Updated: Lupus Patients BEWARE! New Drug Could Be a Death Sentence: Belimumab Earns FDA Approval for Lupus (1352 hits)
Early results for Benlysta have not determined overall effectiveness in those of African descent...
Lupus patients BEWARE! New drug could be a death sentence The FDA just approved a drug for lupus patients despite the fact that it could be deadly. Benlysta is the first new drug approved for treating lupus in 56 years--but it shouldn't have been. Because while study results "suggested, but did not definitively establish" that the drug might reduce severe flare-ups of disease symptoms, researchers reported a higher death rate in the patients taking Benlysta.
This comes straight off the FDA announcement: Those receiving Benlysta during clinical studies reported more deaths and serious infections compared with placebo. The FDA approved this obviously dangerous and potentially deadly drug. Your doctor may recommend Benlysta. But you don't have to take it. Because as horrific as lupus symptoms can be, serious infections and death are worse. --: HSI - Michele Cagan
(Updated March 15, 2011) The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of belimumab (Benlysta, Human Genome Sciences and GlaxoSmithKline) in combination with standard therapies to treat active autoantibody-positive systematic lupus erythematosus. This is the first lupus drug to be approved since 1955, when the FDA approved hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) and corticosteroids. In 1948, aspirin was approved to treat lupus.
