Wednesday, April 21, 2004

From the Toronto Star:
Use of statins could save thousands: Study
The lives of thousands of Canadians with heart disease could be saved with a class of potent cholesterol-lowering drugs but a study suggests many doctors aren't prescribing the medications to those patients who need them the most.
The three-year study of almost 400,000 Ontarians with heart disease over age 65 found that those with the highest risk of heart attack and death were the least likely to be given the drugs, known as statins, said the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"It's a serious problem because we have these life-saving therapies," Dr. Dennis Ko, lead author of the study, said today. "But at this time, from what we observe in Ontario, they are not giving it to the right people.

From Bloomberg:
Dorgan, Kennedy Plan to Introduce Drug-Import Bill
Senators Edward Kennedy, Byron Dorgan and Olympia Snowe, will introduce a bipartisan bill tomorrow that would allow Americans to buy drugs from Canada, where government controls keep prices lower.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat; Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, and Snowe, a Maine Republican, will discuss details of their proposal at a press conference tomorrow morning, said Dorgan's spokesman, Barry Piatt. The measure faces competition from at least two other Republican-sponsored bills.

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