When it comes to a crucial controversy over pharmaceutical patents, the FDA has been MIA. For nearly 20 years, drug companies have asked the Food and Drug Administration for guidance on listing patents for drug-and-device combination products, such as asthma inhalers and auto-injectors for diabetes treatments, in an obscure, but highly important agency...

“Does it trouble you to answer that question?” one of New York’s highest paid attorneys asked Cliff Douglas, then a 36-year-old activist who had found himself at the center of a $10 billion libel lawsuit brought by the cigarette giant Philip Morris. Philip Morris’ lawyer Herbert Wachtell demanded to know: Were cigarette companies intentionally killing...

While many people immediately picture young adults when thinking about the current addiction and overdose epidemic, this crisis is affecting all generations. In fact, more than 7 million older Americans struggle with substance use disorders. Opioid use disorder, in particular, has skyrocketed among Medicare beneficiaries, with opioid overdose death...

The number of children who received their routine vaccinations declined during the pandemic, so public health officials have been focusing on getting kids back up to date. They should also be paying attention to adults as a new, first-of-its-kind report quantifying the economic impact of adult immunizations makes clear. Researchers at the nonprofit...

Reluctance among dairy farmers to report H5N1 bird flu outbreaks within their herds or allow testing of their workers has made it difficult to keep up with the virus’s rapid spread, prompting federal public health officials to look to wastewater to help fill in the gaps. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to unveil...

Two years ago, Yiwei Shi was searching desperately for someone to build a drug for her newborn son, Leo. Leo was born with a very small head, a symptom of many severe diseases. After a seizure at two months, doctors sequenced his genome and found a single misspelling in a gene called TNPO2.  Little was known about the gene, except that it was involved...