It was one step forward and two steps back for safe prescription drugs in 2010.

There was public outcry against Avandia, the heart attack-associated diabetes drug (and the conflicts of interest that kept it on the market) but some say Actos and Byetta, which will take up some of the slack, are no safer.

Meridia, an amphetamine-like diet pill, and Darvon, the pain pill, were withdrawn. but Nuvugil, an extreme and dangerous stimulant was pushed as a “wakefulness” drug for “excessive sleepiness” (including to college kids with their well known narcolepsy and shift study sleep disorder.) and Singulair, Merck’s number one asthma and allergy drug, was said to cause ADHD symptoms in children by Fox news this month. Oops.

Meanwhile, even though antidepressants like Paxil and Cymbalta are linked to mood dysregulation and suicide, FDA approved Cymbalta for arthritis and lower back pain this month anyway.

I thought I was fine by Martha Rosenberg

Still, here are some drugs you may want to save for national take back Prescriptions day.

YAZ and YASMIN

It sounded too good to be true and it was. Birth control pills which also cleared up acne, treated severe PMS (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder or PMDD) and avoided the water retention of traditional birth control pills.

But soon after Bayer launched Yaz in 2006 as going “beyond birth control,” 18-year-olds   were coming down with blood clots, gall bladder disease, heart attacks and even strokes. 15-year-old Katie Ketner had her gallbladder removed, Susan Gallenos had a stroke and part of her skull removed and 18-year-old Michelle A. Pfleger collapsed and died of a pulmonary thromboemboli while at college from taking Yaz says her mother Joan Cummins.

While TV ads for Yaz in 2008 was so misleading, FDA ordered Bayer to run correction ads, Yaz sales are still brisk. in fact, financial analysts attribute the third quarter slump in the Yaz “franchise” of 28.1 percent to the appearance of a Yaz generic not the thousands of women who have been harmed.

Why is Yaz sometimes deadly? it includes a drug that was never before marketed in the US — drospirenone — and apparently causes elevated potassium, heart problems, and a change in acid balance of the blood. Who knew? but not only is Bayer still marketing it,   women do not receive “test subject” compensation for using it either.

LYRICA, TOPAMAX and LAMICTAL

Why would Americans take an epilepsy seizure drug for pain? the same reason they’ll take an antipsychotic for the blues and an antidepressant for knee pain: good consumer marketing. in August FDA ordered a warning for aseptic meningitis, brain inflammation, on Lamictal but it is still the darling of military and civilian doctors for unapproved “pain” and “migraine.” Lamictal also has the distinction of looting $51 million from Medicaid last year despite a generic existing, and is the US’s most wasteful drug according to the American Enterprise Institute.

All seizure drugs increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors according to their mandated labels and an April article in JAMA found seizure drugs linked to 26 completed suicides, 801 attempted suicides, and 41 violent deaths   in just five years! all three drugs can make you lose your memory and hair say posters on the drug rating site askapatient.com —   Topamax is referred to as “Stupamax” in the military —   though evidently not enough to say, “why am I taking this drug again?”

HUMIRA, PROLIA and TNF BLOCKERS

If you think pharma is producing a lot of expensive, dangerous injectables lately, you’re right. Yesterday’s blockbuster pills have been supplanted with vaccines and biologics that are more lucrative and safer…from generic competition, that is. (Of course it didn’t expect the anti-vaxer movement and millions of vaccine refuseniks.) the problem is: not only are biologics like TNF-blockers Humira and Prolia creepy and dangerous —   made from genetically engineered hamster cells and suppress actual immune system —   the diseases they treat are “sold” to healthy people.

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