Merck's VIOXX®
Etopia Media Medical News Network #42:
Calling the findings of JAMA-published study linking the use of "proton pump inhibitors," such as Prilosec®, Prilosec OTC®, and Nexium®, and H2-inhibitors, such as Zantac®, to increased risk of pneumonia "hypothesized," "weak at best," and "not news," Procter & Gamble spokesperson says its product will remain on the market without any formulation or marketing changes
Cincinnati, Ohio
October 29, 2004
By Marc Strassman
This page and its contents are copyright © 2004 by Etopia Media News Networks. All rights in all media reserved.
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Etopia Media Medical News Network
Etopia Media News Networks
Merck's VIOXX®
Dr. Kurt Weingand is the Associate Director of Procter & Gamble's Health Sciences Institute in Cincinnati. Procter & Gamble markets Prilosec OTC®, a proton pump inhibitor that suppresses the expression of stomach acid as a means of treating heartburn and related ailments, such as acid reflux disease, or GERD.
In a recent study just published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) and discussed in "Etopia Media Medical News Network #40: Patients may be getting burnt, as bio-scientists play with fire" the authors, led by Robert J. F. Laheij ("lay-hee"), conclude that:
"Current use of gastric acid–suppressive therapy was associated with an increased risk of community-acquired pneumonia."
Dr. Weingand, speaking on behalf of Procter & Gamble in a recorded interview today with Etopia Media Medical News Network referred its listeners to an editorial by James C. Gregor, MD, that accompanies the Laheij article and which, he says, minimizes the significance of the main article's conclusion.
Dr. Weingard says that Procter & Gamble will not be taking Prilosec OTC off the market, the way Merck recently did after its own study showed that patients taking VIOXX® had an elevated risk of "cardiac events."