Free Republic

After a panel of medical experts gave a very cautious nod to the continued use of the painkillers Celebrex, Vioxx and Bextra on Friday, pain management experts said they expected to see the same caution transform the way the painkillers are prescribed from now on. The drugs, which had been hugely popular for people with both short-term and chronic pain, will be prescribed much less readily, for a smaller group of patients, at lower doses and for shorter periods, the experts said. "I am still very concerned about the cardiac risks of these medications," said Dr. David Campen, director of...

MEDICINE'S DATA GAP Across the country, doctors are struggling to decide which pain relievers to prescribe now that they know that popular drugs like Vioxx and Celebrex pose potentially serious heart risks. "We are desperately in need of information," said Stephen Brenner, an internist in New Haven. Yet for at least two years, doctors at the Mayo Clinic, the federal Veterans Affairs Department and the Kaiser Permanente health plan have been sharply limiting their use of Vioxx and Celebrex. That is because those three institutions, after undertaking separate reviews of test data available on various painkillers, reached the same conclusion:...