Close Call for a Diabetes Drug

Despite 35 deaths, an FDA panel says Rezulin can stay on the market

Diabetes can kill its victims in all manner of nasty ways. The complications include heart disease, stroke and kidney failure--and these are just a few of the ills that can result from the body's inability to process sugar.

It's a cruel twist of fate therefore, that one of the most promising drugs ever found to treat diabetics could turn out to be just another way to die. Yet that's the depressing possibility the Food and Drug Administration was forced to confront last week. At least 35 people have died from liver damage after taking Rezulin, a medication the agency approved...

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