For keen students of American politics, the unending intrigue of the 2016 presidential race has been riveting. With an assemblage of aspiring candidates that, at its start, included a bevy of U.S. senators and former governors, a media-savvy real estate mogul, a renowned Hopkins neurosurgeon and an ophthalmologist, political junkies among us have feasted on…
SAN FRANCISCO—A broadening of the medical community’s horizons in how pain is regarded and treated in older adults, including those with osteoarthritis and other rheumatic diseases, is sorely needed, a researcher said at the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. Incidence Studies show that a large percentage of older adults each year see physicians for such issues…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Medical cannabis reduces chronic pain patients’ opioid use, while improving their quality of life, according to a new survey of Michigan cannabis dispensary patrons. “They report that when they make that switch they overall feel better,” Dr. Daniel J. Clauw of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, told Reuters Health in a…
(Reuters)—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday new required class-wide safety labeling changes for immediate-release opioid pain medications. Among the changes, the FDA now requires these pain medications to carry a new boxed warning about the serious risks of misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose and death. The FDA also requires several additional safety labeling…
Discussing aching joints, sore muscles and tender limbs is all in our day’s work. We are rheumatologists; we deal in misery. But trying to parse the true meaning of these terms is among the most vexing of clinical challenges.
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The U.S. Senate on Monday moved closer to confirming Dr. Robert Califf to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, overriding opposition from several senators who had sought to block a vote on the issue. In a procedural move designed to prevent the opponents from blocking the confirmation indefinitely, the Senate voted 80 to…
Chronic pain can be one of the biggest challenges that patients and their physicians face. Rheumatology patients are no stranger to pain, and when pain goes beyond the scope of what rheumatologists can treat, collaboration with a pain specialist is common. “I refer patients to pain management when there is no underlying inflammatory condition, usual…
SAN FRANCISCO—Men and women have different mechanisms that are at work in producing pain in rheumatic diseases—a little-studied and little-appreciated fact that is crucial to developing and using the right kinds of treatments, an expert in rheumatic disease pain said in a talk at the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. The lack of acknowledgment of this…
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Bowing to pressure from lawmakers, Dr. Robert Califf, President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said on Thursday the agency would reform its process for approving opioid painkillers. Last month, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Ma.) placed a hold on Califf’s nomination, preventing it from being voted on by the…
(Reuters)—U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said on Monday he has placed a hold on President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration until the agency agrees to reform its process for approving opioid painkillers. Markey wants future opioid-approval matters to be reviewed by an FDA advisory committee, and believes the committee…