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The Food and Drug Administration has been eying the safety of caffeinated alcoholic drinks like Four Loko, which reportedly sent nine students at Central Washington University to the hospital. The FDA warned manufacturers last November about the safety and legality of the drinks.

"The increasing popularity of consumption of caffeinated alcoholic beverages by college students and reports of potential health and safety issues necessitates that we look seriously at the scientific evidence as soon as possible," Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said in a statement at the time.

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts say British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC will pay $750 million to settle allegations that its subsidiary manufactured and sold adulterated drugs, including the popular antidepressant Paxil.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz on Tuesday announced that GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to settle civil and criminal charges related to the subsidiary in Puerto Rico. Ortiz said the London-based company will pay $150 million in criminal fines and $600 million in civil penalties.

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Heavy smoking in midlife more than doubles your odds of developing Alzheimer's disease, a Kaiser Permanente study said Monday.

The study is the first to examine the long-term consequences of heavy smoking on Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, says the study's principal investigator, Rachel Whitmer, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland.

People with a genetic predisposition to basal cell carcinoma— the most common form of skin cancer— may trade one health risk for another, a new study suggests.

Because people with basal cell nevus syndrome (BCNS) tend to develop multiple basal cell skin cancers in early adulthood and so take more precautions against sun exposure, they may also run a higher risk of being deficient in vitamin D, report researchers in the October issue of Archives of Dermatology.

Mathew Webb left a sales job in menswear for a sales job in pharmaceutical drugs 10 years ago and suddenly found himself surrounded by money. As a sales representative for a major drug company, he was expected to entertain doctors two or three nights a week. There were seats in elaborate sporting events in private stadium suites at major games and dinners at five-star restaurants.

At that point, openly using gifts and money to influence doctors was considered standard practice. But much of that came to a crashing halt after July 2002. That's when the pharmaceutical industry's trade group, known as PhRMA, published its Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals — voluntary guidelines that substantially changed the game for reps like Webb.

State insurance regulators on Thursday unanimously recommended controversial rules that govern how much insurers must spend on patients' medical care, and they chose not to adopt any of several amendments that consumer advocates had feared would gut key provisions.

The rules, which involve an important part of the new health care overhaul law, now go to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who has final say. Leaders of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners voted after months of meetings and debate that involved industry and consumer representatives. The recommended rules center on the "medical loss ratio," which is how much insurers spend on medical care versus administration and profit.