Health Ministry Must Step Up Public Awareness On Vioxx... -
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Published on: 10/18/2004
Last Visited: 10/19/2004
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 (Bernama) -- The Health Ministry must step up public awareness on the ban and recall of the popular arthritis and acute pain drug, Vioxx, says Wong Ang Peng, the president of the Natural Health Society.
Wong, a natural health practitioner, here, said since the recall on Sept 30 by its manufacturer, Merck & Co, there was not much publicity by the government on the risks of consuming the drug.
Merck & Co withdrew Vioxx after finding that it doubled the risk of heart attack and strokes in patients who took the medicine 18 months or longer in a study on colon-cancer prevention.
In a statement, Wong, who is also the director of the "Health For All" humanitarian project, said that despite the "avalanche of pharmaceutical drug lawsuits, global outcry, call for better accountability, better ethics and humanity, there was "an eerie calm" in Malaysia and the East.
He said Vioxx has been in the market since 1999 and sold in Malaysia for the past few years.
Many Malaysians resorted to it for their arthritis problems since it was hailed as a safer drug as it is a class of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), he added.
"Since the shocking sudden recall, alarm bells were sounded in America and Europe, and there has been at least four cases of individual and class action lawsuits filed in USA against Merck & Co," he said.