A New Federal Rule Regarding TV Drug Advertisements

The United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world that permit the advertising of prescription drugs directly to consumers. In 2020, 564 new ads for prescription drugs were submitted to the FDA for approval; the reported expenditure for those ads, according to the Federal Register, was $4.58 billion. Expensive brand-name drugs […]

Pushing Vaccinations

A recent issue of JAMA includes a viewpoint article titled “Is Vaccination Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point?” authored by Peter Marks, Director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Robert Califf, who is the Commissioner of the FDA. The subject of the article is the increasing resistance in the US to vaccination […]

Alcohol and Atrial Fibrillation

The next issue of The Medical Letter will celebrate the arrival of a new guideline from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association by devoting the entire issue to atrial fibrillation, which is often referred to as the most common arrhythmia in the world. This year’s guideline puts considerable emphasis on the […]

Looking Ahead: A Single-Dose Oral Treatment for Gonorrhea

The November 11 issue of The New York Times included a story about a new drug for treatment of gonorrhea that has not yet been approved for use in any country but is expected to be a huge advance. No vaccine is available for prevention of gonorrhea, but the results of recent studies suggest that […]

Myasthenia Gravis Treatment Advertised on TV

On the television channel I watch the most, an advertisement for Vyvgart, an IV treatment for myasthenia gravis, now appears often enough to be groan-worthy. A man of about 60 with a neatly trimmed mustache-goatee combination dressed  in casual clothes appears on the screen to announce that generalized myasthenia gravis made his life a lot […]

Drugs for ALS: A Publishing Coincidence

The first article in the July 24, 2023 issue of The Medical Letter was on tofersen (Qualsody), a new drug for treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The longest article in the June 26, 2023 issue of The New Yorker, written by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, a staff writer for the magazine, was also about drugs for […]

TV Drug Ads: Cariprazine (Vraylar)

An unsmiling young woman’s face fills the screen. “I was stuck”, she says. “Unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. I needed more from my antidepressant.” Approaching a garage door, she raises it and says, “Vraylar helped give it a lift.” Happy scenes follow: biking, shopping, greeting a child coming out of school. Smiling; how […]