April 16, 2006 at 23:00:00

Hormones Hard to Give Up--for Drug Companies That Make Them

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By Martha Rosenberg (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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Wyeth has even filed a complaint with the FDA asking it to take action against small pharmacies that make plant based "bioidentical" hormones which many women are beginning to prefer over Wyeth's mare urine compounds.

Meanwhile, the first of some 3600 legal cases against HRT manufacturers are due to hit the courts this summer. Expect an Enron defense crossed with Vioxx trial highlights.

1. Our marketing of HRT might have been aggressive (how about sexist, ageist and patronizing?) but it wasn't illegal.

2. Warnings appeared clearly on the label.

3. The drugs were FDA approved. (Thank goodness we didn't pull them!)

4. Everyone knows the patient plaintiff suffered from preexisting_______

Hopefully they'll choose juries that are not too well read. Because the medical journals continue to catalogue HRT related horrors.

^Women taking HRT are 57% to 60% more likely to suffer asthma according to an article in Thorax. (1/25/06)

^Women who used long term HRT show poorer scores on a standard test of mental acuity, says an article in Neurobiology of Aging (1/8/06)

^Women with lung cancer are less likely to survive if they used replacement hormones, says an article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. (1/ 1/06)

No one wants a second opinion.

* South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) 9/16/04
**Boston Herald (MA) 11/16/04
+Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) 12/ 21/05

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