| AngelWolf13 |
| (Enthusiast) |
| 10/04/04 11:19 PM |
 Re: Merck Co. Pulls VIOXX from Market- Heart Dange
|
zippy,
merck just burned us, should we now put our faith in pfizer???? these big drug corporations are in such fierce competition and are so eager to make a killing in the market it's obvious that $ comes before our health. and because doctors are getting busted left and right for trying to ease the pain of the suffering by prescribing effective narcotics, they are desperate to fill in that gap. they need some other kinds of (non-narcotic)meds to treat pain so critically that, to the giant drug companies, it's like an early x-mas! i don't know which came first, vioxx or celebrex, but do you think that if one company creates a drug that doctors are prescribing excessively, the other will just sit back and watch? they want a piece of the action too, and afaik, both celebrex and vioxx work in much the same way. i wouldn't be surprised if they pull celebrex next.
i stopped taking celebrex a while ago because after a couple of days it was totally ineffective for me. might be a blessing in disguise. i refuse to take it now, period. zippy, i didn't mean to sound harsh, but when you stated that you just bought a whole swack of celebrex i was a bit alarmed. also, just today i found an article on MedicineNet.com that, frankly, concerned me. i was going to start a new thread on it but i am going to post it here. well, maybe i will start a new thread after this. here is the article...
Quote:
Vioxx or Celebrex, Which is Safer?
A study of people enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente health plan reportedly found that heart attack rates and sudden cardiac deaths were tripled in patients taking Vioxx in doses higher than 25 milligrams a day compared to those taking a competing drug, Celebrex. The study was done by personnel at the FDA, who said that "this and other studies cast serious doubt on the safety" of Vioxx and that Celebrex "may be safer."
Comments: We do not know what to make of this story. It has not appeared in a peer-reviewed medical journal to our knowledge nor has it been published in any other form. We tried and could not find it on the FDA site (or on the Kaiser Permanente site). We would like to see a report of the study so that we can evaluate it.
We also do not understand how FDA personnel can say that Celebrex "may be safer." It seems highly unprofessional for the FDA, if they did, to enter into the competition between these two popular drugs for arthritis.
This story looks to be a case of preliminary medical information dispensed at a press conference. The FDA should come clean and issue a proper warning and back it up with the facts.
Barbara K. Hecht, Ph.D.
Frederick Hecht, M.D.
Medical Editors, MedicineNet.com
please, be careful, hon. this applies to everyone else too!
c.(angel)
