Posted on 11/18/2004 5:50:28 PM PST by neverdem
I agree...tooo many doctors treating unhappiness like it was depression....
To be happy, you need to do the right things.
Our culture is not encouraging that enough.
Therefore, we want a magic pill instead of doing the right things, cause the right things would interfere with something else we want to do.
And we want instant gratification, to boot.
What a strange world we live in.
My advice to most people is to throw away their TV, listen to their kids, put their family on the high priority track, and learn to be grateful. Sure changes your outlook on life!
IMHO I believe that's already happened and is happening even now. One of the hidden fatalities against these law suits are products that never come to be, or that may only come into being many, many years down the road.
Money that companies would have used in R&D, et. al. gets gobbled up paying up, buying off, and/or going to court. The ultimate winner? The tort lawyers. The ultimate victim? The person whose quality of life would have been improved (dramatically) for the better.
Not on the list because the list is of drugs designed to treat a disease state, not kill someone. RU486 is designed to kill someone, not treat a disease state.
Heh... touche. (I keep reverting to that "okay where is the pregnancy is a DISEASE mentality" when I read this media garbage too much)
Liberals and the subset called democrats believe pregnancy is an 'elective disease' ... if a woman wants it to be a disease, she's infected and abortion is the cure; if she's happy, she's pregnant.
I heard this guy all over the news today. Frankly he sounds like someone with an agenda, ala Richard Clarke. If he's bashing Accutane than I don't believe a word he says. The drug has been used for decades, is a near miracle drug for many people, and should not be pulled. Sure there are some risks, and they were known 20 years ago and taken into consideration throughout the course of the treatments.
Utopians and lawyers are a destructive combination.
IIRC (and I may not be), they found something like a 50% increased risk of heart attacks in those that took Vioxx for more than 18 months straight.
Really though, the recall of Vioxx is no big deal to the overwhelming majority of arthritis sufferers. Vioxx, Celebrex and other members of that class of medicines are not any better at controlling arthritis pain than plain old Advil or Aleve. Their only real benefit is that they don't cause upset stomachs in patients prone to that sort of thing.
Exactly. It's the reason we have little flu vaccine this year. It was outsourced to escape trial lawyers
But this article is a way over the top. Accutane has been on the market for over 20 years. Does it have side effects? Yes. But compared to the average birth control pill, these effects are doodly. BCP are way more dangerous but you won't hear about that.
All in all I would trust the FDA more than Congress. Back in the 80's the Congress listened to Jack Klugman's (he played Quincy on the TV show and did an episode on orphan drugs) testimony on orphan drugs before making their decision. That is very scary.
"Merck finally had to acknowledge the truth, but only by accident. The company undertook a large, randomized trial of 2,600 patients with colon polyps in hopes of proving that Vioxx could help their condition. In the process, though, Merck discovered that 3.5 percent of patients taking Vioxx suffered heart attacks or strokes as against 1.9 percent taking a placebo. Merck at last did the right thing by voluntarily and abruptly taking Vioxx off the market."
A better, more accurate, statement would be:
"They do not cause or aggravate bleeding ulcers, as do NSAIDS."
Hope that helps.
DG
Actually folks still suffered bleeding ulcers with Cox-2 inhibitors. Their selling point was that they reduced the incidence of major GI bleeds from about 25% in folks still taking older NSAIDs to about 20%, IIRC. That's still a lot of emergency transfusions, emergency procedures and traditional open surgery avoided.
Thanks for the link.
This sort of thinking is the problem with the way the FDA approves pharmaceuticals and the way trials are done. Medications can behave very differently for different people. Aleve is wonderful for my migraines, but did little for bursitis. Celebrex was wonderful. However, for my father, Celebrex was worthless and caused problems. [He went onto Vioxx for a couple of years...and then had a heart attack... :-( ]
The statistics and theories don't account for the personal variation in efficacy. While the average advantage for most people is merely the lack of aggravating an ulcer, there is a great difference in individual response in terms of effectiveness, too--varying from patient to patient for a single medication, as well as from one medication to another in a single patient.
Me too, except that it has the side effect of lowering my cholesterol level to Olympic athlete levels.
Gimme another slice of bacon, please.
serevent alone is the problem. We usually use ADvir which has steroids in it.
The increase in death is similar to that found with inhalers: You stop the initial attack, but six hours later, get the more severe edema with spasm that doesn't respong to bronchodilators.
Also, Serevent is not used "as needed". It is used constantly, so those using serevent are the more severe cases of asthma, i.e. those who are supposed to be on steroids. So wait for the Advir studies come out first.
I use serevent because I can't tolorate Albuterol, and rarely need a bronchodilator as long as I take my steroid inhaler. About the only place I use it is when I go to Walmart, which for some reason makes me wheeze, probably the cleaning fluid they use to clean the place.
And there are those asthmatics who refuse to take steroids because of the nasty side effects. I'd rather be wheezing and steroid free. With a serevent inhaler, for the first time in my life, I felt like I didn't have asthma. Then when the inhaler was deemed an ENVIROMENTAL hazard, the company switch to the discus, which dumps some powder on my tongue, but isn't anywhere near as effective, but still better than Advair!! I would rather take my chances with serevent than with any steroid drug!!! Wish we could sign a form releasing the drug company from responsibility if we chose to use their product.
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