Celebrex
Robert Filice, M.D. Former staff physician
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.