Sunday, July 19 2009

AT THE HEIGHT of its popularity, Vioxx, also known as rofecoxib, was prescribed to approximately 80 million users worldwide. However thousands more managed to get their hands on it over the counter.

Vioxx was a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to treat osteoarthritis, acute pain conditions, and dysmenorrhoea.

It was approved as safe and effective by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 20, 1999, and was subsequently marketed under the brand names Vioxx, Ceoxx, and Ceeoxx. The drug was also approved by the Food and Drug Division of the Ministry of Health.

But the drug was withdrawn globally on September 30, 2004 after a clinical trial found that Vioxx increased relative risk for confirmed cardiovascular thrombotic events.

To date, though, some still say that Vioxx was the best drug to treat their arthritis.

“It was the only thing that worked for me,” housewife Margaret Holder said this week. “I got a free sample from a doctor in 2003 and it worked so well I decided to continue using it.

“It was only when my daughter told me about the side effects that I stopped,” she said. “To this day I still think it was the best thing to treat my aching knee.”