big pharma’s big boner
Big pharma has a big boner for your mother.
Over the past decade or so, millions of women (and some men, too) have taken bisphosphonate drugs to treat and prevent osteoporosis and osteopenia, the latter of which turns out to be a normal condition of aging and not a disease.
I’m not printing the brand names for these drugs or the companies that make them, but I think you know what I’m talking about, right?
Hint: one of the companies rhymes with “jerk.”
Chances are your mom—or you, if you’re a middle-aged person with the right diagnosis—may be taking them.
she might need it, but do you? (source: James Heilman MD, wikipedia.org/wiki/osteoporosis)
Yet evidence is mounting that for healthy women, these drugs do nothing or create the very conditions they are supposed to treat—or even worse. In October, the FDA issued a warning about the risks of these drugs, including sudden thigh fractures, eroding jaw bones and other lovely things like “bloody vomit or vomit that looks like coffee grounds,” “loosening of the teeth,” and “change in ability to taste food” (one of the scarier side effects in my book).
My friend Giulietta Nardone has spoken out about the dangers of these drugs for years, and has questioned how the pharmaceutical companies (and the doctors they pay) push many of their drugs on an unsuspecting and trusting public. ABC News, the New York Times and others are finally asking the same tough questions about these drugs and the system that creates the market for them. And even though big pharma’s rock star litigators are bailing them out, the damage is done, baby. I would do some serious research before popping any of these pills.
Your mother should, too.
Hi Jen!
I appreciate the mention.
You’ve done some good undercover work here! I’m glad to hear these news outlets are finally questioning this stuff – albeit 15 years too late.
The real insanity here is that we’re all being raised to be so damn obedient. We do whatever we’re told. If some “expert” says it’s true, we hop to it.
(Witness the body scanners. Hey blast my body with T-rays.)
Our motto as women ought to be PROVE this disease is spreading. I mean if it’s that rampant wouldn’t you see thousands upon thousands of women over 50 in crutches and wheelchairs wherever you went? How did a disease go from extremely rare to in 50% of over 50 women almost overnight?
Now, there really is going to be an epidemic and these women who had nothing wrong with them before taking those bone density tests and getting the news they had some aberrant T-score, which by the way doesn’t mean you have real osteoporosis, will need help.
I’m sure a new drug is on the way to treat the side effects.
Take charge of your own health care, that’s all I can say!
Good work. G.
Giulietta bella!
Happy New Year. Thanks for your comment; glad you liked the post. I love my doctors, and am grateful to them, but don’t think they’re perfect, and ask them plenty of questions. Drug companies have to make profits to pay for their R&D; we need to question them (and the doctors that get paid to promote their products; that is a whole other story!) as well.
Funny you should mention the body scanners; I wrote about them, too: https://jenniferbruni.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/scan-scam/ – check it out!
Peace,
Jennifer
hi Giuletta, thanks for commenting. And meanwhile, we have millions of children and adults without any healthcare, or who are halving or skipping doses of much-needed meds because they can’t afford them. And speaking of scanning (and losing our freedoms since 9/11), the Financial Times ran a great piece today called “United we scan.” Check it out!
the latest on this, from yesterday’s NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06bone.html?src=me&ref=general
Jen, your latest comment came into my inbox!
this is not a “rare” side effect. These women have taken healthy bones and made them unhealthy. the worried well market is alive and booming. now, of course, they do have a problem that probably cannot be fixed. breaking femurs, losing teeth, jaws dying, bone pain and who knows what else.
the studies are done by the companies. where’s the other side?
check out the “high” cholesterol meds – they are melting folks muscles.
health care is out of control because folks are going for tests and taking medicine for illnesses that do not exist – yet … yet, it’s a “booming” industry. Talk about a contradiction.
g.