Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Contraindicated prescribing claims two more casualties: Permax and Zelnorm

According to Pharm Aid contraindicated prescribing is responsible for the withdrawal of these two drugs from the market. You can bet the trial lawyers are interested and they’ll be going after the drug companies, not the doctors. The drug companies will also take the public relations hit. Contraindicated prescribing not only causes direct harm to patients but also, by causing good drugs to be yanked, deprives many patients of beneficial therapies.

I’ve previously blogged this very point here and here and discussed it in the Medscape Roundtable here.

1 comment:

Q said...

I completely agree; my wife suffered intractable constipation complicated by a megacolon until she started Zelnorm. Her only alternative now is surgery and lowered quality of life. The test results speak for themselves: statistically insignificant, and the affected minority already candidates for an incident. This process is deeply flawed; hopefully there will be enough pushback to get the decision reversed. Responsible physicians must speak up loud and clear on this.