Posted by yxibow on December 17, 2004, at 22:33:11
In reply to Re: Lilly Adds Warning to Strattera Label - Liver, posted by Dan Perkins on December 17, 2004, at 21:30:56
> Look, if Lilly put a warning label on it, there is a much bigger problem than only 2 non-fatal liver problems out of 2 million users. I mean, if it were really only 2 people, why would they agree to add a warning label and attract all of this negative publicity?
Because of exactly the very conspiracy theory that I feel you may be alluding to; medications that have had benifits for the vast majority except 10 patient-lives out of a million have been pulled because the ambulance-chasers line up off and online ready to pull at the heartstrings of some who have nothing better to do than worry that floridation has ate their spleen. Now... I dont pretend to side with the drug companies... there have indeed been some disasters... drug companies market to the extreme, drugs should be made more cheaply available, the list goes on. But Lilly put the warning rather than get into a situation that BMS got into with the pull of Serzone from the market after a series of bad episodes, again in the small double digits of liver toxicity, but this time it had progressed beyond a mere warning.
It's a balance between having tools available for what is not necessarily noticed as life-saving methods for a market, e.g. schizophrenia (a $2+ billion dollar in the US) .. life saving being the restoration of hope and activity to at least some patients and the vast reduction of suicide, the same can similarly be said for bipolar --- and not having any tools at all because they're not perfect. Fifty years... heck I hope 25 years from now we'll look back at all the psychiatric medication and say that we were all groping in the dark. Some medications like Geodon have been returned to the market because post-post market studies have relieved them of a previously thought black box -- the QTc interval, one that still isnt on Mellaril.
poster:yxibow
thread:430942
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041217/msgs/431087.html