By Adam Allington, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – A widely used diabetes pill called Avandia made headlines on Tuesday for an apparent link between use of the drug and increased risk of heart attack and heart disease.
But consensus on that report is far from universal.
After the New England Journal published a report linking Avandia to increased risk of heart attack, industry analysts pointed to the drug as another Vioxx-like example of the government failing to protect the public from an unsafe drug.
Don't believe all that you read, says Dr. Kim Carmichael of the Washington University Diabetes Center: "We've had lots of patients call and ask about this drug, wanting to come off the drug-don't stop the medication.
"The benefits of the medicine in terms of controlling the diabetes at least immediately are going to far outweigh the potential risk."
Carmichael says the total number of heart attacks in patients who took the drug and those who didn't are nearly equal at one half of one percent.