DailyDirt: Better Medicine

Modern medicine has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go -- especially when it comes to figuring out whether or not drugs are even doing better than a placebo. Categorizing and quantifying the development of drugs in a more public way could speed up the progress of new treatments, so it's nice to see some folks getting around to doing just that. Here are some links about drugs and a relatively new way to diagnose brain disorders.

• The Pillbox project is organizing a huge database of various drugs and their interactions. This probably duplicates databases from pharmacies like Walmart/Walgreens, but the data will be public. [url]
• With near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), psychiatric diagnoses might be more accurately determined. Or at least, these brain scans will create a database of brain patterns to help categorize various mental conditions. [url]
• The contribution of public-sector research institutions (PSRIs) for developing FDA-approved drugs and vaccines has been quantified. "Virtually all the important, innovative vaccines that have been introduced during the past 25 years have been created by PSRIs." [url]
• LSD has a pretty interesting history. Derivatives of the drug could have a more interesting future, too. [url]
• To discover more biotech stuff, check out what's roaming around in the StumbleUpon jungle. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Source: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110104/12431912514/dailydirt-better-medicine.shtml

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