LONDON, MAY 16:  The US Food and Drug Administration strengthened the warning labels for three asthma treatments, including GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Advair and Serevent, six months after the tougher wording was proposed.
Novartis AG’s Foradil is also affected by the changes, which limit the drugs to people not helped by other medicines. The updated labels say the products “may increase the chance of severe asthma episodes, and death when these episodes occur,” the Washington, D.C.-based agency said on its web site.
Health regulators are getting stricter after health scares from products such as Merck & Co.’s Vioxx painkiller, which was pulled in 2004 because of links to heart attacks. Advair was Glaxo’s best-selling product last year, bringing in $5.6 billion, with Serevent adding another 300 million pounds. Foradil brought in $332 million last year, although only $14 million came from US sales.
The FDA first proposed the label change in November and London-based Glaxo said it would work with the regulator to “address the difference of opinion.”
A US advisory panel in July said that the medicines are safe and sales should be allowed to continue. The committee had been considering the safety of the medicines because of links to rare cases of worsened asthma.
The FDA restricted the drug’s use to patients who didn’t respond to other medicines. Long-acting bronchodilator medicines such as Advair and Foradil should only be used to treat asthma if other medicines, including corticosteroids, don’t work, the FDA said.
—Bloomberg

Task Force says no to OTC nasal steroids

(PRLEAP.COM) A natural asthma cure could mean the end of a multi-million dollar business. With Ventolin tablets and inhalers selling in such high numbers, a drug-free alternative would definitely prove to alter conditions in the asthma treatment industry.

These methods include a drastic change in one’s diet from what is coined as a Mucus/disease forming diet in the Naturopathy Fraternity to a body healing one. This discipline is also being used in the “Breath Retaining Program For Asthmatics” developed by the Russian, Dr. Buteyko and within a few weeks of adhering to this advice, many a chronic asthmatic have been able to give up the use of synthetic drugs.

When told, the tips on his website might be seen as a milestone in natural treatment modalities, Aje offers a warm, yet modest smile saying: “Several people everyday are becoming more aware that nature has provided us with the means to treating ourselves. If a change in dietetic habits and common-sense factors might be all that’s needed to combat a disorder, then there is no need to waste money on chemicals, which inevitably cause more havoc and side-effects.”

Perhaps more people should be informed of this, Aje says, and it remains one of his many missions to inform patients of asthma treatments with a natural approach via his website for the increased healing of the affected.

So the next time one is told there is no cure for asthma, it may be safe to re-visit that remark with emphasis on the drugless methods which according to Aje do work.