WASHINGTON - Physicians who want to prescribe anti-anemia drugs for cancer patients will have to register and undergo training or risk losing access to the drugs, under a long-awaited risk-management plan unveiled Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration. The company also will require physicians to collect signed statements from patients attesting that they have been informed about the dangers of the drugs, which can cause tumors to grow faster and have shortened the lives of some cancer patients. The drugs, trade-named Epogen, Aranesp and Procrit, are in other medical settings, but the safety plan applies only to use with cancer patients.
- Tribune Newspapers
