Tag: warfarin
Genomic testing at your pharmacy: Ready for prime time?
Despite science’s ability to develop sophisticated and targeted new drugs, predicting the effect of a drug in an individual is still maddeningly difficult. Not every drug works for everyone that takes it. Similarly, the very same drug can be well tolerated in some, but can cause intolerable side effects in others. So-called “targeted therapies” were supposed to improve our accuracy, by focusing...
And Now for Something Completely Different
This will be a departure from my usual posts. Several announcements in the news and medical journals have caught my attention recently, and as I delved into the details, I thought I would share them with our SBM readers. Topics include AIDS cures, the continuing danger of polio, eating nuts for longevity, racial differences in vitamin D, and the use of pharmacogenetic...
Reducing the Risk of Adverse Drug Events
Critics of mainstream medicine often point to the dangers of drugs. I previously wrote about “Death by Medicine,” where I explained the fallacy of fixating on harmful effects of drugs without putting them into perspective with all the good drugs do. Yes, patients have died from severe allergic reactions to penicillin, but penicillin has also saved countless lives. A recent article in The...
Dabigatran: A Promising Alternative to Warfarin
On October 19, 2010, the FDA approved a long-awaited new drug, dabigatran, expected to replace warfarin (Coumadin) as a better way to prevent blood clots in susceptible patients. This provides an opportunity to re-visit several issues that we have addressed before, including Big Pharma tactics, drug approval by the FDA, deciding what is adequate evidence, applying science to clinical practice, and making...
Genetic Testing for Patients on Coumadin
Anticoagulation is advised for patients who have had a blood clot or who are at increased risk of blood clots because of atrial fibrillation, artificial heart valves, or other conditions. Over 30 million prescriptions are written every year in the US for the anticoagulant warfarin, best known under the brand name Coumadin. Originally developed as a rat poison, warfarin has proved very...