Pharmaceuticals policy

Antibiotics are as essential to medicine these days as bandages. But there may come a day when germs become resistant to all of our antibiotics. And that day may be coming sooner than we think.

A federal judge handed a victory to women’s health advocates, saying that the federal government erred when it overruled a panel of scientists who recommended that Plan B One-Step be made available to women of all ages. He gave the government 30 days to change its policies.

Some of modern medicine’s most important drugs are losing their potency. Antibiotics are failing as disease-causing bacteria become resistant. It’s happening all over, but India may play an especially big role in fueling the problem.

Fake drugs prevalent in developing world, where scant regulation lets useless and sometimes dangerous medicine land on store shelves.

Federal judge rules FDA used politics, not science, to make decisions around so-called morning after pill.