Benicar questions

[ritaxis]

The FDA is reviewing 2 studies showing increased heart-related death rates from the use of the bl;ood pressure drug Benicar, which I have been using for a few years after the ones I was using before caused coughing.

The timing of this bothers me. Why? Because I know that Benicar is about to go generic. I know this because my insurance company has been trying to blackmail me into going back to the drugs that make me cough. They offer me six months free on the old drug and fifteen dollars a month after that, versus the fifty-five dollars I have to pay for Benicar. My doctor told me I should sit tight because the drug is going to go generic in about a year.

So I wonder. Was Benicar always dangerous and nobody happened to discover it until it was about to stop being a proprietary cash cow? or is Benicar even dangerous at all? Or am I too cynical about all this?

Edit: there's a new shiny angiotensin receptor blocker in the works: I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Comments

[shana.livejournal.com]

I've had no problem with Benicar; I was also switched to it several years ago after a previous drug made me cough.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Impossible to be too cynical.

Looks like the studies were on type 2 diabetics... do you have that?

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

What meds did you have trouble with? I'm okay with lisinopril and atenolol.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'll offer a third hypothesis: the time-span for reviewing "side" effects of drugs that only show up in observable fashion through long-term statistical analysis may be similar in magnitude to the time-limit on drugs remaining proprietary.

There are always several levels of pre-approval clinical trials for safety and efficacy, but if the increased rate of a particular effect is relatively low, it may not be distinguishable from noise at the time of approval. (A contributing factor may be if the effect is associated with the combination of the drug and some other factor or condition.)

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

WTF, drug manufacturers? The reason we take blood pressure meds is to avoid heart-related deaths, so if that's a side effect, um...

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Well, a lot of drugs help and harm in the same general body system, depending on a bunch of interacting factors.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

It's true, I just read up today on how fluctuations in blood pressure can cause heart disease (reminded me of yo-yo dieting, actually). Nonetheless.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Yesterday's WashPost had an article on the results of drugs after they'd been taken for a while, and said Rare and sometimes serious side effects are often discovered only when a drug is used by a much larger and more varied group of patients than exposed to it in clinical trials leading to its approval. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/16/AR2010061605931.html)