Doctors routinely treat cancer patients for anemia with 3 FDA approved drugs - Epogen, Procrit, and Aranesp. The prarmaceutical companies market the drugs to help with fatigue and improve the cancer patients' quality of life. At a $1,000 a dose, there's potential for abuse. Indeed, aggressive marketing to doctors and TV advertising to patients has led to overuse of the drugs and may be contributing to safety problems.

Recently the FDA warned that the drugs may speed the growth of cancer and increase the liklyhood of heart attacks and strokes leading to earlier death for some. The increased risks are due to overprescribing to a wide spectrum of patients. As many as 450,000 American patients are taking the drugs, which are covered by Medicare.