Faculty Bibliography

Calcium channel blocker listed in the Physicians' Desk Reference include: Adalat, Calan, Cardene, Cardizem, Covera, Dilacor, Isoptin, Nimotop, Norvasc, Plendil, Procardia, Sular, Tiazac, Vascor and Verelan. Such drugs should not be taken off the market, [Curt D. Furberg] said. But, he stressed, doctors should be more cautious in prescribing them as a first-line drug therapy. Furberg's team urged doctors to limit use of calcium channel blockers to patients who have not responded to other standard drugs or who cannot tolerate them. Low-dose diuretics should continue to be considered as the standard therapy, and all new classes of drugs should be compared with diuretics, Furberg's team said

Calcium channel blockers listed in the Physicians' Desk Reference include: Adalat, Calan, Cardene, Cardizem, Covera, Dilacor, Isoptin, Nimotop, Norvasc, Plendil, Procardia, Sular, Tiazac, Vascor and Verelan. Such drugs should not be taken off the market, [Curt D. Furberg] said. But, he stressed, doctors should be more cautious in prescribing them as a first-line drug therapy. Furberg urged doctors to limit use of calcium channel blockers to patients who have not responded to or cannot tolerate other standard drugs. Furberg and other experts stressed that patients should not stop taking calcium channel blockers without first talking with their doctors

Patented calcium channel blockers are also much more expensive than other antihypertensive drugs, [Curt D. Furberg] said. He cited costs of $740 to $990 a year for calcium channel blockers compared with $60 for low doses of a diuretic drug. Wider use of more effective antihypertensive drugs could reduce health care costs in the United States by up to $5 billion a year, Furberg said. Such drugs should not be taken off the market, Furberg said. But, he stressed, doctors should be more cautious in prescribing them as a first-line drug therapy. Furberg's team urged doctors to limit use of calcium channel blockers to patients who have not responded to other standard drugs or who cannot tolerate them. Low-dose diuretics should continue to be considered as the standard therapy, and all new classes of drugs should be compared with diuretics, Furberg's team said

Patented calcium channel blockers are also much more expensive than other antihypertensive drugs, Dr. [Curt D. Furberg] said in an interview. He cited costs of $740 to $990 a year for calcium channel blockers, compared with $60 for low doses of a diuretic drug. Wider use of more effective antihypertensive drugs could reduce the cost of health care in the United States by up to $5 billion a year, Dr. Furberg said. Such drugs should not be taken off the market, Dr. Furberg said. But, he stressed, doctors should be more cautious in prescribing them as first-line drug therapy for high blood pressure and to prevent its complications. Dr. Furberg's team urged doctors to limit use of calcium channel blockers to patients who have not responded to or cannot tolerate other standard drugs. Low-dose diuretics should continue to be considered as the standard therapy for hypertension, and all new classes of drugs should be compared with diuretics, Dr. Furberg's team said. Dr. Furberg's team began challenging the drugs' safety and effectiveness in 1995. The team focused first on the short-acting form of calcium channel blockers that many American doctors had prescribed for high blood pressure despite lacking F.D.A. approval for such use. In 1995, federal health officials warned that short-acting calcium channel blockers should be prescribed ''with great caution, if at all.'' Since then, their use in this country has fallen

Patented calcium channel blockers also are much more expensive than other anti-hypertension drugs, [Curt Furberg] said. He cited costs of $740 to $990 a year for calcium channel blockers, compared with $60 for low doses of a diuretic drug. Wider use of more effective anti-hypertensive drugs could reduce health care costs in the United States by up to $5 billion a year, Furberg said. Furberg's team urged doctors to limit use of calcium channel blockers to patients who have not responded to other standard drugs or who cannot tolerate them

Calcium channel blockers listed in the Physicians' Desk Reference include: Adalat, Calan, Cardene, Cardizem, Covera, Dilacor, Isoptin, Nimotop, Norvasc, Plendil, Procardia, Sular, Tiazac, Vascor and Verelan

Calcium channel blockers include the trade names Adalat, Calan, Cardene, Cardizem, Covera, Dilacor, Isoptin, Nimotop, Norvasc, Plendil, Procardia, Sular, Tiazac, Vascor and Verelan. Such drugs should not be taken off the market, said lead researcher Dr. Curt Furberg of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston- Salem, N.C. He stressed, however, that doctors should be more cautious in prescribing them as a first-line drug therapy. Patented calcium channel blockers also are much more expensive than other antihypertensive drugs, Furberg said. He said calcium channel blockers cost $740 to $990 a year, compared with $60 for low doses of a diuretic drug. Wider use of more effective antihypertensive drugs could reduce health-care costs in the United States by up to $5 billion a year, Furberg said

Patented calcium channel blockers are also much more expensive than other antihypertensive drugs, [Curt D. Furberg] said. He cited costs of $740 to $990 a year for calcium channel blockers compared with $60 for low doses of a diuretic drug. Wider use of more effective antihypertensive drugs could reduce health care costs in the United States by up to $5 billion a year, Furberg said. Such drugs should not be taken off the market, Furberg said. But, he stressed, doctors should be more cautious in prescribing them as a first-line drug therapy. Furberg's team urged doctors to limit use of calcium channel blockers to patients who have not responded to other standard drugs or who cannot tolerate them. Low-dose diuretics should continue to be considered as the standard therapy, and all new classes of drugs should be compared with diuretics, Furberg's team said

DURBAN, South Africa -- A U.N.-sponsored study of AIDS infection among infants has dashed the hopes of scientists who thought they had found a simple way to prevent mothers from giving their infants the AIDS virus during breast-feeding. For about the last five years, doctors have been giving women in the United States and elsewhere infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, one of two treatments during pregnancy to prevent the spread of the disease to their unborn children. The infants were treated in the first few days after birth,and an earlier study showed significant reductions in AIDS infections in the first six weeks of life. The success had been hailed as one of the rare triumphs in the war against AIDS. The new challenge for AIDS researchers and government officials is to preserve the benefit ofdrug therapy in pregnancy and find safe alternatives to breast-feeding. That is a formidable task in Africa where the overwhelming majority of women breast-feed their infants for long periods. Poverty limits the ability of women to buy formula and breast-milk substitutes. Widespread contamination of water supplies and poor sanitation make it dangerous to mix formula. Also, male domination leaves many women with little ability to choose an alternative to breast-feeding. And a woman who avoids breast-feeding her infant can be stigmatized as having AIDS

These and similar messages have sprung up in recent months on billboards along South Africa's main highways, on trains, near schools and in cities and rural areas as part of a campaign to encourage young people to talk freely about sex and the risks of teen-age pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The erotic and hard-hitting phrases are part of a down-to-earth campaign aimed at reducing by half the rate of infection from HIV, the AIDS virus, in South Africa in five years. The 4.2 million HIV-infected people in South Africa represent the largest such group in the world. Love Life's spokeswoman, Judi Nwokedi, described her organization's campaign as the boldest sex education campaign ever conducted in South Africa at a news conference sponsored by the American Medical Association on Saturday, the eve of the 13th International Conference on AIDS, which will be held here