A Celebrex/Bextra/Mobicox Class Action was launched against the drug company giant Pfizer for Canadian residents.
Background: The U.S. FDA announced on November 15, 2002, that it had received about 20 reports of serious reactions from Bextra. Pharmacia had issued a "Dear Healthcare Professional" letter two days earlier. Previously, on October 22, the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (the European counterpart to the FDA) issued a public statement warning of skin related side effects. More recently, in light of the growing evidence of serious cardiac risks associated with Cox-2 inhibitors generally, --- and most notoriously the now recalled pain medication Vioxx-- the medical community has become increasingly concerned with the increased risk of heart attack and stroke posed by Bextra use.:
The Problem With Cox-2 Inhibitors:
The family of COX-2 inhibitor drugs to which Bextra belongs seem to be associated with a new group of side effects involving the circulatory system. In the most recent research on the question, the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center analyzed the data from four prior trials of another Cox-2 drug—Vioxx-- and a similar drug called Celebrex involving 18,064 patients. These studies were used by the drugmakers to gain FDA approval of the medications. The Cleveland Clinic's analysis revealed that all four studies showed a trend toward an increase in heart attacks or blood clotting events, such as stroke, venous thrombophlebitis and pulmonary embolism. The clinic also revealed that through October 2000, approximately 200 major clotting events occurred in patients receiving at least one of these two drugs, with more than 50 of these events classified as heart attacks, according to FDA reports. The clinic's findings were published on August 22, 2001, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Other recent clinical studies demonstrate that Cox-2 inhibitor drugs raise blood pressure, which may contribute to a tendency toward increased heart attack risk.
One study has demonstrated that Cox-2 inhibitors inhibit prostacylin formation in the cells lining blood vessels. Prostacylin is a naturally occurring substance that tends to dilate blood vessels and prevent clotting. The study, which was published in the August 14, 2001, issue of the medical journal Circulation, concludes that its results "raise concerns regarding an increased risk of acute vascular events in patients receiving COX-2 inhibitors."
Another study, published in the August 29, 2000 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that COX-2 has a "cardioprotective" effect. This suggests that blocking COX-2 may increase the risk of heart disease.
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