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
.."About one in 10 U.S. doctors who vaccinate privately insured children are considering dropping that service largely because they are losing money when they do it, according to a new survey."
..."About half said they had delayed buying at least one vaccine because of the cost. Roughly one in five said they felt strongly that reimbursement for the purchase and administration of vaccines was not adequate."
...."Most pediatricians are likely to keep giving vaccinations to kids, partly because of altruism and partly because giving shots drives business. "For us to give up vaccines would hurt our core business because that's why kids come in," Lessin said.
But family practice doctors — who are not as dependent on vaccinations for patients — may decide the shots are too much of a financial headache, he added."
Some have been unusually expensive, including Gardasil, a vaccine for girls against cervical cancer which is given in three doses over six months and is priced at about $375 for the series."
"Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) recently summed up the dilemma in an interview with Politico, saying, "The big thing for Republicans is to communicate that it is not acceptable for 40 million people in America not to have health insurance. But it's also unacceptable to turn our whole health care system over to the same people who ran Katrina and ran the Iraq war and [are] running the bailout.""
There are three things you need to understand about this issue: First, after the melamine scandal broke in China and sickened tens of thousands of babies, the FDA assured the American people that U.S. infant formula products were 100% safe and contained no melamine.
They were wrong.
Secondly, when the FDA's own tests discovered melamine contamination in U.S. infant formula products, it actively sought to hide the test results from the public. It only disclosed the test results after being forced to do so by a FOIA petition filed by the Associated Press. (We gotta thank AP for doing this, by the way. Nice job on their part!)
Thirdly, once the melamine contamination results were made public, the FDA abruptly announced that 1ppm (or less) of melamine in infant formula was suddenly "safe." This decision was based on no science whatseover and was obviously a panicked defense of the U.S. infant formula manufacturers whose products are contaminated with melamine.
the list of scientists, doctors, public health officials and government leaders who now believe that a vaccine-autism connection is at the least possible, and should be researched further.
Earlier this week, Dr. Peter Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the UK Department of Health was added. Now, eight more prominent researchers have joined the group. (See list below – they are the last eight names added)."
"....the Harvard researchers have also pushed for the aggressive treatment of the disease with antipsychotics, which are not licensed for such a use. The discovery that those same researchers concealed massive payments from the drug industry has cast further doubt on their motivations, and has led many to wonder if too many children are now being diagnosed and treated with potentially dangerous drugs...."
"One of the worst types of drivel is naturopathy. This "specialty" advertises itself as "medicine-plus", but really it's "healing-minus": minus the evidence, minus the training, minus intelligent thought."
..."First, like all fake doctors, this place has lots of testimonials in place of real evidence. I don't list testimonials at my office. It's tacky, and it doesn't give a measure of success in keeping people healthy. All it measures is how much someone liked a doctor as a person."
....."You sound threatened...!! We just lost our 9 year old to cancer at Seattle children's...what an education! after his death our Harvard educated doctor and others told us they knew he would die!! and that "they wanted us to have hope from the chemo and other treatment they provided". well that was a change from what they were saying during treatment...treatment that was essentially anything that came from a pharmaceutical company.
This selling us hope at a very high price is what the establishment is going after homeopathic and natural cure companies for!! shouldn't I be able to choose the type of hope..false or real that I want.
until you wake up and and open up to alternatives and integrate progressive approaches in your practice, you are only doing your patients and yourself harm. Yes, the problem is systemic and there are no easy answers...but clearly bashing as you say "well intentioned professionals" only discredits you!"
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