Avandia recall

Update: In September 2010, the FDA basically banned the drug in the United States. The drug is also not available in Europe any more. For patients in the US, the drug will be made available only in very unique set of circumstances and that means that most patients will have to find alternative treatment because this drug had become a killer drug. Starting Nov 18, 2011 the drug will disappear from the shelves of pharmacies. Only a very small number of patients will have access to the drug thereafter.

Previously: As of July 14, 2010, the situation is that a panel of experts has recommended to the FDA that Avandia is too dangerous to be sold in its current form. The panel has recommended that the drug be either banned or sold with strong restrictions. A final decision will come from the FDA later. This was a follow-up meeting after the data released in Feb 2010 that showed people are unnecessarily dying from heart attacks. Documents show that as many as 800 attacks can be prevented each month if patients switched to Actos. In the last three months of 2009, over 300 people were killed by Avandia.

It has been concluded that the diabetes drug Avandia (manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, technical name: Rosiglitazone Maleate) raises the risk of heart attacks by 43%, according to findings published in The New England Journal of Medicine. This drug was approved in 1999 for the treatment of Type II diabetes. Since then there have been numerous reports of injuries and deaths of patients who took this drug, but like Vioxx, apparently neither the manufacturer nor the FDA took any action. In a belated move, FDA is forcing the company to add a black-box warning, which means that the drug is so dangerous that it should be taken only as a last resort. While Dr. David Graham had recommended that the drug be recalled due to its serious heart risks, a panel of experts (who often work as consultants to drug companies) voted against a ban.

Avandia recalled

You may be able to sue if you have been injured