Although the U.S. Senate voted along partisan lines Wednesday to defeat repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — it overwhelmingly on the same day voted to repeal one of the provisions that has proven most burdensome to entrepreneurs: the mandate for business to file IRS 1099 reports on any purchase over $600. (more)
If it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny. The brain trust at the Consumers Union doesn’t seem to be able to see the consequences of their actions. (more)
The National Institutes of Health recently announced that it would be engaging in a billion-dollar effort to encourage the development of new pharmaceutical therapies. The New York Times headline for this story sounded innocuous: “Federal Research Center Will Help Develop Medicines.” But not everyone is so sanguine about this effort. Fox News, for example, re-ran the Times story under the header: “Obama Creating Billion Dollar Gov’t-Run Drug Company.” (more)
DIAMONDHEAD, Miss. — The 34-year-old sister of Vikings quarterback Brett Favre faces drug charges after she was arrested Wednesday in a raid on a Mississippi condo where people were making crystal methamphetamine, authorities said. (more)
TOKYO — When the Japanese government raised the tax on cigarettes on Oct. 1, it should have sparked a public health revolution in this land of heavy smokers. (more)
Gage Martindale, who is 8 years old, has been taking a blood-pressure drug since he was a toddler. “I want to be healthy, and I don’t want things in my heart to go wrong,” he says. (more)
A Cornell student was arrested along the 500 block of Stewart Avenue Sunday for criminal possession of a “substantial quantity” of heroin, the Ithaca Police Department said. (more)
On most matters, Congress moves so slowly you’d think they were going backwards. Many times bills languish for years before even getting a hearing in Committee, let alone a vote. For the most part, this is a good thing because it allows for serious deliberation and for Congress to craft a bill that actually addresses the issue fairly thoroughly. But every once in a while something is labeled an “emergency” and put on the fast-track and you get a bill like Obamacare that no one reads or knows what’s in it and, because it is an “emergency,” flies through Congress without regard to consequences. As the government assumes more and more control over our health care, the ramifications of the control it already has are becoming clearer, and more frightening. And, slowly, some members of Congress are starting to speak up. (more)
Washington (CNN) — Authorities have arrested two Georgetown University students and another person in connection to a suspected drug lab found inside a dormitory Saturday morning, D.C. Metro police said. (more)
CVS/Pharmacy will pay a record $75 million to settle a case brought by federal prosecutors accusing the drugstore giant of not doing enough to safeguard the sale of cold medicines used to produce methamphetamine. (more)
CVS/Pharmacy will pay a record $75 million to settle a case brought by federal prosecutors accusing the drugstore giant of not doing enough to safeguard the sale of cold medicines used to produce methamphetamine. (more)
WORCESTER, Mass. – It was not as big a draw as the playground or the hot dog truck, but the drug collection program at a busy downtown park here on Saturday still netted a few hundred bottles of prescription pills as part of a broader one-day effort to clean out the nation’s medicine cabinets. (more)
Uncle Sam wants your drugs! This Saturday the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is sponsoring a nationwide prescription drug “take-back,” at 4,000 locations around the country. Seeking to address the fact that in 17 states prescription drug combination overdoses kill more people than traffic accidents, and that prescription drug related treatment admissions have recently increased 400%, the DEA will collect your unused medications, no questions asked. (more)
WASHINGTON — The rate of illegal drug use rose last year to the highest level in nearly a decade, fueled by a sharp increase in marijuana use and a surge in ecstasy and methamphetamine abuse, the government reported Wednesday. (more)
OPELOUSAS, La. — At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums. (more)
Federal health regulators are weighing restrictions on Robitussin, NyQuil and other cough suppressants to curb cases of abuse that send thousands of people to the hospital each year. (more)
Paris Hilton’s purse contained .8 grams of cocaine, cigarette wrappers commonly used for marijuana and a broken tablet of Albuterol when she was searched after a traffic stop, according to the police report. (more)
PGA pro Erica Blasberg’s death was a ruled a suicide by suffocation, and police arrested the doctor who called 911 for allegedly removing pills and a note from the scene. (more)
Sticker shock at the pharmacy window has resulted in increased public pressure to stem drug costs. (more)
At least a dozen times in the last year, small fortunes in illegal narcotics washed up on Texas beaches after being lost by seaborne smugglers scrambling for new ways into the United States, according to federal officials. (more)
