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article: "The Hidden truth about our prescription medications

Groggy Doggy

Guest
Messages
1,130
Yep, Pfizer did this exact same thing with women's hormone treatment, estradiol and progesterone. They purposely secretly withheld the portion of trial data that showed the positive effects of giving these treatments to women, while only publishing the negative effects in the same trial of the study participants taking the dangerous "versions" of the hormones. Eventually the impact of Pfizers secretness started to impact every woman taking hormones in the USA, because their doctors would no longer refill their prescriptions. How could this happen? To back track, after the Pfizer "partial" study was published, another group picked up the ball and ran with it; this group had high media exposure and political power; the message was plain and simple that taking hormones lead to breast-cancer. Unfortunately, no one seemed to bother to find out which exact hormones caused the increase in breast cancer. It was conflated; the superior estradiol/progesterone with the cheap knock offs. Even after Pfizer admitted to their wrong doing, that they knew that estradiol and progesterone did not cause breast cancer, and they deliberately withheld that portion of the trial data ...no matter how much evidence given to a doctor today, they're all still adamant in the false belief that women's hormones lead to breast-cancer. It's a pure lie and a myth. Which is so sad, because IMO if you stop a woman cold turkey from estradiol/progesterone she will feel depressed; so basically she becomes a prime candidate for an anti-depressant Rx. And antidepressants are usually the number one cash cow for big pharmaceutical companies. Hmmm...do you think this is pure coincedence?

It's so frustrating to think how an entire country of doctors can be so easily influenced by ONE study that does not publish the full facts ... and even after the facts are exposed as being untrue... their opinions still do not change ....oh but wait... hmmm... doesn't this scenario sound very familiar to ME peeps?
 
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Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
Also, many drugs were never tested on women. And, even though US law changed and says they must be tested on women, in many cases, the data on women is withheld from submission to the FDA.

I heard a Harvard cardiologist share this with a group of doctors saying they needed to be aware of this when prescribing for women.

Then, there was the expose on 60 Minutes (as I recall) 3 or 4 years ago showing how drugs are trialled in India as it's too hard and expensive to find enough patients in the US. They showed a skinny 25 year old guy in an obesity drug trial, and a poor widow in 3 different trials at the same time, both doing it for the money.

I lost a lot of faith in clinical trials at that point...
 

Groggy Doggy

Guest
Messages
1,130
Also, many drugs were never tested on women. And, even though US law changed and says they must be tested on women, in many cases, the data on women is withheld from submission to the FDA.

I heard a Harvard cardiologist share this with a group of doctors saying they needed to be aware of this when prescribing for women.

Then, there was the expose on 60 Minutes (as I recall) 3 or 4 years ago showing how drugs are trialled in India as it's too hard and expensive to find enough patients in the US. They showed a skinny 25 year old guy in an obesity drug trial, and a poor widow in 3 different trials at the same time, both doing it for the money.

I lost a lot of faith in clinical trials at that point...
Yes, I agree. And furthermore 50% of the published trials will later be disputed and found out to be false. The way I see it is, the conclusions are only as good as the participants that are in the trial. If I was not in the trial, then it's just a guess if the treatment would help, harm, or worsen me. And especially because if the participants do not take the extra drugs and supplements, as I do, then I feel there's not much benefit in reading the trial data. And if that's not bad enough, then the health insurance companies dictate the values of a "normal range" result of a lab test; which dictates when a drug or supplement is needed.

So it's ludicrius, considering all of the points discussed so far, to think that a "published" trial is a "sure thing" that will help solve an illness. And there is no such thing as a "normal range", because my normal may not be the same as someone else's normal.

I think out health care system "industrial complex" is being held together by a frayed string. It's just about to fall completely apart. But I'm hoping we will be able to seize the moment and rebuild a better "sane" healthcare system that benefits everyone
 
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Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
Obviously the right answer is personalized medicine, but we're a long way from it.

A fellow patient is having trouble with her insurance because they don't like how many lab tests her doctor ran and they are asking for a year's worth of payments back, even when the tests identified several problems.

And then there's the NHS in the UK that won't even allow full thyroid testing or T3 dosing because they think everyone's the same (and their T3 vendor jacked up the price...)

We all have different genes and environmental exposures. Its ridiculous to think introducing a new chemical into our bodies will affect each of us the same way. At best, the studies offer a suggestion of what might work in average people with whatever diagnosis who don't have any comorbidities.

I'm waiting for the day when a doctor can waive one of those Star Trek gadgets over us to fix us. :nerd: