FDA Whistle Blower Blasts New Arthritis Drug

FDA whistle-blower Graham blasts new Merck arthritis drug

Updated 9/12/2006 9:51 PM ET

By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY / Health & Behavior

The arthritis drug that Merck has developed to compete with Celebrex may be as risky for the heart as Vioxx, writes Food and Drug Administration whistle-blower David Graham in an editorial posted online Tuesday by a medical journal.

In considering whether Arcoxia should be approved, "the FDA, academia, and the medical research enterprise are once again faced with the opportunity to forsake common sense by willfully accepting misdirection and disinformation presented in the guise of science," Graham writes on the Journal of the American Medical Association's website. Continue reading ...