MKSAP: 52-year-old man with fatigue and fever
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 52-year-old man is admitted to the hospital with fatigue and fever of 3 days’ duration. He is a health care worker and has a bicuspid aortic valve. He takes no medications.
Blood cultures are obtained at the time of admission, and he is started on empiric vancomycin for possible endocarditis.
On hospital day 2, his initial blood cultures become positive for gram-positive cocci in clusters, and on hospital day 3, his blood cultures grow methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Susceptibility to vancomy...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 29, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Conditions Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
Pfizer's Pfourteenth Settlement - a Small Reminder of Continuing Impunity
Well, that did not take long. Less than a month after its last legal settlements were announced, Pfizer had to settle again. The Details of the Settlement This case, involving charges filed by the Texas Attorney General, was only reported locally, e.g., here in the Houston Business Journal:The state of Texas will receive more than $36 million from two civil Medicaid fraud settlements with Pfizer Inc and Endo Pharmaceuticals, Attorney General Greg Abbott said Friday. Both companies will pay $18.17 million to the state, plus attorney fees and relator shares. The federal government is also entitled to a sha...
Source: Health Care Renewal - January 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: executive compensation deception boards of directors impunity Pfizer legal settlements governance Source Type: blogs
China Chops
China to Cut Prices of More Than 400 Drugs by Average 15%
China will cut the maximum retail prices of more than 400 varieties of drugs by an average 15 percent, including products from Pfizer Inc. (PFE), Novartis AG (NOVN) and Merck & Co. (MRK), to reduce health-care costs in the nation.
The changes, effective Feb. 1, will cover drugs used for respiratory diseases and pain relief, as well as other specialized medicines, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on its website.
This is the fourth set of state-mandated price adjustments since 2011, with earlier cuts for drugs including antibiotics...
Source: PharmaGossip - January 8, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
