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http://www.sfexaminer.com/article/index.cfm/i/100704b_drugs

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• Scientists and European regulators are now questioning the safety of other pain relievers like Vioxx, saying these medications also might raise the risk of heart attack and stroke.
• Vioxx, heavily marketed as an arthritis drug, was pulled from the market last week after its maker announced that a study showed it doubled the risk of heart problems.
• But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said similar prescription drugs were safe.
• On Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency in London announced it would review drugs similar to Vioxx.
• And researchers writing in the New England Journal of Medicine voiced their concerns as well with such drugs as Pfizer's popular Celebrex.
• Studies done five years ago when Celebrex and Merck & Co.'s Vioxx were approved suggest that the same mechanism that inhibits inflammation and makes the drugs easier on the stomach than traditional painkillers also blocks a substance that prevents heart problems, according to Dr. Garret FitzGerald, a University of Pennsylvania cardiologist.
• "I believe this is a class effect," meaning that the problem also applies to Celebrex and Pfizer's newer, similar drug, Bextra, which remain on the market.

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