the person making this claim is a former CEO of Pfizer, so he might know what he's talking about...
This is a headline from the June 1st, 2005 edition of ScripNews (subscription only; so I'm a little behind in my reading-what scientist isn't?). Here's the punchline for lazy stupids that don't like to read: the head of Pfizer has admitted that the cost of making a drug has nothing to do with how much drug…
chrisdrudge | September 1, 2008Cunningham SC, McNear B, Pearlman RS, Kern SE. Beverage-agarose gel electrophoresis: an inquiry-based laboratory exercise with virtual adaptation. CBE Life Sci Educ. 2006 Fall;5(3):281-6.
Aw, universities. Engaging undergraduates by bringing beer into the laboratory. No, not hiding six-packs in the walk-in lab fridge (that's for graduate students), but using Budweiser as a buffer for agarose gel electrophoresis! It works because it contains lots of anions and is subject to at least some quality standards, although there are many drawbacks, such as wasting perfectly good beer on science. And I…
moleculeoftheday | July 29, 2008As I mentioned yesterday, derivatives of arylethylamines - phenethylamine in particular - are drug targets in depression, but a sophisticated mechanistic understanding remains elusive. When you have some idea what molecule you'd like less of, a favorite trick is to find something (an "inhibitor") that binds to some enzyme in the pathway to your molecule and mucks up the works.
Of this sort of drug, the first class is "reversible" inhibitors, which just hang out like hands in mittens. They nestle in an active site and keep other molecules from binding. As the drug is metabolized and its…
moleculeoftheday | July 27, 2008An aromatic ring, two carbons, and a nitrogen will get you a lot of places.From hallucinogens to decongestants to speed, the arylethylamine moiety works because it tickles neurotransmitter receptors. The effects of the assorted monoamine neurotransmitters are as varied as those of the drugs that mimic it - hypertensive, euphoriant, the works. This is part of how we try to explain to ourselves how antidepressants that block the breakdown of these neurotransmitters (MAO inhibitors) or their reuptake (SSRIs) might be working. What might happen if you took something that depleted some of those…
purepedantry | July 24, 2008People have been asking me about Riccardo Ricco, the Italian cyclist who was thrown out of the Tour de France for testing positive for the hormone erythropoietin (Epo), so I want to do a little Q&A about Epo detection and abuse.
What is Epo?
Epo is a hormone released mostly by the kidney that regulates red blood cell (RBC) number. Cells in the kidney respond to hypoxia by releasing Epo into the blood stream. Epo then goes to stem cells in your bone marrow that produce RBCs and increases their production. The appeal to use Epo from the point of view of a cyclist is that in raising…
revere | July 12, 2008We've had occasion to discuss the boondoggle, Project Bioshield a number of times (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). Maybe I should have said, quite a number of times. REally, though, it's hardly worth mentioning. Via the Clinician's Biosecurity Briefing, this:
The Project BioShield Act, passed in 2004, gives HHS "authorities to expedite research, development, acquisition, and availability of priority medical countermeasures for public health emergencies caused by terrorist attacks." This Congressionally mandated report covers progress on the uses of those authorities for the…
revere | July 2, 2008There is a lot of science stuff in newspapers that is just (barely) warmed over press releases from companies or universities. They get pushed out into the world via aggregating services like Eurekalert. Lots of science bloggers and journalists use this stuff for ideas and sources, but even when the origin is a university you have to be circumspect. Some of it is gross over reaching, probably by scientists being pushed by university media relations types trying to get some ink for their institution and not caring how much sense it makes. At least that's how I read this piece on Eurekalert…
mikethemadbiologist | June 29, 2008More evidence that the U.S. is suffering from a severe epidemic of dumbitude (italics mine):
In a country where the discussion of some social and cultural issues, like homosexuality, can be all but taboo, drug addiction has been widely acknowledged as a serious problem. It is talked about openly in schools and on television. Posters have encouraged people to think of addiction as a disease and to seek treatment.
Iran's theocratic government has encouraged and financed a vast expansion in the number of drug treatment centers to help users confront their addictions and to combat the spread of…
purepedantry | June 25, 2008There was a very sad article in the NYTimes about the regular practice in some long-term care facilities of treating demented patients with anti-psychotic medications like Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa:
The use of antipsychotic drugs to tamp down the agitation, combative behavior and outbursts of dementia patients has soared, especially in the elderly. Sales of newer antipsychotics like Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa totaled $13.1 billion in 2007, up from $4 billion in 2000, according to IMS Health, a health care information company.
Part of this increase can be traced to prescriptions in…