AlterNet: Big Pharma Shamelessly Shills Dangerous Bone Drugs You Don't Need

[marmar]

If you feel like everyone is warning you about your bones and imminent osteoporosis, you are right. Boniva, an osteoporosis drug which actress Sally Field says helps women "stop losing and start reversing" bone, is one of the top 20 most advertised drugs. Bone drug Evista was personally promoted by former FDA deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs under George W. Bush, Scott Gottlieb. And "novel" bone drug Prolia, also called a Frankendrug, received a Best New Drug award this week at the 2010 Scrip Awards ceremony.

While most of the world is now aware of the risks of osteoporosis, the problem with the bone drugs is: they may not work and women may not need them.

According to National Public Radio, Merck hired a company to whip up fears of "osteopenia," the risk of getting osteoporosis, to get women to take Fosamax, the first bisphosphonate bone drug launched 15 year ago. The hired guns creating the faux "Bone Measurement Institute," planted bone scan machines in medical offices and pushing the Bone Mass Measurement Act which made scans Medicare-reimbursable. By the end of the 1990s the "disease" of osteopenia had increased seven fold according to the Associated Press.

Even the term osteopenia, created by World Health Organization, was co-opted. It was never meant to be "a disease in itself to be treated," says Dartmouth Medical School professor Anna Tosteson who attended the WHO meeting, and the osteopenia diagnostic criteria were decided arbitrarily because the scientists were tired and wanted to adjourn. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/148819/big_pharma_shamelessly_shills_dangerous_bone_drugs_you_don%27t_need/

[stray cat]

1. Osteoporosis is a problem for those who have serious bone loss, intact bones are good

Like many treatments one must weight the benefits and risks

[DCKit]

3. With side-effects like "Fos Jaw", you've got to wonder at the approval process. n/t

[Demeter]

2. Bone Loss Is a Problem for Those Genetically Predisposed

and doctors love to run their new bone-scanning toys over anyone who can pay the bill. Some of it is even legitimate research.

But the situation is absurd. Just as "Homeland Security" went batshit crazy at airports, so too do the hypochondriacs and their enablers in the medical profession, and insurance companies LOVE to collect the fees for excessive testing.

[fasttense]

4. Yeah but these drugs seem to make worse the very condition they are prescribed for.

When my elderly mother was given an intravenous drip for her recent sudden bone-loss. I'm not sure which one of the drugs the doctor gave her. It almost killed her. She ended up up with a heart murmur and weaker and more brittle bones. She has since stopped seeing that doctor.

I'm sticking with calcium and vitamin D vitamins.

[glitch]

6. Think about adding magnesium.

There are supplements that combine all three for best absorption, and magnesium also helps with bone and soft tissue health.

[queenjane]

5. Fosamax made my mother so sick

She said she'd rather be dead. Then she used Miacalcin, a nasal spray for osteoporosis, which made her nose bleed constantly. Then she tried Boniva for one month and was so sick she couldn't get out of bed. Finally, she started the once-per-year Reclast infusion, which seems to be maintaining her current bone mass and only affects her for a few days. How she would be faring without these treatments, the docs can't say. But she's 82, frail, has already broken both legs, so we're afraid NOT to do something.

On the other hand, I was recently diagnosed with "osteopenia", after years of scans revealing I had the bones of a 25 year old. Apparently, according to docs, my 50 lb weight loss and becoming a vegan caused me to lose mega-bone mass in a just a few years. Despite lots of weight-bearing exercises, calcium supplements and calcium enriched foods, etc. I was advised to start Fosamax. I just laughed in their faces. I work in drug R&D, so I know the drill. Come up with a compound, then invent "syndromes" that said compound could treat, then market the hell out of them and scare people into paying large sums of money "just in case".

[BonnieJW]

7. Bone loss

I am a small boned white female with a mother who has osteoporosis. I am 61 and since I turned 50, doctors have been coming at me with all kinds of drugs for osteo even though I don't have it. I do get a DEXA scan once each year and though it shows mild osteopenia, it is normal for a womal my age. I do 25 jumping jacks daily, take 5000 units of Vitamin D3, and use New Chapter Bone Strength calcium supplements. The calcium in this supplement comes from agae rather than from rocks or shells. Much more easily absorbed. It also contains magnesium, vitamin K and vitamin D3. I will never take any of those drugs or any others unless I am phycially or medically compromised. No drugs are best, but I am certainly not anti-drug. I have asthma and at times need several meds.

[Better Today]

8. Anything the pharmas and docs can do to keep each and everyone

of us on some form of chronic, long term treatment is good for their pocketbooks. It really is up to each and everyone one of us to recognize that and quit responding to our doctors (pharma agents nearly all of them) as though they are all knowing, well meaning gods.

When I first heard some of the ads for these particular pharmas, I couldn't believe the list of side effects some of which needed to be told to a doctor immediately due to the seriousness of the side-effect, for a treatment given only once a month or less often even, depending on the brand. I thought, jeez, if someone does have a serious side effect, it won't be like they can just quit taking it, since one dose lasts at minimum an entire month. Even if the med worked, I wouldn't take anything with such serious side effects unless I could stop taking it and have it nearly immediately out of my system. Just my thoughts.

[swilton]

9. Total politicization of our government agencies

I quit relying on CDC and FDA years ago.

Just follow the stories about mad cow disease and how any investigation of that was suppressed because it was a threat tot he cattle industry.

I take the workings of EPA and Dept of Interior/Fish & Wildlife Service also with a grain of salt - at least Bush II, possibly earlier totally politicized those agencies.