Obstetric Research on Cytotec (Misoprostol)
Posted on: August 26, 2010
Also found at Science and Sensibility, this very unscientific quip. Perhaps the reason they have so much trouble with meta-analysis or literature reveiw begins with the inability to find most of the data, in the first place.
Here’s a post that denies the existence of the bulk of the data and research cytotec. Like all drugs, most the research and data is within the pharmaceutical industry and for regulatory functions. Pharmaceutical companies recruit medical school faculty from large, big-name institutions to publish select parts of their work as their own.
This was not done for Cytotec and its OB indications because its manufacturer, Searle, did not want to be seen as pushing a drug that could also be used as an abortion pill, due to threats of boycotts. Only a few independent studies, case reports really, exist outside in the literature, as a result. The bulk of the data on this drug is in regulatory archives.
This author is blissfully unaware of this and expresses complete confidence in conclusions that are based on her skewed, minsicule section of the data.
http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/?p=1189#comments
Henci Groer
- August 7th, 2010 at 13:01 | #4
I’m not exactly sure what you are referring to, but Searle has NEVER conducted research into misoprostol’s use as an obstetric agent, and, as my blog post makes clear, other agents are just as effective (prostaglandin E2 results in identical cesarean rates) while carrying a lower risk profile. Specifically, with respect to pre-eclampsia, as I also made clear in my blog post, misoprostol is MUCH more dangerous than prostaglandin E2.
August 10th, 2010 at 06:35 | #5
“I’m not exactly sure what you are referring to, but Searle has NEVER conducted research into misoprostol’s use as an obstetric agent”
This is completely ridiculous. Searle and its successors have about 20 re-lablings of the drug. In every single blasted one of them, as in the original research, its abortifacient/obstetrical properties must be addressed.
Your extremely limited knowledge and unscientific skills don’t allow you to know about these and access them. This is obvious plain-as-the-nose on-your-face level stuff to anyone in pharma or medicine. And you don’t even know it exists!!!
The only way anyone knows cytotec can do these things is because it was found to cause spontaneous abortions in Phase III. Searle originally explored marketing this drug as the first abortion pill, but backed away due to threats of boycott or vandelism by anti-abortion groups. Its induction properties were also investigated at the same time, which is where the OB community got the idea from!!!!!
They have to file reports. They have to keep track of adverse effects and other things, whether they are in label or not.
Searle and successors have been able to have their cake and it too by not seeking FDA approval. They avoided the anti-abortion anger and then later any product liability related to for OB. Nevertheless, it is widely used for both. I mean really, who uses this drug for ulcers anymore? It would have been relegated to the generic heap a long time ago, if that was the case. They have also been accused from time to time for covertly marketing it as an OB drug. Its acquistion of Roche’s women’s health product line in the 90’s was partly motivated by the need to have an excuse for it to be doing things with OBs!!!
They have been researching this “side effect” for over 25 years.
If you disagree with the blatantly obvious facts presented here, what is your story as to how this drug came to be so widely used for these off-label uses? I can’t wait to hear the laughably implausiable “old midwives tale”. The OBs that, you know, just don’t follow the evidence, just grabbed any ol’ drug off the formulary shelf and gave it to a mom in labor…….
Bottom line is you don’t know what you are talking about because you know so little about medicine, research, and pharma. You only access data that unscientific amateurs can find through Google while watching Grey’s Anatomy.
Obviously, your comments demonstrate you know absolutely nothing about the pharmaceutical industry and its research and regulation. Your comments, like most of this forum are amateurish attempts to present your agenda, beliefs and professional self-interests as science.
b
August 12th, 2010 at 10:43 | #6
Oh, yeah, right Searle NEVER did research on cytotec for obstetrics. Geez.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/29/world/us-may-allow-anti-ulcer-drug-tied-to-abortion.html
“Ms. Bruno said the drug’s abortion-inducing effects were tested only to assess the dangers to patients taking it for other reasons.”
“To test the drug’s hazards in pregnancy, Ms. Bruno said, Searle gave Cytotec to a small group of women in their first trimester of pregnancy who planned on having abortions. The tests, conducted in West Germany in the early 1980’s, showed that the drug caused ”uterine expulsion and bleeding,” Ms. Bruno said.”
“Dr. Richard Glasow, another official of National Right to Life, said the group had not yet decided what actions to take against Searle, but that a boycott of Searle products, including Nutrasweet, was a possiblity.”
The Childbirth Truth Squad 
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