Is it a coincidence that Tamoxifen maker AstraZeneca founded Breast Cancer Awareness Month and makes carcinogenic agrochemicals that cause breast cancer? Both the original safety studies of Tamoxifen, which causes cancer, birth defects and is a chemical cousin of DES, and its original marketing were riddled with scientific error. In fact, FDA objected to AstraZeneca's marketing claim of breast cancer prevention and the casting of endometrial cancer as an "uncommon" event ten years ago. Yet today pharma linked doctors still tell women to take Tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer even though an American Journal of Medicine study found the average life expectancy increase is nine days (and Public Citizen says for every case of breast cancer prevented on Tamoxifen there is a life-threatening case of blood clots, stroke or endometrial cancer.) A Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation study shows an example of Tamoxifen's down side: 57.2 percent of women on continuous Tamoxifen developed atrophy of the lining of the uterus, 35.7 coexisting hyperphasia and 8.1 percent uterine polyps. We won't even talk about eye and memory problems -- or the Tamoxifen cousin, Evista that pharma is also pushing which has a "death from stroke" warning on its label.
LIPITOR and CRESTOR
Why is Lipitor the best selling drug in the world? Because every adult with high LDL or fear of high LDL is on it. (And also 2.8 million children says Consumer Reports.) No one is going to say statins don't prevent heart attack in high risk patients (though diet and exercise have worked in high risk groups too.) But doctors will say statins are so over prescribed that more patients get their side effects -- weakness, dizziness, pain and arthritis-- than heart attack prevention. Worse, they think it's old age! "My older patients literally do without food so that they can buy these medicines that make them sicker, feel bad, and do nothing to improve life," says an ophthalmologist web poster from Tennessee. "There is no scientific basis for treating older folks with $300+/month meds that have serious side-effects and largely unknown multiple drug interactions." What kinds of side effects? All statins can cause muscle breakdown called rhabdomyolysis but combining them with antibiotics, protease inhibitors drugs and anti-fungals increases your risks. In fact, Crestor is so highly linked to rhabdomyolysis it is double dissed: Public Citizen calls it a Do Not Use and the FDA's David Graham named it one of the five most dangerous drugs before Congress.
BONIVA
Why is the bisphosphonate bone drug Boniva available in a convenient, once-monthly formulation? Could patients balk at the fact that after you take it you have to avoid lying down for at least 60 minutes to "help decrease the risk of problems in the esophagus and stomach," wait at least 60 minutes before eating or drinking anything except plain water, never take it with mineral water, sparkling water, coffee, tea, milk, juice or other oral medicine, including calcium, antacids, or vitamins and of course "do not chew or suck"? Nor should you take Boniva, say the warnings, "if you have difficult or painful swallowing, chest pain or continuing or severe heart burn, have low blood calcium or severe kidney disease or if severe bone, joint and/or muscle pain." Bone drugs like Boniva, Fosamax and Actonel are a good example of FDA approving once unapprovable drugs by transferring risk onto the public's shoulders with "we warned you labels." The warnings are supposed to make people make their own safety decision except that people just think FDA wouldn't have approved it if it wasn't safe.
PREMPRO
You'd think Pfizer's hormone drugs Prempro and the related Premarin and Provera would be history in light of their perks: 26 percent increase in breast cancer, 41 percent increase in strokes, 29 percent increase in heart attacks, 22 percent increase in cardiovascular disease, double the rates of blood clots and links to deafness, urinary incontinence, cataracts, joint degeneration, asthma, dementia, Alzheimer's disease and lung, ovarian, breast, endometrial, gall bladder and melanoma cancers. But you'd be wrong. Even as we speak, Pfizer-linked researchers are testing the cognitive and cardiovascular "benefits" of hormone therapy, in some cases with our tax dollars, at major universities. Even though the cancer rate in the US and Canada fell when women quit hormone therapy in 2002 (as did the US heart attack rate in women) pharma is rolling out HT "Light" for women who suffer from the "ism" of incredibly short memory.
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