Latest California Healthline Stories
Mysterious Vaping Lung Injuries May Have Flown Under Regulatory Radar
Doctors who saw patients with a mysterious lung illness in the past suspected vaping as the cause but didn’t know where to report such cases. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to report it, it’s that there’s no pathway,” said one California pulmonologist.
Shopping Abroad For Cheaper Medication? Here’s What You Need To Know
Americans routinely skirt federal law by crossing into Canada and Mexico or tapping online pharmacies abroad to purchase prescription medications at a fraction of the price they would pay at home. Is it safe? Not necessarily. Here’s some advice.
DIY Tech Gives People More Freedom In Managing Diabetes
People with diabetes say they’ve been waiting for years for better technology to manage their chronic condition. Tired of waiting, some tech-savvy, do-it-yourselfers are constructing their own devices using open-source programming instructions.
Five Things We Found In The FDA’s Hidden Device Database
The Food and Drug Administration released two decades of previously hidden data containing millions of injuries or malfunctions by medical devices. Here’s what we’ve learned so far.
FDA Overlooked Red Flags In Drugmaker’s Testing of New Depression Medicine
In March, a chemical cousin of the anesthetic and club drug ketamine was approved for the treatment of patients with intractable depression. But critics say studies presented to the FDA provided at best modest evidence it worked and did not include information about the safety of the drug, Spravato, for long-term use.
Must-Reads Of The Week From Brianna Labuskes
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
More Than Half Of Surgical Stapler Malfunctions Went To Hidden FDA Database
The FDA reveals that 56,000 malfunctions associated with surgical staplers weren’t reported through its traditional public reporting system.
Hidden Reports Masked The Scope Of Widespread Harm From Faulty Heart Device
The Food and Drug Administration allowed one company to send 50,000 reports of harm or malfunctions to an internal database even as patients worried about faulty defibrillators lodged in their hearts.
Price Check On Drug Ads: Would Revealing Costs Help Patients Control Spending?
As part of his plan to tamp down drug pricing, President Donald Trump wants pharmaceutical companies to provide cost information in drug ads — just like side effects.
FDA To End Program That Hid Millions Of Reports On Faulty Medical Devices
In the wake of a KHN investigation, the agency will no longer let device makers file reports of harm outside a widely used public database.