Resumen
Este artículo es de singular
importancia para todos nuestros visitantes de ambos sexos —
pero, especialmente para mujeres de todas las edades — porque
describe en detalle algunos de los subterfugios y métodos
evasivos que utilizan las compañías que mercadean
las medicinas — en connivencia con médicos poco
éticos, como los que Freddy Aguasvivas describe en su
libro "Todas
las posibilidades" — con que, a veces, nos causan daños
inmensurables.
La menopausia es normal y algunas
compañías farmacéuticas desean que la
tratemos como quieren que hagamos con la vejez: como si
fueran enfermedades.
Lo que es peor, es que cuando se relaciona
a los tratamientos para otras condiciones, como la obesidad,
donde se captan más dólares, la situación es
más crítica.
El por qué para esto es lo
siguiente, si la obesidad permanece intratable y la menopausia
una "enfermedad": ¿Quiénes se
benefician?
Para nuestros lectores que deseen
traducirlo, todo lo que tienen que hacer es poner el
artículo en relieve con el
cursor, copiarlo, y pegarlo en uno de los programas de
traducción (como el que ofrece Google en su
navegador).
Lean y se
estremecerán de horror
Millions of American women in the 1990s
were told they could help their bodies ward off major illness by
taking menopausal hormone drugs. Some medical associations said
so. Many gynecologists and physicians said so. Respected medical
journals said so, too.
Along the way, television commercials
positioned hormone drugs as treatments for more than hot flashes
and night sweats — just two of the better-known symptoms of
menopause, which is technically defined as commencing one year
after a woman"s last menstrual cycle.
One commercial about estrogen loss by the
drug maker Wyeth featured a character named Dr. Heartman in a
white coat discussing research into connections between menopause
and heart disease, Alzheimer"s
disease and blindness.
"When considering menopause, consider the
entire body of evidence," Dr. Heartman said. "Speak to your
doctor about what you can do to help protect your health during
and after menopause."
Connie Barton, then a medical office assistant
in Peoria, Ill., was one woman who responded to such messages.
She says she took Prempro, a hormone drug made by Wyeth, from
1997, when she was 53, until 2002, when she received a diagnosis
of breast cancer. As part
of her cancer treatment, she had a mastectomy to remove her left
breast.
Now Ms. Barton, who said in an interview
that she used Prempro in part because her doctor told her it
could help prevent heart disease and dementia, is one of more
than 13,000 people who have sued Wyeth over the last seven years,
claiming in courts across the country that its menopause drugs
caused breast cancer and other problems.
The suits also assert, based on recently
unsealed court documents, that Wyeth oversold the benefits of
menopausal hormones and failed to properly warn of the
risks.
In October, a jury in a Pennsylvania state
court awarded Ms. Barton $75 million in punitive damages from
Wyeth on top of compensatory damages of $3.75 million.
The drug giant Pfizer, which absorbed Wyeth
and its hormone drugs in a merger this year, says that Prempro is
a safe, federally approved drug that did not cause Ms. Barton"s
breast cancer. Chris Loder, a Pfizer spokesman, says Wyeth acted
responsibly by including a clear warning about a breast cancer
risk on Prempro labels and by updating the warning as new
evidence emerged.
Mr. Loder also notes that Pfizer plans to
appeal every product-liability case on menopausal drugs it loses,
including Ms. Barton"s.
While Wyeth has faced periodic complaints
about its blockbuster menopause drugs, the latest lawsuits have
turned the company"s menopausal hormone franchise into the kind
of case study dissected at Ivy League business schools. Lawyers
have made some documents public in the suits, and The New York
Times and the nonprofit Public Library of Science filed
successful motions to unseal thousands of documents in
July.
To be sure, even some doctors who think
hormone therapy has risks say it is the most effective treatment
for symptoms directly associated with menopause.
The documents that have surfaced in the
Wyeth cases offer a rare glimpse inside the file cabinets and
hard drives of a major drug company. And the cases demonstrate
the importance of litigation in detailing exactly how drug makers
operate their businesses, says Dr. Jerome L. Avorn, a professor
of medicine at Harvard Medical School who has written about the
subject in The Journal of the American Medical
Association.
"The information coming out in litigation
helps us understand how a belief in a "protective benefit" of
estrogens on the heart was able to spread like wildfire through
the medical community," says Dr. Avorn, who is not involved in
the Wyeth litigation.
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