FEDS RESTRICT SOME ASTHMA DRUGS
Roughly 22 million Americans suffer from asthma, a disease in which the airways in the lungs become inflamed and constricted, leading to difficulty breathing. Most people with persistent asthma use a combination of long-term control medications and quick-relief medications, taken with a hand-held inhaler.
Just this week, outside experts advising the Food and Drug Adminsitration have recommended that two asthma medications, Foradil and Serevent, no longer be used to treat asthma. They found that the benefits of the more widely used Advair and Symbicort clearly outweigh the risks.
All four medications contain an ingredient that relaxes muscles around stressed airways. Only Advair and Symbicort, however, contain a second ingredient that reduces inflammation inside airways and may help prevent asthma attacks. Foradil and Serevent lack this second ingredient and experts are concerned that these inhalers may actually mask symptoms that can trigger life-threatening asthma attacks.
Dr. John Jenkins, had of the FDA's new drugs office, says that asthma patients should not stop taking any of their medications without first consulting their doctor.
Regardless of what the FDA ultimately decides, Serevent and Foradil are likely to remian on the market because they are also approved for other lung diseases.
