Heart attack, stroke or cancer. Take your pick. That was the choice I was being offered, or so it seemed. I'm one of hundreds of patients who were participating in clinical trials to investigate whether cox-2 inhibitors such as Celebrex and Vioxx, commonly used as anti-inflammatory drugs, are also effective in fighting or preventing cancer. But the trials were halted last year after reports that the risk of heart attack or stroke doubled among a group of Vioxx users. Vioxx was summarily yanked from the market and the tort lawyers immediately canceled lunch. Celebrex was also implicated because it's in the same drug class. It's still available, but the FDA has called for a black-box warning about the added danger.
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