Survey Monkey for “Better Living Through Chemistry”

Thanks in advance… Aranya

“Everything points in the direction of an increase in what we call suicidality,” said Dr. Russell Katz, director of the FDA’s neuropharmacological drug division in a Katz said in a June 6 Wall Street Journal article.

In January, the FDA announced that a review of 199 studies comparing 11 epilepsy drugs to placebos found that patients taking the drugs had about twice the risk of suicidal behavior compared with patients taking a placebo. Almost 44,000 patients in the studies, four people taking antiepileptic drugs committed suicide while none of the patients receiving a placebo did.

The drugs in this study included Carbamazepine (marketed as Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol XR), Felbamate (marketed as Felbatol), Gabapentin (marketed as Neurontin), Lamotrigine (marketed as Lamictal), Levetiracetam (marketed as Keppra), Oxcarbazepine (marketed as Trileptal), Pregabalin (marketed as Lyrica), Tiagabine (marketed as Gabitril), Topiramate (marketed as Topamax), Valproate (marketed as Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene, Depacon) and Zonisamide (marketed as Zonegran). Some of these drugs are also available as generics.

Some epilepsy drug makers like Pfizer and Abbot Laboratories have contested the FDA’s decision to place warning labels on the drugs claiming that the risks for suicidal behavior are minimal and that the labels will negatively impact company revenues.

I personally find this to be pretty galling, since pharmaceutical companies are basically saying they don’t want the FDA warning labels on their drugs because it means they will make less money. Translation: the fact that our drugs might cause people to kill themselves is less important than the fact that we might not make as much money as we want.

According to ESPN.com, a convicted steroids dealer who recently met with NFL security officials and gave them names of players he said bought steroids from him was found dead in his home in Plano, Texas on June 5.

Plano police made a welfare check and found 35-year-old David Jacobs and 30-year-old Amanda Jo Earhart-Savell dead. Both had been shot. Jacobs, who had been sentenced to three years of probation and fined $25,000 on May 1 after pleading guilty last year in federal court in Dallas to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute anabolic steroids, had told police that, “The kinds of people I know about could put a bullet in the back of my head.” It looks like that might have proven true.

Anabolic steroids have several side effects including liver damage, cardiovascular damage, blood pressure problems, increased erectile dysfunction, impotence, irreversible breast growth and atrophy or shrinkage of the testicles. It’s just so ironic that these athletes are using drugs to become more “manly,” and meanwhile the drugs cause some of the most unmanly side effects imaginable.

But most of all, it’s disturbing that some people are willing to kill for them.

Another athlete has fallen victim to prescription drug addiction. Starting New England Patriots offensive lineman Nicholas Kaczur was arrested in April on a charge of illegal possession of prescription painkillers. Following his arrest, Kaczur secretly cooperated with the DEA in a sting operation that resulted in the indictment of his alleged drug supplier. According to one news article, Kaczur was busted for purchasing oxycodone illegally from a Massachusetts man identified as Daniel Ekasala.

The number of people that get in trouble for trying to get this drug is clearly a testament to how powerfully addictive it is. Of course, I can’t help but wonder how athletes like football players can stay in the game when they are all dosed up on painkillers. And did they start taking painkillers because of injuries received during play, or was it an already existing habit? Either way, it’s sad that a prescription drug can ruin someone’s athletic career in one fell swoop.

The problem with ordering prescription drugs from online pharmacies, is that you have no idea what you’re getting. Just ask the woman from this recent CNN Health article.

“Every night before her husband went to bed, he would open a prescription bottle of the muscle relaxant Soma and swallow the eight or nine pills it took for him to fall asleep, said the woman.”

The truth of the matter is, there are no shortage of online pharmacies out there from which to order. So the question becomes, what drives people to order from them? Do we need to make certain drugs more accessible here in the United States, or will that only exacerbate the existing problem? It almost seems like it would be better to take these drugs under the supervision of a doctor, even if they are habit-forming - especially if people can just get their hands on them elsewhere.

It’s just so easy for people to learn about various drugs from sites like rxlist.com and webmd.com and the go order those drugs from foreign pharmacies. And while U.S. Customs does what it can to control the influx of illegal prescription drug orders, the sheer volume is simply overwhelming. I’m not sure what the solution is, but there is no question that people are engaging in risky behavior when they are ordering online. There is no guarantee that you are even getting the drug that you think you are getting, and you don’t have a doctor to supervise any potential negative reactions or bad drug interactions. And yet, despite these glaring risks, people order online 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

• Promacta (eltrombopag): Company: GlaxoSmithKline; Treatment for: Idiopathic (Immune) Thrombocytopenic Purpura. Promacta (eltrombopag) is an investigational oral platelet growth factor therapy for the short-term treatment of previously treated patients with chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) to increase platelet counts and reduce or prevent bleeding.

• Liraglutide Company: Novo Nordisk; Treatment for: Diabetes Mellitus Type II. Liraglutide is a once-daily human GLP-1 analogue in development for the treatment of people with type 2 diabete

• Rezonic (casopitant): Company: GlaxoSmithKline; Treatment for: Nausea/Vomiting - Chemotherapy Induced, Nausea/Vomiting - Postoperative. Rezonic (casopitant) is an investigational NK-1 receptor antagonist in development as add-on therapy for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and also for the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting.

• Viviant (bazedoxifene). Company: Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Treatment for: Prevention of Osteoporosis. Viviant (bazedoxifene) is a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) in development for the prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis.

• Davanat Company: Pro-Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Treatment for: Targeted Drug Delivery. Davanat is a polysaccharide polymer comprised of mannnose and galactose in development for the targeted delivery of drugs used in the treatment of cancer.

• Cinryze (C1 inhibitor). Company: Lev Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Treatment for: Angioedema. Cinryze is a C1-esterase inhibitor being developed as a comprehensive replacement therapy for the treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE).

Vion Pharmaceuticals announced the interim data results of its pivotal phase II trial of cloretazine, an anticancer agent drug that is intended to treat elderly patients with de novo poor-risk acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) today. 35 percent of the 85 patients evaluated in the study responded to the drug treatment, and 90 percent of those responses occurred after the first induction treatment.

“While follow-up is still ongoing, the median of overall survival for responders was 6.3 months (1.7-16.4 months) and for all patients was 3.2 months (0.1-16.4 months). The induction death rate within 30 days of first induction treatment was 14 percent. The majority of first induction deaths were either due to progression of disease or infection.”

In a Vion Pharmaceuticals press release, Dr. Gary Schiller, Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, and a lead investigator on the study, said “The responses observed in this trial represent a clinically meaningful outcome for many of these difficult-to-treat AML patients. As a single-agent, single-infusion therapy, Cloretazine has the potential to be an important new treatment option for older patients with poor-risk AML.”

Alan Kessman, Chief Executive Officer of Vion Pharmaceuticals, said the company plans to file an application for new drug approval with the FDA some time this year.

AML is the most common type of leukemia, and more than 11,900 new cases occur in the United States each year, mostly in older adults. My grandmother died from this cancer when she was only 63, so I know she could have had many more good years in her life, had there been an effective treatment available. So here is another example of the kind of drug research that could potentially perform miracles.

There are several drugs currently being tested to treat Alzheimer’s, and several drugs that are used to treat symptoms. Aricept is probably the drug I see the most widely advertised

The hope is that, with more people being diagnosed at an earlier stage, the more that can be discovered about this heart-wrenching disease. I think Bakowski’s blog and the others out there like it will certainly go a long way in educating and informing people about the Alzheimer’s experience.