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SLEEP APNOEA AND DYSFUNCTIONAL BREATHING |
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SLEEP APNOEA AND DYSFUNCTIONAL BREATHING
The link missed by the Sleep Study industry.
By Roger Price
Respiratory Physiologist
I would like to commence by stating that there is no doubt in my mind that Sleep Apnoea exists and is a valid and extremely debilitating condition.
I also agree that in certain cases it is possible to achieve a remarkable turn-around through the use of a CPAP or BiPAP machine.
In just on 10 years of treating people with asthma, chronic snoring and sleep apnoea, I have however reached the conclusion that these conditions are very often incorrectly diagnosed and inappropriately treated.
It was confirmed in March 2007, at the Annual Conference of the Australian New Zealand Thoracic Society, that asthma was being grossly misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated with inhaled medication.
By the same token the snoring industry has been over prescribing and dispensing splint devices which do little to remedy the situation, and some of the major players have quietly disappeared.
The actual statistics on the successful patient compliance with CPAP are difficult to obtain as it is in the interests of the industry to overstate the effectiveness. They ‘fail' to take into account those machines that have been prescribed, purchased, trialled and then left lying about in a cupboard because the user just cannot tolerate the device.
According to our in-house records less than 16% of the people that we see are able to use CPAP effectively.
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SERIOUS WARNING ON DANGERS OF ASTHMA PUFFERS |
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May 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that product labels for three popular asthma medications have been updated to state that the drugs could increase the chance of severe asthma attacks that could result in death.
The warnings, first proposed last November, involve long-acting bronchodilator medicines Advair (known as Seretide in Australia) and Serevent, made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, and Foradil from Novartis AG.
In a public health advisory issued on its Web site, the FDA said the inhaled drugs should only be used after other medicines, such as inhaled corticosteroids, fail to control asthma.
Publish Date: May 17, 2006
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Facts published but not often seen |
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BLACK BOX WARNING ON ASTHMA PUFFERS
On 17th May 2006 the UNITED STATES FEDERAL DRUG ADMINISTRATION published a BLACK BOX WARNING on the most widely prescribed asthma puffers.
This warning states: that
"the use of this drug could provoke a serious asthma attack which could result in death"
The products covered by this warning are sold in Australia under the following names:
SEREVENT. SERETIDE. OXIS. FORADILE. SYMBICORT.
and are amongs the most widely prescribed of all asthma puffers in this country.
Drug companies actions exposed "SELLING SICKNESS"
In his recently published book, Selling Sickness, Ray Moynihan, a highly respected health investigative journalist prints an amazing statement on the back cover.
Three decades ago, the head of one of the world's leading drug companies made some remarkably candid comments. Wishing his company was more like Wrigley's, the chief executive of Merck said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people, and sell to everyone. That dream now drives the marketing machinery of one of the most profitable industries on the planet.
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Regular use of asthma drugs poses respiratory, cardiac dangers, Cornell, Stanford researchers find in study critical of drug industry.
FOR RELEASE: June 17, 2004
Contact: Roger Segelken
Office: 607-255-9736
E-Mail:
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ITHACA, N.Y.
Physicians who prescribe the regular use of beta-agonist drugs for asthma could be endangering their patients, two new studies by researchers at Cornell and Stanford universities find. One study compiles previously published clinical trials to conclude that patients could both develop a tolerance for beta-agonists and be at increased risk for asthma attacks, compared with those who do not use the drug at all. The second study shows that beta-agonist use increases cardiac risks, such as heart attacks, by more than two-fold, compared with the use of a placebo.
Furthermore, the researchers say that their analyses lead them to suspect a conflict of interest among scientists who are supported by pharmaceutical companies that make beta-agonists, among the world's most widely used drugs. This conflict, they say, could be putting 16 million U.S. asthma sufferers in harm's way. Their statement comes as the American Medical Association is voicing its concerns that drug industry sponsorship of clinical tests is affecting the quality of research.
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