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Elixir Sulfanilamide
Elixir sulfanilamide was an improperly prepared sulfonamide (medicine), sulfonamide antibiotic that caused mass poisoning in the United States in 1937. It is believed to have killed 107 people. The public outcry caused by this incident and other similar disasters led to the passing of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which significantly increased the Food and Drug Administration's powers to regulate drugs. History Aside from the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Harrison Act of 1914 banning the sale of some narcotic drugs, there was no federal regulatory control in the United States of America for drugs until Congress enacted the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in response to the elixir sulfanilamide poisonings. In 1937, S. E. Massengill Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, created an oral preparation of sulfanilamide using diethylene glycol (DEG) as the solvent or excipient, and called the preparation "Elixir Sulfanilamide". DEG is poisonous to humans an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adverse Effect (medicine)
An adverse effect is an undesired harmful effect resulting from a medication or other intervention, such as surgery. An adverse effect may be termed a "side effect", when judged to be secondary to a main or therapeutic effect. The term complication is similar to adverse effect, but the latter is typically used in pharmacological contexts, or when the negative effect is expected or common. If the negative effect results from an unsuitable or incorrect dosage or procedure, this is called a medical error and not an adverse effect. Adverse effects are sometimes referred to as " iatrogenic" because they are generated by a physician/treatment. Some adverse effects occur only when starting, increasing or discontinuing a treatment. Using a drug or other medical intervention which is contraindicated may increase the risk of adverse effects. Adverse effects may cause complications of a disease or procedure and negatively affect its prognosis. They may also lead to non-compliance with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sulfonamide Antibiotics
Sulfonamide is a functional group (a part of a molecule) that is the basis of several groups of medication, drugs, which are called sulphonamides, sulfa drugs or sulpha drugs. The original antibacterial sulfonamides are synthetic antimicrobial agents that contain the Sulfonamide (chemistry), sulfonamide group. Some sulfonamides are also devoid of antibacterial activity, e.g., the anticonvulsant sultiame. The sulfonylureas and thiazide diuretics are newer drug groups based upon the antibacterial sulfonamides. Drug allergy, Allergies to sulfonamides are common. The overall incidence of adverse drug reactions to sulfa antibiotics is approximately 3%, close to penicillin; hence medications containing sulfonamides are prescribed carefully. Sulfonamide drugs were the first broadly effective antibacterials to be used systemically, and paved the way for the antibiotic revolution in medicine. Function In bacteria, antibacterial sulfonamides act as competitive inhibitors of the enz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poisons
A poison is any chemical substance that is harmful or lethal to living organisms. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figuratively, with a broad sense. Whether something is considered a poison or not may depend on the amount, the circumstances, and what living things are present. Poisoning could be accidental or deliberate, and if the cause can be identified there may be ways to neutralise the effects or minimise the symptoms. In biology, a poison is a chemical substance causing death, injury or harm to organisms or their parts. In medicine, poisons are a kind of toxin that are delivered passively, not actively. In industry the term may be negative, something to be removed to make a thing safe, or positive, an agent to limit unwanted pests. In ecological terms, poisons introduced into the environment can later cause unwanted effects elsewhere, or in other par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharmaceuticals Policy
Pharmaceutical policy is a branch of health policy that deals with the development, provision and use of medications within a health care system. It embraces drugs (both brand name and generic), biologics (products derived from living sources, as opposed to chemical compositions), vaccines and natural health products. Funding of research in the life sciences In many countries, an agency of the national government (in the U.S. the NIH, in the U.K. the MRC, and in India the DST) funds university researchers to study the causes of disease, which in some cases leads to the development of discoveries which can be transferred to pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies as a basis for drug development. By setting its budget, its research priorities and making decisions about which researchers to fund, there can be a significant impact on the rate of new drug development and on the disease areas in which new drugs are developed. For example, a major investment by the NIH ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medical Scandals In The United States
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for patients, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others. Medicine has been practiced since prehistoric times, and for most of this time it was an art (an area of creativity and skill), frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a medicine man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, or a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Poisoning
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementary particles, theoretically with the same amount of matter, have nonetheless different masses. Mass in modern physics has multiple definitions which are conceptually distinct, but physically equivalent. Mass can be experimentally defined as a measure of the body's inertia, meaning the resistance to acceleration (change of velocity) when a net force is applied. The object's mass also determines the strength of its gravitational attraction to other bodies. The SI base unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). In physics, mass is not the same as weight, even though mass is often determined by measuring the object's weight using a spring scale, rather than balance scale comparing it directly with known masses. An object on the Moon would weigh less than it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Disasters In The United States
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, pain (including mental pain), or injury. Health can be promoted by encouraging healthful activities, such as regular physical exercise and adequate sleep, and by reducing or avoiding unhealthful activities or situations, such as smoking or excessive stress. Some factors affecting health are due to individual choices, such as whether to engage in a high-risk behavior, while others are due to structural causes, such as whether the society is arranged in a way that makes it easier or harder for people to get necessary healthcare services. Still, other factors are beyond both individual and group choices, such as genetic disorders. History The meaning of health has evolved over time. In keeping with the biomedical perspective, early definit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drug Safety
Pharmacovigilance (PV, or PhV), also known as drug safety, is the pharmaceutical science relating to the "collection, detection, assessment, monitoring, and prevention" of adverse effects with pharmaceutical products. The etymological roots for the word "pharmacovigilance" are: (Greek for drug) and (Latin for to keep watch). As such, pharmacovigilance heavily focuses on adverse drug reactions (ADR), which are defined as any response to a drug which is noxious and unintended. That definition includes lack of efficacy: that means that the doses normally used for prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of a disease—or, especially in the case of device, for the modification of physiological disorder function. In 2010, the European Union expanded PV to include medication errors such as overdose, misuse, and abuse of a drug as well as drug exposure during pregnancy and breastfeeding. These are monitored even in the absence of an adverse event, because they may result in an adver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adulteration
An adulterant is a substance secretly added to another that may compromise the safety or effectiveness. Typical substances that are adulterated include food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals or fuels. Definition Adulteration is the practice of secretly mixing a substance with another. The secretly added substance will not normally be present in any specification or declared substances due to accident or negligence rather than intent, and also for the introduction of unwanted substances after the product has been made. Adulteration, therefore, implies that the adulterant was introduced deliberately in the initial manufacturing process, or sometimes that it was present in the raw materials and should have been removed, but was not. An adulterant is distinct from, for example, permitted food preservatives. There can be a fine line between adulterant and additive; chicory may be added to coffee to reduce the cost or achieve a desired flavor—this is adulteration if not declared, but m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1985 Austrian Diethylene Glycol Wine Scandal
The 1985 Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal () was an incident in which several Austrian wineries illegally adulterated their wines using the toxic substance diethylene glycol (a minor ingredient in some brands of antifreeze) to make the wines taste sweeter and more full-bodied in the style of late harvest wines.Sonntagsblitz, July 10, 2005: ''Im Wein war nicht nur Wahrheit'' ("In wine was not only truth") Many of these s were exported to , some of them in bulk to be bottled at large-scale West G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Medicine Contamination Incidents
In medicinal chemistry, the term "contamination" is used to describe harmful intrusions, such as the presence of toxins or pathogens in pharmaceutical drugs. List The following list encompasses notable medicine contamination and adulteration incidents. * 1937 — Elixir sulfanilamide incident: S. E. Massengill Company used diethylene glycol as the solvent for the antibacterial sulfanilamide, leading to the 1938 passage of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. * 1942 — Nose droppers were found to be contaminated by users to the detriment of subsequent users. Bacterial growth was found in all ephedrine and neosynephrin solutions that were examined. * 1970s-1985 — Treatments for hemophilia derived from human blood were contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C and infected over 10,000 patients worldwide. The manufacturers of the affected products became aware of the contamination but continued to sell it. After the contaminated products were banned in many developed countrie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
