Word: fda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Drug Administration has decided to take matters into its own hands. The agency plans to publish a notice in the Federal Register declaring that oral contraceptives can be used safely and effectively to avoid pregnancy as late as three days after intercourse. While the action falls short of formal FDA approval, which can be granted only when a manufacturer files an application, it gives unmistakable and official sanction to emergency use. "We're delighted," says Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "We've been using this procedure for many years in our clinics but were...
...FDA's decision was based largely on testimony by James Trussell, director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, at a committee meeting late last month. Citing large-scale morning-after trials involving six different oral contraceptives, Trussell reported a 75% drop in the rate of pregnancies. Women in the trial were asked to take a set of two or four pills (depending on dosage), the first set within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse, the second dosage 12 hours after the first set. The result: only 2% of those who took emergency contraception became pregnant, compared with...
Still, the FDA's action is bound to be controversial. While medical authorities consider that pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg implants itself in the uterus, most right-to-life advocates insist that life begins when the egg is fertilized, before implantation, and denounce any subsequent intervention. Trussell points out, however, that postcoital use can work at any of four stages in the female reproductive cycle. It can prevent ovulation, fertilization of the egg or transportation of the egg to the uterus; it can also make the uterine lining inhospitable to implantation. In any individual, he says, there...
...Then the FDA approved a new medication called saquinavir. One of the so-called protease inhibitors, it attacks the virus at a previously untargeted step in its reproductive process. Several similar drugs have since followed. The agency also approved a medication called 3TC. Although it works much like AZT, the two act as a chemical tag team: after HIV becomes resistant to AZT, it is still vulnerable to attack by 3TC. If it then develops resistance to 3TC, it suddenly loses the ability to fend off AZT. Multiple-drug therapy had finally become possible...
WASHINGTON: Does Bob Dole care about kids getting addicted to cigarettes? According to a new television ad campaign launched by the Clinton camp on Monday, Dole "opposes an FDA limit on tobacco ads that appeal to children." But the Dole campaign begs to differ: while Dole opposes smoking ads that might encourage kids to smoke, he prefers to let states set their own bans, according to Dole press secretary Nelson Warfield. "This has less to do with what Dole really believes than it does with Dole's character," says TIME's Eric Pooley. "You have to put up with...