On December 23, 2016, the FDA alerted physicians who care for pregnant women meeting CDC Zika virus clinical criteria and/or CDC Zika virus epidemiological criteria, that the U.S. commercial testing facility, Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), has reported some false positive results from the ZIKV Detect IgM Capture ELISA test. Click title to continue reading...
On December 23, 2016, the FDA approved Spinraza (nusinersen), the first drug approved to treat children and adults with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a rare and often fatal genetic disease affecting muscle strength and movement. Spinraza is an injection administered into the fluid surrounding the spinal cord. Click title to continue reading...
New data published by the CDC on December 16, 2016, showed that drug overdose deaths, including opioid overdose deaths, continue to increase in the United States. In 2015, more than 52,000 people died from a drug overdose. Of those, 33,091 (63.1 percent) involved a prescription or illicit opioid. Since 2000, more than 300,000 Americans have lost their lives to an opioid overdose. Click title to continue reading...