Read all about it Dr. David Graham, you are truly a vile person. Yet another pompous ivory tower know-it-all ready to dictate to all humanity that pain and pain medication are things that should remain strictly in the domains of pompous know-it-alls. Dr. Graham so easily dismisses the real pain endured by arthritis sufferers and says that the best medications they might have to control that pain are not worth the risk. Dear god Graham what planet are you living on. Start with the statistics; the worst estimates of the increased heart attacks for those using COX-2 inhibitors (such as Vioxx) is twice that the rate of everyone else. That means instead of two people out of a thousand having a heart attack, four people out of a thousand will. "Yeah but you'd hate to be one of the extra two..." Really? Not if I was in unbearable pain. Second, it is impossible for one person to categorically assert that someone else's pain is not worth the risks of those medications, never mind how small or not. Let's just say the risk is big. What kind of inhuman little Hitler (we know what free speech means too, University of Colorado) is willing to force people to suffer in pain because of risk; why are those people not allowed to assume the risk in pursuit of a better life. That's what motorcyclists do every day they ride one. What I do every day I drive a car, on US highways where over 40,000 people every single year perish. Where's the outcry there... Last, the FDA as gatekeeper to all medications is the most alarming of all. Once again, we're servile children to our big daddy government (something Republicans profess to despise) to protect us from us. They stranglehold the release of medications or cause the withdrawal of medications based on absurd increased risks. Why am I not allowed to assume those risks as an informed person?