cancer
Generic cancer drugs are failing quality tests
Cancer patients in more than 100 countries are at risk of receiving ineffective treatments and potentially fatal side effects, reports a team from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).
Generic drugs are used all around the world, but they’re especially relied upon in places with fewer resources and less access to more expensive treatments. A study published yesterday in the Lancet Global Health examined 189 samples of drugs to treat common cancers, including breast, ovarian, and leukemia, and found that about one-fifth failed. While some contained so little of their key ingredients that pharmacists said it’s the same as doing nothing, others contained too much, putting patients at risk of organ damage or death.
Part of the problem is that manufacturers are operating in a global market driven solely by price, experts say. In places with weaker regulations and surveillance, this can lead to scrimping on the amount or quality of a drug’s active ingredient. Read more from TBIJ.
funding
States anxiously await news on cancer tracking & prevention funds
And on the cancer threats here in the U.S.: By next week, state and local programs that identify U.S. cancer trends, curbing new cases, and improving screening should find out if their annual contract allocations from the CDC will be renewed. In a normal year, they would’ve heard by now, but that’s not this year. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has outlined a desire to squeeze various offices into a new, central division, the Administration for a Healthy America. And some states’ contracts for cancer surveillance work with the National Cancer Institute have already been cut by nearly 20%.
Now, state public health workers fear their federally funded programs could be deeply cut or eliminated altogether, STAT’s Isabella Cueto reports. “We really don’t know what we’re up against unless we know what the map of the battleground looks like,” said Chuck Wiggins, director of the New Mexico Tumor Registry, who lost two staff members this spring after a contract was cut. Read more from Isa on what’s at stake.
mental health
Massive study adds to evidence base on ADHD meds
A new study, published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry, followed nearly 250,000 Swedish people using ADHD medication for 14 years, and found that the treatments can reduce risks of traffic crashes, injuries, and criminal behavior. Most notably, the study found that these results persisted even as more girls, women, and adult men received diagnoses.
When ADHD was first identified in the 1960s, it was mainly seen in young, white boys. Those demographics have balanced out over the decades as other groups receive more attention, so the researchers were interested in whether or not the current understanding of medication’s benefits would still apply with a wider pool.
“I wish we had access to this kind of data for the U.S.,” said Ryan Sultan, a psychiatrist who was not part of the study. Here in the U.S., medication prescriptions for ADHD are skyrocketing — largely thanks to telehealth and diminishing stigma — while shortages are imperiling people’s access to these critical treatments. Read more from STAT’s O. Rose Broderick on the study and what it means.
