From Drug Topics: News stories and features about clinical trials, newly approved drugs, and new practices in clinical pharmacy
July 2, 2009
By:Alaina Scott, Senior Editor
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it is requiring manufacturers to put a boxed warning on the prescribing information for the smoking cessation drugs Chantix and Zyban.
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July 1, 2009
By:Drug Topics staff
A new national retail pharmacy, Fresenius Medical Care Rx, has opened in Nashville. It will provide prescriptions, OTC medications, and diabetic testing supplies through the mail to dialysis patients and will offer them access to pharmacists with specialized training in kidney disease.
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July 1, 2009
By:Mari Edlin
Medication therapy management (MTM) programs have been part of prescription drug plans since 2005 after being mandated into law in 2003. MTM gained some muscle when Medicare patients began to enroll in 2006. The 2010 draft Call Letter issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is expected to push the MTM movement even further.
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July 1, 2009
By:Dana K. Cassell
Perhaps as a byproduct of global warming, poison ivy, oak, and sumac plants are spreading in numbers and their virulence is expanding. Several manufacturers are offering products designed to treat the rash, blisters, and infamous itch of these seasonal irritants.
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July 1, 2009
By:Martin Sipkoff
Controversy has surrounded the use of drug-eluting stents (DES) since their introduction as a tool of interventional cardiology in 2003. Studies released that year associated DES with increased risk of blood-clotting several years after implantation, and use declined. Since 2007, when the FDA concluded that DES could be appropriate therapy for some patients, intense scrutiny has produced little evidence that DES carry more risk than bare stents do.
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July 1, 2009
By:Pat daCosta, PharmD, RPh
When the subject of medication errors arises, confusion of drugs with similar names is a real hazard. On written prescriptions, one drug name may be misread as another, and with verbal orders, a drug name may be misheard. Pharmacies are seeking ways to deal with the challenge.
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June 12, 2009
By:Fred Gebhart, Contributing Editor
Record budget problems have pushed California to eliminate funding for the largest poison control system in the nation. Keep reading to find out about a California pharmacy's fight to keep the poison control system going.
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June 4, 2009
By:Alaina Scott, Senior Editor
Recently proposed state legislation in Ohio would criminally punish pharmacy staff who did not certain dispensing report errors to patients.
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June 3, 2009
By:Fred Gebhart, Contributing Editor
A new AHRQ technology assessment and meta analysis of randomized controlled trials concluded that there is not enough evidence to determine which ED drugs are more effective or which may cause fewer and less serious adverse events.
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| Drug Topics is a monthly news magazine, guided by a board of pharmacy leaders, reporting on all phases of community, retail, and health-system issues and trends. We cover managed care and professional, national, and state activities as well as new therapies involving prescription and OTC drugs.
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| What do you spend the most time counseling customers on? | |
| | OTC medications | | 58% | | | Painkillers | | 13% | | | Adverse drug reactions | | 20% | | | Other | | 9% | |
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