Extra! Extra! Doctors heeded rosiglitazone news

In heartening news for health journalists everywhere, an Ontario study in the July issue of Diabetic Medicine found that physicians stood up and took notice when news that rosiglitazone increased MI risk in diabetics was emblazoned across every newspaper in the country - including our own National Review of Medicine.

(Read our coverage of Steve Nissen's controversial meta-analysis here and the fallout here.)

Looking at records of new prescriptions for Ontario residents, the researchers found that just after the meta-analysis started making headlines, new scripts abruptly declined.

"This is the first time we’ve seen a prescribing change so quickly following this type of study, and it shows that media exposure can influence health care,” notes lead author Dr Baiju Shah.

He adds, "All of this attention benefits the patient and helps them make an informed medical decision and sometimes, it just may save their life.”

Did I read that right? Praise for the media? Wow.

Interestingly, the study also noted a short-lived spike in scripts for the rival glucose-lowering med pioglitazone, which like rosiglitazone is in the thiazolidinedione class. "The decision to switch between thiazolidinediones may have been prompted by a large randomized trial of pioglitazone that showed favourable cardiovascular outcomes, leading physicians to believe that the purported ischaemic effects of rosiglitazone were not a class effect," they write. They go on to say that subsequent negative studies resulted in an overall decline in new prescriptions for the class.

Editorial cartoon from NRM June 15 2007

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