Veterans Affairs won’t cover Biogen’s new “Alzheimer’s drug” given concerns over safety and lack of evidence

VA Health Sys­tem Won’t Cov­er Biogen’s Alzheimer’s Drug (The Wall Street Jour­nal): The Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs won’t cov­er Bio­gen Inc.’s new Alzheimer’s drug, the lat­est rebuke of the con­tro­ver­sial treat­ment since it was approved ear­li­er this sum­mer. The VA decid­ed not add the drug, called Aduhelm, to its for­mu­la­ry list of avail­able med­i­cines because…

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Update on the aducanumab (Aduhelm) saga, retirement, financial advice, cognitive health, excessive worrying, neurotech, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, pro­vid­ing this time a sum­ma­ry of the saga around the FDA approval of adu­canum­ab (Aduhelm) as a sup­posed treat­ment for Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, plus a range of time­ly research find­ings and resources for life­long brain health. First, below are some key reads to nav­i­gate “prob­a­bly the worst drug approval…

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Can the controversial FDA approval of Aduhelm backfire and delay the discovery of actual Alzheimer’s treatments? (Yes, it can)

The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) recent­ly approved adu­canum­ab, the first treat­ment that aims to slow the pro­gres­sion of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. But approval of the drug has pro­voked mixed reac­tions from the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Alzheimer’s dis­ease is char­ac­ter­ized by pro­gres­sive mem­o­ry loss, spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion and many oth­er cog­ni­tive and behav­iour­al dis­or­ders that ulti­mate­ly lead…

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US Senator Joe Manchin calls for a new FDA Commissioner to replace current (acting) one who “has repeatedly ignored public health concerns and shown a dereliction of duty” over opioids and aducanumab

Key Demo­c­rat Manchin Bash­es FDA Leader on Alzheimer’s Approval (Bloomberg): Sen­a­tor Joe Manchin, a mod­er­ate Demo­c­rat con­sid­ered a cru­cial vote with­in the party’s slim Sen­ate major­i­ty, said Janet Wood­cock, the tem­po­rary head of the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion, should be quick­ly replaced with a per­ma­nent leader. Manchin blast­ed an FDA deci­sion to approve the controversial…

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Growing backlash against the FDA approval of unproven Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm, by Biogen

ICER Issues State­ment on the FDA’s Approval of Adu­canum­ab for Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (Insti­tute for Clin­i­cal and Eco­nom­ic Review): The Insti­tute for Clin­i­cal and Eco­nom­ic Review (ICER) believes that the FDA, in approv­ing adu­canum­ab (Aduhelm™, Bio­gen) for the treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, has failed in its respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect patients and fam­i­lies from unproven treat­ments with…

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