Wall Street Journal Reports On Bioidentical Hormones
Congratulations to the Wall Street Journal for coming to grips with a simple fact: Not all HRT products are the same.
Until now synthetics, horse urine derivatives, bioidenticals and over-the-counter "naturals" have been lumped together as dangerous by a media too lazy to do its homework and who slavishly turns to the same old special interest representatives for its information.
The confusion was encouraged by Wyeth and its mouthpieces (medical groups sponsored with monies donated by Wyeth like NAMS, ACOG, AMWA, The Endocrine Society and others) after Wyeth's products, Premarin and Prempro, were found dangerous to our health by the WHI study of the NIH almost six years ago. As terrified women and their confused doctors turned away from synthetics (Provera) and pregnant mare's urine estrogens (Premarin), Wyeth continued to prevent bioidenticals from gaining competitive traction in the marketplace and maintained its dangerous drugs in the leadership position. Who wants to lose the $2 billion cash cow that was the promise of Premarin before 2002?
Hundreds of millions were spent by Wyeth's marketing to further confuse the doctors and the public by smearing hormones all together and keeping solid scientific data away from the mainstream medical community. Wyeth even persuaded the FDA, which is supposed to be looking after the public's interest, to erroneously state that all HRT products pose the same risks regardless of differences in chemical formula and that bioidenticals are a "marketing term" not to be used by public or medical practitioners. The FDA is so ignorant of the facts, it is now cracking down on the compounding pharmacies that make some bioidenticals and is also trying to ban a key bioidentical estrogen, estriol which is not only safe but has been used extensively in Europe for decades. It even helps women with multiple sclerosis.
This disgraceful state of ignorance may be about to change.
The Journal reported (March 11, 2008) that a growing number of doctors and patients are getting wise to Wyeth's half-truths and are turning to "newer" alternatives.
It's the first time I've seen the mainstream media acknowledge bioidenticals as more than just "marketing terms" and give them the recognition they deserve, but even this article contains glaring omissions and half-truths. The sad part is that it refers to bioidenticals as "newer" when in fact they have been around since before Premarin. Estradiol from women's urine has been used in menopausal women in the early 1900s as found in many scientific and literary sources.
The Wall Street Journal quotes a Wyeth spokesman who claims that Premarin (approved by the FDA in 1942) and Prempro "have long records of safety and effectiveness" when, in fact, their dangers have been reported repeatedly and extensively since the 1970s in conventional medical literature. What would one expect a Wyeth spokesperson to say, the truth?
Meanwhile, the efficacy of bioidenticals has been well documented by studies dating as far back as the 1950s. All this has been ignored by the media and its pundits and none of it has made it on to the FDA's radar or that of the doctors in private practice or academic institutions where studies sponsored by big drug companies are conducted and information is disseminated through big pharma channels of distribution. The agency remains stubbornly resistant to doing anything that might jeopardize the status quo. Instead, it resorts to reports of academia's constant rehashing of the results of the WHI to see if it can come up with a less gloomy verdict on the Wyeth's money-making hormone impostors that cause cancer, strokes and heart attacks, regardless of how old the patient.
Never, it seems, has it occurred to the FDA to order a comprehensive and unbiased study on bioidenticals which are fast growing in popularity regardless of how many caring doctors and needy patients have asked for these studies.
Maybe a little read across the Atlantic might have helped the FDA and our academic centers see what the French are doing with the E3N or Epic studies on bioidenticals. Their data on tens of thousands of women strongly supports the use of bioidenticals. They can't all be just using bioidenticals as a marketing ploy.
Meanwhile the case for bioidenticals is being undermined by lightweights and dangerous hucksters like actress Suzanne Somers and her sidekick T.S. Wiley. They are the best thing that could happen to Wyeth. Their lack of credibility and dangerous practice of medicine without a license have kept bioidenticals on the fringe and raised more doubts about compounding than maybe necessary. Conventional and scientifically-minded doctors are not sold on having Suzanne Somers or T.S. Wiley as leaders in the educational processes associated with treatment of women with hormone issues.
Unfortunately their showboating has given fuel to many in the mainstream and Wyeth-sponsored camps to believe that only fringe doctors work with bioidenticals, This could not be further from the truth. Bioidentical hormones, as noted in the WSJ article are commercially available, meaning FDA approved, and the same active hormones found in the commercial formulations are those used by compounding pharmacies in the personalized products prescribed by many leaders in the field of women's health.
The time has come to take care of women and stop putting profit and lies ahead of good medical care. Don't let anyone dissuade you from using bioidenticals!
Just make sure you work with a conventional physician who has extensive experience with bioidenticals and has himself/herself been trained by a conventional integrative medicine physician.
The proof is in the pudding. Just ask the women who work with physicians who know how to use bioidenticals. Ask the patients of Drs. Randolph, Holtorf, Brownstein, Wright, Hotze, Murray, Drisko, Stangel, Weiss, and many, many more. Then, make sure you find one of these physicians or one trained by them or one who follows their philosophy of treating the whole patient, listening to the patient and serving the patient. I bet you will feel better, no longer feel victimized, intimidated and even get treated like a human being in the process. Do not abandon hope and do not betray your own voice.
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