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I get the New York Times delivered. Every day for over a week, the makers* of a drug called Humira have been running colorful, eye-catching full-page ads headlined, in huge letters, an inch-and-a-half high, "doing dishes." That’s right. It’s about doing dishes. Doing dishes without pain.
The ad continues, in slightly smaller, but still large, bolded and colored letters, that doing dishes . . .
could be a splash . . . and is just one of the daily activities you may be able to do with less pain and stiffness.
Give your joints a chance and see how HUMIRA may help reduce pain and slow further joint damage from moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis
The banner headlines are shown with a large pair of blue rubber gloves — six inches high — that you’d use for dishwashing. Got the picture?
The ad continues:
HUMIRA is used to reduce the signs and symptoms of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis in adults, may prvent further damage to your bones and joints, and may help your ability to perform daily activities. HUMIRA can be used alone or with methotrexate or with certain other medicines . . .
So the ad is aimed at those who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis to relieve the pains folks get in their hands/joints. The opening message, and all the largest print and large picture, are about how if you suffer from this, you should ask your doctor about Humira, to see if it’s right for you.
However, a third of the way down, the message changes, in bold:
Serious infections have happened in patients taking HUMIRA. These infections include tuberculosis (TB) and enfectiosn caused by viruses, fungi, or bacteria that have spread throughout the body. Some of these serious infections have been fatal.
The new message continues unbolded:
Patients treated with HUMIRA also may be at risk for other serious side effects including certain types of cancers, allergic reactions hepatitis B virus reactivation, nervous system problems, blood problems, heart failure and certain immmue ractions, including a lupus-like syndrome.
HUMIRA is not for everyone. Only your doctor can decide if HUMIRA is right for you.
The ad then returns to larger type to conclude:
Talk to your Rheumatologist today. Learn more at go.humira.com or call . . .
Yeah. Go humira.
That’s all above the fold. Below the fold the ad continues in smaller print with "important safety information you should know about HUMIRA." And the ad continues below the fold on the entire bottom half of the next page, in very tiny print. So we get two half pages below the fold, in small to tiny print, filled with the stuff no one ever reads, like "important safety information you should know."
The fine print explains all the indications and warnings about side effects, lots of side effects, lots of very serious side effects — up to and including death.
So what appears to be happening, is that last year the FDA ordered the makers of HUMIRA, Abbott Labs, to warn HUMIRA users of these dangers. More here and here.
The FDA then accused Abbott of running misleading ads in medical publications (more here and here), and eventually required Abbott labs to run a series of large ads in a major newspaper warning Humira users about the dangers of using Humira — because apparently, lots of people were having very serious side effects, which may have killed them.
But most of this critical information is buried in a page worth of fine print, while the colorful eye-catching gloves and headlines above the fold are clearly urging you to buy something that will allow you to wash dishes without pain, except for the detail that it may cause a variety of very serious illnesses like cancer and heart disease and damage your nervous system and may kill you.
So in the health "reform" bills, what kind of a "deal" should we make with these people? And what’s the proper response the next time some idiot says, "we shouldn’t let the government come between you and your doctor"??
* You have to look very hard near the bottom of the page to find out this ad is brought to you by Abbott Laboratories, in Illinois.
More:
CNBC, "Arthritis drugs raise cancer risk in kids: FDA"
The Food and Drug Administration, which urged greater caution with so-called TNF blockers last September, said an analysis of 48 reported cancer cases in children using the drugs "showed an increased risk of cancer, occurring after 30 months of treatment on average."
Eleven of the reported cases were fatal, the FDA said.
Anti-TNF drugs include Johnson & Johnson’s Simponi or golimumab and its Remicade or infliximab; Abbott Laboratories’ Humira or adalimumab; UCB SA’s Cimzia or certolizumab pegol; and Amgen Inc and Wyeth’s Enbrel or etanercept. . . .
Last year, Abbott’s Humira earned $4.5 billion worldwide, while Amgen and Wyeth’s Ebrel earned $1.2 billion. J&J’s Remicade had 2008 sales of $3.7 billion. Its newer drug, Simponi, was approved earlier this year. UCB’s Cimzia, launched in 2008, had about $14.4 million in global sales.
5 Comments
You know, when I read the potential side effects and risks for drugs like this, particularly those which target diseases of inflammation, I wonder why it is they haven’t used this knowledge to reverse-engineer a cure for the very things the drug might cause.
Like cancer.
All drugs have side effects so it is always a tradeoff between their efficacy in treating a specific condition versus their downside. In many cases if a patient has an adverse reaction, the medication is simply stopped and a different one is tried in its place. Unfortunately, some of these reactions can be serious, even fatal. One of the most common examples in this regard that is pointed to is aspirin. Several thousand people die each year from bleeds associated with its use but there has never been any call to remove it from the market.
Determining side effects gets back to how drugs are tested. Various testing is done to show that a drug will have a certain effect and that its risk profile within a fairly small population is acceptable. It is only when the drug is released to be prescribed to the general population that other side effects can show up. On the basis of these, increased warnings may be ordered or the drug may be pulled from the market all together.
Unsurprisingly, drug companies have learned how to game the system in various ways. They fund studies that exaggerate a drug’s beneficial effects. They can minimize a drug’s serious side effects. It is often not that easy to prove a link between taking a drug and experiencing a side effect. You can look at these things statistically but if you look at individual cases or look for a direct link, drug companies can contest the process every step of the way.
In the meantime natural substances that can ease various illness/dis-eases get prosecuted/persecuted by the FDA and NO airtime in terms of educating the public.
Just more examples of how greed has overcome any sense of ethics or morality when it comes to the governance of this country. Yet the refrain of ‘personal responsibility’ is heard over and over again only to be hypocritically suppressed when such does occur by the FDA,DEA,etc.
You can find information about Humira here.
Humira or adalimumab is an IgG1 monoclonal antibody which binds to cell surface receptors for Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), which is involved in the body’s inflammatory and immune responses. So basically it is a TNF-alpha blocker. It will not just reduce inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis but reduce the body’s immune response for those diseases in which TNF-alpha plays a role in the body’s immune defense, like TB or hepatitis B.
I am afraid of prescriptions. I don’t know what it would take to get me to try anything now. The drug companies don’t care about health. They only care about money. And I know more about the dangers than my doctor does! What a mess.