Wave goodbye to Vioxx!

[MNnaloxone]

http://www.merck.com/newsroom/press_releases/product/2004_0930.html

Here at the Mpls VAMC, we've halted all new Cox-2 starts, no Vioxx refills, Vioxx removed from our 'robot'. All mail-order CMOP orders have been suspended. Waiting on orders from above...

I imagine a bad day to be a retail pharmacist, a clinic triage nurse, or anywhere near a phone.

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[Scientist]

I imagine a bad day to be a retail pharmacist, a clinic triage nurse, or anywhere near a phone.

True. They are probably getting many calls of concern, panic, and anger.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Work will be fun tonight....

 

[CosmoDaNP]

I imagine a bad day to be a retail pharmacist, a clinic triage nurse, or anywhere near a phone.

194 calls logged today by patients taking Vioxx.
17 logged by patients on other Cox-2's
12 from patients w/arthritis who are on other drugs.

I've been a BIG fan of Vioxx and I really hate to see it go. Patients seemed to do so well on it. I even take it (took it) for OA myself.

Now we have to resubimit all these patients who were on Vioxx for prior auth on a new Cox-2 through their insurance. Guess Bextra it is!

Anyone know why on earth we could have just gotten an amended prescribing guide which included an 18month limit and cardiovascular warnings?

Cosmo

 

[Caverject]

I would just put people on Lodine...who is to say that Celebrex or Bextra does not cause this?? After all, Pfizer has yet to put it's drugs thru as stringent test as did Merck with Vioxx

 

[Glycerin]

Yeah, my dad called me to find out why it was pulled. I asked him if he could take Celebrex, and he said yeah, but his doc is telling all the Vioxx patients to come back in for another visit before rewriting the scripts.

 

[Tuck]

Actually if I remember correctly, some clinical studies did indicate that Celebrex caused cardiovascular abnormalities, but it was passed off as a select subset of the trial group and disregarded. In light of the Merck findings on Vioxx I would be sceptical of any cox-2 drugs. On the flip side, everyone I know who takes Vioxx swears by it and would prefer to keep taking it, even with the risks.

 

[meister]

I wouldn't be surprised if all the cox-2's wind up doing similar things. Luckily, at least here, celebrex is probably prescribed 2:1 to vioxx. That doesn't mean we won't be doing a lot of prior auths in the near future though...



I can't wait to go into work tomorrow. Man...

 

[npp71681]

Hi!

It's reported by NBC-6 News that Vioxx was 12% of total Merck sales/year.
Merck was making nearly 2.3billion/year in selling Vioxx.

Merck is loosing big $$$!

 

[MNnaloxone]

Guess who I just rode the elevator down with?

The Merck rep...

He wouldn't dish anything, though. Got the whole company line about how responsible they were for pulling it off the market vs. changing the label...etc. Typical drug rep...

 

[CosmoDaNP]

The Merck reps aren't saying a dang word :growls:

Furthermore, to add to the tally...

Two of my patients felt it necessary to come in to the ED last night because "they was on that pill that gives you the heart attack".

Cosmo

 

[bananaface]

Two of my patients felt it necessary to come in to the ED last night because "they was on that pill that gives you the heart attack".

Cosmo

More like they "saw the news report that gives you the heart attack."

Reporters who try to represent themselves as quality information sources are scary sometimes. (Example: Can you find a scientific concensus on global warming? I think not. Media concensus? Pretty much. And, who decides what the public believes? The media.)

 

[CosmoDaNP]

More like they "saw the news report that gives you the heart attack."

Reporters who try to represent themselves as quality information sources are scary sometimes. (Example: Can you find a scientific concensus on global warming? I think not. Media concensus? Pretty much. And, who decides what the public believes? The media.)

So rather than calling the office during the day and speaking with me (I spoke with every single person who called personally) or calling the afterhours service which I personally called and told to forward all patient calls for this issue to me even though it was afterhours...the decided to come in to the emergency department and spend $1000 of taxpayers money (both had state medicaid) for a physician to come in and say two words then tell them to come see me in the morning.

Can we start requring an IQ test for patients or something?

Cosmo

 

[ultracet]

Can we start requring an IQ test for patients or something?

Cosmo

amen

 

[bananaface]

Can we start requring an IQ test for patients or something?

the Magic 8 Ball has spoken: "Doubtful."

 

[bananaface]

Journal releases Vioxx study
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/01/25/vioxx.study.ap/index.html

 

[rxgal8]

Vioxx might be back on the market

(with a black box label, I'm assuming)