FDA to review femur fractures connection

by certifiedbug on March 10, 2010

in News

FDA Drug Safety Communication: Ongoing safety review of oral bisphosphonates and atypical subtrochanteric femur fractures
03-10-2010

Patients and healthcare professionals may have questions about oral bisphosphonate medications and atypical subtrochanteric femur fractures – fractures in the bone just below the hip joint. Oral bisphosphonates are commonly prescribed to prevent or treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Common brand names of medications in this class include Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva, and Reclast.

Recent news reports have raised the question about whether there is an increased risk of this type of fracture in patients with osteoporosis using these medications. At this point, the data that FDA has reviewed have not shown a clear connection between bisphosphonate use and a risk of atypical subtrochanteric femur fractures. FDA is working closely with outside experts, including members of the recently convened American Society of Bone and Mineral Research Subtrochanteric Femoral Fracture Task Force, to gather additional information that may provide more insight into this issue.

Meanwhile the FDA is recommending patients should not stop taking their medication unless told to do so by their healthcare professional.

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/ucm203891.htm

http://certifiedbug.com/blog/2010/03/09/osteoporosis-drugs-possible-effects-of-long-term-use/

Merck Responds to News Reports about FOSAMAX® (alendronate sodium) Tablets
http://merck.com/newsroom/company-statements/2010_0310.html

AAOS: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons®: Quantity vs. quality: Long-term use of bone-building osteoporosis drugs

Bisphosphonate treatments, proven to enhance bone density and reduce fracture incidence in post-menopausal women, may adversely affect bone quality and increase risk of atypical fractures of the femur when used for four or more years, according to preliminary research presented today at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).

http://www6.aaos.org/news/pemr/releases/release.cfm?releasenum=877

Tags: -

{ 0 comments }

Microsoft Security Advisory (981374)

by certifiedbug on March 9, 2010

in Microsoft

TechNet

Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution

Microsoft is investigating new, public reports of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Our investigation has shown that the latest version of the browser, Internet Explorer 8, is not affected. The main impact of the vulnerability is remote code execution. This advisory contains information about which versions of Internet Explorer are vulnerable as well as workarounds and mitigations for this issue.

Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 are not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 are vulnerable.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/981374.mspx

Tags: -

{ 0 comments }

Energizer Bunny’s battery charger software contained backdoor Trojan

March 9, 2010

Energizer Press Release
Energizer Announces Duo Charger and USB Charger Software Problem
ST. LOUIS, March 5, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Energizer has been informed by the CERT Coordination Center (CERT) that the Windows software that was referenced and made available via a download with its Duo Charger, Model CHUSB, contains a vulnerability. Energizer introduced the Duo [...]

Read the full article →

Osteoporosis drugs: possible effects of long term use

March 9, 2010

Pharmaceutical company Merck’s patent on the Osteoporosis drug “Fosamax” expired in February 2008 leaving the gate open for generic drug makers to roll out low-cost versions.
The brand “Fosamax” is expensive, Merck & Co reported second quarter 2009 sales of $277 million for FOSAMAX alone. Presumably with generics available more people will be able to afford [...]

Read the full article →

Mariposa Botnet infection cleanup

March 6, 2010

Microsoft Malware Protection Center. In focus: Mariposa botnet
The MMPC added Win32/Rimecud to MSRT’s removal capability in January 2010 and between January and February reported over 1 million distinct machines disinfected from this worm.
The Mariposa botnet criminals presumably use a number of different threats, but it appears to be primarily Win32/Rimecud. It is great to [...]

Read the full article →

Opera Vulnerability Identified

March 6, 2010

A vulnerability rated as critical has been identified in Opera 10.50 and prior versions.
The buffer overflow error when processing malformed HTTP “Content-Length:” headers could be exploited by remote attackers to crash an affected browser or execute arbitrary code by tricking a user into visiting a web page hosted on a malicious web server.
Confirmed by VUPEN [...]

Read the full article →

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for March 2010

March 4, 2010

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC)
Advance Notification. Preliminary information, subject to change.
Today we are providing advance notification to customers that we will be releasing two bulletins this month affecting Windows and Microsoft Office products. Both bulletins are rated Important and address a total of 8 vulnerabilities.
We recommend that customers review the Advance Notification webpage and [...]

Read the full article →

Convicted Spammer starts sentence

March 4, 2010

Spamhaus
Leaving a wake of over 12-years of criminal spamming and trillions of sent junk emails behind him, long time ROKSO listed spammer Alan Ralsky is finally behind the walls of a US Federal Prison. After pleading guilty to multiple federal criminal charges, and after time extensions to “get his affairs in order”, Ralsky reported to [...]

Read the full article →

Security Seal provider to settle FTC charges

March 3, 2010

FTC Press Release 2/25/2010.
ControlScan, a company that consumers have relied on to certify the privacy and security of online retailers and other Web sites, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled consumers about how often it monitored the sites and the steps it took to verify their privacy and security practices. [...]

Read the full article →

MS10-015 security update re-released

March 3, 2010

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC)
Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead
I am writing to let you know that we have revised the installation packages for MS10-015 with new logic that prevents the security update from being installed on systems if certain abnormal conditions exist. Such conditions could be the result of an infection [...]

Read the full article →