Matthew Perrone reports: The nation’s top health officials are stepping up calls to require doctors to log in to pill-tracking databases before prescribing painkillers and other high-risk drugs. The move is part of a multi-pronged strategy by the Obama administration to tame an epidemic of abuse and death tied to opioid painkillers like Vicodin and…
Category: Healthcare
FTC Releases New Guidance For Developers of Mobile Health Apps
The Federal Trade Commission has created a new web-based tool for developers of health-related mobile apps, which is designed to help the developers understand what federal laws and regulations might apply to their apps. The FTC developed the tool in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of National Coordinator for Health Information…
Can police search your prescription drug records without a warrant?
That’s the issue on appeal in Pyle v. Woods, in which Public Citizen filed the opening brief today in the Tenth Circuit. Utah law directs the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing to create and maintain a state Controlled Substance Database of all prescriptions for controlled substances filled at pharmacies in the state. Pharmacists are required to…
Genetic Testing Company Wants To End ‘Data Hoarding’, Spends $20 Million To Put 10,000 Genomes In The Public Domain
Glyn Moody reports: Recently, we wrote about how Sage Bionetworks was sharing data it collected during a clinical study. That was a laudable move, but made much easier by the non-profit nature of the research organization involved. Here’s a sign that openness is spreading even to commercial research, as reported by The New York Times: In an unusual…