Word: moser
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ELLIOT MOSER...
Penicillin Deaths. After going through the catalogue of drugs that cause severe or fatal breakdowns in the blood-forming mechanism, Dr. Moser reminded his audience that one of the worst drug offenders of all remains one of the most valuable lifesavers available: penicillin. It is known to set off an infinite variety of allergic or "serum sickness" reactions, and causes up to 300 U.S. deaths a year. Even the mildest of drug-induced difficulties, he added, should not be minimized, for the side effects are not limited to one generation. If a woman has certain radiopaque dyes injected for gall...
...Drug-induced side effects," concluded Dr. Moser, "have been called the price we have to pay for more effective and better medicaments. There can be no quarrel with this-it is the high price we are haggling about...
Despite that difficulty, Moser made a devastating indictment of almost every class of new drug. The cortisone-type hormones, familiar for their wide use, particularly in rheumatic disorders, have long since been convicted of causing or exacerbating peptic ulcers, of giving users a fattened "moon" face, and growing mustaches on women. Colonel Moser emphasized two severe unpleasant side effects that may go undetected. Given to victims of leukemia or Hodgkin's disease, he said, these hormones predispose the patients to fungus infections, and they leach the calcium out of the bones of the bedridden elderly...
...disease reactions that doctors describe as "pharmacogenetic." In these cases a drug may have no detectable harmful effect upon the vast majority of members of one ethnic group; yet because of a hereditary quirk, some individuals will be made gravely ill. Best example, said Dr. Moser, is the tendency-rare in the general U.S. population-to a blood-destroying anemia that can develop after taking aspirin or phenacetin (compounded together in the familiar APC tablets), some sulfonamides, and drugs for the relief of peptic ulcer...