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...each other. More and more of us go online and, perhaps partly as a result, more and more of us meet the clinical definition of obesity (about 66 million Americans today weigh 30% more than they should). So it was no surprise that sales of Xenical, the diet pill that just won FDA approval, exploded across the Net last week. There is, it seems, no shortage of Doritos-gobbling geeks who would prefer to fight flab without doing anything more strenuous than clicking a mouse...
...business decision, a political decision or a moral decision? Wal-Mart, the nation?s fifth largest distributor of pharmaceutical products -- and often the sole druggist in smaller communities -- has decided not to sell an FDA-approved medication. The drug is Preven, a prescription morning-after pill that prevents pregnancy. The company says it?s strictly a "business decision"; Planned Parenthood and others involved in the birth control and abortion debate aren?t so sure. They believe the company is reacting to pressure from pro-life groups, though the company denies...
...whether based on "business" or fears that stocking the pill will offend Wal-Mart's oft-conservative customers in rural areas, is it appropriate for a pharmacy to stop dispensing a legal medication? "Imagine, for instance," says TIME medical columnist Christine Gorman, "if for business reasons the company had decided not to dispense insulin" -- would Wal-Mart?s decision be ethically supportable? "This is a dangerous, slippery-slope situation," says Gorman. By the way, although the company will no longer be dispensing Preven, it will still be selling Viagra...
...short, the FDA has unofficially launched a gigantic, uncontrolled experiment on the U.S. population, much as it did with the diet drug Redux in 1996 and the impotence pill Viagra in 1998. The Redux fad ended abruptly a year later when some users developed serious heart-valve defects--and major side effects are always a possibility with Xenical as well. With Redux, though, hints of danger had shown up in clinical testing. That's not true of orlistat, either in animals or in human studies conducted in some of the 17 countries where the medication is already available. (An initial...
British researchers announced last month a breakthrough in their development of an oral contraceptive for men. The pill was administered to 23 bold volunteers; the majority produced no active sperm after three months. The sperm loss was temporary, but the side effects required subjects to use testosterone patches in order to keep their manly form. To overcome this marketing dilemma, we asked the fertile minds at various ad agencies to think up some potent campaigns...