How a media roughly missed your newest organ and questions about drug prices

This week, we have sum on a David-and-Goliath conflict moulding adult over sweetened drinks. We also demeanour during how a media “discovered” a “discovery.” Also, questions about drug prices and attention practices, as good as how a argumentative Big Pharma exec warranted some-more than any other CEO in Canada.

Want this in your inbox? Get a Second Opinion newsletter each Friday.

Sugary selling on trial

A little non-profit is holding on dual libation attention giants. The Praxis Project filed a lawsuit in a California sovereign court alleging a Coca-Cola Company and a American Beverage Association have been intent in a debate to mistreat consumers about a health risks of sweetened drinks.

The 40-page complaint accuses a organizations of stealthily appropriation and publicizing inequitable investigate and using fake and dubious promotion campaigns. The counsel representing Praxis compared a practices with those used by a tobacco attention until a late 1990s.

How a media roughly missed a new organ

The mesentery is a greasy surface that binds a viscera in place. A new examination of a investigate suggests it should be personal as an organ. (J. Calvin Coffey and D. Peter O’Leary/University of Limerick)

There was a lot of hum this week about a “discovery” of a new tellurian organ. It’s called a mesentery, and it’s a greasy surface that binds a viscera in place. It’s always been there, though it was formerly suspicion to be a few fragmented structures. Now an Irish researcher says that it’s one continual structure — and argues that creates it a 79th organ.

But we roughly didn’t hear about it. The paper came out a integrate of months ago, in a Nov emanate of The Lancet’s journal Gastroenterology Hepatology. Ireland listened about it, though outward of a Emerald Isle, it was totally missed.

That stirred a University of Limerick to emanate another press release. But it came out right before a holidays — so again, nothing. Then this week, one contributor stumbled opposite a press recover and put out a story (it seems like The Independent was first), and finally a universe took notice. A discerning Google hunt shows some-more than 2,000 news stories have been posted given Monday.

‘Inappropriate business conduct’ at Alexion

Alexion Pharmaceuticals, a builder of Soliris, one of a world’s many costly drugs, is behind in a news. This week, Alexion announced a formula of a review into an accounting scandal, after a former workman suggested that staff had manipulated sales to raise financial reports. It’s called “pulling in” — when business are pressured to put in their drug orders early to accommodate financial targets.

In this case, sales that would have shown adult in 2016 were pulled in to be reflected in a 2015 end-of-year report. An inner association review reliable there had been “inappropriate business conduct” but resolved there was no need to change a company’s financial reports. Soliris is deliberate an “orphan drug” used to provide several singular diseases during a cost of some-more than $500,000 per patient, per year. 

Soliris has been called one of a world’s many costly drugs. (CBC)

Read some-more on our progressing investigation into how Alexion sets a sky-high cost tab for Soliris.

When is an waif unequivocally an orphan?

Orphan drug laws were designed to make it essential for companies to rise drugs for little groups of patients with singular diseases. But increasingly a manners are being used to clear high prices and augmenting obvious insurance for cancer drugs, says Dalhousie University Prof. Matthew Herder in a explanation published this week.

It’s called “salami slicing,” and a explanation says companies are rupturing cancer into specific subsets to validate for favoured obvious insurance and other drug capitulation advantages designed to speed singular drug development. At a same time, truly neglected health issues, like poverty, don’t attract investigate dollars. He calls for a redefinition of what is truly an waif emanate in health care.

Are new cancer drugs better?

New cancer drugs are augmenting altogether presence by an normal of about 3.5 months. That’s a anticipating from a study reviewing 62 cancer drugs authorized between 2003 and 2013. Less than half augmenting presence over 3 months. And a third of those drugs lacked justification that they extended presence improved than existent treatments. This analysis in a BMJ discusses a hurdles and ethics of high labelled cancer drugs.

Best-paid CEO in Canada? Ex-head of Valeant

Former Valeant Pharmaceuticals CEO Michael Pearson surfaced a list of top paid executives in 2015. (Ryan Remiorz/ Canadian Press)

Michael Pearson, a former CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals, warranted some-more than any other CEO in Canada in 2015. A year later, a company’s stock price plunged after debate over drug pricing, accusations of gouging from U.S. lawmakers, allegations of crude sales practices, and the arrest of a association executive on rascal charges.

Still, a investigate by a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives showed that in 2015, Pearson warranted $182.9 million in sum compensation — most of it in association shares. That was many some-more than a normal CEO remuneration of $9.5 million, that was still a ancestral high, and 193 times as many as the normal Canadian workman earns.

Same data, opposite answer

Dr. Nav Persaud has spent years questioning a justification behind a renouned morning illness drug Diclectin. He tracked down a strange unpublished information used when a drug was authorized in a 1970s and reanalyzed it in a paper published this week. His conclusion? The information used to approve a drug doesn’t reason adult underneath scrutiny.

It’s not unsafe, Persaud said, though there’s no plain justification that it works to soothe revulsion during pregnancy. He’s job on Health Canada to recur a capitulation of Diclectin. Health Canada pronounced it continues to support a use of a drug.

• READ MORE: ‘High risk of bias’

Canine cancer treatment

You could call it a many paw-pular story of a week. Our Kas Roussy visited a Ontario Veterinary College during a University of Guelph, where researchers are questioning new medical treatments for ill pets. A stream investigate aims to stop a widespread of an assertive form of cancer. Scientists wish what they find out could assistance us owners, too.

Want this in your inbox? Get a Second Opinion newsletter each Friday.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/second-opinion-health-roundup-1.3924227?cmp=rss