Pharmaceuticals

Nearly 1 in 4 Americans has trouble affording prescription drugs, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Over the past decade, high prices of several medicines have become flashpoints.

A leukemia drug seemed to help patients with Parkinson's disease. But critics say the results are equivocal and could raise false hopes.

Infectious disease specialists debate whether it's better to give the strongest antibiotics all at once for drug-resistant germs or save the most innovative medicines for use as a last resort.

Dengue afflicts nearly 400 million people worldwide every year, but a vaccine has remained elusive. New research offers a path forward.

The agreement removes the drugmaker from the list of defendants in an upcoming federal opioid trial and follows an August settlement in Oklahoma in which it agreed to pay $572 million.

Washington Post journalist Scott Higham says recently released evidence shows the drug industry purposely shipped big quantities of opioids to communities without regard for how they were being used.

Regulators give many cancer drugs a fast track to market while requiring drugmakers to do more studies after approval. Researchers have found the follow-up studies frequently come up short.

Now that so many experimental drugs targeting amyloid-beta have bombed, scientists are looking for different approaches for treating Alzheimer's, including a drug that failed as a cancer treatment.

Scientists collected freshwater shrimp at 15 locations in Suffolk. Shrimp from all of the sites were found to have detectable amounts of cocaine, and many had other drugs or pesticides.

A contrast agent doesn't make you feel better or treat what's ailing you. But by making CT scans clearer, contrast might be crucial in helping your doctor make the right diagnosis.

Drugmakers add inactive ingredients to stabilize medications and sometimes to help the body absorb the active ingredients. But the inactive constituents can cause side effects in rare cases.

Lawsuits over the way drugmakers have marketed opioids are already putting a dent in companies' reputations. Litigation has forced the release of internal documents that are shifting the narrative.