Although millions of people take calcium supplements to boost bone health and ward off osteoporosis, New Zealand researchers say the supplements have little effect on bone strength and contribute to a small increase in the risk for heart attack among older people.
Rather than relying on calcium supplements, the researchers suggest that people get their required [...]
The pharmacy company that makes Avandia knew more than a decade ago that the blockbuster diabetes drug caused an increased risk of heart problems but covered up the information, according to a report published Tuesday in The New York Times.
In a 1999 trial pitting Avandia against its competitor, Actos, the drug company, then known as [...]
The anti-clotting drug Plavix must now carry a “black box” warning on its label, alerting patients and doctors that some people don’t metabolize the medication properly, U.S. health officials said Friday.
Patients with a certain genetic variation can’t convert the blood thinner into its active form, which puts them at risk for heart attack and stroke, [...]
The risks of two widely used asthma drugs outweigh their benefits for both children and adults, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel said Thursday.
The health panel targeted GlaxoSmithKline’s Serevent and Foradil, made jointly by Novartis AG and Schering-Plough, for restrictions, but it excluded Advair, Glaxo’s biggest-selling drug in the class of medications known [...]
US drugmakers Pfizer Inc and Nektar Therapeutics on Wednesday warned of cases of lung cancer in clinical trials of their inhaled insulin Exubera.
The findings led Nektar to announce it was abandoning its search for a new marketing partner for the troubled drug, effectively signaling Exubera’s demise after entering the market in January 2006.
Pfizer, the world’s [...]
U.S. health officials have ordered all imports of the blood thinner heparin, and its raw ingredient, stopped at the border for testing to detect a contaminant linked to 19 deaths.
The Food and Drug Administration announced the move Friday, the latest step in its widening investigation of hundreds of allergic-type reactions linked to Baxter International’s heparin [...]
Drug maker Amgen Inc. said Friday it expanded black box warnings about risks of death and tumor growth of its blockbuster anemia drugs.
The warnings approved by the Food and Drug Administration state that the company’s drugs increased death and accelerated tumor growth in patients with early stage breast cancer and cervical cancer. Earlier labeling warned [...]
The popular anti-wrinkle drug Botox and a competitor have been linked to dangerous botulism symptoms in some users, cases so bad that a few children given the drugs for muscle spasms have died, the government warned Friday.
The Food and Drug Administration’s warning includes both Botox, a wrinkle-specific version called Botox Cosmetic, and its competitor, Myobloc, [...]
If you want to stop taking an antidepressant, it’s important to speak with your doctor first, the American Academy of Family Physicians says. The doctor may recommend weaning your body off the medication gradually.
People who stop an antidepressant too quickly may trigger a host of symptoms that doctors call antidepressant discontinuation syndrome. Symptoms may include:
Anxiety.
Feelings [...]
The findings of clinical trials have linked the use of thiazolidinediones, a class of diabetes drugs, with congestive heart failure and possibly heart attacks. Now, new research indicates that these associations, at least with Avandia, also apply to individuals in the community, and not just clinical trials.
Dr. Lorraine L. Lipscombe, from the Institute for Clinical [...]
