Nissen não é mágico

O blogueiro de The Scientist não perdou a incapacidade de Steven Nissen - autor da metanálise sobre o Avandia - em prever o futuro. O colega do The Wall Street Journal reproduziu o ocorrido cujo texto segue abaixo. Cleveland Clinic Cardiologist’s Crystal Ball Imperfect Posted by Scott Hensley The FDA advisory panel that just dissed Acomplia, Sanofi-Aventis’s weight-loss drug, dealt an indirect blow to a frequent and outspoken critic of the drug industry. The thumbs-down for Acomplia marks at least the second time in a year that Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen “has been wrong about the promise of new drugs,” writes Ivan Oransky on the blog of The Scientist today. Last October, Nissen (pictured, upper left) was part of a panel discussion that Oransky moderated at a meeting of health-care journalists in Cleveland. In preparation for the talk, Oransky asked the speakers to come with two ideas that the audience of reporters and editors might be interested in as potential stories. “Nissen brought two: Acomplia, which he said was a clever scientific idea and held real promise, and CETP inhibitors such as Pfizer’s torcetrapib,” he writes. “He was quite excited about both drugs, and was involved in trials of both at the time, which he disclosed.” The panel discussion took place on Friday, Oct. 27. Three days later, Pfizer disclosed information that heightened concerns about torcetrapib’s tendency to raise blood pressure in patients taking it. Afterwards, Nissen acknowledged the findings raised the hurdle for approval of the medicine. But Pfizer halted development of torcetrapib in early December after excess deaths were found in a 15,000-patient study of the medicine. The FDA advisors who voted down Acomplia yesterday dimmed the prospects for the drug being approved in the U.S. anytime soon. Plenty of people besides Nissen were hopeful about both Acomplia and torcetrapib. And nobody can know for sure about the hypothesized benefits and risks of an experimental medicine until the clinical data are in. Still, Oransky concludes: “I think it’s worth noting the record of someone whose pronouncements on drugs are so often held up by drug industry critics and that make media headlines.” The Health Blog called Nissen, who declined to comment.