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The story that was slated to be the lead on all three networks before Chief Justice John Roberts fell down in Maine was the "strange decision," as ABC's in-house physician Timothy Johnson (no link) called it, by an advisory panel of the Food & Drug Administration. It agreed with a finding in The New England Journal of Medicine that Avandia, the diabetes medication that lowers blood sugar levels, increases its users' risk of heart disease--yet recommended that it should remain approved for use anyway. Back in May (text link) when the Cleveland Clinic published its NEJoM study we noted the sloppy statistics used to report this story. The reporting on the FDA panel's findings showed some improvement. With Avandia being used by approximately one million diabetes patients each year, CBS' Nancy Cordes attached a number to their estimated 43% increased risk of having a heart attack as a result of taking it: she quoted 80,000 in eight years. By our math, that means that a diabetes patient's average annual chance of having a heart attack worsens from 1-in-43 to 1-in-30 by going on Avandia.
Both Cordes and ABC's Lisa Stark (subscription required) reported that many diabetes patients have stopped using the medication since May of their own accord without FDA pulling it from the market: Cordes quoted a 22% drop, Stark 35%. By not pulling the $3bn-a-year drug of its own accord, Cordes added, manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline faces "the possibility of costly lawsuits." NBC's in-house physician Nancy Snyderman predicted that the quandary will be resolved by "some changes in the labeling." Snyderman told us that there are an estimated 4,100 fresh diagnoses of diabetes every day, which multiplies out to 1.5m new cases a year. She did not tell us how many with the disease die each year--presumably none are cured--so it was hard to tell how quickly diabetes is on the increase and what role Avandia may play in mitigating its impact. Johnson, her counterpart at ABC, was not impressed by the panel's conclusion: "It seems to me like they are punting, to be blunt."
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