ESAs

Now, I'm going to geek out a little bit on this post. Non-medical type beware.

I am reminded today about how medicine is constantly changing.

Patients with cancer and kidney disease sometimes have problems making enough red blood cells. As such, doctors and pharmacists watch their labs. When their red blood cell counts get too low, we give them drugs called ESAs. Almost every kidney failure patient gets ESAs.

Now, the FDA is recommending that we back off and not use ESAs as much. Some research is showing that the drugs might cause heart attacks or strokes.

The FDA says,
"ESAs have not been shown to improve quality of life, fatigue, or patient well-being, the FDA said in a news release."

Medicine is a battle. We have to trust things enough to do our best to help others, but we have to always keep one eye open to make sure that we're not doing more harm than good.

Geeks read more here:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/745267