Avandia Study
The government announced February 6, 2008 that the 10,000 patient ACCORD clinical trial involving diabetes treatment has been halted 18 months early due to increased risk of patients death. The trial was stopped after the Data Safety and Monitoring Board found that the rigorous treatment increased the patients' risk of death by 25%.
The results bring into question the methods used of lowering blood sugar actually protects the heart and is very likely to call the safety of the diabetes drug Avandia into question, yet again.
Although the research does not indicate a link between Avandia use and increased deaths, Steve Nissen, who linked Avandia use to increased risk of heart attacks, states, " "It's very hard to sort out," and "We've got to be careful not to jump to conclusions.". Nissen went on to say "Clinicians have been taught that getting to lower blood sugar is better" and "its really going to shake things up".
Avandia was recently back in the news, when it was found that Dr Steven Haffner, admitted leaking information about a study linking the drug to a 43% greater risk of heart attacks to GlaxoSmithKline PLC 17 days before the article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, last May.