All GLG News Analyses Filed Under: Infectious Disease

Influenza is known to cause altered mental status in adults.  Japan traditionally uses larger quantities of Tamiflu than other nations.  No placebo controlled study to date has been undertaken to determine whether Tamiflu carries an additional risk for altered mental status over that in age...

These symptoms could, however, be related to severe cases of the flu itself.Until more data is available and causation between Tamiflu and these events is definitely established, Tamiflu would and should be continued to be used for treatment of Influenza, especially in high risk patients.

VaxGen has strong governmental funding from a non-FDA agency to produce. While VaxGen leadership has credentials, records of a single drug approval for this firm remain scarce, or none. There is lots of room for hope for approval.

MRSA which was previously only a hospital acquired infection is now rampant in several communities and present in almost all.Many patients enter the hospital as carriers and develop invasive disease or pass the bacterium to other susceptible patients.This strain of MRSA is particularly virulent and...

- The Dutch policy involves risk stratification to identify people who need isolation and screening- MRSA is so widespread in the U.S. inpatient and outpatient population that this policy would be futile

- we already have more than enough fluroquinolones- physicians are gun-shy about using a new one after Tequin  turned out to be more dangerous than thought after FDA  approval- this drug is not going to be a big seller

The efficacy data looks significantly better. Nothing is mentioned about whether administration will be easier than the once a month IM injection Synagis requires. This looks like an evolutionary improvement rather than a revolutionary one.

A recent study shows that the humanized monoclonal antibody Numax is non-inferior to the approved monoclonal antibody Synagis in reducing hospitalizations secondary to RSV infections in infants. Obviously, Synagis has a long term record of safety and efficacy in infants and young children while...

Vaccines stability questioned

This article shows that aggressive dosing of Vancomycin is not associated with improved outcome in elderly patients with pneumonia, but may be associated with increased renal toxicity.Implementation of aggressive hand washing policies for patients and health care professionals as well as strict isolation...