FDA advisory panel to re-evaluate Amgen, J&J anemia drugs.

This issue has been getting some attention lately. If you are using any of these medications, you may want to consult your doctor.

The New York Times (1/7, B3, Pollack) reports, “The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that it would review the safety of…widely used anemia drugs sold by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson after another clinical trial suggested that high doses of one of the drugs,” Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa), “might cause strokes.” Agency officials published an article in The New England Journal of Medicine that said “the results of the new trial, as well as of previous trials, ‘raise major concerns’ about the use of the drugs to treat the anemia caused by chronic kidney disease.”