Neuraminidase inhibitors for preventing and treating influenza in healthy adults and children
"We identified that a large number of studies, including data from 60% of the people who have been involved in randomised, placebo-controlled phase III treatment trials of oseltamivir, have never been published. This includes the biggest treatment trial ever undertaken on oseltamivir that on its own included just over 1,400 people of all ages," noted Jefferson.
Having pieced together information from more than 16,000 pages of clinical trial data and documents used in the process of licensing oseltamivir, the Cochrane team raises critical questions about how well the drug works, as well as about its reported safety profile. While the drug did reduce the time to first alleviation of symptoms by an average of 21 hours, it did not reduce the number of people who went on to need hospital treatment.
http://www.cochrane.org/features/ne...reating-influenza-healthy-adults-and-children
Tamiflu: the battle for secret drug data
BMJ 2012; 345 doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e7303 (Published 29 October 2012)
David Payne, editor, bmj.com
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e7303
etc.
I don't recommend TamiFlu to my patients. I wouldn't take it myself.
Critically ill and hospitalized patients are a different situation – it's not terribly expensive in the context of even small potential benefits, and nausea/vomiting/neuropsychiatric side effects aren't really relevant. That being said, the evidence supporting its use in reducing mortality in the hospitalized patient is all retrospective and observational, and Roche isn't allowed to market it for that purpose.
