The Cox-2 controversy is back in the news. A study published in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has found that people who take the painkiller Celebrex roughly double their chances of having a heart attack. The research was conducted by Dr. Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand. Beasley and his team looked for data for about 13,000 patients, drawn from 6 earlier clinical trials. Celebrex, made by Pfizer, is in the same class as Vioxx, which was taken off the market in late 2004. The finding is not exactly a surprise since critics have been criticizing the drug's safety profile for years. Pfizer defends the drug as a viable option for patients with debilitating pain.
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PLUS: The first Celebrex lawsuit is set to go trial in June. Article