Avandia users seek answers

0 Comments | USA TODAY, May, 2007 | by Rita Rubin and Anita Manning

Many people with type 2 diabetes are wondering whether to keep taking their medication now that a new report suggests Avandia, a pill widely used to help control blood sugar, can raise heart attack risk.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the American Diabetes Association had fielded 70 calls from patients with questions spurred by publicity about the new report, which was posted online Monday by The New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers pooled data from 42 small, short-term trials of the drug.

The Food and Drug Administration acknowledged that it had received a draft of a similar analysis by Avandia maker GlaxoSmithKline in 2005 but did not get the company's full analysis until last August.

In a letter sent Tuesday to FDA administrator Andrew von...