Gleevec is proving over time to be such a promising breakthrough in successfully treating leukemia patients that even with the discovery that it can cause congestive heart failure researchers are still telling cancer patients not to stop taking the drug.

Dr. Thomas Force, of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, the study's author, said that this is not a case of Vioxx and while ten patients taking Gleevec for chronic myelogenous leukemia developed severe congestive heart failure, the take away message of the study is that doctors need to be aware that cancer drugs like Gleevec can have severe effects on the heart and the heart health of patients taking Gleevec needs to be closely monitored.

Out of New Zealand comes reporting that four New Zealanders have suffered rotting jawbones after taking a bisphosphates medication prescribed to help prevent bone loss for patients suffering from osteoporosis and bone cancers. At least 15 Americans are suing Merck after developing breakdown of bone in the jaw due to taking Fosamax prescribed to strengthen bone and prevent bone loss.

According to the report, while the New Zealand patients were not taking the brand name drug, Fosamax, they were taking a similar version of the same drug. In total, about 2500 cases of rotting jaws have been reported. Merck is the same company who was forced to take Vioxx, an arthritis drug, off the market after a study showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks or strokes if patients took it for longer than 18 months. Perhaps we need to take a closer look into the medicine cabinet -- and start asking more questions -- before we rush to get a glass of water and down the newest approved pill. A new cancer drug is about to hit the market. Let's take a look.

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.

In a new study from University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Dr. Sharon Giordano, an assistant professor of medicine in the department of breast medical oncology, highlights the reality that some physicians may be influenced to prescribe cancer treatments as a result of preliminary clinical trial results announced at medical conferences and by mass media reporting. In treating cancer patients with unproven cancer therapies, and basing those decisions on the incomplete data of preliminary trials, the physician and patient risk not only the disappointment if the therapy turns out not to be effective, but puts the patient in harm's way from possibly damaging and toxic consequences in unforeseen side effects and complications of the new therapy.

In the past, hormone replacement therapy, HRT, Vioxx and Bextra cox-2 inhibitors, and Iressa, a lung-cancer drug that physicians began prescribing based on early findings, turned out to do more harm than good. With the advent of the Internet, and access to the latest medical news, cancer patients are much more informed today, and may be a factor fueling the push to try new therapies, before they are proven effective or safe. The researchers of this study caution everyone to ask basic questions before embracing a drug that has not completely gone through the testing phases to insure it will do what it is attributed with having the ability to do, and that it is safe.