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Heart Risk?: The FDA says that people who already have cardiovascular disease may see their chances of a heart attack rise if they take Pfizer’s Chantix smoking-cessation drug, the WSJ reports. The agency based its warning on a trial of 700 heart-disease patients, and says it will update the product’s label and medication guide. Pfizer notes there are big heart benefits to be gained by quitting smoking.

First it was imported cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, then sprouts, then something-but-we-don’t-know-what.

But according to German authorities, vegetable sprouts grown at a farm in the Lower Saxony region of the country are indeed the source of the E. coli outbreak that has killed 30 people, the WSJ reports. Lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes have been exonerated.

What does it take to get an obesity drug approved by the FDA?

In the case of Orexigen’s Contrave, a lot. Namely, a trial of between 60,000 and 100,000 patients showing that the drug — rejected by the FDA in February — doesn’t raise the risk of heart attack or stroke, the company says.

As Dow Jones Newswires reports, Orexigen has suspended its U.S. development of Contrave, saying that a trial of that scale is neither feasible nor necessary.

A year ago some policy folks raised the alarm that the budget for the federal high-risk insurance pools would be sufficient to cover only about 200,000 of the several million folks who might be eligible to participate. Medicare’s actuary predicted funding for the pools would run out by this year or 2012.

Melanoma Focus: Two of the as-yet unreleased studies to be highlighted at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology will deal with melanoma drugs — one from Bristol-Myers Squibb and another from Roche and Daiichi Sankyo, Dow Jones Newswires reports. The study of Bristol-Myers’ Yervoy, which was approved by the FDA in March for late-stage disease, will look at how it performs in newly diagnosed melanoma patients who are also on chemotherapy.

When former NIH head Elias Zerhouni ran the $30 billion federal research institute, he pushed for so-called translational research in which findings from basic lab research would be used to develop medicines and other applications that would help patients directly.

Now the head of R&D at French drug maker Sanofi, Zerhouni says that such “bench to bedside” research is more difficult than he thought.

Hearing Arguments: Three appellate court judges questioned whether Virginia has standing to sue the federal government over the health-care overhaul in a hearing on two of the suits challenging the law, the WSJ reports. The judges, all appointees of Democratic presidents, were chosen at random. Virginia’s challenge to the law is one of several; appeals courts in other states will hear arguments in June.

Controlling Painkillers: The FDA wants physicians to receive special continuing education from drug makers before they prescribe long-acting, extended-release painkillers that are ripe for abuse, the WSJ reports. Congress would have to approve any changes to physician licensing requirements that would make such training mandatory, the paper says. (A report out yesterday shows generic Vicodin is the most commonly prescribed drug in the U.S.)

Medicare Proposals: President Obama’s speech yesterday included plans to cut $480 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next 12 years, in part by tightening government spending controls, the WSJ reports. That contrasts with the plan put forth by House Republicans, which would partially subsidize Medicare beneficiaries’ purchase of private insurance.