Thursday, July 02, 2009

About Those Scary Wonder Drugs

Prescription drugs help me to stay healthy, if not alive, in my post-stroke world, so it would be idiotic for me to piss all over these drugs in general, let alone those that help us stop smoking or feel a little better if we have a bad case of the blues.

But it is is worth pausing to consider how wonderful these expensive pharmaceuticals are in the wake of news that:


* A federal advisory panel has voted narrowly to recommend a ban on Percocet and Vicodin, two of the most popular prescription painkillers, because of their effects on the liver.

The two drugs combine a narcotic with acetaminophen, the ingredient found in popular over-the-counter products like Tylenol and Excedrin. High doses of acetaminophen are a leading cause of liver damage.

* There have been clusters of suicides by users of Chantix and Zyban, two popular stop-smoking drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration -- you know, the federal agency that sleep walked during the Bush years -- is requiring the manufacturers to place so-called black-box warnings on the drugs and conduct clinical trials to assess the mental-health risks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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