| The Greatest Experiment Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth Barbara Seaman Book TV 7-22-03 0:01:45 - 1:11:20 |
| Barbara Seaman is the cofounder of the National Women's Health Network and the author of The Doctor's Case Against the Pill (1969), Free and Female (1972), Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones, Lovely Me (1987), and the Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (2003). |
| For those who are swept away by menopause it may be worth the risk, but if "you are looking for more," beware of "the land of false estrogen claims." The problem is that drug companies have gotten prominent doctors to speak for the drug companies. Estrogen has been prescribed for Alzheimer's disease, but the evidence for such a use is flimsy and based upon ludicrously flawed experiments sponsored by drug companies. |
| Alternatives to Premarin are not known to be safe. A lot of women are going back to taking estrogen alone, but that is risky, too. They do this because they are worried about the combination of estrogen with other hormones. |
| "Nobody ever died of menopause." It has been known since the 1930s that estrogen in some women creates blood clots and makes cells divide. The vast use of estrogen is a "triumph of marketing over science." Drug companies have been doing "science by press release." Thousands have died from this menopause treatment. Yet the product brings merciful relief for many women. |
Within a few months of the publication, in Nature, of the formula
to make commercial estrogen, physicians started prescribing estrogen for
all sorts of conditions. Often for conditions in which appropriate clinical
trials had not been performed to determine if the drug were safe. Twelve
American firms tried to get FDA approval to manufacture these drugs. In the United States, physicians may prescribe drugs for "off label" use. For example, it was prescribed to prevent bone loss even though it was FDA approved only for symptoms of menopause. Seaman called this "science by press release." One should only trust randomized clinical trials with placebos and only when knows all the conditions of the study and the characteristics of the subjects tested. Subject characteristics, in order to rule out alternative explanations, should include life style. Income and education are the strongest predictors of longevity. The randomized trials need to include a cross-section of all classes and education. No heart drug was ever approved for men without clinical trials. Women were not getting the careful scrutiny needed for safety. The Women's Health Network was established as a watch-dog for women's health. They never took money from drug companies. It was the Women's Health Network that said these drugs should not be prescribed without clinical trials. FDA Advisory Council recommended that estrogen be Premurine be approved. Three principled FDA staff people opposed approval. A drug company complained to the Senate. One of the FDA staff made a brilliant speech to the Senate and the Senate followed the Women's Health Network recommendations |
For more on Barabara Seaman see http://www.womenshealthnetwork.org/nnartic.les/seaman.htm
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