By NATASHA SINGER
c.2010 New York Times News Service
Doctors in the United States wrote more than 4 million prescriptions last year for nitroglycerin tablets, heart drugs placed under the tongue to reduce the chest pain of angina or to stop a heart attack.
But the majority of the drugs sold had not been approved for sale, nor had their safety and effectiveness been vetted, by the Food and Drug Administration.
And many doctors, who discovered only last week that pharmacies were giving their patients unproved heart tablets, now say they have no way of knowing whether patients have suffered unnecessarily as a result.