While you thought that those Vioxx studies in medical journals were independent, hands-off affairs that may not have been necessarily true. An examination of medical journal articles about Vioxx and court documents from Vioxx lawsuits found that Merck employees or ghostwriters were frequently involved in various articles, but the primary authors were often academics who actually had little to do with the studies or didn’t always disclose financial ties to Merck.

Current regulatory policies should be strengthened to ensure acceptable cardiovascular safety of drugs developed primarily for non-cardiovascular medical problems, according to a recent presentation made by Dr. Jeffrey Borer, an authority in cardiovascular medicine and surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

Johnson and Johnson have voluntarily recalled several Tylenol products for infants saying “rare instances of misuse” could lead to an overdose.

Millions of people could be put at risk because progress in getting the best medicines to the developing world is not being matched by an appropriate monitoring programme say the writers of an editorial in today’s BMJ.

With Chinese manufacturers poised to increase exports of drug ingredients and perhaps even begin shipping finished drug products to the United States, an article http://pubs.acs.org/cen/business/85/8525bus1.html in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS's weekly newsmagazine, questions allegations that foreign-made ingredients often are manufactured in factories that have never been inspected by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The current drug surveillance system needs to be fixed, argues an editorial in this week's BMJ.

A growing number of critics are calling for stricter regulation of the pharmaceutical industry and how drugs are sold in the United States. The concern comes from medical experts, consumer groups and even from within the government agency in charge of the drug approval process.

Northwestern University's Charles Bennett, M.D., is a super sleuth of potentially deadly prescription drug reactions. He leads a national SWAT team of doctors called RADAR (Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports) based out of Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. They swoop in to investigate early signs of trouble years before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) takes notice.

According to the prescription drug bill passed by the senat today, FDA will be required to monitor the pharmaceutical companies and the medications they make three years after the drugs are approved. This is a very significant move by the Senat to helping FDA to ensure the safety of prescription drugs.

With food poisoning and shoddy fake medicine cases frequently reported to have caused deaths in China, the government is expected to issue a comprehensive plan to track and trace food products.