Again I have to wonder who the FDA is protecting...because it certainly isn't us.

Late Friday, the FDA announced that they were approving a new drug -- Effient, Eli Lilly's new blood thinner -- even though this drug comes with extremely dangerous and potentially deadly risks.

Sometimes I wonder, who is the girl who will be the last recorded death linked to the HPV vaccine Gardasil?

She’s out there somewhere. She might be a happy child, enjoying her summer, looking forward to starting the first grade in a couple of months – still several years away from receiving her Gardasil vaccine. Or she might be a newborn, bringing enormous joy to her proud parents.

She’s out there, alive and well for the moment, and it couldn’t be more heartbreaking.

Just because Bayer is being sued for making claims about selenium and prostate cancer prevention, that doesn’t mean the claims aren’t true.

I’m no fan of One A Day vitamins, and I’m certainly no fan of the international drug giant Bayer, but I think this lawsuit is very weak stuff.

Get a load of this. Big Pharma giant Merck is trying to re-package one of Nature’s most potent heart health allies… and sell it to you as a heart “drug.”

At this very moment, they’re heavily lobbying the FDA to get it approved.

The name of this new “drug” they’re suddenly so excited about?

Could it be? Is the FDA really preparing to open their records to the public? Are they making a move toward transparency?

The answer is (to me, a hesitant) yes, if recent news is to be believed.

The researchers behind a startling finding that cats fed irradiated food developed “severe neurological disease” only reported it as an afterthought. They instead chose to focus on the fact that the cats were able to recover from the disease after their diet returned to normal -- a testament to the healing powers of your body, yes, but completely overlooking what caused the damage in the first place.

After being fed a diet of irradiated foods, the cats developed “mysterious” and “remarkable” severe neurological dysfunction, including movement disorders, vision loss and paralysis.

When they were taken off the irradiated foods, they slowly recovered.

I was SO wrong about this one.

First let me describe a scenario that you might think is a joke if you didn’t already know that it’s just too weirdly true…

Dear Pharmacist,

I read you in my local newspaper and find your columns very interesting and refreshing in a sea of misinformation about drugs and supplements.  I know you are a pharmacist, but sometimes I think you’re anti-medicine. Suzy is that true?

--J.E. Gainesville, Florida

The story thus far:

From January to June 2009, at least 69 people from 29 states have gotten sick with E. coli O157:H7.  Many of them confessed to eating Nestlé’s raw cookie dough.

On June 19, the FDA warned the public not to eat Nestlé’s raw cookie dough.  Nestlé issued a “voluntary’ recall.

Last week I got an e-mail blast from the FDA. Yet another FDA-approved drug is causing problems. And this time, it‘s a class of drugs prescribed to millions of kids and adults across the country. But they might not be as safe as we‘ve been led to believe. In fact, a new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that these drugs may actually increase a child‘s risk of dying suddenly by 500 percent!