The Real story behind the Celebrex ‘safety study’

If you suffer from chronic pain, especially pain from arthritis, your doctor may have given you an Rx for Celebrex.

Celebrex is the only “COX-2 inhibitor” left on the market. The others, Vioxx and Bextra, were stripped from pharmacy shelves after tens of thousands of patients suffered heart attacks and strokes while taking them.

But the FDA said that Celebrex could keep on selling, and Big Pharma has been saying all along that it’s safe — so millions take it every single day.

The only problem is, the research that supposedly “proves” its safety has more holes in it than a giant block of Swiss cheese.

Clouds of suspicion

The Vioxx tragedy was one of the biggest scandals in modern drug history.

Before Merck pulled it off the shelf, this med reportedly killed over 60,000 people. And the drugmaker was accused of doing everything it possibly could to mislead doctors and patients about the danger.

But there’s still another closely related drug that’s selling like hotcakes, called Celebrex.

Over ten years ago the FDA said Pfizer, which makes the med, had to start a trial to find out just how risky it really is. And during that long decade of research, Pfizer has been paying out millions to settle lawsuits over Celebrex – including $164 million to its own shareholders for allegations that it misrepresented the drug’s safety!

But all that is now water under the bridge, because that big trial is finished. And the verdict is in: Celebrex is safe! But hold the phone…because it looks like there’s something very fishy going on here.

Dr. Steven Nissen, who led the 10-year study, said that the research “lifts the cloud” of suspicion Celebrex was under.

But if anything, it makes things even more suspect.

First, the goal of the study was to see if Celebrex is more dangerous than two other NSAIDs — naproxen (Aleve) or ibuprofen. Only the Celebrex was given at a much lower dose.

Some experts are saying that’s enough evidence right there to question the results. In fact, the standard Celebrex dose for RA sufferers is double what patients in the trial took!

But that pales in comparison to this little tidbit: Close to 70 percent of the people in this big trial dropped out!

Dr. Nissen had said that they needed “a lot of patients,” 24,000 to be exact, to study the safety issues. But seriously, how many people were even left by the time this research finished!

Not all experts have eaten the Celebrex wheat, however.

The head of the American College of Cardiology said that “It’s not as bad as Vioxx” is in no way a recommendation to take the drug.

Others are saying it wasn’t a fair comparison, as doctors were allowed to increase the doses of the other painkillers as high as they wanted to, but the Celebrex doses stayed the same.

Over the years Celebrex has been in use, numerous tests have found it to be a very dangerous drug. Why, before Dr. Nissen even started this latest trial, two other studies on it had to be stopped in their tracks, as Celebrex was found to double the risk of serious heart problems.

One expert said this current research doesn’t answer any real safety questions about the med, and “that’s the tragedy.”

But the real tragedy here will be all the additional people who’ll now start taking Celebrex (or a generic version of it), thinking this research has somehow proven it to be safe… when it really does nothing of the sort.

“Celebrex arthritis drug safety study surprises heart experts” Mary Brophy Marcus, November 13, 2016, CBS News, cbsnews.com