Word: fda
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Routine Pap smears are in for a change. The FDA has approved a special light that allows doctors to look directly into the cervix for early signs of cancer. The procedure, called Speculoscopy, will be used in conjunction with a regular Pap test. In one study Speculoscopy plus the Pap detected 83% of early precancerous cell changes; the Pap alone detected only 31%. The added cost to patients for the new procedure: around...
Considering all the potential problems with baboon transplants, it's a wonder the FDA allowed Getty to undergo the operation at all. Certainly compassion for a dying man played a role. But according to scientists who are familiar with how such decisions are made, there was probably another, more subtle reason. "The chance of that bone-marrow transplant taking [hold] and working in a human is zero," says Ronald Desrosiers, professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School. Current techniques, he believes, are simply not yet refined enough for it to work. But they could be soon...
Kessler's critics are not impressed. They say that by focusing on the 17% of new drugs that are targeted for deadly diseases, the FDA has stalled the other 83%. "They're terrified of Nader and the left wing," says Senator Hatch, who parted ways with Kessler after a fight over regulating the vitamin industry, which is well established in Utah. "They want zero risk, and there's no way for there to be zero risk in anything." Representative Bliley, a tobacco-industry ally, goes further. The FDA's true mission, he has said, should be "to bring safe drugs...
OKAY, NO MORE JOKES ABOUT FECAL URGENCY AND ANAL leakage. It's mouth-feel time. We have been standing around, five slightly nervous Time journalists who have volunteered to taste potato chips cooked in olestra. Because the stuff has not been approved by the FDA, each of us has signed a Procter & Gamble "informed consent" release, which we notice with some discomfort bears the 800 number of a doctor to call in case of emergency. This fellow, whose name is Sweeney, will chopper in with a medevac team if something goes wrong. Or so we assume...
...that's it. There's not much more to say. There will be other olestra products, if and when the FDA gives P&G the green light. But right now the chips are all we have, and the chips are all right. Nobody experiences digestive uproar, so we don't get to find out whether Doc Sweeney is really standing by his phone...