TIME FOR YOUR LITTLE GREEN PILL

Drug won't stop heart attacks (Sharon Kirkey, National Post, November 5th, 2004)

A blood pressure drug taken by hundreds of thousands of Canadians is no better than a dummy pill at preventing heart attacks or deaths from heart disease, new research suggests.

As well, atenolol was worse than several other blood pressure medicines in preventing cardiac-related deaths or stroke, the international study found.

Atenolol is a beta-blocker, a class of drugs that ease the heart's workload by slowing the heart rate.

More than four million prescriptions worth in excess of $115-million were filled for the drug in Canada in the 12-month period ending in September, making it the second most prescribed drug in its class, according to prescription-drug tracking company, IMS Health Canada.

But a study in this week's issue of the medical journal The Lancet found that while the drug lowers blood pressure, that didn't result in any advantage over placebo in terms of reducing heart attacks or cardiovascular mortality. Nor did it result in fewer deaths from all causes combined.

One of the unfortunate fallouts of the Canadian-American frictions over drug-pricing is that too few on either side of the border seem to be asking how much we really need the darn things at all.