Believing the flood of advertisement on television, radio, and billboards Americans are being duped into
paying money for a drug that claims to have fewer side effects then the older and cheaper drugs such as ibuprofen or other similar drugs. These new drugs acronymed NSAIDs, because of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug qualities, have been known to send over one hundred thousand people to the hospital for gastrointestinal bleeding and out of that number sixteen thousand of them do not survive. The COX-2 inhibitors are popular because they make this claim that they are safer when in all actuality they are not.
The makers of Celebrex have been found to falsify the reports of their products side effects. This is unethical in the pharmaceutical industry and a lot of devoted Celebrex fans are looking elsewhere for relief of their arthritis and investors are beginning to worry about the future of the company. To add insult to injury, not only has the company lied to their customers about the side effects that they knew were present in the drug, but they also tried to change research results. Changing research results not only compromises the integrity of the science involved in the research, but any research that is derived from that falsified study
is now in jeopardy of producing misleading results that could cost people money and at most their lives.
Since then additional health risks have been uncovered by honest researchers. The investigation has caused similar drugs such as Vioxx and Bextra to be removed off the shelves because of concern of misleading labels and dishonest claims. Vioxx was removed from the shelves in September of 2004 and Bextrea
was removed in April of 2005. Why are the makers of these COX-2 inhibitors trying to deceive the public in such a dangerous fashion? Is making money more important than providing the public with well researched
prescription drugs more important?
The side effects were not little either. It wasn’t nausea or dizziness nor was it diarrhea or stomach problems. The COX-2 inhibitors have caused an increased risk of kidney problems. These could include kidney infection or even the shut down of the entire organ. We have two kidneys and can live with one, but these drugs attacked both of them leaving the sufferer in dire straits. The other side effect was the delay
in healing of fractures. These could put thousands of people out of work and out of their lifestyle because they are waiting for a fracture to heal and they have to sit around in a cast or brace.
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