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Three lawsuits against the makers of Fosamax, a popular medication to prevent bone loss, are slated to go to trial, including one filed in Alabama state court by Beasley Allen attorney W. Chad Cook. The lawsuits are among the nearly 900 cases brought against Merck & Co. by 1,280 plaintiff groups who allege Fosamax caused them serious jaw problems.
A science and health publisher says years ago it published what appeared to be medical journals for a group of Australian doctors that heavily favored Merck and Co.’s drugs Fosamax and Vioxx. The journals didn’t list who paid for the publishing, when in fact the publications were sponsored by Merck.
A West Liberty, Iowa, doctor is urging members of his hometown to follow a good diet and do weight-bearing exercise in lieu of taking medications to remedy ailments such as low bone density. Dr. Carl Gillman with West Liberty Chiropractic Center posed his argument in a recent issue of the West Liberty Index.
It seemed suspicious to the team of dentists at the University of Southern California (USC), the fact that so many patients treated at the university dental clinic were being diagnosed with osteonecrosis of the jaw, or ONJ. So dentists there pored through the records of more than 13,000 patients and found that 208 of them had been taking the osteoporosis drug Fosamax, and of those 208, four percent had ONJ.
Osteoprosis poses a serious health risk for women. According to Natural News, women have a higher risk of dying from the bone condition than from breast cancer. But the treatment may be just as dangerous.
Fosamax is in a class of drugs called bisphosphonates (also called diphosphonates) that inhibit osteoclast action and the resorption of bone. It is one of the more popular choices for the treatment of osteoporosis. Natural News warns that Fosamax has been shown to increase the risk of ulcers, especially if taken with anti-inflammatory drugs. The publication also questions whether the medication actually strengthens the bone or makes it weaker.
Back in January we explained how many pharmaceutical companies, following a Hollywood business model, have started to experience an erosion of their profits as patents expire on their “blockbuster” drugs. Aggressive, multi-billion-dollar marketing campaigns lead to multi-billion-dollar drug sales, but when patents expire, so do profits.
The Los Angeles Times on Sunday examined how the business “strategy that has made the pharmaceutical industry one of the wealthiest and most powerful on Earth” might have begun to “betray it.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is going to be taking another look at Fosamax and other bone building drugs because they could be causing irregular heartbeats in some patients.
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