NEWS: Prescription Drug Marketing Misleads Public

cholesterolmatters.msn.com
"...some studies suggest that healthy people who are considered to be at low risk for heart disease may also want to have their cholesterol levels checked and lowered with a statin drug. ...Some heart specialists see statins as "vitamins for the heart" and say billions of dollars could be saved and thousands of deaths prevented if more people who are considered to be at low risk for heart disease were put on the medication.
...Putting more people on statin therapy in the long run could help lower total health-care costs because people would need fewer procedures. They would have fewer heart attacks, fewer stenting procedures and fewer bypass surgeries," says Dr. Jerome Cohen..."

"A Crestor warning has been issued by several groups since Crestor was approved for use by the FDA in August of 2003. Crestor is touted as a "super satin" that is prescribed to treat patients with high cholesterol thereby lowering their risk of heart complications. Crestor is manufactured and aggressively marketed by the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and is approved in doses up to 40 milligrams in strength.
...These Crestor warnings are compounded with the recent recall of a similar drug called Baycol (manufactured by Bayer) in 2001. ...The Crestor warning that cautions users about the harmful risks of taking Crestor describes the same risks that were shown to be caused by Baycol use. ...The most serious adverse health consequence that has been associated with Crestor use is the risk of developing the serious and fatal muscle disease called rhabdomyolysis. ...Rhabdomyolysis causes muscles to atrophy (break down) and releases harmful substances into the blood stream. ...Crestor use increases a patient's risk of developing this disease which, if left untreated can lead to acute renal failure (kidney failure) and death."
www.adrugrecall.com...

"Calls are mounting for revamp of FDA: Just as the Enron scandal triggered an overhaul of corporate accounting practices, the nation's prescription drug crisis may prompt a sweeping revamp of the way the Food and Drug Administration ensures drug safety, some say.
...The proposal garnering the most support is Grassley's plan to create an independent drug safety office to keep drug companies honest. ...Absent that, drug safety details trickle out from lawsuits, congressional hearings, and academic meetings.
...Specialists inside and outside the FDA say at least three changes are needed before the public can be assured that drugs are safe: naming a permanent FDA commissioner; increasing the agency's budget to permit meaningful surveillance of the safety of drugs after they are approved for use by consumers; and adding regulatory muscle to require that companies complete promised postmarketing studies."
www.boston.com...

"Merck's request to have a non-prescription over-the-counter version of their popular cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor approved for sale was turned down by an FDA advisory panel last week. ...The FDA does not have to follow recommendations made by the advisory committee, ...(and) has until Feb. 24 to reach a decision about over-the-counter Mevacor."
www.healthtalk.ca...



Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

"A medical journal has given U.S. regulators confidential drug company documents suggesting a link between the antidepressant Prozac and a heightened risk of suicide attempts. ...Documents from an anonymous source indicate Prozac's manufacturer, Eli Lilly & Co., was aware of the drug's potential side-effects in the 1980s, the British Medical Journal said in its Jan. 1 issue."
www.cbc.ca...

From Reuters:
"A television commercial for Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Seasonale misleads consumers by excluding risk information to make the birth control pill seem safer, U.S. health regulators warned in a letter released on Thursday. The commercial suggests use of the oral contraceptive leads to only four menstrual periods a year but fails to mention frequent and sometimes substantial bleeding..."

"Bone Loss Seen with Lung Disease Treatment. People who use an inhaled steroid long-term to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or emphysema, face a loss of bone mineral density in the hip and spine, a new study shows. ...the study also found the medication did not improve lung function."

MORE

"FDA tells doctors to limit painkiller use"
msnbc.msn.com...

"Painkillers may damage small intestines. About 70 percent of users suffered injury, study finds"
www.msnbc.msn.com...

"UM study shows use of antibiotics may be factor in asthma, allergies: ...Your asthma and allergies may be an unintended gift of the antibiotics you took years earlier. ...Asthma cases in the United States climbed 75 percent from 1980 to 1994."
toledoblade.com.../20041223/NEWS32/412230393

"The team said it suspects that changes in gut microflora caused by widespread use of antibiotics plus a modern high-fat, high-sugar, low-fiber diet could be responsible for a major increase, over the last 40 years, in cases of chronic asthma and allergies in Western industrialized countries."
www.rednova.com...

www.cbc.ca...

...regulators need to be able to force industry to conduct better safety trials, a cardiologist says. ...in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Topol recommends:
* Better tracking of the side-effects of medications.
* Much less direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs.
* Greater legislative authority to allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require industry to conduct trials deemed necessary to ensure the safety profile of a drug.
..."Had coxib trials been conducted five years ago in patients with established cardiovascular disease, when the benefit and risks were indeterminate, clinicians would have quickly learned the risk and potentially avoided a major cardiovascular calamity," Topol wrote. "The combination of mass promotion of a medicine with an unknown and suspect safety profile cannot be tolerated in the future."

"Pfizer Inc. ads for the painkillers Celebrex and Bextra mislead consumers and fail to properly disclose the drugs' side-effects, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told the pharmaceutical company."
www.jointogether.org...

Big Changes for Big Pharma
www.businessweek.com...

Some tangled webs just can't be untangled:

...Astra Merck, (is) a joint venture between Astra AB and Merck. Astra Merck merged in 1998 with Astra USA of Boston to create Astra Pharmaceuticals.
www.astrazeneca.com...

and... The Department of Defense contracted with Merck-Medco Managed Care to provide military personnel mail order service for maintenance prescriptions in 2001...
www.narmc.amedd.army.mil...

Originally posted by FredT
The simple fact is that profit drives innovation and development.

Originally posted by soficrow
The "innovation and development" we're getting now are killing us, or causing disability. Not the ideal effect.

Originally posted by soficrow


"Calls are mounting for revamp of FDA: Just as the Enron scandal triggered an overhaul of corporate accounting practices, the nation's prescription drug crisis may prompt a sweeping revamp of the way the Food and Drug Administration ensures drug safety, some say.
...The proposal garnering the most support is Grassley's plan to create an independent drug safety office to keep drug companies honest. ...Absent that, drug safety details trickle out from lawsuits, congressional hearings, and academic meetings.
...Specialists inside and outside the FDA say at least three changes are needed before the public can be assured that drugs are safe: naming a permanent FDA commissioner; increasing the agency's budget to permit meaningful surveillance of the safety of drugs after they are approved for use by consumers; and adding regulatory muscle to require that companies complete promised postmarketing studies."
www.boston.com...


...regulators need to be able to force industry to conduct better safety trials, a cardiologist says. ...in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Topol recommends:
* Better tracking of the side-effects of medications.
* Much less direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs.
* Greater legislative authority to allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require industry to conduct trials deemed necessary to ensure the safety profile of a drug.
..."Had coxib trials been conducted five years ago in patients with established cardiovascular disease, when the benefit and risks were indeterminate, clinicians would have quickly learned the risk and potentially avoided a major cardiovascular calamity," Topol wrote. "The combination of mass promotion of a medicine with an unknown and suspect safety profile cannot be tolerated in the future."
www.cbc.ca...

Originally posted by soficrow
" Topol wrote. "The combination of mass promotion of a medicine with an unknown and suspect safety profile cannot be tolerated in the future."

Originally posted by MemoryShock
My favorite part:

Originally posted by soficrow
" Topol wrote. "The combination of mass promotion of a medicine with an unknown and suspect safety profile cannot be tolerated in the future."

...I believe along with the changes proposed above, standard bureaucratic red tape of course, people need to be educated. But how many times has that been brought up?

Appreciate the time and effort, soficrow

Originally posted by sardion2000
Just in case some people missed it in Wired yesturday here is a story talking about the Creative Science Commons or more Commonly refered to as Open Access Biology(open source Biotechnology)

www.wired.com...

Open standards are the way to go.

Originally posted by DrHoracid
First of all the FDA, AMA and big Pharma are all the same entity. All have done more to harm "health" than anything else. The "natural" remedies are far more effective than "drugs" anyway and have been "bullied" out of existence because of the lack of patient and "profit" rights. American is "drug addicted" and controlled.

Cancer and many disease's are a direct result of chemical induction into the human body and the havoc they inflict on the immune system.