Marketed under the brand names Procrit, Epogen and Aranesp, each can now be prescribed and dispensed only after hospitals and physicians prescribing them have certified that patients have been apprised of the drugs' risks.
New studies have found that cancer patients and others taking this class of medications have had higher rates of tumor growth and of heart attack, heart failure, stroke or bloodclots than patients who are not on the medication. Compared with patients not on medication, patients taking the erythropoeisis-stimulating agents (or ESAs) overall have been found to die sooner as well.
Source here at the FDA site.
