The New York Times reports (below) "Two federal drug officials have concluded that asthma sufferers risk death if they continue to use four hugely popular asthma drugs - Advair, Symbicort, Serevent and Foradil...."Sudden deaths among asthmatics still clutching their inhalers have fed the debate." Full article here
NEW YORK TIMES SAYS...
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — Two federal drug officials have concluded that asthma sufferers risk death if they continue to use four hugely popular asthma drugs — Advair, Symbicort, Serevent and Foradil. But the officials’ views are not universally shared within the government.................more at NY Times
The two officials, who work in the safety division of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote in an assessment on the agency’s Web site on Friday that asthma sufferers of all ages should no longer take the medicines. A third drug-safety official concluded that Advair and Symbicort could be used by adults but that all four drugs should no longer be used by people age 17 and under.
Dr. Badrul A. Chowdhury, director of the division of pulmonary and allergy products at the agency, cautioned in his own assessment that the risk of death associated with the drugs was small and that banning their use “would be an extreme approach” that could lead asthmatics to rely on other risky medications.
Once unheard of, public disagreements among agency experts have occurred on occasion in recent years. The agency is convening a committee of experts on Wednesday and Thursday to sort out the disagreement, which has divided not only the F.D.A. but also clinicians and experts for more than a decade.
Sudden deaths among asthmatics still clutching their inhalers have fed the debate. But trying to determine whether the deaths were caused by patients’ breathing problems or the inhalers has proved difficult.
The stakes for drug makers are high. Advair sales last year were $6.9 billion and may approach $8 billion this year, making the medication GlaxoSmithKline’s biggest seller and one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world. Glaxo also sells Serevent, which had $538 million in sales last year
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