Justice for Victims of Prempro
Have you heard the good news? Justice has been awarded to the victims of Prempro, a common menopause drug. Yet good news is relative when you’re among the three female victims who developed breast cancer as a result of taking Pfizer’s drug. For them, it’s probably a bittersweet victory, but a victory against “Big Pharma” nonetheless.
The recent news is a reminder to us all of the dangers of taking synthetic hormones. This is the latest news that spotlights the fact that these “hormones” are NOT the same as bioidentical hormones, and should not be identified as such. Many doctors still believe that synthetic and bioidentical hormones are interchangeable, however, this is an extremely costly mistake. Indeed, when examined more closely, these “small” variances in the synthetic hormones pose huge health risks to the consumer.
Synthetic hormones such as Prempro are foreign to the human body. On the other hand, bioidentical hormones are identical to the hormones made by your body and your body recognizes them as such.
In addition to Prempro, other examples of synthetic hormones are Premarin and Provera. Premarin is horse estrogen derived from pregnant mare urine. Provera is medroxyprogesterone, or progestin, not progesterone, which sound similar but are very different. Prempro is a combination of the two.
It was reported that: “More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, topped $2 billion before the release of the , (WHI) a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study.”
However, like many news articles, it fails to mention the different types of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that are available. It also fails to clarify the type of HRT that was used in the WHI study. Synthetic hormones were used in the WHI and were found to raise the risk of heart disease, stroke and breast cancer. Bioidentical hormones were NOT used in the WHI study.
The victims’ lawyer in this case told jurors that: “None of the three women had a family history of breast cancer and experts concluded their use of menopause drugs led to the development of the disease.”
