Abbott’s Meridia Gets Split Vote on U.S. Withdrawal
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Abbott Laboratories received a split recommendation from a U.S. panel weighing whether the company’s diet pill Meridia should stay on the market after being linked in a study to heart attacks, strokes and deaths.
Outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration, meeting today in Adelphi, Maryland, voted 8-8 when asked whether the medicine should be withdrawn or remain available with new warnings or restrictions in its prescribing information. As in cases when there is a recommendation that isn’t divided, the agency isn’t bound by the panel’s advice.