HOUSE Ways and Means Committee Chairman Stanley T. Torres has asked Health Secretary James U. Hofschneider and Ted Parker, general manager of PHI Pharmacies, to disclose to his committee the number of diabetic patients who also suffer from kidney disease and/or heart failure.
Torres said he has learned that many diabetics with kidney or heart disease have been prescribed a deadly drug called metformin.
Based on news reports, metmorfin sold as Glucophage is a medicine that causes side effects called lactic acidosis. The buildup of lactic acid in the blood is fatal in about 50 percent of cases. Patients with heart disease or kidney failure are specifically vulnerable to the side effects of the medicine, reports said.
“This medicine is being dispensed and may have inappropriately prescribed as a common drug that could potentially kill kidney and heart failure patients in the CNMI by our own medical doctors,” Torres, R-Saipan, said.
“We are losing a great number of our young diabetics lately. Glucophage may have been the terminator,” said Torres.
