I can hear big pharma screaming

Every Monday at 5:30pm (3:30 pm in WA) and repeated on Tuesday mornings at 5:30 am, Dr Norman Swan presents the Health Report on Radio National. Last Monday Dr Swan talked to Jim Wright, Professor of Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia and Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Hypertension Group, about his systematic review of the effects of antihypertensive drug therapy on mortality and morbidity in adults with mild hypertension. The Cochrane Collaboration is largely devoted to performing such reviews and one has just been published on the drug treatment of mild hypertension, the results of which could save the nation a fortune.

It seems that for patients with mild hypertension, who have not experienced any adverse health event related to their blood pressure, commonly prescribed medications may not be proving beneficial. Wright did admit that most of the drug study participants were taking were the ‘older’ style diuretics and beta-blockers and not the more recent ACE inhibitors, but even so, if this analysis proves accurate the government stands to save a lot of money and the pharmaceutical companies stand to lose a lot of throughput.

In the meta-analysis, four trials of approximately 9000 patients found there was no proven difference in mortality, stroke, coronary heart disease or total cardiovascular events between patients taking the medication and those taking a placebo. For patients with blood pressure in a certain range (140-150 and 90-100) there was no proven benefit from taking medication. What was noticed was a trend towards reduction in stroke, but also towards increase in coronary heart disease. Wright says a large randomised trial is needed to confirm the beneficial claims of newer medications.

The Radio National interview can be heard here.