Consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen, is calling on AstraZeneca to pull its latest newspaper ads for Crestor, charging that the ads make false claims about FDA’s  concerns over the drug’s safety.
“I urge that the FDA immediately stop AstraZeneca from running this or any other misleading advertising about Crestor,” wrote Public Citizen’s health research group director, Sidney Wolfe, in a letter sent to the FDA’s acting commissioner, Lester Crawford, last week.
“The FDA has confidence in the safety and efficacy of Crestor,” states  the full-page, color ads that began appearing in The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, soon after a veteran FDA scientist named the drug as one of five currently marketed drugs that need more scrutiny.
However, the ad claims that the “concerns that have been raised have no medical or scientific basis.”
Calling Public Citizen’s concerns “absurd,” an AstraZeneca spokesman told Reuters, “We’ve been assured at the highest level of the FDA that there are no new concerns with Crestor.”