Another Cox-2 withdrawn from the Canadian market
Prexige (lumiracoxib)… released not all that long ago, has already been withdrawn from the Canadian market. I read the Health Canada warning about it, but since I am not in the position to make judgements, I can simply say, the company issued recall that we got said “not due to safety concerns–quality issue”. The recall issued by Health Canada says it has withdrawn market authorization.
I wonder if the pharmaceutical companies are releasing these medications far too quickly to accurately judge whether or not they are safe. This is the third Cox-2 inhibitor that has been withdrawn…along with Vioxx (rofecoxib) and Bextra (valdecoxib). Celebrex (celecoxib) has recently been changed from a drug that is freely covered by most drug plans, to a special authorization medication because of higher incidents of heart related issues. Do the benefits of this class of drug outweigh the contras?? As one who doesn’t suffer any type of joint pain…and a technician without the full knowledge of how the drugs work, I couldn’t say.
On a side note..we have all heard the sayings “for every doctor there is a pharmacist out there who saves his ass” and “for every pharmacist there is a tech who saves his ass”…. I was that tech today. We had an rx brought in today for levaquin 1QID X40. A pharmacist typed up the rx. I went to count it and said “WHOA!! Levaquin four times a day??? That’s not normal!! Can they do that??” to which a second pharmacist replied” I’ll call the doctor back.” Sure as shootin’, the doc wanted once a day dosing for 10 days. I think if I hadn’t caught it and counted out 40 and moved it down the line (back to the same pharmacist who had typed it up) and let them check it.. the patient would have walked out the door with the wrong amount of medication (and a HUGE bill to boot). I saved a few asses today. <pats self on back>