Dubai: With many drugs — which harm instead of heal — readily available in the market, medical practitioners advice people not to buy over-the-counter drugs and avoid self-medication.
“Most people are unaware of the adverse side-effects of medicinal drugs and have very little knowledge of what they are taking,” said Dr Priyadarshan G. a specialist in internal medicine at Aster Clinic.
A practitioner of complementary medicine agrees and points out that there are people who continue to look for and buy certain medicines even if such drug has already been pulled off the shelves.
The Ministry of Health recently pulled out from pharmacy shelves a herbal weight loss pill called Celerite which is said to be capable of inducing heart palpitations.
The ban follows a similar recall last year of all medicinal products that contain the substance Sibutramine. Clinical trials showed it can cause heart attacks.
A senior doctor with the Ministry of Health earlier told Gulf News that Celerite could have been imported into the country under the food and beverage category.
Still here
Dr Heather Eade, alternative medicine practitioner at Dubai Mall Medical Clinic, said some drugs revoked by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can still be found in the country as suppliers have not gotten rid of them.
Some controversial drugs continue to be sold across the globe because of wrangling between the FDA and drug manufacturers, who do not wish to see their money-making drugs pulled out of the market.
One such drug was Avandia, a very popular pill taken by Type 2 diabetes patients. It contained a component called Rosiglitazone, which was supposed to reduce sugar levels and improve insulin sensitivity.
Then in the year 2000, there was news about people dying allegedly after taking the medicine, which has remained in the market.
Finally, after a hue and cry in Europe that the drug was causing heart problems and strokes, it was pulled out from the shelves.
Last year the UAE, which has a huge number of people suffering from diabetes, also banned the drug.
Priyadarshan said he and his colleagues had stopped prescribing Avandia from 1993 when arguments against the drug started.
But he said the drug was being sold even in 2003 as there was no proper answer from the manufacturers.
But the doctor does not believe the FDA, the consumer watchdog, is under any pressure from powerful drug manufacturers to approve medicines faster. He said the drugs are approved after clinical trials, to see how it affects the human metabolism and its contraindictions.
“Nobody wants to kill anybody,” he said.
But some medical advocates believe that drug companies, which spend millions of dollars on research, put pressure on FDA to fast-track the approval process to enable them to get faster returns on their investment.
Meanwhile in Europe, according to the web-based Medical News Today, 500 diabetic patients have died in France after taking a drug called Mediator during the past 30 years. The drug was prescribed to over 300,000 patients.
It was approved in France in 1976. In 1987 it was approved as a medication, along with diet, for patients with hypertriglyceridemia (excessive blood triglyceride levels). It was approved in 1990, together with diet for diabetes or overweight patients. Finally, in 2009 it was banned. The controversial drugs are mostly targeted to diabetics, the obese, or people with high cholesterol.
“That’s because there are more number of patients (suffering from these conditions),” said Priyadarshan. “With antibiotics, you stop after 14 days. These [drugs] go on for months [and that is when the complications and adverse effects from the controversial drugs surface].”
“Asia and the Middle East do not have the infrastructure to conduct clinic trials,” says Mohammad Samir, key account manger for BioPharma, a distributor of niche pharmaceutical products.
He said there is a need for a retrospective analysis of all medical products in the market. The manager said the UAE should publish a “vigilance report” that shows the efficacy of the drugs and its toxicology.
He also calls on the Ministry of Health to publish what he calls “side-effects index”.
“People should be aware of how to take drugs,” he said, noting that many patients take three drugs at a time and do not know about their contraindications.
Eade also notes that people are not “open” with their physicians on the drugs they are taking, which is dangerous.
Samir believes that the ministry should provide free advice to residents periodically on hypertension for example, through SMS and e-mail and train pharmacists on how to ask proper questions to the consumers.
Partial list: Banned drugs
Partial list of prescription drugs banned by the FDA:
– Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate), prescribed to treat diabetes. Banned due to side effects like liver failure, hepatitis and heart failure
– Baycol (Cerivastatin), prescribed to treat high cholesterol. Banned due to these side effects: fatal rhabdomyolysis
– Bextra (Valdecoxib), prescribed to treat arthritis. Banned due to these side effects: heart attack and stroke, diseases of the skin
– Fen/Phen (Dexfenfluramine) prescribed to treat obesity. Banned because it caused heart valve damage in some users.
By Mahmood Saberi
Gulf News