materia3 said:
The action of Merck this morning stands in sharp contrast to the all out fight put on by unregulated makers of "natural" ephedra or ephedrine (MaHuang) containing products, a substance known to cause potentially fatal and any number of actually fatal cardiac arrhthymias. Not one of these firms, faced with the evidence that ephedra was dangerous, would voluntarily recall their products. Non-prescription ephedrine had be outlawed instead for this to happen. This was a long and litigous process with hearings and investigations and all the while people were dying from its side effects.
It's even more than that. It's the fact that this study was actually
done.
OK, the original purpose of the study was to see whether the drug might protect against bowel cancer or something like that. But consider that altmed equivalent. We think our snake-oil might protect against bowel cancer? OK, let's just say so (well, not quite in so many words, but the same way as all the other claims get made). Actually look to see if the claim is true before marketing it for that purpose? Don't make me laugh!
Then, shock, horror, the data show something that wasn't expected, that the incidence of stroke and heart attack was higher in people taking the drug long-term. Do we think that alt-med, even in the unlikely event of its having started such a study, would have collected those data? Or taken them seriously? Again, flying pig time.
One more adverse effect thrown up by a properly controlled large-scale drug trial. To go with osteoporosis and retinol, and lung cancer and beta-carotene. And even HRT and heart disease. Things nobody even suspected from simply looking at patients anecdotally.
OK, the ephedrine was a bit obvious, but supposing other herbal or altmed products were doing stuff like the Vioxx was doing? How would anyone ever know? Nobody is doing the studies, nobody is obliged to do the studies, it's just plain scary.
Rolfe.
