Word: otc
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...counter. And each of the newly unrestricted drugs--from Aleve for arthritis to Monistat 7 for yeast infections--had to undergo many months and occasionally years of government evaluation before it could be let loose on consumers. Even so, of the 15 top-selling drugs in the $13 billion OTC market, 14 were once prescription only. Future candidates for deregulation include nicotine patches, which help people stop smoking, and cholesterol-lowering drugs...
Unlike Tums, Mylanta and other popular antacids, these so-called H2 antagonists actually stop the stomach from churning out corrosive juices rather than just neutralizing them after they have formed. They cannot provide immediate relief, but their effects tend to be long-lasting--which has some critics of the OTC trend worried. They fear that prolonged, unsupervised use of H2 antagonists could mask such serious problems as gastric reflux, in which stomach acids back up into the esophagus and eat away at its inner lining...
Over the next few years, the FDA may consider deregulating more than a dozen drugs--nearly as many as have been approved for OTC sale in the past decade. Congressional proponents of deregulation are sure to argue that the FDA does not give consumers enough credit. "Some people say if the FDA had to review aspirin now, it would be prescription only," says Dr. Kenneth Kaitin, an expert in drug development at Tufts University. "You can kill yourself with aspirin. Yet we seem to be competent enough to know how to take it." Just remember to read the label carefully...
...Citing a longing to spend more time with his family and the fact that his father had died of cancer at the age of 46, Lynch said he had decided it was time to quit. He will be succeeded by Morris Smith, 32, who runs the $700 million Fidelity OTC (over-the-counter) fund, one of the fastest-growing parts of the Fidelity group's 180-fund empire...
...three hours, while others lacked the capital to keep stocks from going into free fall. One proposed reform would raise the capital requirements for Big Board specialists. Another would assign more than one specialist to each stock, as is now the practice in the over-the-counter markets. OTC market makers thus have more money available to shore up prices. But they also have less accountability. It has been charged that in the market meltdown many over-the-counter brokers simply knocked their phones off the hook...