Articles Tagged with side effects

Actemra: Can This Arthritis Drug Hurt You?

Published on: February 27, 2018 | By Clay Hodges

You go to the doctor to get help, not to be hurt. And you take medicine to be healed, not to be harmed. However, some prescription drugs, like Actemra, may do the latter – hurt you instead of help you.

If you or a loved one have rheumatoid arthritis, you may have been prescribed or heard of Actemra. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder that causes the joints to swell and become painful. Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, is a prescription drug that is injected weekly or infused monthly to aid patients with their symptoms and slow the progression of RA.

Recently, Actemra has also been prescribed to “help” those with giant cell arteritis. Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a blood vessel disease that causes the vessels, primarily those in the scalp and head, to swell and become inflamed.

Do You Take Tasigna to Treat Leukemia? You Could Be at Risk for Atherosclerosis—and the Manufacturer May Not Want You to Know

Published on: February 7, 2018 | By Clay Hodges

If you have a specific type of leukemia—Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, or Ph+ CML—you may have been prescribed the chemotherapy drug Tasigna (nilotinib). Tasigna offers promise for some patients and may even be associated with remission of their disease—but it’s not without risks.

What’s more alarming, the drug’s manufacturer, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, may have known about those risks and failed to disclose them to you. People who have been harmed or lost loved ones due to Tasigna have sued Novartis. Here’s what you need to know.

What Is Tasigna?

Six Steps To Take If You Were Hurt by the Diabetes Drug Invokana

Published on: November 2, 2017 | By Clay Hodges

Diabetes is a serious condition that affects the way the body metabolizes sugar. Over 29 million Americans currently suffer from the disease. Of the newly diagnosed cases of diabetes in adults, around 95% are for Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body produces enough insulin but cannot use insulin properly. Type 2 diabetes results in high blood sugar levels which can cause long-term health problems. So what does all this mean? From the perspective of pharmaceutical companies, it means there is a massive market for Type 2 diabetes drugs. Enter the latest diabetes “wonder drug,” Invokana. Continue reading

Invokana Black Box Warning After Studies Show Higher Amputation Risk

Published on: October 27, 2017 | By Clay Hodges

Two recent clinical trials studying Invokana (canagliflozin) shed light on the diabetes drug’s alarming side effects. Canagliflozin is a type 2 sodium-glucose transport inhibitor (SGLT2 inhibitor) marketed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. The medication works to lower blood sugar levels in the body by stopping the kidneys from reabsorbing blood glucose. Instead of the blood glucose staying in the body, it is removed with the body’s urine.

The clinical trials were named CANVAS and CANVAS-R, based on long scientific acronyms. The studies examined the effects of canagliflozin on patients with Type-2 diabetes. The trials discovered that leg and foot amputations occurred twice as often in patients taking canagliflozin as those treated with a placebo.

The risk for amputations broke down like this: 5.9 out of every 1,000 patients treated with canagliflozin suffered amputation, as compared to 2.8 out of every 1,000 patients treated with a placebo. Over a year’s time, the risk of amputation was 7.5 out of every 1,000 patients treated with canagliflozin, compared to 4.2 out of every 1,000 patients treated with a placebo. These are statistically significant results, meaning the risk of amputation for those people taking Invokana was large enough to cause alarm in the medical community.

In the clinical trials, amputations of the toe and middle of the foot were the most common; however, amputations of the leg, below and above the knee, also occurred. Some patients had more than one amputation.

Based on this new data, the FDA ordered new warnings, including a prominent boxed warning, to be added to the canagliflozin drug labels to explain and describe this risk. Continue reading

Actemra: Arthritis Drug Maker Fails to Warn Patients of Serious Risks

Published on: August 14, 2017 | By Clay Hodges

Many things in life involve a cost benefit analysis. We’re constantly taking risks that can cause harm, but choose to take on that risk because the benefits outweigh the dangers. A good example of this is driving a car. There is a risk of getting into an accident, but the benefit of having on-demand personal transportation is easily worth it.

Prescription medications are no different. Each one is intended to provide a benefit, although each will always have at least some side effects or adverse reactions. The question is never, “does the drug have a side effect or adverse reaction?” Rather, it’s “how many side effects and adverse reactions are there and how bad are they?”

It’s no surprise to learn that many medications on the market today have numerous side effects and adverse reactions, some of them deadly. Yet, they’re available for use not only because the benefits may outweigh the risks for a significant number of consumers, but also because the makers of the medication are required to inform consumers of these risks. So a pharmaceutical company that fails to properly warn consumers of the risks of its drugs can get into trouble. That’s exactly the issue with Actemra. Continue reading

“Off-Label” Drug Use: Pursuing Profits at the Expense of Safety?

Published on: February 17, 2017 | By Clay Hodges

Let me state the obvious: companies sell you stuff with one purpose in mind, to make money. McDonald’s doesn’t sell you quarter pounders because the company believes what you need to live a better life is to eat more quarter pounders. The NRA doesn’t advocate gun ownership because it believes you need to own five Glock 9s (you don’t), but rather so the gun makers can sell more guns. Mercedes doesn’t make expensive cars because its board of directors hope to improve the world by selling you cars with heated leather seats. Every company sets out first to last to make money. And the more money the better.

So it goes with pharmaceutical companies. The general public may sleepwalk through the concept and lazily presume that the primary motivation for drug companies is to develop medications which cure diseases or which minimize the suffering from diseases. But in fact the motivation for pharmaceutical companies is to make money, and a lot of it. This is rather obvious and not a controversial point, and I’d like to believe that every “BigPharma” corporate board would agree with me. But it helps to keep this profit motive in mind when doing research on drugs you have been prescribed or which you are currently taking. And to be hyper-vigilant about assessing any new “wonder drugs” which hit the market.

“Off-Label” Drug Promotion

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