Latest Chuck Grassley Stories

AMERICA'S pharmaceutical giants apparently can see the writing on the wall. Congress is ready to take a cold, hard look at their undercover payments to doctors, and they're scurrying to present at least a pretense that they're getting their houses in order. It's been the dirty little secret in the medical profession for decades: Millions of dollars dished out annually to tens of thousands of doctors in speaking and consulting fees, in addition to travel, meals, entertainment and assorted...

Today, NGVAmerica commended Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) for their leadership in introducing "The Energy Independence and Investment Act of 2008." That legislation would extend existing tax credits for: (1) the purchase of natural gas used in vehicles, (2) the purchase of the natural gas vehicles themselves, and (3) the installation of natural gas fueling infrastructure. "There is a growing awareness that natural gas vehicles can and must play a greater role in...

A report recently issued by the Government Accountability Office is shedding light onto a gray area of medical practice and federal oversight: the use of medications to treat conditions other than the ones the drugs were approved for, a practice known as "off-label" prescribing.When federal regulators discover a drug company that is selling prescription medications for unapproved use, it can take them an average of seven months to issue a warning, according to the new report. During...

By MARY RAE BRAGG Encouraging news for Dubuque's passenger train proponents: Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, is going to be on the conference committee charged with reconciling differences between the House and Senate versions of the Amtrak Reauthorization bill. Braley announced his appointment to the committee Friday, saying he's excited to support Iowa's passenger rail needs. "With gas prices now over $4 per gallon, it's time to invest in alternative forms of transportation," Braley said in...

By Valarie Allen, The Creston News Advertiser, Iowa Jul. 15--WASHINGTON -- High gas prices were the topic of a Creston News advertiser telephone interview Thursday with U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R -- Iowa. Increasing the gas supply is the law of economics 101, he said. "If you would have talked to me about gas prices last year when they said gas prices were going to go to $3, I would have told you, you were crazy," said Grassley. "Now they're at $4." Grassley said the United States...

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley [R-Iowa] is continuing to criticize what he considers to be the troubling industry ties of some medical researchers and doctors. Grassley serves as the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs. In early June, he released information alleging a group of Harvard psychiatrists received more than $4 million from drug companies that they didn't report to the university. On June 23, he...

The U.S. government may be considering letting farmers use millions of acres of conservation property, officials say. Floods in the Midwest have destroyed at least 4 million acres of highly valuable farmland, seriously impacting the success of harvests this year, The New York Times reported Saturday. As the cost of corn and soy beans spike, the administration of U.S. President George Bush is being urged to take action to increase food production, the newspaper said. Sen. Charles E....

To: NATIONAL EDITORS Contact: Lisa Camooso Miller or John Norton, +1-703-683-8200, lisa.miller@ncpanet.org, john.norton@ncpanet.org, both of National Community Pharmacists Association Companion Bills Delay and Fix Competitive Bidding System for DMEPOS Equipment ALEXANDRIA, Va.,June 19/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), chair of the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee, recently introduced H.R. 6252, the Medicare DMEPOS Competitive Acquisition Reform Act of 2008. Sens. Max...

DALLAS, June 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Zix Corporation (ZixCorp(R)), , the leader in hosted services for email encryption and e-prescribing, today announced the Company has processed a record 20 million prescription transactions through the ZixData Center(TM), a SysTrust(TM) certified and SAS-70 accredited center. Over 3,200 active prescribers across eight payor-sponsored e-prescribing programs in 11 states actively use PocketScript(R) to save lives, save time and save money. "This...

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley said yesterday that Dr. Steven M. Haffner, a well-known diabetes expert at the University of Health Science Center in San Antonio, had leaked confidential, unpublished information to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that questioned the safety of the company's diabetes drug Avandia.A New York Times report said that Dr. Haffner had faxed the document, a medical journal article he had agreed to read as part of the normal prepublication peer review process for The New England...