…nature of the hearing and the media distractions, the committee meeting attempted to demonstrate the dispassionate application of scientific evidence to public health decision making. In fact, several basic tenets emerged at this meeting that might ideally be used as guiding principles for improving the…

Gastric cancer is a leading cause of illness and death from cancer worldwide, with nearly a million new cases diagnosed each year and a 5-year survival rate of less than 20% among patients in most parts of the world other than Japan, where the rate is closer to 60%. 1 Early dissemination of the…

…department chair at the Harvard School of Public Health, says he expected Bayer to present his group's findings at a 2006 FDA advisory committee meeting about the safety of aprotinin. When the company didn't do so, he threatened to call the FDA himself. Its hand forced, Bayer submitted the study results…

…conflict-of-interest disclosures made by physicians who were authors of presentations or served as board members or committee members at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Our primary outcome measure was the accuracy of conflict-of-interest disclosures as reported by physicians…

…at the Cleveland Clinic. “That shift should, to the best of our ability, be a shift toward greater safety.” Indeed, a recurring theme of the meeting was the need to conduct additional studies of the long-term safety of virtually all NSAIDs, focusing particularly on their effects on cardiovascular…

Many important issues of health policy, such as whether government should provide universal health insurance, raise fundamental questions about the proper scope of government and the fair allocation of resources in society. Norman Daniels's new book, Just Health, presents a carefully reasoned…

…unstable clinical condition. After 26,445 patients had been excluded on the basis of these criteria, 36,499 were screened for inclusion. Patients had to meet at least one of two criteria for inclusion. Criterion 1 was a heart rate of 90 beats per minute or more on the first available ECG (obtained within…

In December 2008, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened a joint meeting of the Pediatric Advisory Committee, the Pulmonary-Allergy Drugs Advisory Committee, and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee (of which I am a member) to review the risks and benefits of inhaled long-acting…

…advisers with relevant scientific expertise (see box). 1 2 Two recent high-profile meetings have raised questions about the agency's approach and whether it should change. In February, the FDA convened a joint meeting of the Arthritis Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory…

…when data were released showing an increase in the risk of late stent thrombosis. In response, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held an open meeting of its Circulatory System Devices Panel on December 7 and 8, 2006. 1 The advisory group of about 20 academics and clinicians was sharply divided on…

…systems, population-based management of chronic illness, and continuous quality improvement. One important cornerstone of this model is a focus on meeting the needs and preferences of patients; another is payment reform that improves reimbursement to primary care practices and rewards high performance…

…bill would also extend a 10% bonus to general surgeons who practice for 5 years in a medically underserved area. In recent months, Baucus has been meeting with five other Finance Committee members — two other Democrats, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, and three Republicans…

Wound infections are common and serious complications of surgery. In patients undergoing colorectal surgery, the incidence of wound infection ranges from 9 percent to 27 percent. 1 Surgical-wound infections can prolong hospitalization by 5 to 20 days 2 and substantially increase the cost of care. 1…

This book resulted from a meeting held under the aegis of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, September 17 through 20, 2000. The meeting brought together an interdisciplinary cadre of investigators to consider various aspects of the enigmatic…

…pleasurable end in itself. It's not that I oppose journal meetings. Even a journal meeting fosters an appreciation for the primary literature of science, a healthy skepticism about its findings, and the skills to read critically. Journal meetings and journal clubs alike help readers to form conclusions…

…Administration (FDA) held an unusual joint meeting of the Pulmonary-Allergy Drugs Advisory Committee, the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, and the Pediatric Advisory Committee to consider the safety of long-acting beta-agonists (LABAs). The meeting is described in detail in a Perspective…

…director of health. “When vegetables were coming across from mainland China, when food items or any herbal medicine was coming across that did not meet my standards, I stopped them,” she said. “That caused economic loss to China, clearly, but my primary consideration is public health.” Similarly…

…exception of the American Medical Association (AMA) — have not staked out public positions in this debate. On December 7, at the AMA's semiannual meeting in Atlanta, its House of Delegates voted to oppose efforts to extend the 18-month moratorium on the development of new specialty hospitals. The Emergence…

…more treatment.” We had been through such cases many times before, so we adhered to standard guidelines and made arrangements to have a family meeting at her bedside later that day. All her care providers had met and agreed that although there were treatments yet to be tried, even under the best of…

…including our recent study 2 and the FDA's own initial 1993 warning regarding “kidney toxicity.” 5 We learned after the Advisory Committee's meeting of newly disclosed records of 67,000 patients, yielding data that were consistent with our warnings (renal failure, stroke, and heart failure) 2 and…