For decades, doctors have prescribed two drugs, aspirin, and warfarin, to heart disease patients to help prevent blood clots.  Although both drugs are effective, they have not been compared in a large clinical trial; say researchers who have begun an international study to do just that. Scientists at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center will compare the two drugs with each other and with a newer drug called clopidogrel to determine which of them prevents more heart attacks, strokes and deaths in patients with chronic heart failure. Unlike most international clinical trials in recent years, the 4,500-patient study will not be predominantly funded by a pharmaceutical or biotech company, said the study's chairman Dr. Barry Massie, University of California, San Francisco, professor of medicine and chief of the cardiology division at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center.

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