By Seán Finan The FDA’s policy guidelines on nutritional fortification include the so-called “jelly-bean rule:” the FDA considers it inappropriate to fortify candy or soda with nutrients because to do so would allow “misleading health claims” to be made about a putatively unhealthy product. Candy companies that tried to add vitamins their products to market…
By Seán Finan Good investing takes time, foresight and patience. You have to thoughtfully spend now for a big return in ten years. But when it comes to investments in public health, everybody wants to make a quick and easy buck. I’ve written before about the need for more emphasis on preventive care over “heroic medicine”:…
By Seán Finan “What makes drug development long and expensive is the need to prove, beyond statistical doubt, that your damn drug works” Michael Gilman, Biotech Entrepreneur 2017 is going to be terrific. Tremendous, even. Things are going to change, big league. The new President has promised fantastic reforms to the drug industry. He’s going…
By Seán Finan Last week, I saw Dr Atul Gawande speak at Health Action 2017. Healthcare advocates and activists sat around scribbling notes and clutching at their choice of whole-food, cold-pressed, green and caffeinated morning lifelines. Gawande speaks softly, lyrically and firmly; the perfect bedside manner for healthcare advocates in these early days of the…
By Seán Finan “It is one of the most powerful tools our species has created. It helps doctors fight disease. It can predict global weather patterns. It improves education for children everywhere. And now, we unleash it…on your taxes.” Super Bowl 2017 was an absolute cracker. My passport is not American and my accent is…
By Seán Finan “Who is making all these decisions about science and technology that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in? Just some members of Congress? But there’s no more than a handful of them with any background in science at all! … This combustible mixture of ignorance and power…
By Seán Finan Almost any test can return incidental results. An incidental result is something demonstrated by the test but not an answer to the test’s original question. Trying on a new pair of trousers, for example, can tell you whether or not they fit. It can also return the incidental result that the holiday…
By Seán Finan After several failed attempts, years of protracted negotiations and a glacial ratification process, it seemed as if Brexit would finally put an end to the nascent European Unitary Patent. Last week, however, the UK confirmed its intention to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement and to move forward with the plans for the…
By Seán Finan And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians–dead!–slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain,…
By Seán Finan Introduction Last week, while attending a conference, organized by the Petrie-Flom Center in conjunction with a number of other Harvard institutions, on the ethics of early embryo research and the future of the 14-day rule, I was struck by the presentations on recent developments in stem cell technology. The speakers outlined fascinating…
