Too busy to read it all? Here’s are a few weekend items you may have missed…..

Some of those emotional speakers who appear at FDA advisory committee meetings are actually funded by drugmakers, but the backing often goes undisclosed, according to an interesting piece in The Boston Globe. The story points out that Public Citizen scrutinized 221 meetings and found that 32 of 44 speakers representing patients said they received funding from a company that would be affected by the FDA’s decision.

There are regular reminders of the growing anxiety and controversy over the high cost of cancer treatments. The Los Angeles Times introduces us to Harriet and Mort Frank. Since December, the retired couple has paid up to $2,000 a month out-of-pocket for herlymphoma med, Rituxan, by Genentech and Biogen Idec. The couple gets by on $1,432 a month with their combined Social Security checks and small savings. But with the drug’s expense eating into their modest nest egg, they’re worried about what might happen next. “So far this medication is working wonders,” Mort said. “But I keep thinking, how are we going to keep affording it?”

In Australia, some 60 cases of serious side effects were reported by patients who were unsure how to take their sample meds, because written instructions weren’t included. In one case, a 50-year-old woman took home an unlabelled sample of an anti-psychotic drug to treat schizophrenia, thinking it was for pain relief. The most common problems: a lack of information about dosage, administration and storage. Samples “are big business, but little work has been to look at the potential adverse outcomes of their usage,” Treasure Mcguire, a pharmacist and coordinator of the government-funded Adverse Medicine Events phone line, tells The Australian.