avandia

An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) came up with mixed reviews Wednesday for a drug that a number of studies have suggested puts patients at risk for heart disease and stroke. A panel of 33 physicians, patient advocates, and academics decided that Avandia, a drug commonly used in treating diabetes, should either be withdrawn from the market or sold under very strict controls.

Studies of Avandia have found that it can increase a person’s risk of heart disease by as much as 43 percent, which is even more concerning considering that the disease it treats can double someone’s risk for heart disease. And although much of that research has been disputed by the drug’s manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, the panel voted yesterday that the evidence was compelling enough to suggest that the risks are indeed real enough to pose a serious threat to people taking the drug.
Still, physicians on the panel don’t want to see the drug pulled entirely because, they argued, there aren’t many good drugs available for treating diabetes as it is, and even a risky drug can be successful in treating some patients. “The decision speaks to the complexity of both this issue and of the information that’s available,” says David Kendall, MD, chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association, who attended the hearings. “If this issue were a simple and clear-cut one, an advisory panel wouldn’t be necessary.”
source:msnbc.msn.com