Drug Topics - January 2009 - (Page 14) Up front INDUSTRY NEWS & ANALYSIS Pharmacists march in Oakland Holiday Parade Marching under the theme “Ask Your Pharmacist,” more than 50 pharmacists, students, technicians, and sales representatives took part in the nationally televised Oakland Holiday Parade. The pharmacists’ participation was organized by the Alameda County Pharmacists Association, which is a county chapter of the California Pharmacists Association. Hoping to raise both the awareness and visibility of pharmacists throughout that community, the group guided a 50-foot helium Curious George balloon along the parade route. The parade also included equestrian units, dancers, drill teams, clowns, sports mascots, and cheerleaders. The parade is a fundraiser for the foundations of the Children’s Hospital of Oakland and the Oakland Metropolitian Chamber of Commerce. Dozens of pharmacists marched to raise awareness and community visibility. COMMUNITY PRACTICE Boston enacts pharmacy tobacco ban Boston recently adopted one of the toughest tobacco bans in the country, banning cigarette sales in drugstores and on college campuses. A similar pharmacy ban in San Francisco has thus far withstood several court challenges. The Boston rules were approved unanimously by the city’s Public Health Commission and will affect about 75 pharmacies. Both CVS and Walgreens said they intend to comply with the regulations. A CVS spokesperson said the company was already developing a strategy to remove tobacco products from its stores. At least one Boston-area researcher questioned whether the ban will reduce smoking, predicting that smokers will go elsewhere to buy cigarettes. “This policy is not going to save any lives,” said Michael Siegel, a researcher at the Boston University School of Public Health. The San Francisco ban, the nation’s first-ever ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies, survived an initial round of court challenges. Walgreens and Phillip Morris both requested injunctions to stop enforcement of San Francisco’s ban on selling tobacco products in pharmacies. Both challenges were rejected and tobacco products disappeared from the city’s pharmacy shelves last October. CLINICAL TRIALS A team of medical investigators at the University of California, San Francisco, has accused drug companies of bias by distorting the results of their trials in medical journals, which many physicians rely on to determine whether to prescribe new drugs. As a result, the researchers 14 DRUG TOPICS Januar y 2009 W W W.D R U GTO P I C S .C O M COURTESY OF WILLIAM B. YOUNG UCSF study: Drug companies distorting trial information say, patients may sometimes be taking medications they don’t need or that have unwanted side effects, which their physicians have prescribed on the basis of inadequate information. The UCSF team, led by Lisa A. Bero of the medical center’s Institute for Health Policy Studies, probed the details of 164 drug trials involving as many as 1,500 patients over a two-year period and then examined reports on those trials that were published in medical journals, as well as those that remained unpublished. Discrepancies discovered between the trial information reviewed by the FDA and information found in published trials tended to lead to more favorable presentations of the NDA drugs in the publications. Thus, the study concluded, the information in the scientific literature that is readily available to healthcare professionals is incomplete and potentially biased. Study results were published in the current issue of PLoS Medicine, an online medical journal. http://WWW.DRUGTOPICS.COM
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Drug Topics - January 2009 Drug Topics - January 2009 Contents Letters Up Front Up Front in Depth Community Practice Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 OTC Community-Aquired MRSA Infections New Products Viewpoint Drug Topics - January 2009 Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Topics - January 2009 (Page Cover1) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Topics - January 2009 (Page Cover2) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Topics - January 2009 (Page 1) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Topics - January 2009 (Page 2) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Topics - January 2009 (Page 3) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 4) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 5) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 6) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 7) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 8) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 9) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 10) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H1) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H2) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H1) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H2) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H3) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H4) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H5) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H6) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H7) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page H8) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Contents (Page 13) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Up Front (Page 14) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Up Front (Page 15) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Up Front (Page 16) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Up Front (Page 17) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Up Front in Depth (Page 18) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Up Front in Depth (Page 19) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community Practice (Page 20) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community Practice (Page 20a) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community Practice (Page 20b) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community Practice (Page 21) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 (Page 22) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 (Page 23) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 (Page 24) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 (Page 25) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 (Page 26) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Drug Pipeline: What to Watch in 2009 (Page 27) Drug Topics - January 2009 - OTC (Page 28) Drug Topics - January 2009 - OTC (Page 29) Drug Topics - January 2009 - OTC (Page 30) Drug Topics - January 2009 - OTC (Page 31) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 32) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 33) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 34) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 35) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 36) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 37) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 38) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 39) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 40) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Community-Aquired MRSA Infections (Page 41) Drug Topics - January 2009 - New Products (Page 42) Drug Topics - January 2009 - New Products (Page 43) Drug Topics - January 2009 - New Products (Page 44) Drug Topics - January 2009 - New Products (Page 45) Drug Topics - January 2009 - New Products (Page 46) Drug Topics - January 2009 - New Products (Page 47) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Viewpoint (Page 48) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Viewpoint (Page Cover3) Drug Topics - January 2009 - Viewpoint (Page Cover4)
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