WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday strongly warns four medications, extensively used to treat arthritis and other serious illnesses, saying, these can increase the risk of possible lethal fungal infections.

The drugs include Enbrel, Remicade, Humira and Cimzia, act by putting down the immunity system to keep it from attacking the body. The treatment provides relief from painful and swollen joints in patients of rheumatoid arthritis, but it’s “a double-edged sword,” said the FDA’s Dr. Jeffrey Siegel, because these drugs also weaken the body’s defense to multiple infections.

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