June, 2018

Today, the FDA approved a purified form of the drug cannabidiol (CBD). This is one of more than 80 active chemicals in marijuana. The new product was approved to treat seizures associated with two rare, severe forms of epilepsy in patients two years of age and older.

Epidiolex was recommended for approval by an advisory committee in April, and the agency had until this week to make a decision. The strawberry-flavored syrup is a purified form of a chemical in the cannabis plant — but not the one that gets users high.

The twice-daily oral solution is approved for use in patients 2 and older to treat two types of epileptic syndromes:

• Dravet syndrome, a rare genetic dysfunction of the brain that begins in the first year of life
• Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a form of epilepsy with multiple types of seizures that begin in early childhood, usually between 3 and 5.

Comments

Comments

“President Trump wants to merge the Departments of Labor and Education. That makes a lot of sense seen alongside his emphasis on apprenticeships to better equip young people with the skills needed to land good paying jobs,”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial Board writes that President Trump “is forcing a re-examination of America’s trade policies, and making other countries consider the consequences of the trade war they have long waged upon us.” The editors remind readers that “America has been reflexively globalist and anti-protectionist for a long time now, and it has not worked. The Rust Belt has been impoverished.”

South Carolina, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Colorado, New York and Utah

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has introduced a new national oath playing down the achievements of his father and grandfather and instead praising his own ideology and leadership...

... The oath has not been changed for more than 40 years, the sources said, although the present hereditary ruler of North Korea has apparently decided that it needed to be revised.