By: Ashton Embry, July 7, 2010
Five years ago, I wrote a New Pathways column on the value of the
commonly used, CRAB drugs (Copaxone, Rebif, Avonex, Betaseron)
for MS. It was based on published evaluations by the Cochrane
Collaboration, an organization which is free from drug company
influence. Based on their objective analyses, my unavoidable
conclusion was that “the available data on the effectiveness of the MS
drugs indicates that there is very little evidence that the interferons do
much good and that there is no evidence at all that Copaxone has any
value.”
Not surprisingly, this conclusion did not sit well with many people who
were taking the drugs and it was completely ignored (as were the
Cochrane analyses) by the neurologists who over the past 5 years
have kept prescribing the drugs as fast as they can. The annual
revenues from MS drugs is approaching the 10 billion dollar mark,
much to the satisfaction of both the drug companies that produce them
and the neurologists and MS societies that receive substantial financial
and in-kind benefits from those drug companies.
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