I
Told You So, Cox 2 Drugs Kill!
By: Dr. William Wong,
ND, PhD.
The Franciscan
in me tries to restrain me from gloating
and saying I was right all along, but
for now I'll allow myself the pleasure
of saying about Vioxx and the rest of
the COX 2 crowd, “I told
you so”!
It was
some 6 or so years ago when the folks
from Searle, a pharmaceutical company
owned by Monsanto, came over to a booth
I was working at a American Academy of
Sports Medicine convention and proudly
proclaimed that their new COX 2 drug
Celebrex would put the enzyme company
I was then working for out of business. Heady
with their latest research, they said
the COX 2 drugs did not have ANY of the
side effects of the COX 1 (i.e. Aspirin,
ibuprofen, naproxin etc), and that no
one would need such a crude and natural
thing as enzymes to control inflammation
when just a couple of doses per day of
their new wonder drug would do so with
out all the fuss of having to take large
numbers of enzyme pills per day. (Pfizer
bought Searle from Monsanto some years
ago and now owns Celebrex).
Their
initial research was shown to be false
by actual use of the drug. As the
Wall Street Journal article on Celebrex
recounted on April 19th of 1999, Celebrex
was not side effect free, and indeed
in the 3 weeks since its release 11 patients
taking it had died of the very things
that were not supposed to happen from
using COX 2 drugs i.e. kidney failure
and intestinal hemorrhage! So the
lab eggheads at the drug companies were
wrong in their conclusions about COX
2 inhibitions and its lack of side defects. So
much for knowing biology over physiology.
Now medical
research says, that the egg heads were
not only wrong about the COX 2 drugs
not having the kidney damage, liver toxicity
and intestinal wall thinning effect of
the COX 1's, as they first claimed; one
COX 2 drug, Vioxx, has now been shown
to cause heart attacks and strokes! And,
it stands to reason that if one drug
that works on the COX 2 pathway has those
bad effects, the others can't be far
behind. So thinks the US FDA, the
British National Health Service and Dr.
Garret FitzGerald of the University of
Pennsylvania who wrote in an article
on that for the New England Journal of
Medicine. (1).
Now here
I'm going to step on some natural health
toes; I've said for some time that the
natural COX 2 inhibitors such as boswella
and turmeric would have the same side
effects as the COX 2 drugs if used long
term and if they truly work as claimed
in the COX 2 pathway. Some
will tell me that these herbs won't do
that because they are natural and natural
things can't hurt you! That is
a grave misconception! Tobacco
is natural, opium is natural, and coca
plants that make cocaine are natural. Vitamins
A, D and Niacin are all natural and naturally
toxic with the ability to cause death
by liver damage if taken in excess! Just
because something is natural does not
mean that it is harmless!
Since
all the methods to control inflammation
from COX 1 and COX 2 to Corticosteroids
are dangerous, deadly and have seriously
bad side effects, does it not make sense
to control inflammation, with non-toxic
enzymes! (2). Inflammation
we now know is the major cause of heart
and vascular disease; it is the root
cause of pancreatic dysfunction leading
to diabetics and pancreatic cancer. Inflammation
has been found to be the root cause of
Alzheimers and various other life threatening
diseases. (3). But in the search
to control inflammation we should not
take something that will kill us faster
than the inflammation!
Systemic
proteolytic enzymes are nature’s
non-toxic way to control inflammation! Over
and above that they are the only way
medical, natural or other wise to eat
away at fibrosis (the second major cause
of blood clots and internal organ dysfunction). Systemic
proteolytic enzymes have over 200 peer
reviewed hospital and university studies
to prove their effectiveness and safety. Over
and above that, there is over 40 years
of clinical experience in Central Europe
and Japan where oral systemic enzymes
are used widely in standard medicine. Given
the choices of death by inflammation,
death by COX 1 drugs, death by COX 2
drugs, or death by Corticosteroids would
it not make sense to choose life by lowering
inflammation and fibrosis naturally and
without toxicity using systemic enzymes? There
is no need to kill Peter to help Paul
because when we do so both Peter and
Paul die.
References:
- Researchers Expand on Dangers of
Vioxx to Drugs in Same Class, Marc
Kauffman and Brooke Masters, Washington
Post, Thursday Oct. 7thy, 2004 page
A03
- Bodhankar, S.L.: Acute and Sub acute
oral toxicity of Vegpanenzyme in mice
and rats. Abstract ID 698, Society
of Toxicology 2004 Meeting, Baltimore
Maryland USA
- Quenching the Fires of Inflammation
Article Life Extension Foundation Magazine
June 2004 http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/jul2004_cover_quench_01.htm
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