Quoted from http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/advair-boomed-amid-health-risks-264ct6q-179834881.html
Advair boomed amid health risks
Asthma guidelines written by doctors with financial ties to maker
By John Fauber of the Journal Sentinel Nov. 17, 2012
Click image to enlarge. Related Coverage
The 2001 product launch of the asthma drug Advair was a lavish, Las Vegas affair.
Using images of a slot machine, top GlaxoSmithKline executives took the stage in front of thousands of assembled sales reps. "There are people in this room who are going to make an ungodly sum of money selling Advair," one executive told the group.
He was right.
Millions of people with asthma, including many children, have gone on the drug and Advair sales have exceeded $4 billion every year since 2007.
Yet medical studies, independent doctors and court records indicate the drug can be dangerous, especially to children, and has been massively overused and often inappropriately prescribed.
Advair and other drugs that contain long-acting beta-agonists have been linked to 1,900 asthma deaths from 2004 through 2011, according to an estimate by AdverseEvents Inc., a private firm that analyzes incidents reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The incident reporting system is voluntary, so the estimate likely is low.
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