Risks of Anemia Drugs for Patients With Cancer to Get More Scrutiny
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11/03/2008
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New York Times (New York)
With federal drug regulators planning another meeting on Thursday to weigh the safety of widely used anemia drugs, Dr. Athanasius Anagnostou resists any urge to say "I told you so.' But in 1990 Dr. Anagnostou published some of the first evidence suggesting that Amgen's then brand-new anemia drug, Epogen, might fuel the growth of tumors. Few people paid heed. "Many people believed the work I did was not reproducible,' recalled Dr. Anagnostou, who was then a blood disease specialist at Brown University. Unable to obtain a federal grant to conduct further studies, he said he eventually moved on to other things. Now, people are paying more attention. Eight clinical trials have suggested that Epogen and related anemia drugs, widely used to treat the anemia caused by cancer chemotherapy, might make tumors worse or hasten the death of cancer patients. On Thursday an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration will consider placing further restrictions on use of the medicines