Date: 8/25/06 Author: Christopher Barr Source: Naturally Speaking
Tamoxifen-fen?
Just days ago the major British newspaper 'Guardian' published an article, 'Approval for new class of breast cancer drug'. The article wrote of the new drug being used "alongside the 'gold standard' Tamoxifen, which many expect them quickly to replace."
If by 'gold standard' the article meant as in a goose laying golden eggs to benefit the one with the goose then this is accurate. Billions of dollars of tamoxifen has been sold.
The maker of tamoxifen has goosed the market by way of monopoly and manipulation. The golden eggs are also rotten ones.
Just weeks ago a news item about a study in the medical journal 'Cancer' from last month's issue reported of tamoxifen that it "does not appear in the long run to save many lives". The report further noted that the researchers cited "the sometimes serious side effects of tamoxifen outweigh the benefits".
Why has it taken more than 20 years to discover that the only drug approved by the FDA for most breast cancer for many years barely works at all?
Why is it that only after the patent protection for tamoxifen expired and inexpensive generic versions are now commonly available that this information is discovered?
The British newspaper article reported about an expectation of the new breast cancer drug "quickly to replace" tamoxifen. That would be as in replacing the now patent-defunct breast cancer drug with the new patent-protected breast cancer drug. That would be as in replacing the previously very expensive breast cancer drug that is now much less expensive with a breast cancer drug even more expensive that the previous one.
The British newspaper article wrote that the newer breast cancer drugs "should be available despite their increased cost over Tamoxifen because they have fewer side-effects and studies have shown they reduce cases of breast cancer that recur."
If tamoxifen was the gold standard -- and that could only be with regard to financial windfall rather than as to efficacy - then the new drugs being even more expensive must be the "platinum standard".
As to "fewer side-effects" that is only in regard to number of side-effects. Though the number of side-effects is fewer the rate of frequency is greater. Bone loss is one side-effect that is so severe that expensive drugs for bone loss - with their own added side-effects and questionable effiicacy -- are routinely prescribed with the new breast cancer drug class. This makes the newer, more expensive breast cancer drug treatment yet more expensive still.
As to "studies have shown they reduce cases of breast cancer that recur", well, that is what was said of tamoxifen before the post patent study last month showed few lives saved by it at all.
One side-effect of the alleged cancer preventative drug tamoxifen includes cancer! Other side-effects include blood clots and strokes.
A weight loss drug treatment known as fen-fen (or phen-fen) fell in to disrepute and resulted in tens of millions of dollars of court settlements for much lesser side effects. Would it be unreasonable for tamoxifen henceforth to be known as tamoxifen-fen?
Lemmings for the cure?
Through more than 20 years countless women have annually sacrificed their own time and trouble for the 'Race for the Cure'. This has been promoted as a benefit for breast cancer research.
The primary promotion that has received the most benefit has been use of tamoxifen and mammography.
Mammography is radiation of the breast tissue. Radiation is a known cause of breast cancer. Dr. John Gofman wrote more than 10 years ago that 75 per cent of all breast cancer was due to common medical xrays. No one has more and longer research experience with radiation than Dr. John Gofman.
The founder and chief promoter for the 'Race for the Cure' is the maker of tamoxifen who also had final say so for promotion materials. It has been a great run for tamoxifen. The 'Race for the Cure' was founded the very year that FDA approval (and exclusivity) was granted to tamoxifen for breast cancer treatment.
Ladies have been running for their lives (?to their deaths?) as lemmings seduced by soothsayer songs of the paid piper of that unholy trinity of Big Government, Big Pharma and Big Media all working together as one for their own vested interest decidedly against the very best interest of you and yours.
A big part of the song and dance was more than a decade ago.
Tamoxifen first entered the marketplace in 1975. The 17-year patent protection would therefore end in the early 1990s. However, tamoxifen did not really get going until the FDA of Big Government gave it a big nod in 1985.
A major Big Pharma producer of generic drugs sued to invalidate the patent in the early 1990s. The Big Government Pfederal court rightfully agreed.
Subsequently the Big Pharma producer of tamoxifen offered the Big Pharma producer of generic drugs to provide them tamoxifen and a payment of million annually no matter how much they sold - or didn't sell. There were some conditions. One condition was that the discounted generic price only be 5 per cent less rather than the 50 to 80 per cent discount common to generics. Another condition was that the patent invalidation be invalidated.
The Big Pharma Pfamily members agreed and the Big Government Pfederal court agreed as well invalidating the patent invalidation. The maker of tamoxifen received an additional 10 years of patent protection with the recognition of the later 1985 date rather than the original (and actual) 1975 date.
The polluted mainstream of Big Government understandings (court and FDA), Big Pharma marketing and Big Media promotion have waltzed together all over the common people since that time.
Another reason to refer to this drug as tamoxifen-fen is that a fen is swampland like that of the proverbial Florida swampland referred to in tales of fraud.
At the rear and at the forefront
Before the patent drug tamoxifen with all its side-effects and actual ineffectiveness ever entered the marketplace a true wealth of data from multiple sources indicated the non-patent mineral nutrient selenium as the key to breast cancer.
Those with the highest level of selenium in the blood had dramatically reduced levels of breast cancer as compared to those with lesser levels of selenium.
Those with breast cancer with the lowest levels of selenium had more spread of cancer and less survival time than those with higher levels of selenium.
Almost 30 years ago it was reported that if every woman in America received 200 micrograms daily of selenium as a supplement that breast cancer would dramatically decline in the space of a few years according to Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer, professor of medical chemistry at the University of San Diego School of Medicine.
Shortly thereafter Dr. Ralph Donaldson received astounding results with terminal cancer patients by elevating blood stream levels of selenium to normal levels with use of supplementation. He noted that none returned to normal selenium at less than 400 micrograms daily and that it usually took from 900 micrograms up to 2,000 micrograms of selenium daily to reach normal blood selenium levels. The selenium that he used was of a grown variety rather than the common sodium selenite or popular amino acid creations with methionine, cysteine and other chelated compounds of selenium.
It should also be noted that selenium protects against the damaging effects of radiation. For more reasons than one selenium should be routinely utilized by those who practice medicine - whenever x-rays are taken, radiation therapy given, or for almost any cancer treatment option.
Perhaps it is called the practice of medicine because they just don't know what they are doing?
Tortoise and the hare
The race to victory over breast cancer will not come by way of the this, that and every other patent drug multiplying like rabbits but rather by way of the non-patent essential for life mineral nutrient selenium that was first noted as cancer preventative way back in 1912.
It should raise the hair on the back of your neck that polluted mainstream medical research has been so turtle slow to reach the winning conclusion that selenium deficiency is the primary key to breast cancer.
Christopher C. Barr writes Naturally Speaking from Arkansas: The Natural State … naturally! You may write him at P. O. Box 1147, Pocahontas, Arkansas 72455 or by e-mail at servantofYHVH@hotmail.com .
