FDA

Thanks to a Texas Congressman, pharmaceutical companies will get a big incentive to start producing drugs for treating cancer in children.  These are "orphan drugs" which the drug makers stopped making because they couldn't make money from them, but that should change soon.

In the never-ending war against the spread of the HIV virus that can lead to AIDS, the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it has approved the first-ever a self-administered HIV testing kit that produces results without the use of a laboratory.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug to treat basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, on Monday.

Flu vaccines have always been dreaded by those who hate shots, but this year a company called PharmaJet introduced a device that uses “a high-pressure steam of liquid to pierce the skin and deliver the vaccine.” The needle-phobics rejoiced. But now the FDA is saying, Not so fast.

A working group from four federal agencies -- FTC, CDC, FDA and USDA -- has released new voluntary standards for marketing food to children.  Childrens' and consumer groups are not optimistic they'll work.