Bowel cleansers get FDA warning

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | May 5, 2006 | NA

[neverdem]

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials warned Friday of kidney failure associated with certain products used to cleanse the bowel before colonoscopies and other procedures.

The Food and Drug Administration said in an alert to doctors and patients that it has documented 22 cases of acute phosphate nephropathy, a rare but serious form of kidney failure associated with the use of oral sodium phosphates. The products cleanse the bowel by causing patients to loose large amounts of fluid through bowel movements.

Of the cases, 21 involved patients given solutions such as Fleet Phospho-soda or Fleet Accu-Prep. One patient had taken Visicol tablets. None had taken OsmoPrep tablets, a recently approved oral sodium phosphate product, the FDA said.

On the Net:

Food and Drug Administration

[neverdem]

Food and Drug Administration Science Background Paper: Acute Phosphate Nephropathy and Renal Failure Associated With the Use of Oral Sodium Phosphate Bowel Cleansing Products

[doug from upland]

Oh, crap.

[sourcery]

What a way to go...

[Mr Ramsbotham]

At first I thought it said "bowl cleansing products," and I thought, "who's getting enemas with Ti-D-Bowl?"

[sully777]

[Spyder]

The products cleanse the bowel by causing patients to loose large amounts of fluid through bowel movements.

Grammar police here - could the marvelous AP have a spelling deficiency? I suppose they could have said "let loose" large amounts of fluids, or "lose large amounts of fluid through loose bowel movements."

[Darkwolf377]

There #goes# another of Helen Thomas' hobbies.

[RichInOC]

They probably did mean "lose", but I reckon "loose" works as well.

[Slings and Arrows]

Richard Gere is heartbroken.

[RichInOC]

Gere doesn't need a colon cleanser...just a match.

[Slings and Arrows]

That's cruelty to rodents.

[Jet Jaguar]

LOL

[Raycpa]

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

But the FDA will ban natural products that do the job just as effectively as the chemical gobbledygook produced by Big Pharm.

[sumocide]

Phosphate is of mineral origin. And you got lot's of it in your body.

[R. Scott]

What happened to a good old fashioned dose of Epson salts?

[R. Scott]

… causing patients to loose large amounts of fluid …

Used as in “Loose the dogs of war”?

[NRA1995]

Katie Couric is endangered?

[RichInOC]

But he started it.

[Erasmus]

What happened to a good old fashioned dose of Epson salts?

That's what I use on the friggin' nozzles of my Photo 1280.