What dangers are associated with Bextra?
Controversy began when Pfizer, Inc. made an announcement on October 15, 2004, revealing information from two trials linking the use of Bextra in patients undergoing heart bypass surgery to an increase in cardiovascular events. The concern continued after a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans in November 2004. At this meeting doctors presented the preliminary results of a study that used information from several Bextra trials to propose that the use of Bextra in high-risk cardiac patients more than doubled patient risk for heart attack and stroke. In the publication of their combined analysis of the two post-heart bypass surgery Bextra trials, they concluded that the use of Bextra was associated with a 3-fold higher risk of cardiovascular events than placebo (2). Later that November at a congressional hearing, Dr. David Graham, an FDA Office of Drug Safety reviewer, named five drugs on the market whose safety needed serious reevaluation. O
