Dan Lewis, who runs a fantastic sports blog, links to an article by Jacob Sullivan that appeared in USA Today(one of my favorites) about the ridiculous ban on ephedrine by the NFL.
The professional alarmists at Public Citizen count "well over 100 deaths reported to the FDA (among) people using ephedra-containing products" since 1993. It's worth noting that a 2000 New England Journal of Medicine study found that fewer than a third of the "adverse events" supposedly caused by ephedra were "definitely or probably related" to use of the drug.
But let's accept Public Citizen's estimate for the sake of argument. It translates into something like 11 deaths a year. By contrast, in 1999 the federal government's Drug Abuse Warning Network counted 427 deaths involving acetaminophen and 104 involving aspirin. Now that it has addressed the threat posed by decongestants, perhaps the NFL should turn its attention to over-the-counter painkillers.
The professional alarmists at Public Citizen count "well over 100 deaths reported to the FDA (among) people using ephedra-containing products" since 1993. It's worth noting that a 2000 New England Journal of Medicine study found that fewer than a third of the "adverse events" supposedly caused by ephedra were "definitely or probably related" to use of the drug.
But let's accept Public Citizen's estimate for the sake of argument. It translates into something like 11 deaths a year. By contrast, in 1999 the federal government's Drug Abuse Warning Network counted 427 deaths involving acetaminophen and 104 involving aspirin. Now that it has addressed the threat posed by decongestants, perhaps the NFL should turn its attention to over-the-counter painkillers.
posted by Champion at 10:58 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home