MDs, Drug Co's Selling Cancer, Strokes to Women
- From: alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Alan)
- Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 09:25 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
Wyeth Stock Plummets on News of Danger in Hormones for Women
[Contributing to the collapse of the empire's economy this week,
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals saw its stock plummet after this alarming story
was released. Researchers actually halted, 3 years early, an 8-year
study of long-term combination hormone replacement therapy in
post-menopausal women for problems such as osteoporosis and coronary
heart disease, and recommended women who were taking the hormones
stop them.
Why? All those hard-sell Patti LaBelle ads to the contrary, HRT
doesn't prevent coronary heart disease, and even worse, it appears to
cause an enormous increase in rates of breast cancer, stroke, and
pulmonary embolism. These results were found across all ethnic groups
studied.
The Australian Government reacted immediately with a warning that
women should stop this combination hormone "therapy" for normal
aging.
Feminist and women's health activists will not be surprised by this
news. Aging is not a disease. Menopause is a normal stage of life.
There is no fountain of youth. Keeping humans alive to age 100+ is
not normal or sensible, and expecting to remain "young"
into your 80s and 90s is absurdly unrealistic.
During the second wave of feminism in the US, women vowed to end the
tyranny of a male medical establishment, and scorned the trash sold
to them by drug companies, gynecologists and plastic surgeons. No
more unnecessary hysterectomies, tranquilizers, death-dealing
hormones for contraception and menopause symptoms. What happened?]
*
Reuters via Yahoo - July 9, 2002
Hormones Raises Heart Disease, Cancer Risk - Study
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Women wondering whether to take hormone
replacement therapy got a clear answer on Tuesday: Don't, if the goal
is to lower the risk of heart disease and other chronic illness.
Healthy women who take combined hormone replacement therapy after
menopause increase their risk of breast cancer, stroke, blood clots
and heart disease, researchers said.
The risks are so high the federal government stopped a trial of women
taking hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, and issued a warning to
doctors and patients.
"Women should not start or continue to use the therapy to prevent
heart disease," Dr. Jacques Rossouw of the National Heart, Lung, and
Blood Institute, who helped lead the study, told a news conference.
"The findings show that it doesn't work. In fact, the therapy
increases the chance of a heart attack or stroke, Additionally, it
increases the risk of cancer and blood clots," he said.
The study, published in a special online edition of the Journal of
the American Medical Association, is the second blow this month to
HRT, which is taken by more 13.5 million American women. Doctors
issued a final report last week confirming the combination of
estrogen and progestin does not protect women from heart disease
after menopause.
The study of 16,600 women nationwide found that HRT does lower the
risk of osteoporosis and of colon cancer, but it raised the number of
strokes by 41 percent, heart attacks by 29 percent and breast cancer
cases by 26 percent.
WOMEN MAY BE FRIGHTENED
"These data are bound to sound frightening to some women," Rossouw
said. But he said the risks built up over a population and were not
especially high for an individual woman.
"The increased risk of breast cancer for each woman in the ... study
who was taking estrogen plus progestin therapy, for instance, was
actually very small. It was less than a tenth of a percent per year,"
he said.
For every 10,000 women who take the hormones for a year, seven extra
have coronary heart disease "events" such as a heart attack, eight
more develop breast cancer and eight more suffer a stroke, as
compared to women not taking hormones.
Rossouw said it may be safe to take combined HRT for a short period.
"But it is very hard to pin down what is a safe period," he added.
Wyeth, which makes the Prempro brand of combined HRT used in the
study, said most women take it for less than the five years the study
lasted.
"The average duration of therapy for woman taking Prempro is 33
months," Dr. Victoria Kusiak, vice president of clinical affairs for
the company, said on a telephone interview. "Fifteen percent stay on
for more than four years."
She said a company survey found 16 percent of women are being
prescribed HRT to prevent heart disease, and 90 percent get their
first prescription for hormones to manage immediate symptoms such as
hot flashes and vaginal dryness.
The researchers said women must decide for themselves how serious
their immediate symptoms are, and whether the benefits of the
hormones outweigh the risks of chronic disease.
Wyeth said about 8.5 million women take its hormone products each
month -- 5 million take estrogen-only Premarin, and 2.7 million take
Prempro.
The researchers said they had contacted the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and hoped Wyeth would change the labeling on Prempro
to reflect their findings.
Kusiak said the current label was "consistent with" the findings but
said the company would review it. "The company will be evaluating the
results of this study against the label and making any appropriate
changes," she said.
"We hope they will do the right thing," Rossouw said.
Women need to look at alternative treatments to prevent heart
disease, osteoporosis and other aging-associated diseases, said
Marcia Stefanick, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford
University in California, who led the study. "We need to clearly
separate treatment for diseases of aging in women," she said.
The estrogen-progestin combination was formulated because taking
estrogen alone increases the risk of cancer of the uterus. For women
who have had hysterectomies and who need HRT, estrogen alone may be
safer, the researchers said.
"A separate clinical trial of estrogen alone is continuing,"
Stefanick said.
Shares of Madison, New Jersey-based Wyeth closed down $11.94 at 37.30
$a share on the New York Stock Exchange, a four-year low.
AP via Yahoo - July 9, 2002
Health agency says type of hormone therapy hurts instead of helping
women's hearts and causes breast cancer
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - Government scientists abruptly ended America's biggest
study of a type of hormone replacement therapy, saying long-term use
of estrogen and progestin significantly increases women's risk of
breast cancer, strokes and heart attacks.
Six million American women use this hormone combination, either for
short-term relief of hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms or
because of doctors' long-standing assumptions that long-term use
would prevent heart disease and brittle bones and generally keep
women healthier longer.
In fact, there are serious risks to using the hormones for years,
risks that far outweigh the few benefits, the National Institutes of
Health announced Tuesday.
The hormones harm, rather than protect, the heart - they actually
increase previously healthy women's risk of a heart attack by 29
percent and of a stroke by a stunning 41 percent. They also increase
women's chances of breast cancer by 26 percent.
On the good side, the hormones cut by a third the risk of colon
cancer and hip fractures - but there are other, safer ways to fend
off those illnesses, doctors noted.
So the NIH stopped the 16,600-woman study three years early, and is
advising other women who use the estrogen-progestin combination to
ask their doctors if they, too, should quit.
"We want to get the word out to women and their doctors that
long-term use of this therapy could be harmful," said Dr. Jacques
Rossouw, acting director of the NIH's Women's Health Initiative,
which sponsored the study.
Women may still want to use the hormones for a short period to treat
menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, he said. But for how long?
"There is no really safe period," he acknowledged, noting that the
heart attack risk hit during women's first year of taking the
hormones. "As short a period as you can get away with in order to
manage the menopausal transition."
Other researchers also were negative.
"We recommend that clinicians stop prescribing this combination for
long-term use," wrote Dr. Suzanne Fletcher of Harvard Medical School
in an editorial accompanying the study results posted on the Web site
of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Risks from the
drug add up over time."
The study's leaders stressed that women shouldn't panic because
personal risk is pretty small.
In one year, for every 10,000 women who take the estrogen-progestin
combination, there will be eight more breast cancers, eight more
strokes and seven more heart attacks - and six fewer colon cancers
and five fewer hip fractures - compared with 10,000 women who didn't
take the pills.
However, because millions take the hormones, those numbers can add up
to thousands of illnesses, Rossouw noted.
To use estrogen or not has long been a vexing question for women
entering menopause. While the study seems definitive, it doesn't
settle all the questions:
_What about women who use estrogen alone? The NIH is letting a
second, smaller study of those women continue for now, saying so far
the balance of risks and benefits remains uncertain. Only women who
have had hysterectomies can use estrogen alone, because it causes
uterine cancer unless balanced by progestin.
_How do the risks stack up for short-term use? In the latest study,
the cardiovascular risk actually jumped within the first year of use
while the cancer risk didn't appear until around year four.
"The message still goes back to 'treat your individual needs,'" said
study co-author Jennifer Hays of the Baylor College of Medicine. "If
you can't sleep for three weeks (because of night sweats) and
short-term therapy at a low dose helps you with that, quality of life
is an important thing."
_This study used Prempro, the most popular estrogen-progestin
combination. But what about lower-dose pills or even skin patches?
Without testing each, "you can get wrong answers," cautioned study
co-author Dr. Norman Lasser of the University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey, who wants drug companies to do such testing.
"It's going to be a while 'til we know what's safe."
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which makes Prempro and other estrogen
supplements, said the main reason women start hormone therapy is to
relieve hot flashes, night sweats or vaginal problems.
"It is important to recognize the critical role" the hormones play
for those women, said Wyeth vice president Dr. Victoria Kusiak.
*
AP via Yahoo - July 11, 2002
Australia warns against long-term use of hormone replacement therapy
SYDNEY, Australia - Australia issued an urgent warning Thursday
against long-term hormone replacement therapy, following U.S.
findings that its risks outweigh its benefits.
U.S. scientists this week warned that long-term doses of estrogen and
progestin significantly increase women's risk of breast cancer,
strokes and heart attacks.
In a swift response, Australian government officials recommended
reviews of all hormone replacement therapy trials and of the use of
combined estrogen and progestin to prevent bone loss.
The Australian Medical Association said 600,000 women are on some
form of hormone treatment and that the government's warning was
premature.
"It will unnecessarily, in our view, panic more women," said the
association's federal vice president Trevor Mudge.
"Women need to sit back and wait for a careful, sensible review," he
said. "It's not something to be decided by a press release two days
after a study that hasn't yet even been published in a medical
journal."
The Australian government scientists said short-term use of hormones
to treat menopause symptoms was still appropriate.
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http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Feminist_Issues/MDs,_Drug_Co's_Selling_Can
cer,_Strokes_to_Women
Alan
"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the
facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their
media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality
contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and
deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get."
- Ian Williams Goddard
Nemesis Peace Centre
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/protector.html
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http://theoriginalfirebird.blogspot.com/
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http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/
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http://lordcerneabbastoo.blogspot.com/
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