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The makers of high fructose corn syrup want to sweeten up its image with a new name: corn sugar. The bid to rename the sweetener by the Corn Refiners Association comes as Americans’ concerns about health and obesity have sent consumption of high fructose corn syrup to a 20-year low.
The group plans to apply Tuesday to the Food and Drug Administration to get “corn sugar” approved as an alternative name for food labels. Get the full story »
Food and Drug Administration says five electronic cigarette companies are violating federal laws by making unsubstantiated claims about the product and for poor manufacturing practices. Get the full story »
Federal health regulators have issued warnings to the makers of Canada Dry ginger ale and Lipton tea for making unsubstantiated nutritional claims about their green tea-flavored beverages.
In a warning letter issued Aug. 30, the Food and Drug Administration takes issue with the labeling of Canada Dry Sparkling Green Tea Ginger Ale. The agency issued a similar letter Aug. 23 to Unilever Inc., over Web site and product labeling for its Lipton Green Tea. Get the full story »
The prescription diet drug sibutramine, sold under the brand name Meridia, should be taken off the market because it raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes in some patients, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said Wednesday.
Those risks, published in January on a government clinical-trials Web site and now in full in the journal, outweigh the modest benefits of the medication, said Dr. Gregory Curfman, the journal’s executive editor and lead author of an editorial that accompanied the study.
The prescription diet drug sibutramine, sold under the brand name Meridia, should be taken off the market because it raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes in some patients, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said Wednesday.
Those risks, published in January on a government clinical-trials website and now in full in the journal, outweigh the modest benefits of the medication, said Dr. Gregory D. Curfman, the journal’s executive editor and lead author of an editorial that accompanied the study. Get the full story »
Abbott Laboratories said Wednesday the Food and Drug Administration cleared the company’s new hepatitis B test. The FDA approved the Abbott RealTime HBV test, which measures the amount of hepatitis B virus in a patient’s blood.
Federal health regulators have issued a warning letter to Baxter International Inc. for exaggerating the benefits of its lung drug in brochures to physicians.
The Food and Drug Administration letter cites the Deerfield, Ill.-based company for making “misleading efficacy claims” in promotional materials for its drug Aralast.
Feed was the likely cause of the salmonella outbreak at two Iowa producers that sparked a recall of more than a half billion eggs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday. Get the full story »
Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday that there is no evidence a massive outbreak of salmonella in eggs has spread beyond two Iowa farms, though a team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused it.
FDA officials said they do not expect the number of eggs recalled — now at 550 million– to grow. Get the full story »
A majority of federal health advisers say a best-selling antidepressant from Eli Lilly & Co. appears effective in treating back pain, but not arthritis.
The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to broaden approval of Cymbalta to treat chronic pain, which would expand sales of a drug already used by 15 million U.S. patients. Get the full story »
The U.S. government proposed major changes Thursday to the way it works with companies to fight disease threats such as flu, including reform at the Food and Drug Administration and setting up centers to make vaccines quickly.
The report from the Health and Human Services Department said the U.S. ability to respond to new outbreaks is far too slow and it lays out a plan for helping researchers and biotechnology companies develop promising new drugs and vaccines. Get the full story »
A French drugmaker says it has won U.S. approval for a new type of morning-after contraceptive that works longer than the leading drug on the market.
The pill Ella from HRA Pharma reduces the chance of pregnancy up to five days after sex. Plan B, the most widely used emergency contraceptive pill, is effective only if women take it within three days of sex. Get the full story »
The Food and Drug Administration has asked Dendreon Corp. to stop using some promotional materials for Provenge, saying they are “false or misleading” because they omit or minimize the prostate-cancer drug’s risks and overstate its effectiveness.
Provenge, which was approved by the agency in late April, is seen as the first in a new class of cancer-fighting drugs that use a patient’s cells to stimulate the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Get the full story »
