Imagine that you're a cancer patient. There's a highly effective drug for your condition, your doctor prescribes it, your health care covers it. Now the bad news: Even though it's approved by the U.S. FDA, it's out of stock at every pharmacy you call.

Apparently, you'll have to wait...

America's system of government was designed by the founding fathers to be frustrating. During that time, the English King ran a tight ship: without internal checks on the monarch's power, things were efficient, but a bit unfair. Topping the U.S. colonials' list of grievances? Imposition of "taxes... without Consent," suspension...

Seventeen years ago, Ronald Reagan penned what some have called his "Long Goodbye": a letter to the American people announcing that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He poignantly thanked readers for allowing him to serve as president. "I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy...

One of the central organizational principles in the US market -- indeed, in all modern Western, non-centralized economies -- is that competition is good for consumers. When market share is diffuse, and multiple businesses have to battle for the same customers, they have to offer the best price possible. All...

Teddy Roosevelt, our swashbuckling 26th U.S. President, is probably best-known for his love of the environment and post-presidential African hunting tours. But today, two of his lesser-known but lasting legacies -- antitrust law and ensuring that U.S. residents have access to safe medicines -- are about to intersect in ways...

For minorities, those in lower-income brackets, and other populations who are underserved by the U.S. healthcare system, it's a double whammy: disproportionately affected by diseases like diabetes, these communities are often left to fend for themselves by a complex and not-easily-accessible healthcare system.

Changing our massive, complicated national healthcare...

"You've got high blood pressure," the doctor says, "but the good news is, we can manage it." As your physician discusses a prescription regimen, you're startled to learn that there are over 200 medications that can be used to help treat your hypertension. How are you -- and...

Federal budgets are all about numbers -- typically, the type of numbers that are preceded by dollar signs. But other numbers in the Administration's 2012 budget limit something called "data exclusivity protection" for a type of drug called "biologics".

Sound dry and bureaucratic?...

Rubbing my eyes awake at 5 a.m. most mornings, the first thing I typically do is look at my iPhone and check my email and Facebook account. The other day, I was startled to see an angry and quite profane Facebook message from an old friend from high...

A recent 60 Minutes special blasted open the dark and dangerous world of counterfeit drugs -- a multi-billion dollar market that potentially affects the health and safety of anybody taking a prescription drug. The tens of thousands of fake prescription drugs that enter the U.S. each year range...

Where there's medicine, there's money.

That statement should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever looked at a medical bill or filled a prescription: Pharmaceuticals alone are a more than $800-billion market ($300 billion of that is in the United States alone).

But the statement has an...

For cancer patients, what is the "acceptable risk" that a drug will pose safety risks or won't work properly? That's one of the thorny questions addressed by the FDA last week in a two-day, open-to-the-public meeting about "biosimilar" drugs -- second-generation versions of drugs made from living organisms, or "biologics."

For medication safety, we rely on our doctors to prescribe and our pharmacists to dispense the right drugs. But on whom do doctors and pharmacists rely? Increasingly, the answer is drug companies. This is not inherently bad. After all, a drug company probably knows its product better than anyone, and...

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added an arrow to proverbial medical quivers in the ongoing war on HIV and AIDS: updated warnings on interactions between HIV-medications and non-HIV drugs. The warnings specify that some drugs, when used in combination with HIV medications, may dilute the HIV...

Benjamin Franklin, from his own experience, warned: "Be temperate in wine and eating, or the Gout will seize you." Were he alive today, he might append a cautionary note: "But in treating it, make sure that the medicine is FDA-approved."

Such wisdom might have saved the lives of three Oregon...