Subaqua Sternal Rubs

Hmm two new articles on more troubles for Pfizer… and I still have stock in this company…

Pfizer to Stop Advertising Celebrex to Consumers

Pfizer said yesterday that it would immediately suspend advertising Celebrex, its best-selling arthritis pain reliever, to consumers after a cancer-prevention study showed that high doses were associated with an increased risk of heart attacks.

The suspension of advertising, which is indefinite, includes television, radio, newspaper and magazine ads and other promotions to consumers, a Pfizer spokeswoman, Mariann Caprino, said yesterday. Some magazine ads may appear for a few more weeks because of the long lead time of magazine advertising, she said.

Pfizer appears to have had little choice in deciding to end the advertising campaigns. The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it was considering regulatory measures that could include severe label warnings or even requiring that the drug be withdrawn in the United States.

The federal agency agreed with the advertising withdrawal, Ms. Caprino said, adding, "We discussed it with the F.D.A. and we all concurred that it was the appropriate step."

Pfizer, based in New York, spent $71 million advertising Celebrex to American consumers in the first nine months of this year, one of the biggest ad budgets for a prescription medicine. Those advertisements have annoyed some consumer advocates and scientists, who argue that they encouraged overuse of Celebrex among patients for whom the medicine offers little benefit over older drugs.

Read more at nytimes.com

Doctors Writing to Avoid Pfizer's Bextra -Medical Journal

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Doctors writing in a prominent medical journal on Friday recommended that physicians stop prescribing Pfizer Inc.'s Bextra painkiller, just as a large study found the drug maker's sister drug, Celebrex, doubled risk of heart attacks.

Both drugs are members of the so-called COX-2 inhibitor class of painkillers, which recently gained notoriety when Merck & Co. Inc. withdrew Vioxx in September after a study found it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke.

A letter by three top doctors published in The New England Journal of Medicine said that in light of Vioxx and negative signs on Bextra, Bextra should be avoided.

"We believe the doubts raised about the safety of valdecoxib (Bextra), constitute a potential imminent hazard to public health" and thus they should be prescribed only in "extraordinary circumstances," editorial writers at The New England Journal of Medicine wrote in an issue dated Dec. 23, but released early.

Earlier on Friday, Pfizer, the world's No. 1 drug maker, said a government-sponsored trial of Celebrex was halted after patients taking the medicine had more than twice as many heart attacks as patients taking a placebo.

The developments are rekindling debate over the merits and safety of the entire class of painkiller drugs, doctors interviewed by Reuters said.

Read more at Reuters

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