The drug Trasylol was used during open-heart surgery to reduce blood loss in thousands of patients. However, the FDA suspended sales of the drug in 2007 over a possible link to kidney failures, heart attacks and strokes. Because so many heart surgery patients received Trasylol during the 14 years it…
The Food and Drug Administration will begin a quarterly posting of drugs whose safety is under investigation because of complaints filed by drug companies, physicians and patients. The FDA will name the drug and the nature of the “adverse events” but will not describe the number of complaints or how…
An Indiana woman whose husband committed suicide in January 2008 has filed a lawsuit against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Chantix, a smoking-cessation drug her husband was taking. The woman alleges that the company failed to warn consumers that the prescription medication might cause serious psychiatric symptoms such as suicidal thoughts.…
The FDA is warning doctors about severe skin reactions in alcoholism patients who use Vivitrol, an injectable treatment made and marketed by Cephalon Inc. Doctors and patients should watch for swelling, infection, and other complications where the drug is injected. The FDA emphasized that the proper needle must be used…
Trasylol, a defective drug manufactured by Bayer AG, may have claimed as many as “1,000 lives per month” in the time before it was recalled, according to a doctor who presented a study to the FDA in September 2006. It wasn’t until November 2007, however, when the Canadian Data Safety…
Merck & Co., manufacturer of the painkiller Vioxx, said Friday November 9th that it will pay $4.85 billion to end thousands of state and federal lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx in one of the largest drug settlements ever. Vioxx was developed to treat arthritis, but was pulled from the market…
After hearing testimony that the drug increases the risk of suicidal thoughts, even in patients without a history of depression, Federal health officials unanimously rejected the weight loss drug, rimonabant, manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis SA. The panel said that the company failed to show the drug is safe. Judging from the…
FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach said at a congressional hearing Wednesday that the FDA is going to require stronger warnings about heart failure on the diabetes drugs Avandia and Actos. The FDA is directing GlaxoSmithKline to add a “black box” warning to Avandia and ordering Takeda Pharmaceuticals to do the…
Chicago Tribune staff reporter Bruce Japsen reported that gifts which are showered on doctors by drug and medical device makers have become so pervasive that they are a standard part of virtually every United States physician’s practice. “Despite self-policing initiatives launched by organized medical groups and the drug and device…