A big announcement for 23andMe, a new antibiotic in development appears promising, a thoughtful discussion on the cost of drugs, and more in this round of Blog Buzz.
- In Forbes, Matthew Herper reports, Surprise! With $60 Million Genentech Deal 23andMe has a Business Plan.
- The creation of a possible new antibiotic developed in a novel way has been published in Nature….Derek Lowe weighs in on his blog In the Pipeline
- Responses to the item about cancer being “random” recently published in Science, this one from the Times by Denise Grady includes chats with experts including MSK’s Dr. Offit. Bob O’Hara and GrrlScientist responded in The Guardian to some sloppy news reports about the paper.
- Radiolab‘s recent episode called Worth includes a piece on cost and cancer drugs (and the cost of medical treatments in general) featuring discussions with MSK doctors Leonard Saltz and Peter Bach, and with Patrica Gubar, who writes a blog on her experience as a patient called Living With Cancer for the NY Times Well Blog. Give the story a listen if you haven’t yet, it is a great introduction to some incredibly complicated issues.
- Elaine Schattner writes a characteristically smart response in Forbes to Dr. Richard Smith’s (philosophical? irresponsible? insensitive? reprehensible?) piece in BMJ claiming that the best death is dying from cancer. Via Elaine’s twitter feed I came across a great blog post responding to the same BMJ item by a nurse who lost family members to cancer.