Ruling Unlikely to Affect Prescribing
By Sabine Vollmer, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
Jul. 31–The recommendation Monday by a regulatory advisory panel not to pull GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia from the market is unlikely to add much clarity to the confusion that has surrounded the diabetes drug for two months.
Most Triangle doctors are not inclined to change their prescribing practices, and many patients still are reluctant to resume the treatment.
Dr. Mark Feinglos, chief of Duke University’s endocrinology division, is waiting for a final decision from the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. John Buse, head of the diabetes center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an early critic of Avandia, said he would still prescribe the pill in limited cases — if a patient needs a glitazone-based drug and the insurance won’t cover other medicines in that class.
Tim Jernigan and Robert Clymore, two Triangle diabetes patients who went off the drug, have no plans to take it again.
Clymore, 39, of Willow Springs, took Avandia for about 14 months. He didn’t experience any problems when a Veterans Affairs doctor in Fayetteville took him off the drug in May 2006 but continued two other diabetes medications. He has followed the Avandia controversy but isn’t worried about lingering health effects. “There are certain risks you take with any medication,” he said.
Jernigan, 46, changed his medication because he was afraid the pills were hurting more than helping.
A diabetes patient for about 10 years, he gained 10 pounds in three months; his blood pressure and cholesterol levels went out of control. Where he once rose at 5 a.m. for his job in Holly Springs, fatigue made it hard to get out of bed.
A cardiologist didn’t find anything wrong with his heart, but two months after he stopped taking Avandaryl, Jernigan said he feels strong and energetic.”I’m back with my cape on,” he said.
He keeps a few of the controversial pills in his medicine cabinet, even though he has no intention of taking them. That way, in the event of a class-action lawsuit, he says he’ll have proof that he took the drug.
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