Celebrex
Robert Filice, M.D.
I remember
very well when the new drug Celebrex came onto the US market in late
1998.There was a lot of hype and fanfare. I even got requests from my
relatives in Italy to get them some for their arthritis! Recently I was
looking at my Journal of Family Practice (March 2007) and I run into an
article based on a study just completed this year that compared Celebrex
with Tylenol. Guess what?
For the short term of the study the two drugs
were "virtually indistinguishable" with regards to improving pain,
stiffness, and function in patients with clinically diagnosed
osteoarthritis. In a classic statement, the authors concluded that
because acetomenophen is less expensive and has fewer safety concerns,
it should be the drug of first choice.
I am happy
to report that although I may have written a few refill prescriptions
for Celebrex, I never started any of my patients on this drug. I
understand that it is one of the drugs that rheumatologists like to try
for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and I like to think that
Celebrex would outperform Tylenol for an inflammatory condition such as
that. But what percent of the prescriptions for Celebrex were written
for osteoarthritis patients?
How many osteoarthritis patients asked
their doctors for a prescription for this amazing new wonder drug that
grossed over a billion dollars in sales its first year out? Lots and
many are the answers to those two questions. What I want to know is why
did it take 8 full years of post approval usage and 300 billion in gross
revenues to Pfizer Corporation to come up with a simple study that
showed it was no more effective than Tylenol in osteoarthritis patients? Celebrex took a big jump in popularity after the
Vioxx debacle, but in
the last few years sales have been settling back down to earth as
concerns about cardiovascular risk begin to stick on this drug's
reputation as well.
The moral
of this story and the main point is the same one I have made in other
ways in other articles over the years. Multimillion dollar marketing
campaigns can make anything look good, even toxic and ineffective
pharmaceuticals. The American public is being used and manipulated, and
the bottom line with these drugs and the companies that make them is
money not medicine. Sometimes (though not often) I am glad I have a
particular drug to choose from, but normally I can and do manage a busy
general nutritional medicine practice treating all human diseases
without them. My advice is to be skeptical, read the fine print,, and
don't believe that what you see in the media is an accurate portrayal of
the value of any particular
drug. Seek a natural solution to
your health issues first.
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