Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration abruptly revoked the narcotics license held by the distributor Cardinal Health, preventing that firm from shipping prescription pain drugs to thousands of Florida pharmacies and hospitals. It's the latest tactic in the DEA's struggle to stem the illicit use of prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin.

A neuroscientist recalls how a host of substances took over his life and how, at last, he learned to impose new patterns of thought and behavior.

One of the unwritten, unspoken and rarely thought-about assumptions of those buying medicines is that they will work. We take it for granted that the medicines we buy will work as the scientists who developed the product intended.

"Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines" explores the underground trade in illegal medicines that kills over 100,000 people per year and supplants billions of dollars of real products.

House Democratic leaders are planning triage to save their majority because they recognize that American voters are rejecting the Obama Democrats’ big-government policies.

The reality is that we simply do not know how efficacious most  drugs really are. 

Failing to distinguish between licensed online pharmacies (Canadian or otherwise), which require a valid prescription and sell safe medications, and rogue online pharmacies, which sell lethal fake medicines or flout prescription requirements, means poor patients have less information to make good choices about the drugs they require.

The latest bad rap for OxyContin threatens to inflict more pain on those who truly benefit from the drug.