Having recently noticed a few ads popping up on Cancer NewsWatch alluding to an apparent Prempro lawsuit, I decided to do a little digging. For those of you who don’t know, Prempro, along with Provera and Premarin, are hormone replacement drugs which until recently were widely used to help relieve symptoms in women going through menopause. I say “until recently” because hormone replacement therapy is quickly falling out of favor due to a couple of recent studies showing that the dangers of taking these drugs far outweigh any potential benefits. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) put out a press release highlighting the dangers of HRT in July of this year.
And sure enough, it looks like there’s a class action lawsuit in the works, as one of the links I followed during my digging-around took me directly to the web site of a law firm that is handling legal claims against the manufacturers of Prempro, Provera and Premarin. While I wouldn’t be caught dead quoting class-action lawyers, here’s a bit of information from a very reputable source–the National Institutes of Health (NIH.) It’s sobering, to say the least.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has stopped early a major clinical trial of the risks and benefits of combined estrogen and progestin in healthy menopausal women due to an increased risk of invasive breast cancer. The large multi-center trial, a component of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), also found increases in coronary heart disease, stroke, and pulmonary embolism in study participants on estrogen plus progestin compared to women taking placebo pills. There were noteworthy benefits of estrogen plus progestin, including fewer cases of hip fractures and colon cancer, but on balance the harm was greater than the benefit. The study, which was scheduled to run until 2005, was stopped after an average follow-up of 5.2 years.
…Specific study findings for the estrogen plus progestin group compared to placebo include:
* A 41 percent increase in strokes
* A 29 percent increase in heart attacks
* A doubling of rates of venous thromboembolism (blood clots)
* A 22 percent increase in total cardiovascular disease
* A 26 percent increase in breast cancer
* A 37 percent reduction in cases of colorectal cancer
* A one-third reduction in hip fracture rates
* A 24 percent reduction in total fractures
* No difference in total mortality (of all causes)
You can read more about this study at: NHLBI Stops Trial of Estrogen Plus Progestin Due to Increased Breast Cancer Risk, Lack of Overall Benefit
Technorati Tags: Breast Cancer, Class Action, Premarin, Prempro, Provera
