STANLEY T. Torres, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, yesterday said he received information from “reliable sources” in the medical sector that CNMI doctors prescribe metformin to an average of more than 300 patients monthly.
Metfromin, sold as Glucophage, is a medicine that may cause side effects called lactic acidosis—a buildup of lactic acid in the blood that causes death in about 50 percent of cases especially patients suffering from heart disease or kidney failure.
Torres, in an interview, said based on a research he received from a reliable source, which he declined to identify, monthly metformin prescriptions were issued by doctors to an average of 311 patients from Jan. 1 to May 31, 2002. He said he will immediately inform the Department of Health about this and urge them to “seriously look into this potential danger.”
“This has confirmed the information that I received earlier that a high volume of metformin or Glucophage is being dispensed and may have been inappropriately prescribed as a common drug that could potentially kill kidney and heart failure patients in the CNMI by our own medical doctors. This should be addressed immediately. We should not just let our people suffer or worse die by taking this terminator drug,” said Torres, R-Saipan.
He said a friend who was taking Glucophage for 10 years went to the Philippines for treatment and was advised by a doctor there to immediately stop taking the drug as it caused the deterioration of his health.
“There may be many people in the CNMI whose health is deteriorating as they continuously take the drug. Public Health should examine these people, especially the diabetics. We are losing a great number of diabetics lately and we should do something to prevent untimely deaths,” he said.
But Dr. Richard Brostorm, medical director of the Division of Public Health, said the medicine safe.
He said hundreds of people in the CNMI suffering from diabetes were helped by the drug. “There has never been a death in the CNMI that was caused by this medicine,” he said.
Torres, however, said it is “hasty” for Bronstrom to conclude that metformin is not the cause of health deterioration or death among diabetic patients.
