Drug Safety at the FDA Under Fire: What to Do?
Criticism
of FDA's Drug Safety Efforts Triggers Debate
Aside from criticizing
the FDA for not acting sooner to protect Americans from the potential risks associated with Vioxx, Graham also warned that
five additional popular prescription drugs should be closely monitored due to safety concerns. Graham fingered Crestor, Bextra,
Meridia, Serevent, and Accutane in his statement…. During his testimony, Graham, who is an associate science director
at the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, said that the recommendations of drug safety reviewers are often overruled by officials
in the FDA's Office of New Drugs. He asked lawmakers to create
an independent drug safety monitoring office free of the influence from regulators who approve new drugs.
But Galson says the FDA's Office of New Drugs is already an independent office and is separate from the office that reviews
drug safety. Both offices report to Galson, as the acting director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
To address post-approval drug safety concerns, Galson says he recently asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to look at
the structure of the FDA's post-marketing surveillance program and to give their advice on whether additional changes are
needed to the agency's approach to drug safety.
This is a bureaucratic response, one which before all else defends the agency. That leaves us with two concerns: (1) is the IOM an independent,
credible agency, and (2) is it likely that their recommendations if critical of the existing structure will be implemented? The answer to the first is a qualified yes, for it is funded by Congress, and as for
(2). There are too many political loops to jump including a President who is
in bed with the pharmaceutical industry, as is Congress, and Galson will surely oppose a review system outside the FDA, for
bureaucrats always defend their turf. Finally studies are the do-something,
do-nothing dodge. In a couple of years a report will be generated by the IOM
and reviewed, and by that time Congress, the President, and the public will have forgotten the cause for the study. Skepticism is further reinforced by the track record of the FDA, which has consistently been pro-pharameutical
industry. The chances for significant in the public’s interest action is
slim, while the pretend concern and pretend we are doing something has already started.
History is repeating itself.
Vioxx: 160,000 Heart Attacks and Strokes
This call for safety studies has a familiar ring to it. In August 2001, Eric J. Topol,
MD, chairman of the Cleveland Clinic cardiology department, was troubled by heart-safety data in Vioxx clinical trials. He
called on the FDA to demand specially designed heart-safety studies. That never happened. Instead, three years later, a study
looking at whether Vioxx could prevent colon polyps found the drug posed an unacceptably high heart risk.
Ten million people have
taken Vioxx, partly due to an aggressive direct-to-consumer advertising campaign. Topol calculates that 160,000 of these patients
had a Vioxx-caused heart attack or stroke.
Statement by Sidney M. Wolfe, MD, Director of Public Citizen’s Health
Research Group, Concerning Withdrawal of Vioxx From the Market
Today’s announcement by Merck is the latest evidence that this
family of drugs, the Cox-2 inhibitors, once referred to as “super aspirins,” are turning out to be more like super
disasters. As discussed below, there are safety problems with Celebrex as well as Bextra, the two other big-selling Cox-2
inhibitors that are the most-prescribed alternatives to Vioxx.
In trying to appear “a good citizen,” Merck ignores its
checkered history with Vioxx. In today’s statement announcing the withdrawal of Vioxx from the market, Peter S. Kim,
Ph.D., president of Merck Research Laboratories asserted that “Merck has always believed that prospective, randomized,
controlled clinical trials are the best way to evaluate the safety of medicines.” Yet after an earlier randomized trial,
the VIGOR study, published almost four years ago
(November 2000), that found Vioxx caused a four- to five-fold increase in heart attacks, Merck received, on Sept. 17, 2001, a warning letter from the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because the company’s ads for the drug failed to mention this increased risk
of heart attacks. In the eight-page warning letter addressed to Merck President and CEO
Raymond V. Gilmartin, the FDA stated:
You have engaged in a promotional campaign for Vioxx that minimizes the
potentially serious cardiovascular findings that were observed in the Vioxx Gastrointestinal Outcomes Research (VIGOR) study,
and thus, misrepresents the safety profile for Vioxx. Specifically, your promotional campaign discounts the fact that in the VIGOR study, patients on Vioxx were observed
to have a four to five fold increase in myocardial infarctions (MIs) compared to patients on the comparator nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory
drug (NSAID), Naprosyn (naproxen).
In Merck’s VIGOR study, comparing rofecoxib to naproxen, there was a highly
statistically significant five-fold increase in heart attacks in the overall rofecoxib {VIOXX} group (0.5
percent) compared to the naproxen group (0.1 percent). This amounted to 20 heart attacks with rofecoxib (out of 4,047 patients)
compared with four with naproxen (out of 4,029 patients). This increased number of heart attacks was also accompanied by an
increase in other thrombotic (blood clotting) adverse effects such as strokes and blood clots in the legs as well as problems
with hypertension in the rofecoxib group compared with the naproxen group.
Vioxx May Have Caused 140,000 Heart Attacks
Jan 26 '05
Food and Drug Administration safety reviewer David Graham estimates that Merck's Vioxx may
have caused as many as 140,000 heart attacks in the U.S. before it was withdrawn last September. His estimate was published
in the British medical journal Lancet.
The study was based on records of 1.4 million
members of Kaiser Permanente, the largest U.S. nonprofit insurer, with 6 million members in California. Many of the cases
may have been fatal, Graham said.
A Merck spokesman said the estimate of harm
from Vioxx was "speculation." Determinations of Vioxx's potential role in patients' cardiovascular problems "can only be made
on a case by case basis," he said.
The publication of Graham's findings is expected
to intensify the drug-safety debate that has swept Washington since the Vioxx withdrawal. Graham and other critics accuse
the FDA of being too slow to ban or tighten regulations on medicines that cause serious side effects.
Researchers compared the incidence of heart
attacks and sudden cardiac death for patients taking Vioxx with those on Pfizer's Celebrex, a similar painkiller, and over-the-counter
medications.
Applying the findings across the U.S. population,
"We arrived at the estimate of 88,000 to 140,000 patients that had a heart attack in the U.S. because they used Vioxx" after
it was introduced in 1999, Graham said.
Portions of the study had been disclosed
earlier. Graham said in Nov. 18 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee that between 88,000 and 139,000 heart attacks
may have been linked to Vioxx.
Merck withdrew Vioxx after a company study
showed that patients taking it for 18 months or longer had twice the risk of heart attacks and strokes -- 1.5 percent -- as
those taking a placebo.
Graham said his bosses at the FDA at one
point threatened to fire him as associate director for science and medicine in the agency's Office of Drug Safety if he published
the findings.
The study found that Vioxx, given at the
standard dose, increases the risk of heart attack by about 50 percent, compared with Pfizer's Celebrex, and more than triples
the risk of heart attacks when given at high doses. The two drugs suppress the body's production of the Cox-2 enzyme, which
is linked to pain and swelling.
People taking Vioxx had a 34 percent higher
chance of heart disease compared with those taking other painkillers including Celebrex, naproxen and ibuprofen, the study
found.
Patients taking naproxen, a generic painkiller
sold as Aleve by Bayer AG, had a 14 percent increase in heart risk compared with some other painkillers such as ibuprofen,
the study showed. Previous trials had suggested naproxen may protect against cardiac disease.
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