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F.D.A. Panel Votes to Ban Asthma Drugs
ROCKVILLE, Md. — A panel of federal drug experts voted on Thursday that the drugs Serevent and Foradil should be banned from use in the treatment of asthma, but the experts said that Advair and Symbicort, which together are far more popular, should continue to be used.
The experts, gathered by the Food and Drug Administration, said that too many doctors used Serevent and Foradil inappropriately and that asthmatic patients were often fooled by their own symptoms and used them incorrectly. Serevent and Foradil widen lung airways but increase the risks of death unless paired with a steroid. The drugs’labels already warn of this risk but half of patients taking the medicines do not get a steroid. Even when patients are prescribed a steroid, many fail to take it.
GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Serevent, and Novartis and Schering-Plough, the marketers of Foradil, argued that doctors want the freedom to mix and match these drugs with steroids. But Dr. Jesse Joad, a panel member and pediatrician from the University of California Davis Medical Center, said she did not “want to give a drug that is making the disease you’re treating worse.”
