Word: orphaned
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...your discussion of drugs [Oct. 11] for rare diseases, you failed to mention that only large pharmaceutical corporations are able to afford the costly indemnity insurance that is necessary in our litigious society. Physicians who are dedicated to orphan-disease therapy and the small companies that usually provide the drugs cannot carry the enormous risk. Either far-reaching product-liability legislation will have to be passed, or some form of insurance pool created to protect the manufacturers. Otherwise, orphan drugs will go unadopted...
Nonetheless, 10 state legislatures have stepped forward to affirm fundamental justice for the District. Hopefully more states will adopt this political orphan, not from self-satisfied benevolence but with a mind to what seventh graders will learn in their history classes...
...that inspired them to go on living. For a new biography of Kolbe, A Man for Others (Harper & Row; $12.95), California Journalist Patricia Treece interviewed Sigmund Gorson, a TV personality in Wilmington, Del., and the only Jewish survivor of Auschwitz who knew Kolbe. Gorson, then a 13-year-old orphan, recalls: "He used to wipe away my tears. Because of the death of my parents, I had been asking, 'Where is God?' and had lost faith. Kolbe gave me that faith back. He was like an angel." -By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Barry Kalb/Rome
...last year proposed legislation that would provide financial incentives to companies undertaking or phan-drug research. Last week such bills were overwhelmingly approved by the House and the Senate. Under the provisions of the House bill, drug companies were to receive a 90% tax credit for expenses incurred in orphan-drug development, but the Senate struck this credit and substituted an appropriation of $9 million. The House measure also called for a seven-year period of exclusive marketing rights for unpatentable orphan products. It provided that in the absence of any alternative treatment, orphan drugs would be made available...
...everyone is pleased with the legislation. In fact, the Administration issued a position paper last week opposing the measure. The statutory creation of an interagency orphan-products board, the Administration said, was superfluous be cause an equivalent panel existed within HHS. Waxman had already altered the bill to accommodate earlier Administration objections. Both the FDA and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association had opposed a provision in the original bill that would have permitted approval of orphan drugs after one successful human clinical trial. With that provision dropped and other changes made, the P.M.A. now supports the bill, though it continues...