 |
 |
I agree. Meanwhile, those interested might want to read the original report in the British Medical Journal (16 Dec 95) for themselves. The mortality data certainly look valid. According to the authors, the difference (due to Eldepryl) was 18.6 per 1000 patient-years, equivalent to one extra death for each 54 patients treated for one year. Notably the developer of Eldepryl, W. Birkmayer, reported from his study just the opposite, that those given Eldepryl had reduced mortality compared with controls. Age of the test subjects might have been a factor, but I didn't see anything about that. Eldepryl is not the only drug (approved or not) having potentially lethal side effect, but to my knowledge it's the only one actually quantified. For another example, consider tobacco smoking, whose low incidence among PD sufferers has led some to suspect it may protect against PD. Knowing the widely publicized reputation of tobacco as a killer, would you smoke if you thought it might prevent or help your PD? I understand some have done just that. The position of doctors prescribing Eldepryl, or of the maker selling it, is somewhat different, because they can get sued. Therefore I should expect, even if they believe the benefits outweigh the risks, they would prefer to let patients do without. And who could blame them? Cheers (?), Joe J. R. Bruman (818) 789-3694 3527 Cody Road Sherman Oaks CA 91403 On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, David Rohrbaugh wrote: > This is a fairly heavy duty charge. I think someone on this net who is > qualfied ought to get to the bottom of this announcement. What are the > studies that have been done? What are the results? Why are doctors > prescribing eldpryl? >