FDA debates pulling asthma drugs from the market.
Yikes.
I've been following this quietly, and I'll be curious to see what came from the advisory panel discussions today.

For those who don't know, I'm an asthmatic. I'm on three drugs year-round, four during ragweed season when I suffer a bit more.
I also haven't had to use albuterol as a rescue inhaler in almost a decade. Many people don't even know that I'm asthmatic because they are used to hearing about my rafting, skiing, cycling, whatever crazy adventures. But, yes, I'm asthmatic. And I'm a pretty bad asthmatic if I'm off of my medication regimen. I stay on it so I can have a normal life.

So, yes, I'm biased about the long-acting beta-agonists. For most of us they improve our pulmonary function, reduce our asthma attacks, and reduce our need for rescue medications. For a very small group of people, they have a negative impact. What's never been clearly proven to me is if those people whose deaths have been linked to Serevent, Foradil, Advair, or Symbicort were actually using the drugs correctly- and how closely they were being followed by their doctors. More importantly, how healthy or sick were these people at baseline? That may have actually been the big risk factor, not their use of a long-acting beta agonist.

Be prepared- if the FDA bans these drugs, I may be stockpiling. And then- who knows what will happen? Between Servevent/ Advair and Singulair (a leukotriene inhibitor), my quality of life is what I want it to be. I'm not limited by my asthma. If I lose some part of that cocktail? Well, I just don't know.

We'll see.

Updated to add:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/policy/12fda.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I'm safe, for now.