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减肥新药Alli有着巨大的市场需求。

在加利福尼亚圣安东尼奥市的一家Walgreens药店，葛兰素史克公司生产的非处方降脂药在上架后四小时就快要被卖光了，《洛杉矶时报》报道说。“我一生中从没经历过此类事情。”该药店的药剂师说，“最近唯一一次抢购热潮是在9.11事件后人们因担心患炭疽热而抢购抗生素西普乐。”

本周葛兰素史克公司将推出一种叫Alli的药物，它是罗氏公司生产的赛尼可的翻版，但以非处方药的方式进行销售，Alli能抑制高热量脂肪在肠道的吸收。极度渴求减肥的消费者正对该药进行抢购。在drugstore.com网站上，九十粒装的Alli价格为62.99美元，葛兰素史克公司说目前该药可在全国各地的大药店、超市和折扣店里买到。

但减肥药有一段错综复杂的历史，在服用减肥药之初的兴奋劲过后随之而来的是其副作用。安非他明抑制食欲的作用使它成为六十年代人们首选的减肥药，但该药被大量滥用。政府调节机构和医生在七十年代取缔了安非他明。九十年代流行的减肥药cocktail fen-phen可能引起心脏瓣膜损害，为此惠氏公司在1997年将Pondimin和 Redux两种药退市后花费超过二百一十亿美元用于处理相关事宜和支付诉讼费用。

Alli虽不会威胁生命，但其最大的缺陷是能影响消费者的日常生活。在今年年初批准Alli上市后，FDA委婉警告消费者说：“该产品最常见的副作用是能改变肠道习性，包括排稀便。”葛兰素史克公司称该问题是治疗效果的一种体现，但他们直率的提醒消费者：“你也许会有一种急迫地想上厕所的感觉。在你感受到该药的治疗作用前，穿黑色的裤子并在工作时随身带一套替换衣服不失为一明智之举。”

一名药店经理告诉《洛杉矶时报》记者说，药品的副作用并不是消费者关心的内容。“它真的有效吗？”这是消费者咨询的唯一问题。

Hunt is on for Diet Drug

There’s a feeding frenzy under way for the weight-loss aid called alli.

At a Walgreens in Santa Monica, Calif., the nonprescription fat-blocker from GlaxoSmithKline was almost sold out in the first four hours it was on the shelf, the Los Angeles Times reports. “I have never in my life experienced anything like this,” the store’s pharmacist said. The only run that came close was the frenzy for antibiotic Cipro during the anthrax scare after 9/11, she said.

This week GlaxoSmithKline is rolling out alli, an over-the-counter version of Roche’s Xenical, that curbs the absorption of calorie-rich fat in the intestine. Consumers, hungry for help in losing weight, are snapping up the medicine. A 90-pill starter kit costs $62.99 at drugstore.com, and Glaxo says the medicine will be available in major drug, grocery, and discount stores across the country today.

But diet pills have a checkered past, with side effects often overtaking early enthusiasm for the medicines. Amphetamines’ ability to suppress appetite made them the diet pills of choice in the ’60s, but they were widely abused. Regulators and doctors clamped down on the drugs in the ’70s. Diet-drug cocktail fen-phen, the fad of the ’90s, was linked to heart-valve damage that has cost Wyeth more than $21 billion in settlements and legal costs since its drugs Pondimin and Redux were withdrawn from the market in 1997.

Alli’s biggest drawback isn’t life-threatening but it could hurt your social life. As the FDA cautioned euphemistically after its approval of the medicine earlier this year: “The most common side effect of the product is a change in bowel habits, which may include loose stools.”

Glaxo refers to the problems as “treatment effects” but is otherwise blunter in warning patients: “You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.”

A pharmacy manager told the LAT that side effects haven’t been part of the discussion with consumers. ” ‘Will it work?’ That’s the only question they’re asking.”


编辑：ache