150: Why Vioxx and Celebrex can be dangerous

COX inhibitors interfere with the action of prostaglandins. Prostaglandins protect the nervous system.

COX-2 product offers good and bad news in 'test tube' strokes | Science Blog:

Andreasson is now trying to determine if these prostaglandins have a similar protective effect in mouse models of Lou Gehrig's disease, in which excessive glutamate is believed to damage neurons, and will begin work to see if the beneficial side of PGD2 activity can outweigh its toxic activity.

Is it trivial to keep pointing to studies that use animal models? No. Animal models are vital to medical science and huge swaths of basic research. No one really gives two shits about Drosophila or Arabidopsis or lab mice. We study them because they are evolutionarily connected to everything else. If everything was magically summoned up, mice would tell us nothing about humans.

Common descent is behind every medicine, every surgical technique, everything. That's what makes this such a tough blog to maintain.

Anyone who wants to help is free to submit interesting stories they see.