2024-03-18 17:31
The United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world that permit the advertising of prescription drugs directly to consumers. In 2020, 564 new ads for prescription drugs wer… Read More
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The official blog of The Medical Letter
2024-02-01 14:12
A recent issue of JAMA includes a viewpoint article titled “Is Vaccination Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point?” authored by Peter Marks, Director of the FDA’s Center for… Read More
2023-12-20 18:21
The next issue of The Medical Letter will celebrate the arrival of a new guideline from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association by devoting the entire issue to… Read More
2023-11-16 14:03
The November 11 issue of The New York Times included a story about a new drug for treatment of gonorrhea that has not yet been approved for use in any country but is expected to be a huge ad… Read More
2023-09-20 12:14
On the television channel I watch the most, an advertisement for Vyvgart, an IV treatment for myasthenia gravis, now appears often enough to be groan-worthy. A man of about 60 with a neatly… Read More
2023-08-04 11:39
The first article in the July 24, 2023 issue of The Medical Letter was on tofersen (Qualsody), a new drug for treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The longest article in the Jun… Read More
2023-06-05 17:04
An unsmiling young woman’s face fills the screen. “I was stuck”, she says. “Unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. I needed more from my antidepressant.&rdquo&hell…Read More
2023-05-02 14:32
When The Medical Letter discusses dietary supplements of one sort or another, we often end by urging our readers to tell their patients not to take them because we really don’t know wh… Read More
2023-03-22 15:00
The April 3 issue of The Medical Letter includes an article on the first treatment ever approved by the FDA for use in patients with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). More specific… Read More
2023-02-14 15:13
The February 9th issue of The New England Journal of Medicine includes an article on a randomized controlled trial of a new antiviral treatment for Covid-19.1 Interferon lambda (IL-28 and -2… Read More
2023-01-24 12:45
The combination of the oral antiviral nirmatrelvir and the protease inhibitor ritonavir (Paxlovid – Pfizer) has been available in the US since late December, 2021. In the clinica… Read More
2022-12-20 18:07
One of the many unsolicited messages that I receive daily on my computer screen informed me recently that Rinvoq has retaken the crown for top drug ad spender ($55.8 million in November) fro… Read More
2022-11-03 17:29
Health authorities are warning of a looming triad this winter: COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus infections. Their emphasis has been on encouraging vaccination against COV… Read More
2022-09-19 17:37
Statins are recommended for virtually all patients who have atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), but the indications for prevention of ASCVD are less clear. The US Preventive Serv… Read More
2022-08-03 16:48
The July 28th issue of The New England Journal of Medicine included results from a large, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation to lower the risk of fractures in… Read More
2022-06-28 11:45
The recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has heightened interest in the use of the oral antiprogestin mifepristone (Mifeprex) for termination of intrauterine pregnancies. Mi… Read More
2022-06-01 16:16
The May 26 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine includes 2 articles on a subject that deserves more attention than it has received from us.1,2 Drug overdose deaths rose above 100,000… Read More
2022-04-11 17:21
Or, in modern English, where is this pandemic going? The answer is clear: we don’t know. In Shanghai, 26 million people have been locked down in their homes, while in Florida, the gove… Read More
2022-03-07 17:16
In December, the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) to 2 oral antiviral drugs for treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in outpatients at high risk of progressing to severe dis… Read More
2022-01-28 15:24
An article in last Sunday’s New York Times described the 7-hour search of a Times reporter who lives in Washington state for Paxlovid, the new Pfizer drug for oral treatment of COVID-1… Read More
2021-12-13 17:40
The three worst pandemics in known human history were the bubonic plague in the 14th century, influenza in 1918, and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) that was first recognized… Read More
2021-09-23 14:51
The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has heightened interest in the use of monoclonal antibodies to treat and prevent the infection, particularly in unvaccinated patients (B. Mueller. Shunning… Read More
2021-07-15 19:40
That’s what my son asked me. What will it take for you to feel comfortable walking into a restaurant without a mask? Good question. I thought about it. A treatment, I said. An accessib… Read More
2021-05-19 13:52
The next issue of The Medical Letter will offer our readers an update on what’s new in the treatment of chronic heart failure, based largely on 2 other updates: the 2017 ACC/AHA/HFSA F… Read More
2021-04-08 18:51
Now that many of our patients have been vaccinated against Covid-19, they want to know if they could catch it anyway. The answer is yes, of course, but that does not mean that 5% of them wil… Read More
2021-02-23 14:17
The anti-inflammatory drug colchicine has been used for many centuries to treat acute flares of gout. In more recent times, it has also been used for treatment of familial Mediterranean feve… Read More
2021-01-13 18:21
An interim analysis of 4 randomized double-blind trials of an adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine was published recently.1 Developed through a partnership between AstraZeneca and Oxford Uni… Read More
2020-12-09 18:15
“Even the most privileged of humans in the Western world will join a tragically disfavored caste if they live long enough. They will belong to the last caste of the human cycle, that o… Read More
2020-10-27 12:06
The president of the United States and the former governor of New Jersey sailed through their bouts with COVID-19. Both would be considered high-risk patients: the president because of his a… Read More
2020-10-23 14:27
The upcoming issue of The Medical Letter leads off with an article on antiviral drugs for influenza, which could be considered an underused resource. Influenza isn’t COVID 19, but it o… Read More
2020-09-03 16:08
The Medical Letter’s online table of Treatments Considered for COVID-19 now includes a section on vaccines, neatly arranged by mechanism of action: adenovirus-vectored, mRNA, adjuvante… Read More
2020-07-22 14:25
Our next issue includes an article on lumateperone (Caplyta – Intracellular Therapies), a new oral treatment for schizophrenia. Lumateperone is the 13th second-generation drug for this… Read More
2020-07-13 18:56
Two important communications turned up on my computer recently. First, two letters to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine commenting on Beigel et al, Remdesivir for the Treatme… Read More
2020-05-18 13:22
The randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trial of remdesivir sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1063 hospitalized patients with advanced CO… Read More
2020-04-20 13:46
The FDA has alerted healthcare professionals and patients that various malfunctions can occur with EpiPen auto-injectors (Mylan) and their generic equivalents (Mylan, Teva). More specificall… Read More
2020-03-12 18:34
A well-known, broad-spectrum, antiviral drug appears to be the best early hope for an effective treatment of COVID-19. It is active in vitro and in animal models against SARS, MERS, and othe… Read More
2020-02-25 14:40
Advertisements for prescription drugs are flooding our TV screens. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but are they untruthful (forbidden) or misleading (more difficult to police)… Read More
2019-12-16 14:25
Our website now hosts a free article about tafamidis, a new drug in the US approved for treatment of adults with transthyretin-mediated amyloid cardiomyopathy, a progressive, life-threatenin… Read More
2019-10-17 13:48
The current issue of The Medical Letter includes an article on this year’s influenza vaccine, which reminds me how crazy the world has become. The temperature went up to 108 degrees in… Read More
2019-07-24 16:46
Ordinarily The Medical Letter does not review new drugs before their price becomes available, but the FDA’s approval of bremelanotide (Vyleesi) for treatment of female sexual dysfuncti… Read More
2019-04-29 18:03
An interesting recent article in JAMA Internal Medicine was critical of off-label use of gabapentin (Neurontin, and generics) and pregabalin (Lyrica) for treatment of pain,1 a subject The Me… Read More
2019-02-27 17:39
It is everywhere, promoted for almost everything. I can hardly walk down the street without having a card pressed into my hand that extols its therapeutic virtues and offers free samples at… Read More
2019-01-08 14:18
In July of 2016, a 15-year-old girl travelling by plane from London to Nice died from an allergic reaction to sesame. She had eaten an artichoke, olive, and tapenade baguette that she had bo… Read More
2018-10-24 13:28
When we wrote about problems with dietary supplements in 2002, we concluded by saying that physicians should tell their patients that we really don’t know what’s in them. An arti… Read More
2018-09-20 16:05
The September 14, 2018 issue of The New York Times included an editorial titled “Medicine’s Financial Contamination,” prompted by the report that the (now former) chief sci… Read More
2018-07-09 15:22
The next issue of The Medical Letter (Issue 1551, July 16, 2018) includes an article on lofexidine (Lucemyra), a new drug for management of opioid withdrawal symptoms. Lofexidine is new in t… Read More
2018-05-15 12:31
During the recent postoperative course of a family member, I was repeatedly assured that tramadol is not an opioid and would not cause constipation. That seems to be a common misconception… Read More
2018-03-08 13:52
The CDC reported today that the opioid crisis is only getting worse: more ED visits, more deaths. More than from car accidents, more than from guns. Unbelievable, but we believe it and we ar… Read More
2017-12-13 18:03
The results of a large Danish prospective cohort study (1.8 million women followed for an average of 10.9 years) published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine indicate that even… Read More
2017-11-06 15:57
The November 2, 2017 issue of The Lancet included an online first article (R. Al-Lamee et al) describing a sham-controlled trial of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the treatment… Read More
2017-10-05 17:24
I don’t remember her name anymore. She was 8 years old: blonde, pretty, smiling politely. I remember her parents, older than most, looking concerned. She looked too healthy to be the s… Read More
2017-07-25 12:52
The unveiling of Drug Interactions from The Medical Letter® reminded me of the profound effects of a single drug interaction that occurred in the emergency room of New York Hospital in 1… Read More
2017-05-22 16:03
The current issue of The Medical Letter (May 22, 2017) leads off with a contentious topic: drug prices. I could think of a lot of good reasons for not publishing an article on this subject:… Read More
2017-04-10 13:33
In 2009, the Affordable Care Act required Medicare and private insurance plans to cover, without a copay, preventive services given grades of A (high certainty of substantial net benefit) or… Read More
2017-02-22 13:52
The CDC recently announced that the influenza vaccine has been 48% effective this year in preventing influenza illness. Presumably, it has been even less effective in subgroups like the elde… Read More
2017-01-12 17:46
The New York Times has reported that an antivaccine crusader may soon lead a government commission on vaccine safety. The commission is expected to focus particularly on the long discredited… Read More
2016-12-14 13:59
Patients tend to underestimate both the effectiveness and the toxicity of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). For acute pain, single full doses of NSAIDs are more effective than a… Read More
2016-11-10 16:28
A letter from the CDC and others published online October 24 in JAMA Internal Medicine presents evidence that about half of patients thought to have bacterial otitis media, sinusitis, or pha… Read More
2016-09-27 18:30
The AspireAssist weight loss device, which was the subject of an article in our August 29 issue, provoked a flurry of articles and letters in the New York Times. The first of these, written… Read More
2016-07-19 14:03
The Medical Letter was founded in 1959 by Arthur Kallet, a layman, and Harold Aaron, an internist. Arthur was a co-founder of Consumer Research, which became Consumers Union, and he started… Read More
2016-06-27 17:19
An article later this year will update our 2014 article on Drugs for Lipids, and there is plenty of updating to do. Our 2014 article was published shortly after the American College of Cardi… Read More
2016-05-24 15:39
An article published online on May 9, 2016 in JAMA Internal Medicine (ME Johansen and C Richardson. Estimation of potential savings through therapeutic substitution.) presented estimates of… Read More
2016-05-05 14:54
The effectiveness of statins in lowering the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with elevated LDL-C is well established now, but muscle-related symptoms, often without increases in se… Read More
2016-03-29 13:14
It’s hard to believe that opioid overdose now kills more people than car accidents in the US, but we’ve been told this so often that it must be true. Pressure is building on pres… Read More
2016-02-25 18:55
As promised in this space 2 years ago, a well-designed, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial on the effects of testosterone treatment in older men has been published (NEJM 2016; 374… Read More
2016-02-09 15:52
We will soon publish our tenth article in the last 4 years on yet another drug for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma. All of these drugs are obscenely expensive. None of t… Read More
2016-01-20 14:42
The current issue of The Medical Letter (1486; January 18, 2016) includes an article on Fluad, an adjuvanted seasonal flu vaccine for older adults that will become available in the US later… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The next issue of The Medical Letter (1485; January 4, 2016) includes an article on ColciGel, a homeopathic drug currently being marketed to the public for the treatment of gout. We generall… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The next issue of The Medical Letter (1483; December 7, 2015) includes an update of one of my all-time favorites, an article on drugs past their expiration date. We had received several inqu… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Cangrelor (Kengreal), the first IV P2Y12 platelet inhibitor to be approved by the FDA, will be reviewed in the next issue of The Medical Letter (1480; October 26, 2015). Its competition for… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The next issue of The Medical Letter (1479; October 12, 2015) will include an article on 2 recent reports about SGLT2 inhibitors, one favorable and one a little worrisome. The SGLT2 inhibito… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
A study published recently (March 31, 2014) in The New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who took daily aspirin (200 mg initially, then 100 mg) just before noncardiac surgery a… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The March 20th issue of The New England Journal of Medicine includes an article from the Office of New Drugs of the FDA on a topic The Medical Letter reviewed in its August 5, 2013 issue: th… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The next issue of The Medical Letter (March 31, 2014) includes 2 articles on new formulations of old drugs and one article on an old drug approved for a new indication. New drugs have to dem… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The next (April 2014) issue of Treatment Guidelines from The Medical Letter will be on Drugs for Peptic Ulcer Disease and GERD. Peptic ulcer disease is generally caused by NSAIDs, Helicobact… Read More
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