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The Hormone War is heating up
The other day, I had my radio on. It was airin I was doing something
else at the time, but there was one segment that caught my attention. "Deny, dismiss, delay. It's the same
general strategy used by the tobacco industry and others to obfuscate issues and keep the public confused.
And it's worked." I said to myself that's exactly what's been going on with the bio-identical vs fake hormone
debate. Then he said "First, deny the problem exists. Fund plenty of paid experts to overwhelm the media and
make them provide balance by getting those skeptics or deniers into every story." That's pretty much
confirmed my suspicions.
The Oprah Show included some of those denier doctors (Dr. Wulf Utian, executive
director of the North American Menopausal Society and Dr. Lauren Streicher, an assistant professor of
obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University and a practicing ob-gyn at Chicago's Northwestern
Memorial Hospital) and the blatantly unscientific and illogical statement from FDA officials saying that they
don't recognize a thing called "bio-identical" hormone.
is also a well known friend of pharmaceutical industry. All these people have financial connections to the
pharmaceutical industry and acting as their mouth piece, according t That is in the
mass media, but the same thing has been going on in the professional medical journals also.
When I reviewed th there were clear indications of the
deniers' influences. They produced and have been using it as the proof that natural
progesterone cream is no good
. From a purely scientific point of view,
one failed study does not prove anything. It simply means they failed. There can be a million reasons an
experiment can fail. There might have been some mishandling of the materials, data, instruments; the
preparations might have been inferior, etc. for example. When it fails, it does not prove there is no effect,
unless it is replicated many times by other researchers. Of course, there are studies that successfully
demonstrated the efficacy of natural progesterone cream, and in the presence of those successful studies, a
failed study is just that, a failed study. (See a review by George R. Gillson, MD, PhD, David T. Zava, PhD,
A
Perspective on HRT for Women: Picking Up the Pieces After the Women's Health Initiative Trial -
The next stage is to dismiss; "When the scales begin to tip and the tactic starts to fail, then switch to dismiss.
Accept that the problem exists but insist either that nothing can be done about it or."
Well, even after the WHI's PremPro clinical trials have shown clear health hazards of the fake hormones in
2002, they are still trying to deny the problem by unscientific claims that Provera and Premarin (PremProm)
ⓒCopyright, 2009 Etsuko Ueda, All rights reserved.
are safe for early post menopausal women if used for less than 5 years. If you are persuaded by such
arguments, you have a serious science IQ deficiency. It took 5 years to reach the preset statistical hazard ratio,
but there were people who became sick in less than one year, and they developed more severe symptoms than
non user cancer victims.
".the WHI study found that, among 10,000 women taking estrogen plus
progestin for one year, there will be 8 more cases of breast cancer among the hormone users than if they
had not taken the therapy" is So, it is only as safe as Russian roulette, I
would say. The lethal effects did not disappear even when the age (years since the onset of menopause) was
taken into consideration i Scientifically, it was a total waste of time and tax pair's money to
even contemplate any possibility of favorable results from these fake hormones, who's contributions to the
disease processes are known at molecular level (s. I hope the recent
outcome of thewill make doctors think twice before prescribing them. It is a
shear madness that Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company of PremPro is still allowed to sell those fake
hormones, which generated $1.1 billion in 2008. We, the general public is paying the bill as higher medical
costs, reduced productivity, and disrupted lives the victims and the people around them ultimately suffer.
They are also shifting the gear to the next dismiss stage by saying there is nothing better, and the safety of
bio-identical hormones are not proven (see the policy statements of
"No Scientific Evidence Supporting Effectiveness or Safety of Compounded
Bioidentical Hormone Therapy" is the exact words from ACOG NEWS RELEASE, which is "blatantly false"
and qualifies as "scientific fraud". An increasing number of doctors are coming out to publicly accuse those
medical associations they belong themselves. At the forefront of this battle are the doctors who have been
treating both male and female patient with a wide variety of natural hormones based on decades worth of
scientific and clinical studies. It is not just female hormones estrogen and progesterone, but male hormone
testosterone, adrenal hormone cortisol, and thyroid hormone thyroxine all have this natural=bioidentical
against fake=synthetic hormone issues. And it is about time the consumers as well as doctors were informed
of the differences, the hazards of fake hormones, and how to use the real bioidentical-to-human's hormones
According to David Suzuki, next stage is delay.the bio-identical hormone debate is over.
As far as the science is concerned, it's long been over, but that does not mean it will be embrace by everyone
concerned right away. It's not just feet dragging and blindfolding that is going on. Those who have financial
stakes in those fake hormones seem to be fighting it to the bitter end. The best defense is an offence. The
ⓒCopyright, 2009 Etsuko Ueda, All rights reserved.
battle seems to be escalating and the tactics getting dirtier.
Perhaps most of us did not have enough imagination to anticipateAlthough it was
not the first time he was harassed by government regulators, this time the attacks against
and his fellow holistic=natural=real medicine doctors were coordinated attacks (In Washington state, there are
15 doctors who belong to American College for Advancement in Medicine and 5 of them were persecuted by
trumped up absurd charges). Now he is fighting back at various levels, counter attacking against the so called
mainstream medicine doctors who control American Medical Associations and FDA
and have been acting as
big pharma's mouth piece, according t
Doctors aren't the only target. In October 200
totally dismissing the pioneering study by Dr. Jone R. Lee (Lee, John R., M.D., "Osteoporosis Reversal: The
Role of Progesterone," International Clinical Nutrition Review (1990), 10:384-391.). If they are truly serious
about protecting consumers from false claims, they should go afterCompounding pharmacies were
also attacked. They had to fight against FDA's move to restrict doctors' access to natural hormones through
compounding pharmacy, which was reversed (see a
As maddening and shameful as they are, these episodes will no doubt go down in the science and medical
history footnotes, along with the Intelligent Design and the monkey trial, as the collateral damages of W.
Bush's presidency and the Republican rule that turned America into a land of greed and voodoo science.
Late Dr. John R. Lee began his fight in late 1980's, long before the PremPro study was abruptly terminated in
2002. I was glad the study was terminated and shocked the world. Finally the truth is out, I thought. But I was
naive. The very next year, when I rea
I realized what was going on; deny and dismiss. Today, 8 years later, not much has changed on the
surface. Their position statements indicate they still think they can get away with it.
September 2003 position statement of The North American Menopause Society said:
"In the absence of clinical trial data from each estrogen and progestogen, the clinical trial results for one
agent probably should be generalized to all agents within the same family, especially with regard to
adverse effects." And they claimed that it is
"the most up-to-date and scientifically based recommendations
currently available on the clinical use of ET/EPT in peri- and postmenopause."
The AMA 2008 statement says:
"There is no credible evidence that bio-identical hormones are safer than traditional estrogen and
progesterone products (Premarin and Provera)".
ⓒCopyright, 2009 Etsuko Ueda, All rights reserved.
There have been too few real attacks against their blatant unscientific claims for so long. There are many
people other than the doctors and the victims, namely scientists, politicians, and journalists who could have
examined the issue and raised the public awareness. Where have they been? Why doesn't FDA have
competent scientists? May be most of them are bought? What are the insurance companies doing? Both health
and malpractice insurance companies should discourage doctors from prescribing the fake hormones and
encourage the use of bio-identical hormones. Don't they have enough mathematicians and statisticians to see
the implications? While the American doctors have been blindfolded, large scale safety studies have been
carried out and published in other parts of the world, such as(see reviews listed
below fore more). They can save a bundle if they did. Isn't that the promise of this free market system? Or are
they colluding with the big phama too? If the 2002 PremPro results did not clearly tell them the party is over,
may be 9,000 lawsuits will.
Some of the Websites I found helpful and inspiring:
is still open thanks to his wife.
His blog is my inspiration.
・(He can use some coaching on his
presentation style, thought.)
Their publicity campaign is awesome.
・in Wall Street Journal Opinion page
・ The definitive review:
I don't quite understand their confusion about availability and the safety of
bioidenticlal hormones, though. Just ask a few pharmacies about what is compounded, what is packaged,
and what is over the counter.
The coauthor and editor of late Dr. John R. Lee's books and newsletters
Expert on breast cancer and hormone tests.
・ Coauthored by John R. Lee, M.D. David Zava,
Ph.D, and Virginia Hopkins, 2002 Warner Books.
・ George R. Gillson, MD, PhD, David T. Zava, PhD,
International Journal of Pharmaceutical
Compounding Vol. 7 No. 4 July/August 2003
ⓒCopyright, 2009 Etsuko Ueda, All rights reserved.
・ George R. Gillson, MD, PhD, David T. Zava, PhD,
International Journal of Pharmaceutical
Compounding Vol. 7 No. 5 September/October 2003
As a biologist turned environmental activist / broadcaster, he would probably prefer to
see a stronger voice against the use of fake hormones as contraceptives as well as HRT (along with the
chemicals in personal care products, industrial, agricultural, and plastic wastes), which go into not only our
sewer systems but also polluting theadeforming marine lives.
in a nation wise study.
ⓒCopyright, 2009 Etsuko Ueda, All rights reserved.
Source: http://home.hiwaay.net/~eueda/progesterone/the%20hormone%20war%20is%20heating%20up.pdf
En el nombre de Dios A la juventud de los países occidentales Los tristes acontecimientos que provocaron el terrorismo ciego en Francia, una vez más, han motivado este diálogo con ustedes. Para mí resulta muy lamentable que tales acontecimientos generen estas intervenciones, no obstante, es una realidad que si estos dolorosos temas no allanan el terreno para encontrar una solución, los daños serían mayores. El sufrimiento de todo ser humano, en cualquier parte del mundo, es triste para los demás. La imagen de la muerte de un niño ante los ojos de sus seres queridos, de una madre cuya alegría familiar se transforma en luto, de un esposo que traslada con prisa el cadáver de su esposa, o una audiencia que desconoce que dentro de poco verá cómo culmina la última escena de su vida, son imágenes que despiertan el sentimiento humano. Cualquiera que sepa de bondad, se siente consternado por tales escenas, sea en Francia, en Palestina, Irak, El Líbano o Siria. Seguramente, los mil millones y medio de musulmanes del mundo comparten este sentimiento y repudian a los autores de tales tragedias. Yo estoy convencido de que solo ustedes, los jóvenes, al ver tales calamidades del mundo de hoy, serán capaces de encontrar nuevas vías para construir el futuro y evitarán el camino incorrecto que ha conducido a Occidente hacia su situación actual.
Novel Use of Erbium:YAG (2,940-nm) Laser for FractionalAblative Photothermolysis in the Treatment of PhotodamagedFacial Skin: A Pilot Study MOSHE LAPIDOTH, MD, MPH,y MARINA EMIKO YAGIMA ODO, MD,z AND LILIAN MAYUMI ODO, MDz The use of CO2 or conventional erbium laser ablation or more recent nonablative laser photothermolysis for skin rejuvenation is associated with significant disadvantages.