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December 9, 2011 After hours of circular debate about the safety of Bayer's family of oral contraceptives, 15 of the Food and Drug Administration's 26 expert advisers voted that the benefits of these birth control pills outweigh the risk of dangerous blood clots.

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• Plan B: Why Prescriptions Keep Us Safer
• A Very Bad Plan: How Sebelius Endangered Girls

December 7, 2011 The Food and Drug Administration had decided that a version of the morning-after emergency contraceptive pill could be sold without a prescription to buyers of any age. But the head of the Department of Health and Human Services overruled the FDA.

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December 6, 2011 Federal regulators want companies to stop selling homeopathic human chorionic gonadotropin to help people lose weight to stop. The regulators said the marketing of the products makes them "unnapproved new drugs" and that's against the law.

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December 1, 2011 Dangerous levels of arsenic and lead have been detected in juices found in many supermarkets. Consumers Union is calling for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to set a new standard to protect kids.

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November 18, 2011 After more than a year of deliberations and an unprecedented public hearing in June, the agency has revoked approval of the biotech blockbuster Avastin, a medicine that chokes off the blood supply to various cancer cells, as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer.

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October 31, 2011 A Food and Drug Administration analysis shows a drop in heart attacks and strokes among people taking Vytorin in the early stages of chronic kidney disease, before they need dialysis.

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October 31, 2011 The president's executive order asks companies to speed up production of key drugs when shortages occur. Companies will also be asked to report potential supply problems more often.

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October 19, 2011 The outbreak of listeria in fresh cantaloupe has been blamed for at least 25 deaths and 123 illnesses in 26 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Casualties have slowed since September, but the outbreak is far from over, officials say.

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October 13, 2011 A cancer specialist on an expert panel that voted against keeping Avastin's approval for breast cancer intact explained his decision. He couldn't imagine recommending a drug that only limits progression of cancer without lengthening patient's lives or their quality of life.

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October 7, 2011 Cialis, a popular remedy for impotence, has now been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia. It's the ninth drug okayed for relieving those symptoms but the only one approved for both uses.

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October 3, 2011 Drug shortages may be the new normal in U.S. medical care, experts say. Most drug shortages occur because something goes wrong in the manufacturing process that halts production.

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September 30, 2011 Updated figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 84 people in 19 states have been sickened by listeria bacteria from an outbreak linked to cantaloupes.

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