NPR

I was also listening to NPR two days ago and they mentioned the Vioxx/Cox-2 debate again. I’ve already peripherally addressed the issue while talking about Zoloft. Here’s my thoughts on the show.

Why does the FDA have to add another board to regulate drugs already on the market when there is a board that already does that? Why will we, as taxpayers, have to pay more, for more beauracracy? Why should we think that an agency that couldn’t adequately keep all its ducks in a row before, will now do so with more ducks?

Drugs already take years to get to the market. Most Americans don’t understand that a drug released in 2005, probably started testing in the early 1980s. There are three phases of clinical trials that probably started about 1990. Testing costs companies like Phizer hundreds of millions of dollars. Cynics would argue that a company would want to hush bad trials so they can get their investment to market and make a killing (bad pun) on patients. However, scientists constantly review colleagues work. The scientific community would conduct their own clinical trials on drugs and realize what was hushed up. Therefore, it’s in a company’s best interest to do things right. They would lose far more money from bad name recognition than waiting awhile for a drug to be released.

The "oversight" of stroke and heart attacks among users of Vioxx is bad, and things will be done about it. But this is the industry correcting itself, and I don't think we need to add to an already large and glutted government to do what we are doing anyway.