Humira Review of Literature

Since I am going to go on Humira I did some research on Humira and its benefit. In this study from the January 2007 edition of Clinical Gastroenterology Humira was shown to induce remission in 40% in 40 mg of adalimunab (Humira) every other week and 47% taking 40 mg of Humira every week induced remission. There were more adverse effects in the placebo than in those taking the dose. For those taking the every other week were 6.9% in the every other week and 4.7% in the those taking it a weekly dose.

In this study it was concluded that patients that took Humira every other week had a 52% in hospitalizations and those who took it every week had a 60% reduction in hospitalization over a 1 year period. This study showed that Humira increased in quality of life of patients a little after a year. This study  showed that the most reported adverse side effect was injection-site reaction which occurred in 20% of patients and tuberculosis only occurred in .2% of patients.

Humira is used for various different kinds of disease like rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and plaque psoriasis which I believe are all autoimmune diseases. When you see the commercials for Humira they list ever known side effect regardless of whether .001% of people suffered those side effects of hundreds. I am no legal expert but I would think they have to disclose this information since people would come back later and say well you never told me about these side effects. Also, this in a way reduces the amount of people who would take Humira considering when people hear these awful side effects they think “Why on earth would I ever take this drug?” Once people hear the side effects their brain turns off and they really don’t investigate the drug or even talk to their doctor about it. If anything the FDA approves drugs that are too safe. By definition every drug will have risk. The question is will you be better off taking the drug or therapy as opposed to doing nothing. Crohn’s is a life long illness that is really in need of more drugs and therapies however I personally believe the FDA hampers this process by making it expensive for drug companies not only to make drugs but also slow down the process for getting drugs that are needed to the market. Crohn’s patients often talk about the high prices of drugs however the reason for that is because of the FDA which requires such burdensome regulation and proof that a drug is safe and effective when patients on their own are much better at this than people at the FDA. I doubt anyone in the FDA has ever lived a day with Crohn’s.