author and cofounder of the U.S National Women's Health Network

Read the July 6, 2005 JAMA review of The Myth of Osteoporosis

NEW! For regular updates & commentary check out my blog www.gilliansanson.wordpress.com

Greetings!

The bad news on bisphosphonates has been coming thick and fast in the first weeks of 2008.

In January the FDA issued an alert about the previously downplayed side-effect afflicting many bisphosphonate users of chronic often incapacitating joint and bone pain, swelling of ankles and feet, muscles cramping, stiffness, and difficulty walking. Of additional concern, many users find the symptoms take a long time to subside after stopping the drug as bisphosphonates have an indefinite half-life of at least 10 years. The amount of drug within the bone accumulates with use and effect of the drug continues once stopped. There is no known method of removing the medication from the bones.[v]

Evidence from a large Canadian trial reported in the January 15, 2008 Journal of Rheumatology finds that oral bisphosphonate drugs (Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva) nearly triple the risk of developing bone necrosis.[i]  More…

After screening 1,825 published papers from 1966 to 2007, researchers found no evidence that bisphosphonates such as Fosamax or Actonel are superior to older bone drugs in ‘Systematic Review: Comparative Effectiveness of Treatments to Prevent Fractures in Men and Women with Low Bone Density or Osteoporosis’. Published on-line in the January 8 2008 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine the review concluded that “data are insufficient to determine the relative efficacy or safety” of all the studied drugs.[ii]

A BMJ article, also in January 2008 warns that a series of recent scientific publications have exaggerated the benefits and underplayed the harms of osteoporosis drugs to treat pre-osteoporosis or "osteopenia" potentially encouraging treatment in millions of low risk women. [iii]

Although bisphosphonates may favourably influence bone density loss, there are concerns that because their mechanism of action suppresses the bone remodelling process, long term use may result in brittle bones that are prone to fracture. Increased bone mineralization has been shown to increase micro-fracturing in animal studies. A Connecticut woman sued Merck pharmaceuticals on January 28, claiming Fosamax has caused multiple stress fractures and suppressed bone regeneration in her legs.[iv] She took the drug from 1996-2006.

According to the American Dental Association, more than 190 million prescriptions have now been written for bisphosphonates worldwide. In light of the emerging serious risks and an absence of evidence for long term safety, the current practice of widely prescribing bisphosphonates must be urgently reviewed.  The rush to provide costly and risky medical solutions for low bone density in healthy postmenopausal women is drawing attention away from the very important issues of preventing falls in the elderly, diagnosing genuine sufferers, and encouraging regular exercise and appropriate diet to maintain bone health.
Calcium Supplements Could Raise Heart Risks in Post-menopausal Women.
Emerging serious risks now make calcium supplementation an unwise choice. A five year Auckland University study was recently halted upon finding that supplementing with 1000mg of calcium a day increased the incidence of heart attack by 40 percent in women over 70 years. More

Scientific misconduct under scrutiny

Dr Aubrey Blumsohn’s scientific misconduct website details on-going ethical scandals confronting pharmaceutical research. The stranger-than-fiction story of his expose of Proctor and Gamble’s VERY dodgy dealings over the osteoporosis drug Actonel make for riveting reading.

The Burdensome BONZ Report

A staggering 84,354 New Zealanders are predicted to break bones this year as a result of osteoporosis; that’s one osteoporosis related fracture every six minutes and a hip fracture every two hours. By 2020 the annual osteoporosis-related fracture rates are expected to exceed 115,000. So cautions the Fonterra funded ‘Burden of Osteoporosis in New Zealand Report’ commissioned by Osteoporosis New Zealand. But a closer look at the report reveals it is essentially a fabrication. More

New Book:
‘Pesticides and Breast Cancer: A Wake Up Call’ by Dr Meriel Watts 
Breast cancer incidence rose 30-40 percent from the 1970s to the 1990s and rates continue to escalate in the Asia Pacific region. New Zealand has one of the highest rates in the world. New Zealand’s Dr Meriel Watts set out to identify what synthetic chemicals may be contributing to breast cancer. Her research took three years.
 It has been estimated that more than 80 percent of breast cancer cases are associated with environmental factors that include exposure to contaminants, lifestyle, and diet. There is considerable international concern that some of the 70,000 synthetic chemicals in our environment today may be directly linked to a large percentage of breast cancer cases, but there are no epidemiological studies to determine this. It has been observed that breast cancer incidence in Western countries has paralleled the proliferation of synthetic chemicals since World War II, and that as developing countries take up industrial agricultural practices their breast cancer rates escalate similarly. More
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Best wishes

Gillian

Previous Posts:

• Strontium as an osteoporosis treatment.
• Bisphosphonates - how safe and effective are they?
• bisphosphonates and osteonecrosis of the jaw (external link)
• Evista – what is it good for again?
• The effects of StatinsThe effects of Statins
  Although cholesterol lowering drugs have been on the market for more than 20 years there is still much that is not known about their effects. Patients taking statins (such as Lipitor, Zocor, Pravacol, Mevacor and Crestor) may experience side-effects such as joint pain or memory loss and not realize they may be linked to the statin. Beatrice Golomb who heads the USCSD study into statins has recently launched a website at www.statineffects.com so that users can report adverse or positive effects. The evidence collected will provide a more accurate picture of the effects of these drugs – something that the FDA’s lack of post-marketing surveillance has not provided. The site also provides helpful information including lists of well known and lesser-known side-effects.

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If You've Got a Pulse, You're Sick

By Gina Kolata
New York Times May 21, 2006
For a nation that spends more than any other on health, the United States certainly doesn't seem very healthy. Many cancers are on the rise — prostate, breast, skin, thyroid. We're fatter than ever. As for diabetes, the number of people who say they have it has doubled in the last 10 years. Now a report says that the English — those smoking candy-eating, fish-and-chips lovers — are actually healthier than Americans. And they spend half as much on health care. More... (you will need to do the free subscription thing if you haven't already)

US: Selling to the worried well

By Alan Cassels and Ray Moynihan May 2006

US pharmaceutical companies have long known that the potential market for their products is limited by the finite number of sick people; so they have turned to the healthy for further expansion of their markets, using exploitative, fear-inducing advertising techniques. More...

Treating Infertility : Amid a confusing array of resources, how to decide which you can trust

Barbara Seaman, author of The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women, and the most influential and courageous advocate for women, has graciously given our website her latest excellent article - a fascinating account of the history of infertility treatments, the sociological implications of infertility, and the misinformation around this most controversial and emotive issue.

IT IS COMMON ENOUGH. You may have a friend or relative or neighbor who underwent fertility treatments. You yourself may have experienced the painful and costly rounds of pills, injections, egg harvesting, and implantation. There's a lot at stake when you sit down to research the safety and efficacy of different kinds of reproductive medicine. You must be prepared to ask tough questions. You must be skeptical of the claims made in mainstream websites and books, for some are nothing more than marketing tools. What follows is an overview of the history of treating infertility in this country, some feminist ideas about it, and some recent thinking. More...

The Osteoporosis Treatment Paradox

As vast numbers of women come off HRT, doctors are being urged to identify at-risk patients and proceed with alternative bone sparing treatments such as Fosamax and Evista. But could the cure be worse than the disease? More...