Posted by yxibow on December 18, 2004, at 16:01:00
In reply to Re: Lilly Adds Warning to Strattera Label - Liver, posted by Dan Perkins on December 18, 2004, at 8:16:43
My point was to address the gentleman who said "I'm throwing mine out today." I should have been more clear on that. Tests for liver function while on medication are fairly easy, I routinely have a panel of things for the polypharmacy that I face. Yes... if you look at severe trainwrecks like Vioxx then my argument doesnt hold, I agree. I was trying to carefully phrase things but its hard to phrase things carefully enough online. My point was more towards drugs like Geodon which were pulled because tests showed an elongation in the QTc interval --- which I fully agree is a bad thing --- before being returned to the market... however, drugs still prescribed routinely like Mellaril which elongate the QTc have never been examined in that light. I guess my point is that until Strattera is shown to have any more than a miniscule degree of reaction severity, if it overwhelmingly helps a patient, I would think the patient should still continue -- perhaps with a modest interval of ALT and Bilirubin tests. An average drug takes a number of years and countless millions to get to market; there is the flipside... the vast majority who aren't affected by a drug but who are faced with no other choice when it is pulled. Then people have to petition for orphan drug status. I'm just creating a healthy argument here. I speak for no side and I certainly don't want people to have liver injuries. I hope that clears things up.
poster:yxibow
thread:430942
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041217/msgs/431320.html