Health Glance
Drug companies are quietly pushing through price hikes of 100% — or even more than 1,000% — for a very small but growing number of prescription drugs, helping to drive up costs for insurers, patients and government programs.
Among the examples: Questcor Pharmaceuticals last August raised the wholesale price on Acthar, which treats spasms in babies, from about $1,650 a vial to more than $23,000. Ovation raised the cost of Cosmegen, which treats a type of tumor, from $16.79 to $593.75 in January 2006.
The average wholesale price of 26 brand-name drugs jumped 100% or more in a single cost adjustment last year, up from 15 in 2004, the university study found. In the first half of this year, 17 drugs made the list.
Approximately 100,000 people in the United Kingdom have medical conditions that make their skin sensitive to fluorescent light.
American medical care is the most expensive in the world, and it is definitely not worth every penny. A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund highlights the stark contrast between what the United States spends on its health system and the quality of care it delivers.
Eating broccoli could reverse the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels, research suggests.
Drinking as little as three-quarters of a cup of this one tea each day may cut the risk of developing Parkinson's disease by as much as 71 percent, according to a new study conducted by researchers from the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Studies published by drug companies exaggerate the benefit of osteoporosis drugs to women who do not have the disease, according to a report published in the journal BMJ.
Cuba is one of the countries that advances the most in the world with regard to medical attention, said Mirtha Roses Periago, director of the Pan American Health Organization ''PAHO''.
