Doctors Urge Ending Use of Heart Surgery Drug Trasylol

A drug used worldwide to reduce bleeding during heart surgery can increase the risk of kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes, and should be abandoned, doctors are reporting today. They say other medicines are safer and cheaper, and should be used instead.  The drug, aprotinin, is sold under the brand name Trasylol and manufactured by Bayer.  The report was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.