Friday, February 03, 2006

Pharma Watch is back in the blogosphere

Good news. Mike Lascelles, aka Pharma Watch, is back and posting again.

His newest target: inhaled insulin, and journalists who uncritically praise this innovation.

He alludes in his responses to comments about this post to Professor George Alberti's concerns about inhaled insulin. In a 2004 BMJ article Amiel and Alberti wrote:

"Inhaled insulin has potential problems. The bioavailability is affected by asthma (decreased) and smoking (increased).9 10 Of course, if patients really dislike injections so much inhaled insulin might make its biggest impact on complications of diabetes if it were to be available only to proved non-smokers. Formation of anti-insulin antibodies is higher with inhaled insulin, and although this is dismissed as not affecting insulin requirement over time, older diabetologists will remember the drive to reduce insulin antibody formation, with the fears that antibodies delay and render unpredictable insulin absorption and even that antibody-antigen complexes may increase risk of microvascular disease.11 Finally, there have been concerns about possible long term effects of insulin on lung structure and function, although current published trials report no deleterious effects over the short-term. "

Insider has already shared his concerns.

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