Vioxx and other pharmaceuticals may be hazardous to your health

First, there was Fen-Phen with its promises of weight loss, but which carried the additional benefits of valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension. Then there was Vioxx, an NSAID which delivered great benefits in treating arthritis, but only if you weren’t too concerned about the minor risks of heart attack and stroke. And that’s just two of the major recalls. There is also quite a list of lesser-known drugs that were voluntarily (cough!) withdrawn from the market. There are also some like Crestor that have had certain high doses pulled from the market, lesser doses still being sold.

Here are two more from the past few months:
Diabetes Drugs May Be Related To Fracture Risk

After adjusting for other risk factors, individuals who were currently taking rosiglitazone and pioglitazone had approximately double or triple the odds of hip and other non-spine fractures than those who did not take these drugs. The odds for fracture were increased among patients who took the drugs for approximately 12 to 18 months and the risk was highest for those with two or more years of therapy.

Osteoporosis Drug Fosamax Linked To Heart Problem, Study Suggests

“Having ever used alendronate was associated with an 86 percent higher risk of newly detected atrial fibrillation compared with never having used the drug,” said Dr. Heckbert, who is also an affiliate investigator at the Group Health Center for Health Studies.

It’s a good thing Sally Field is taking once-a-month Boniva. I suppose you could take Fosamax with your diabetes drugs to try to protect your bones, at the expense of your heart. Or you could face the reality that diabetes especially is a lifestyle disease that can be treated with diet without sacrificing your bones.

It’s interesting how all of these drugs make it through the supposedly rigorous FDA approval process. In the book Death By Prescription, Dr. Ray Strand discusses the entire process, conflicts of interest and all. But there’s another odious force working behind the scenes to keep complete information from you. And yes, I am bold enough to say that it’s not innocent. I wrote once before about ghost writing of studies by pharmaceutical companies. Here is an article with a nice step-by-step of how the ghost-writing process happens.

Let’s not forget about recent trials showing the “wonder combination” of Zetia and Zocor, marketed as Vytorin. This combination of a statin drug (Zocor) and a non-statin drug (Zetia) was supposed to work even better than either drug by itself. Too bad for the millions of people that took the drug that it actually caused arterial plaques to grow at nearly twice the rate of patients taking Zocor alone. Bad news, right? Not as bad as the news that Schering-Plough and Merck withheld the results of the study for two years. Nefarious? The companies say no, but if the data had been positive, it’s unlikely it would have taken quite so long.

If you’re interested in keeping up on what’s happening in the world of drug recalls, check the Drug Recalls site. I won’t say don’t take pharmaceuticals. There are definite situations that call for the use of drugs. But don’t take drugs without exhausting other options and without considering the serious side effects that some of them carry. Don’t take drugs without asking lots of questions. And don’t forget that you’re in charge of your health; a doctor is simply there to help guide you along the path.

How do we get people to take control of their health rather than putting it in the hands of companies with a motive to get them on pharmaceuticals?


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