The agency charged to protect patients from dangerous drug side effects needs to be far more vigilant when it comes to medications that affect blood pressure.
Robert P. Blankfield, MD, MS, a clinical professor of family medicine, issues this call to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an editorial published recently in an online edition of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics; the print version of the article is expected to appear this autumn.
The editorial notes that several medications survived FDA scrutiny, only to be pulled from the market after reports of increased heart attacks and strokes related to use of the drugs. These include rofecoxib (Vioxx), valdecoxib (Bextra), and sibutramine (Meridia). What these drugs have in common is that they raise blood pressure. Other medications approved by the FDA, including some antidepressant medications as well as medications used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also raise blood pressure but remain on the market despite inadequate safety data.
At issue is the apparent disconnect between what patients and doctors might consider “clinically significant” risk and the standards that some FDA reviewers apply when evaluating the safety of new therapeutics. When it comes to medications that affect blood pressure, a few FDA reviewers only classify “clinically significant” blood pressure spikes as those that raise systolic blood pressure by 20 mm Hg (milliliters of mercury) or diastolic blood pressure by 10 to 15 mm Hg.
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