aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Friday, April 28, 2006
Ads work, warnings don’t
CELEBREX may increase the chance of a heart attack or stroke that can lead to death. It should not be used right before or after certain heart surgeries.
Serious skin reactions or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers, can occur without warning and may cause death. [Emphasis in original]Patients taking aspirin and the elderly are at increased risk for stomach bleeding and ulcers. [...]
People with aspirin-sensitive asthma or allergic reactions due to aspirin or other arthritis medicines or certain drugs called sulfonamides should not take CELEBREX.
Prescription CELEBREX should be used exactly as prescribed at the lowest dose possible and for the shortest time needed.
If I were king, I’d ban prescription drug advertising aimed at consumers:
As it resumes ads for the controversial medicine, Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, is offering consumers a decidedly mixed message. But 16 months after the company stopped advertising Celebrex over concerns about its heart risks, Pfizer has returned to the consumer ad market in hopes of reviving sales of the drug, which plunged last year during the ad moratorium.
The new campaign in magazines has raised the ire of consumer groups, who say that Celebrex is so dangerous that Pfizer should stop selling it, not encourage patients to use it. The campaign is more evidence of the drug industry’s dependence on consumer advertising to prop up sales, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, a frequent critic of drug makers.
Celebrex’s safer-for-the-stomach benefit has never been proved, and without advertising its sales were fell by half.
