When Alfred Caronia worked for a drug company, he promoted some drug’s off-label use. The Department of Justice did not take kindly to Caronia’s behavior and sued him for violating the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). He was convicted, but appealed the conviction. Caronia argued that this commercial speech is protected by the first [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Regulation' Category
What does a NICE health economist do?
What role do health economists at the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) play and how do they conduct their cost effectiveness analyses for new treatments? I answer this question today based on NICE’s own documents. According to their guidelines manual, the role of the health economist in clinical guideline development is to: [...]
Read the rest of this entry »How to Survive a Plague
Last weekend, I watched the movie How to Survive a Plague. The movie discusses the AIDS activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Although I am not a movie critic (you can see reviews by professional critics here), I do want to discuss one key issue that the move discusses: should the FDA liberalize its [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Who gets hurt when Americans buy drugs in Canada?
A few years ago, changing federal laws to lower drug prices was a key political issue. Some proposed allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices from drug manufacturers and others recommended allowing U.S. citizens to import drugs from lower-priced developed countries such as Canada. These policies would certainly reduce drug prices, however, lower prices could also [...]
Read the rest of this entry »“Child Pornography is Great!”
What is it great for? Censorship. A book called The Pirate Organization quotes a spokesperson for an intellectual property lobby in Denmark: Child pornography is great! It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that we can [...]
Read the rest of this entry »On California’s Rising Gas Prices
The episode may also serve as a reminder that the more layers of regulation we put on commerce, the less resilient is the system when something goes wrong. – Jim Hamilton For Californians (like myself) who want to know why gas prices spiked more than 50 cents in about a week, you can read a [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Is IPAB the new “Doc Fix”?
There has much debate in the Presidential debates about IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB can make cuts to Medicare spending, but the question is whether any of these recommended cuts would ever actually be enacted, since Congress can reverse any IPAB recommendation. According to an article in The Hill, the answer may be [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Drugs in Emerging Markets
Governments in emerging markets want their citizens to have better drugs. The big pharmaceutical firms are keen to sell to them. But they are fighting bitterly over the terms. – The Economist. Should emerging markets compel companies to sell drugs to them? As an economist, I am by nature averse to government coercion. When people [...]
Read the rest of this entry »In which states do nurse pracitioners have the broadest scope of practice?
A July 2012 IOM report recommends changing state laws to allow “nurse practitioners and physician assistants to practice to the full extent of their educational preparation.” Based on information from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), not all states currently allow permit NPs this flexibility. Currently 16 states and the District of Columbia (see below) [...]
Read the rest of this entry »What is the effect of physical examination requirements on mortality rates?
Is tele-medicine/internet-medicine the wave of the future? Or do these alternative treatment methods just make it easier for patients and providers to engage in fraudulent and/or unsafe behaviors? In response to concerns about tele-medicine’s effect on patient safety, many states have begun prohibiting physicians from prescribing drugs without conducting a prior physical examination. In fact, [...]
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