Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group,
has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, to remove Xenical, a prescription obesity drug, off the market due to fears it can lead to
breast and colon cancer. At this time, there is also the possibility the weight loss drug will be approved for
over-the-counter sales, and the consumer group is asking the FDA to refuse approval of that move. However, last week,
in a potentially disturbing turn of event, the FDA granted drug company GlaxoSmithKline conditional approval for the
drug to be sold without a prescription as long as it met certain undisclosed criteria.Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said in a statement, "The failure to ban the prescription version of this drug or worse, to make it much more widely available by allowing OTC sales, is a decision that is likely to increase cancer incidence."
In the past, Public Citizen has alerted consumers about the dangers of Vioxx, Ephedra, Bextra, Rezulin, Baycol, Propulsid and many other drugs years before the drugs were pulled from the market.
