Advair News &
Announcements
07/02/2007 - Accident Raises Safety Concerns About Chinese Tires
Wall Street Journal reports that more than 450,000 Chinese-made tires may lack an important safety feature.
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Advair is one of the most prescribed medications for the management of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The medication is a combination of two GlaxoSmithKline drugs: fluticasone propionate (an anti-inflammatory corticosteroid otherwise known as Flovent or Flonase) and salmeterol (a beta2-adrenergic receptor agonist marketed as the asthma drug Serevent). Serevent and Flonase are also individually prescribed for the management of asthma.
Salmeterol (Serevent) operates by relieving bronchial spasms (contractions of the smooth muscle of the bronchial tubes), thereby allowing air passages to expand (bronchodilation) and reestablish the flow of air to and from the lungs. The steroid fluticasone (Flovent / Flonase) aids in controlling asthma attacks by preventing certain cells in the lungs from secreting substances that cause inflammation. Fluticasone's ability to stop secretion of such substances typically takes days to affect the body. Consequentially, fluticasone does not aid in immediate relief of an asthma attack but may be therapeutic in preventing future severe attacks.
Advair is disbursed through a container, called a diskus, which holds small pellets of the drug. When the Advair user presses a small lever on the diskus, a number of pellets proportional to one dose are crushed into a fine powder. The user then inhales the powder through the mouthpiece on the diskus. The powder reaches the user?s lungs upon inhalation.
Although Advair does not claim to stop an asthma attack as it is happening, when taken twice a day, Advair is supposed to decrease the number and the severity of asthma attacks. In fact, after Advair received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2000, GlaxoSmithKline marketed the drug as ?the first and only? medication to simultaneously treat both the inflammation and constricted airways caused by asthma.
Concern is growing, however, that both Advair and Serevent may be unsafe. In 2005, at the behest of the FDA, GlaxoSmithKline added a black box warning to product labels for both of the drugs after a controlled study on salmeterol resulted in a significant number of deaths and severe asthma attacks. A black box warning is the FDA's most severe warning for a drug. A recent analysis of pooled results from nineteen trials involving tens of thousands of patients, has indicated that salmeterol may increase the risk of asthma death and that the risk does not decrease when salmeterol is used in conjunction with inhaled steroids. Experts speculate that although salmeterol may help to relieve asthma symptoms, it may also promote bronchial inflammation without warning. Additional research has also indicated that African-Americans - the group already at the highest risk of death due to asthma - may be at an even higher risk of asthma-related death after using Advair or Serevent.
If you or a family member have suffered an injury associated with the use of Advair or Serevent and would like to discuss your rights, please fill out this short form and a member of Seeger Weiss?s experienced legal staff will contact you. Seeger Weiss, LLP is recognized as one of the nation?s leading complex litigation law firms. Seeger Weiss, LLP has offices located in both New York and New Jersey and its attorneys are licensed to practice across the country. Please note that initial attorney consultations are free of charge and do not create an attorney-client relationship.
Salmeterol (Serevent) operates by relieving bronchial spasms (contractions of the smooth muscle of the bronchial tubes), thereby allowing air passages to expand (bronchodilation) and reestablish the flow of air to and from the lungs. The steroid fluticasone (Flovent / Flonase) aids in controlling asthma attacks by preventing certain cells in the lungs from secreting substances that cause inflammation. Fluticasone's ability to stop secretion of such substances typically takes days to affect the body. Consequentially, fluticasone does not aid in immediate relief of an asthma attack but may be therapeutic in preventing future severe attacks.
Advair is disbursed through a container, called a diskus, which holds small pellets of the drug. When the Advair user presses a small lever on the diskus, a number of pellets proportional to one dose are crushed into a fine powder. The user then inhales the powder through the mouthpiece on the diskus. The powder reaches the user?s lungs upon inhalation.
Although Advair does not claim to stop an asthma attack as it is happening, when taken twice a day, Advair is supposed to decrease the number and the severity of asthma attacks. In fact, after Advair received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2000, GlaxoSmithKline marketed the drug as ?the first and only? medication to simultaneously treat both the inflammation and constricted airways caused by asthma.
Concern is growing, however, that both Advair and Serevent may be unsafe. In 2005, at the behest of the FDA, GlaxoSmithKline added a black box warning to product labels for both of the drugs after a controlled study on salmeterol resulted in a significant number of deaths and severe asthma attacks. A black box warning is the FDA's most severe warning for a drug. A recent analysis of pooled results from nineteen trials involving tens of thousands of patients, has indicated that salmeterol may increase the risk of asthma death and that the risk does not decrease when salmeterol is used in conjunction with inhaled steroids. Experts speculate that although salmeterol may help to relieve asthma symptoms, it may also promote bronchial inflammation without warning. Additional research has also indicated that African-Americans - the group already at the highest risk of death due to asthma - may be at an even higher risk of asthma-related death after using Advair or Serevent.
If you or a family member have suffered an injury associated with the use of Advair or Serevent and would like to discuss your rights, please fill out this short form and a member of Seeger Weiss?s experienced legal staff will contact you. Seeger Weiss, LLP is recognized as one of the nation?s leading complex litigation law firms. Seeger Weiss, LLP has offices located in both New York and New Jersey and its attorneys are licensed to practice across the country. Please note that initial attorney consultations are free of charge and do not create an attorney-client relationship.