There seems to be a never-ending battle regarding the cardiovascular
safety of cox-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex. These
medications have been known to cause:
- Strokes
- Heart attacks
- Life-threatening skin reactions
Ironically, despite health concerns, direct-to-consumer marketing
for these potentially harmful drugs has appeared in advertisements
everywhere.
Should marketing these drugs be permitted?
This is a question prominent cardiologist Dr. Eric J. Topol is
more than prepared to tackle. Topol explains that action must be
taken in order to reevaluate the government's policy of allowing
such advertising to persist. He also stated, "The combination
of mass promotion of a medicine with an unknown and suspect safety
profile cannot be tolerated in the future."
Further, Topol refers to the hazardous
drug class as a "house of cards," in that they seemed
destined for failure from the start. Such medicines were marketed
to consumers with unrealistic expectations concerning:
- Safety
- Pain relief
- Marked gastrointestinal protection
The problem? Instead of waiting an adequate amount of time to fully
ensure the safety of these drugs after they were approved by the
Food and Drug Administration, the medicines were immediately sent
off for public use, worsening the public health problem. Thus, it
has been suggested that all new drugs be subject to a sufficient
trial period before being offered to consumers.
Journal
of the American Medical Association January 2005;293 Free Full-Text
Pre-Publication Article
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