Tag: FDA

An artificial retina designed to help some blind people regain their sight has already paid dividends for a few patients. Developed by the U.S. company Second Sight, the Argus II is an implant that can be surgically inserted into a patient's eye. A small camera attached to the patient's glasses captures images, and transmits them to a small wireless computer. The computer processes the images, ...

Drug maker Novartis recently found itself on the receiving end of a tongue lashing from the FDA for misusing the Facebook share widget on its website. The company used the widget to promote its leukemia drug Tasigna, but, unlike traditional advertising would, the Facebook promotion "fails to communicate any risk information associated with [its] use." All marketing materials for drugs are ...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a miniature eye implant that promises to drastically improve vision in the elderly by replicating and enhancing the eye's natural lens. According to CBC News, VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies got the go-ahead from the FDA to continue implanting a miniature telescope into the eyes of elderly people who are suffering from end-stage ...

Share As we know all too well here at Switched, everyone makes mistakes. Not everyone, however, makes mistakes quite as far-reaching as was the blunder that private DNA-testing company 23andMe recently made. On Friday, the company announced that "a number of new 23andMe customer samples were incorrectly processed" by the third-party lab that conducts the DNA tests, and confessed that "up to" ...

Listen, we get it. Smoking is bad. In fact, it's a lot like Taco Bell. It's unhealthy, it's unattractive, and, if used in closed spaces, it produces a pungent odor that will offend innocent bystanders. We've accepted it, and think that's the way it should be. If smoking (or chalupas) were even marginally better for you, it would pretty much defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it? That being said, ...

Genetics are kind of like Mexican food; if you happen to have good ones, your life can be sublime. If you're not so lucky, though, things can get ugly. And as doctors have become more aware of the critical role that genes play in determining a person's likelihood of developing breast cancer, obesity or Alzheimer's, genetic testing has become increasingly common in diagnostic labs and hospitals -- ...

We've seen a slew of medical apps hit the mobile market lately, and the proliferation of those apps has raised concerns among some that there is not enough oversight with this newly available tech. There are over 1,500 apps available for health care professionals; Manhattan Research estimates that, by 2012, 81-percent of doctors will have smartphones, potentially with medical apps installed. As ...

Let's face it. Fruit's gotten kinda boring. Unless they're wearing pajamas or belting out Motown classics, most household fruits lack character. A new labeling system, though, might finally give fruit that bad-boy, tattoo-parlor image it's been lacking for so long. Instead of bearing the same dull sticker labels, fruit may soon appear on supermarket aisles with laser brands directly etched ...

Back a few months ago, swine flu scams and misinformation plagued Twitter accounts. While the hysteria surrounding the disease has calmed somewhat, there are still foul folks out there trying to make a quick buck by capitalizing on fear. According to Newsvine, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has discovered and warned creators of more than 140 products that falsely claim to combat H1N1, ...