News Flash: All Drugs have Risks!

On the heels of recent findings regarding Vioxx, Celebrex, and Alleve, comes a new warning regarding ibuprofen.



According to a study from Baylor College of Medicine, in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology entitled Visible small-intestinal mucosal injury in chronic NSAID users, ibuprofen is unsafe for long-term use. It found that

Some 71% of the NSAID patients showed signs of small bowel injury, compared to just 10% of the controls.

According to researcher Dr. David Graham,

"We saw some ulcers and we saw lots of erosions. Anybody who takes aspirin or (other) NSAIDS for a year has a 1% to 4% risk of serious gastrointestinal complications."

Unfortunately, that leaves us with just tylenol and various narcotics as pain relievers.



As Thomas Sowell discusses, all decisions have trade-offs between risks and benefits. No choices come completely free of risk.

Where do people not recognize trade-offs? Where they are making decisions for other people. That's where they make unrealistic demands, including demands for "safety." Maybe Vioxx or Celebrex is too dangerous, all things considered. Maybe not. The problem is that all things are not considered.

He makes the excellent point that "nothing is categorically safe", and that all of life involves weighing weighing risks, benefits and alternatives. If we really considered absolute safety as our primary objective in life, we'd never get into an automobile. Ever. We would give up chemotherapy, surgery and antibiotics as well, for they have even larger risks than do painkillers.



The recent march against NSAIDs and COX-2 inhibitors is especially foolish, inasmuch as we have frighteningly few pain medicine alternatives.



Next news flash: tylenol, aspirin and narcotics are bad for you!!