The controversy over Avandia's safety is creating a rift among doctors and leading to charges that patients are being put in dangerThe news last week that GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) popular diabetes drug Avandia may increase the risk of heart attacks is now causing a rift among doctors by specialty, leading to charges by each side that the other is endangering patients. Endocrinologists, who treat diabetics, tend to regard the data, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, with skepticism, pointing to weaknesses in the study, particularly when compared to more rigorous clinical trials. Cardiologists and drug safety experts, foremost among them study author Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, are more alarmed, though even they are recommending that patients not go off the drug without first consulting their physicians.
Caught in the middle are the diabetes patients already taking Avandia, which sensitizes the body to insulin. Doctors in the trenches say many patients are confused and scared, which raises concerns that they may stop taking the drug without medical consultation. "This kind of controversy really frustrates the average doctor," says Dr. Ron Lamberts, a primary-care physician with Evans Medical Group in Evans, Ga., who treats a number of diabetics. He finds the data in Nissen's study questionable and would prefer to wait for the results of the large, rigorously designed safety trial of Avandia which is scheduled to end in 2009.
"A Public Health Emergency"
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