Dosanjh says Vioxx maker withheld safety data

Canada's Health Minister says the maker of Vioxx has some explaining to do on why it withheld safety data from federal drug regulators after the painkiller was pulled from shelves.

"I can tell you that I am extremely concerned and disappointed with Merck withholding data from Health Canada, even after it pulled the drug," Ujjal Dosanjh said in an interview in Friday's Globe and Mail.

"I think they have an obligation and they have some explaining to do."

Dosanjh said he's now considering bringing in new legislation allowing Health Canada to force companies to hand over information.

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Now that all class action suites have become matters for the conservative federal court it is now safe to SELL Vioxx.

However, it is still unsafe to TAKE Vioxx, having been implicated in FIFTY heart attacks per day before it was pulled from the market.

My mother took Vioxx and her back pain stopped -- stopped. Now, if you take a population of couch potatoes, add new pain relief and they start getting up after being dormant, do they increase their chances of heart attack and stroke with their sudden activity. Add, suddenly not taking aspirin, a blood thinner, and, wow, double-whammy.

In other words, it's not the Vioxx, it's the effectiveness, the goodness of the Vioxx that causes the deaths. If so, not using Vioxx from the start of pain could lead to someone becoming a couch potato in pain, a person who is not exercising, whose blood vessels are collecting occlusion making material, and, who then awaits a political decision on whether they can take it again, and when they take it again they get up and overdo it.

Vioxx might just work too well. It needs to be addressed, but, not by eliminating the Vioxx. Anyone getting Vioxx should be warned to exercise slowly, and possibly remain on blood thinners.

Just as it was the Baycol. Just as it was the Propulsid. Those two drugs were removed from the market, and the casualties weren't anywhere near the rate of Vioxx.

You and your mother, consider yourselves lucky.

and now I have a heart murmur... as though I did not have enough to be sick with. They can kiss my ass. My doctor is livid that they put it back on market.