Consumer group asks US government to ban Avandia

The U.S. government should ban the diabetes drug Avandia because of a wide variety of life-threatening risks, including heart and liver damage, a consumer group said Thursday.

The consumer group, Public Citizen, filed a petition with the federal Food and Drug Administration to have Avandia removed from the market.

It was the second setback in as many weeks for the GlaxoSmithKline medication, which at one time had shown great promise to reduce the blood sugar levels of people with Type 2 diabetes. Last week, the American Diabetes Association and a European counterpart jointly released updated treatment guidelines for doctors that pointedly recommended that …