Aspirin, like all other drugs, is a poison

doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7270.1170

BMJ 2000;321:1170-1171 ( 11 November )

Editorials

Aspirin, like all other drugs, is a poison

We do not know who should be given what dose and for how long

Papers p 1183

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Aspirin is an old drug. Some 2000 years ago the Greeks used the bark and leaves of the willow tree (which contains salicylicacid) to relieve pain and fever. At the end of the 19th centuryacetyl salicylic acid started being produced on an industrialscale and aspirin soon became a widely used painkiller. In thelate 1960s it was found that a single dose of aspirin irreversiblyinhibits the normal aggregation of platelets by suppressing thecycloxygenase mediated synthesis of thromboxane A2. The effectof aspirin persists until newly formed platelets have been released;their biological lifespan is about ninedays.

Sometimes, adverse drug reactions can be turned to advantage, and the antithrombotic effects of aspirin have been widely exploited.Aspirin has been given successfully both to healthy people andto patients with coronary artery disease to prevent myocardialinfarction, to patients with acute myocardial infarction to reducevascular mortality, . . . [Full text of this article]

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Campbell, C. L., Smyth, S., Montalescot, G., Steinhubl, S. R. (2007). Aspirin Dose for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review. JAMA 297: 2018-2024 [Abstract] [Full text]