"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
The FDA is making Vioxx add a warning for heart patients on it's label. Vioxx is an anti-inflammatory drug used for arthritis. You can debate whether it is an improvement over the older anti-inflammatory drugs, but to say that it's linked to heart disease is pushing it. The study in question found more heart attacks among Vioxx users than among users of Naprosyn. The trouble is, Naprosyn inhibits blood clotting, and Vioxx doesn't. It may be that Naprosyn has a more protective effect against heart disease than Vioxx, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Vioxx causes more heart attacks. A better study would be to compare Vioxx to placebo in rates of heart attacks. For some reason the FDA is being overly cautious here. Maybe the makers of Vioxx didn't pony up as much money as they were supposed to, or maybe they’re intimidated by the number of class action lawsuits in the works. posted by Sydney on
4/13/2002 07:59:00 AM
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