There are only 70 or so days left in 2012, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of critical activity still in play. Here are a couple of things to keep track of. November 6: Who will choose the new faces on the Supreme Court? Several members of the Supreme Court are approaching retirement, which makes the upcoming presidential election even more important. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 79 and nearly certain to vacate her seat before 2016. Justices Scalia and Kennedy are both 76, while Justice Breyer is 74. How many of these last three will hang it...

Most of the entries here at the MDD Perspectives blog address med tech, but I’m going to go off topic and address the compounding pharmacy issue, because it is at risk of becoming an FDA issue. As we all know, the New England Compounding Pharmacy (NECP) is said to be the source of the tainted methylprednisolone injections that led to the multiple cases of meningitis, and now the predictable cry has gone out to have FDA regulate compounding pharmacies. The idea is understandable, but let’s find out what’s...