Estrogen Implants: Embodiments of Deeper Problems in the Marketing of Drugs

Excerpt

Less than a decade ago estrogen was the number one drug prescribed to women in the U.S. Based on what in retrospect were flawed assumptions, inadequate or misleading data, failures of independent questioning of massive industry promotional efforts, and a faulty construct that menopause was a diagnosis requiring medical treatment, more than 60 million prescriptions were written annually for “hormone replacement” therapy. 1 The situation abruptly changed with the publication of the WHI study, demonstrating that for women taking estrogen/progesterone therapy, an excess of eight additional cases of breast cancer, seven of heart disease, eight strokes, and eight cases of pulmonary embolism occurred for each 10,000 women treated. 2 Following cessation of such widespread use of combined hormone therapy, the incidence of breast cancer fell sharply for the first time in decades, a decline most likely due to the decrease in estrogen use. 3 This revelation that large numbers of breast cancers were likely related to hormonal therapy adds to an earlier iatro-demic of thousands of cases of endometrial cancer associated with estrogen-only therapy, and more recent evidence of possible increased lung cancer risk. 4‐7 …