Avandia Diabetes Drug And Patient Heart Attacks Linked, New York Times Reports
Today the New York Times reported:
Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market. The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart.
Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009. “Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market,” one report, by Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin of the Food and Drug Administration, concludes. Both authors recommended that Avandia be withdrawn.
Millions of diabetics have been prescribed Avandia sold by GlaxoSmithKline PLC since it came on the market in 1999. In May 2007, Avandia was linked to a 43 percent greater risk of heart attack and death in a scientific analysis published by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Upon the release of the 2007 study, GlaxoSmithKline downplayed the report and encouraged continued use of Avandia. Dr. Lawson McCartney, who led Glaxo’s diabetes drug development, said, “We remain very confident in the safety and of course in the efficacy of Avandia as an important diabetic medicine.”
Soon thereafter, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked Glaxo to carry a more prominent warning, a so-called black box warning, of Avandia’s heart risks because “despite existing warnings, these drugs were being prescribed to patients with significant heart failure.” Glaxo continued to maintain the safety of Avandia, and the drug has remained on the market.
Learn more about the legal rights of patients that suffered serious side effects from Avandia.
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