Qnexa: dangerous weight loss medication
A United States Food and Drug Administration panel has voted against the recommendation of the new diet drug Qnexa, because of the concerns related to the drug’s cardiovascular effects.
They voted 10 to 6 against approving of the combination drug. The pill contains amphetamine phentermine, one of the ingredients contained by the infamous diet pill Fen-phen, which was recalled from the market because it was proved to produce heart damage, and anticonvulsant topiramate. Topiramate has been studied a while ago on diabetics who are obese and it worked fairly for weight loss, but the side effects were significant, so the use of it was dropped. The first review considered Qnexa to be safe and efficient, and some participants of the first clinical trials are reported to have lost 10 percent of their initial body weight. But the committee does not doubt its efficacy, which is far superior to anything on the market; it is concerned about the risk of psychiatric and cognitive problems that might appear and that were hidden by the company, the cardiovascular risks and the potential birth defects that might appear to children conceived while the women were taking Qnexa.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, declares that the two drugs that compose Qnexa are dangerous on their own, so there is no chance that the combination is not harmful. This is bad news for people hoping that Qnexa would provide effective weight-loss without the side effects that caused the recalling of the previous drugs, because it seems to be striking similar to them.
