FDA approves drug to ease breathing of hospitalized heart
failure patients  Published Tuesday, August 14, 2001  WASHINGTON
(AP) _ The government has approved the first new therapy in over
a decade to help hospital patients with congestive heart failure
who are gasping for breath _ something that happens to about a
million Americans a year.  The drug Natrecor is a genetically
engineered version of the hormone these patients' hearts churn
out naturally to ease their breathing. The idea: Give them more
of that hormone, and they'll improve without having to try
riskier medications.  Natrecor should make treating these
patients "much simpler," said Dr. James Young, heart failure
chief at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, who led manufacturer
Scios Inc.'s main study of the drug.  But it does carry one
serious risk _ blood pressure that drops dangerously low, warned
Dr. Douglas Throckmorton, the Food and Drug Administration's
deputy director of cardiorenal drugs. That side effect may not
appear for four or five hours