Category: Regulations
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Public Domain Name Services Found Slowing Web Performance
Computer scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois found the global trend toward public domain name systems (DNSs) — to look up Internet addresses before making connections — is slowing down the Web for many visitors. A team led by Northwestern computer science professor Fabián Bustamante (pictured left) will discuss these findings at the ACM Internet…
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More Americans Get Blood Pressure Under Control by 2010
A larger percentage of Americans with hypertension had their blood pressure under control by the end of 2010 than in 2001, a gain attributed to higher use of multiple drugs to treat the condition. The findings from the study conducted by National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and…
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FDA Approves Drug to Treat Seizures in Epilepsy Patients
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug perampanel, given in tablet form to treat partial onset seizures in patients with epilepsy ages 12 years and older. Perampanel is marketed under the brand name Fycompa by Eisai Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and headquartered in Tokyo. Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized seizures…
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Current Rice Cultivation Techniques Adding Greenhouse Gases
Researchers at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, Northern Arizona University, and University of California in Davis found that increases in temperature and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are making rice agriculture a larger source of the greenhouse gas methane. The team’s findings appear online this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. Rice is the…
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More Hospital Pediatricians Replacing Pagers with Texting
A survey of pediatric hospital physicians shows increasing use of mobile phone text messaging rather than pagers among this segment of the medical profession. Pediatrician Stephanie Kuhlmann and colleagues from the Kansas University medical school in Wichita presented their findings yesterday at a meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in New Orleans. The Kansas…
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Trial to Test Branded vs. Generic Anti-Rejection Drugs
Researchers at University of Cincinnati will lead a clinical trial testing a brand-name drug to reduce rejection of transplants against generic versions. The $2.7 million study, funded by the Food and Drug Administration, includes colleagues from University of Colorado and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The trial will test the drug tacrolimus, an immunosuppressant compound…
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Antibiotic Found Effective On Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
Researchers in the U.S. and Korea found the antibiotic linezolid largely effective in treating patients with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, who had not responded to previous treatments. The findings of the team led by Clifton Barry of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and Sang-Nae Cho at…
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Checklist System Helps Cut Hospital Blood Clot Cases
Johns Hopkins University medical center in Baltimore reports a computerized checklist system helped prescribe appropriate preventive treatments and reduce the number of blood clots in hospitalized trauma patients. The findings from the project are described in this month’s issue of the journal Archives of Surgery (paid subscription required). The hospital installed a computerized checklist system…
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Clinical Trial Under Way Testing Stem Cell Heart Treatment
Cytori Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in San Diego, reports the first patient received treatment in its clinical trial using stem cells derived from body fat to treat severe heart failure. The patient was treated in September at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation in Minneapolis, one of six sites for the trial, and completed a seven-day…
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Universal Prescription Drug Label Standards Issued
The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), a scientific standards-setting organization, released new standards that the group says for the first time provide a universal labeling format for medicines in containers dispensed by pharmacists. The standards are expected to be published next month. The standards (free registration required) — known formally as General Chapter <17> Prescription Container…