Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17563

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Moynihan R
Rosiglitazone, marketing, and medical science
BMJ 2010 Apr 7; 340:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/340/apr07_2/c1848

Abstract:

Casually following the fortunes of the blockbuster diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia), you can’t help but imagine a Hollywood thriller. There is the scene where a leading scientist secretly records a meeting with drug company executives, a high powered congressional investigation, and a bitter legal battle waiting in the wings. Yet when you look more closely, the facts are even stranger than fiction. An expensive new drug shown to raise the risk of heart failure and suspected of increasing the chance of heart attacks has been taken by millions of people around the world and is being kept on the market by an industry funded regulatory system, despite calls from senior safety experts to withdraw it. For its part, the drug’s manufacturer strongly denies the link with heart attacks and points to evidence to back its claims. But the details of this unfolding real life drama suggest a now familiar merging . . .