medicine

Better eye droppers could save a lot of money on prescription drugs.

Paula Deitz on how a New York physician planted the seeds of American medical botany.

Keep the ‘dead donor rule.’

Don’t do away with drug rebates.

Why should we care about the opinions of aspiring doctors?

In 2015, the Association of American Medical Colleges revised the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) for the first time in nearly 25 years, stretching the full exam-day experience from around five hours to eight or more. The test drew attention at the time for its sheer length; less widely…

Until the 19th century, the relationship between the function and the physiology of the nervous system was largely a mystery. Physicians believed in the vital importance of the brain but knew little about its structure and purpose. For hundreds of years, conventional wisdom in medicine followed the…

Before sunrise on Saturday, December 14, 1799, George Washington woke up so sick he could barely breathe. His wife Martha summoned George Rawlins, a Mount Vernon overseer, who knew just what to do. He opened a vein in the former president’s arm and drained about 12 ounces of blood. Three physicians…

The national governing body of physician training, the American Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), limits the number of hours doctors in training can work in a given week. Generally speaking, on average, residents can be at the hospital for only 80 hours over a seven-day period. This…

The Centers for Disease Control alarmed the public in early January when it announced that the topic of its next monthly public health briefing would be preparing for nuclear war. But the agency soon changed the subject to something it deemed more urgent: this season’s flu outbreak.

In the winter of 1949, the first secretary of defense, James V. Forrestal, announced his impending retirement from office.

How will tax reform impact you? It hasn't passed just yet, but it just might! The New York Times has a basic calculator worth checking out. And Maxim Lott has one that's a little more advanced. Neither are perfect, but worth examining to get a broad sense of how the tax reform bill might benefit or…

President Trump declared America’s opioid crisis a public health emergency Thursday, decrying the “scourge of drug addiction” that kills 175 Americans a day and pledging that “we can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic.”

In the 1970s, about 10 percent of American workers required licenses to perform their jobs legally. By 2015, that proportion had more than doubled to 22 percent. There is widespread agreement among economists and an increasing awareness among politicians that there is no public-interest…

In the 1970s, about 10 percent of American workers required licenses to perform their jobs legally. By 2015, that proportion had more than doubled to 22 percent. There is widespread agreement among economists and an increasing awareness among politicians that there is no public-interest…

A doctor of The Scrapbook’s acquaintance was alarmed when he heard that the American College of Physicians was revisiting its official policy on physician-assisted suicide. Alarmed, because the ACP has traditionally been a staunch opponent of having doctors prescribe death. Would the organization…

Once again officials within the FDA are proposing to put other interests over the needs of dying patients, predominantly children.

Once again officials within the FDA are proposing to put other interests over the needs of dying patients, predominantly children.

When I was a small boy, polio terrified me. Each year, it would strike thousands of children like me—and you never knew when or where it would hit next. In the 1952 epidemic, a very bad year, there were nearly 60,000 reported cases in the United States and more than 3,000 deaths.

There was a day in the not-too-distant past when physicians were respected, even revered, as learned professionals. We understood that doctors followed a “higher calling." Indeed, physicians were expected to adhere to a code of conduct—epitomized by the Hippocratic Oath's venerable injunction, "do…

There are times when it seems the entire objective of Washington and the political class is to shake down the rest of us for as much as can be had. Hillary Clinton would not be paid six figures for speaking if she were just an ordinary citizen on the lecture circuit. We've all heard her speak and…

In 2010, the New York Times dubbed her our "Quiet Savior from Harmful Medicines." That same year, FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg presented her with the eponymous Dr. Frances O. Kelsey Award for Excellence and Courage in Protecting Public Health. In 2000, she was inducted into the National…

For decades, Democrats and Republicans have had very different positions on drug prices. Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton portrayed drug companies—like other profitable industries—as greedy profiteers whose prices should be cut by having government 'negotiate' drug prices as they do in Europe,…

Remember all the commotion surrounding the first commercials for Viagra? It wasn't just the content per se that had people talking—it was also the voiceover that casually warned you to "call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease in vision or an erection lasting longer than four…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is working on a solution to a problem faced by a growing number of Americans as the population ages and relies more on prescription drugs: "What is this pill?" Much in the way a Google image search looks for similar images in Google's vast caches, the…

Even in the giddy afterglow of the new Congress, when all things seem possible, few Republicans seriously think that the Affordable Care Act will be repealed in 2015.  More realistically, various politicians have averred that a Republican Congress may have the wherewithal to repeal some of its more…

Pfizer is an American pharmaceutical company that makes Viagra to increase many men’s sexual activity, and Lipitor to prevent strokes and heart attacks (my lay language, not the more precise Pfizer claims). AstraZeneca is a British pharmaceutical company that makes cancer and other drugs. Pfizer…

Jacksonville, Fla.

The Food and Drug Administration is seeking a small business to potentially supply the federal agency with a chewing gum tester.  Despite the frivolous sounding nature of the announcement, the search is a serious one, and apparently a growing need.  Chewing gum-based pharmaceuticals (such as…

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test, the first over-the-counter, self-administered HIV test kit to detect the presence of antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and type 2 (HIV-2). HIV is the virus that causes acquired immune…

At Forbes, David Shaywitz has a column on why excess medical regulation is harmful, and it's one of the best things I've read on the topic:

Deadly Choices