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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Breast Cancer / October 2007THE ANTI-CANCER DRUG THAT CAUSES CANCER?
http://ilenarose.blogspot.com Health Lover May God protect Shane Ellison from speaking out against the powerful Pharma Industry. http://www.newswithviews.com/Ellison/shane30.htm Shane Ellison M. Sc. The People's Chemist October 9, 2007 NewsWithViews.com Western medicines approach to cancer treatment is based on profit, not safety and effectiveness. This became abundantly clear to me while designing tamoxifen derivatives for the drug industry. Tamoxifen, like estrogen, binds to the estrogen receptor. In its early days, it was thought that this would prevent excess estrogen binding and therefore halt cancer. It was unleashed to the public as an anti-cancer drug. Mayo Clinic got excited and announced that, Tamoxifen (Nolvadex) has been officially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help protect high-risk women from getting breast cancer. It's generally taken for five years. As time passed, tamoxifen proved to be the anti-cancer drug that actually caused cancer. As a drug chemist, I was prompted to fix Big Pharmas dirty secret. For one year, I attempted to offset the cancer side effect of tamoxifen by designing chemical cousins of it. Such attempts failed. All of its molecular relatives initiated cancer. The project was cancelled. The secret was kept. Tamoxifen remained on the market and continued its cancer scourge among unsuspecting victims. The American Academy of Family Physicians attempted to warn physicians by announcing, Incidence of endometrial cancer (cancer of the womb lining) almost doubled for those taking the drug [Tamoxifen] for one to two years. Taking it over a five year period: Cases quadrupled. Science rarely has a voice loud enough to penetrate Big Pharmas overwhelming marketing chatter. The industry continues to push the billion dollar profit-puller as the first line of defense against cancer. Avoid the hype, avoid the cancer. > http://ilenarose.blogspot.com > Health Lover [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > October 9, 2007 > NewsWithViews.com ... > Tamoxifen, like estrogen, binds to the estrogen receptor. In its early > days, it was thought that this would prevent excess estrogen binding > and therefore halt cancer. It was unleashed to the public as an > anti-cancer drug. ... > The American Academy of Family Physicians attempted to warn physicians > by announcing, “Incidence of endometrial cancer (cancer of the womb > lining) almost doubled for those taking the drug [Tamoxifen] for one > to two years. Taking it over a five year period: Cases quadrupled.” Please don't let this article put off any breast cancer survivors from taking Tamoxifen. Yes Tamoxifen roughly quadruples the risk of endometrial cancer which is typically 0.05%, raising it to about 0.2%, and which is nearly always curable. However it also roughly halves the risk of recurrent breast cancer which can be between 5% and over 50% depending on stage, and is usually fatal. So for most cancer survivors the benefits *dramatically* outweigh the risks. Of course it would be a good thing to eliminate this side effect, but for those who have had breast cancer, taking Tamoxifen is a hell of a lot better than not taking Tamoxifen, it is one of the biggest contributors to the improvement in survival rates seen over the last decades. What the pharmaceutical companies gain from the research discussed in this article is not so much a better pill for cancer patients - the improvement would be marginal and commercially they'd do better combating the hot flushes - it is the potential huge market for a prophylactic breast cancer drug that can be given to women say over 40 who have NOT had cancer, to lower their risk. Tamoxifen is fine for cancer patients who already face a high risk of recurrence, but giving it to perfectly healthy women as a mass medication would do more harm than good. Tim Jackson >Please don't let this article put off any breast > cancer survivors from taking Tamoxifen. >Tim Jackson Tim, thank you SO much for your reply to I-Scarry's latest post. It seems to be her mission to keep us terrified while we are doing our best to survive. Unless we are completely STUPID most of us KNOW the dangers of practically ALL the drugs we put in our bodies but like you said, we must weigh the good against the bad. I am on Arimidex so I guess it has the same dangerous side effects. After reading her post I wanted to throw them all down the toilet. BUT at least Arimidex gives me HOPE! I will continue to take it and be sure my Oncologist is aware of the side effects so that I can be watched for other problems. Unless we are completely braindead, most of us know life does not come without problems and it is the same for medications. I can't even take an ASPIRIN without servere stomach problems yet it protects thousands from heart problems. Does that mean aspirin should be banned? "I-Scarry" needs to take a break from her mission to "save the world" so that people like myself can eat breakfast without indigestion from her posts! Bea 'NO FORWARDS OR SPAM, PLEASE" Bea, Couldn't have said it better myself. Tammy > >Please don't let this article put off any breast >> cancer survivors from taking Tamoxifen. [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > 'NO FORWARDS OR SPAM, PLEASE" > Tim, thank you SO much for your reply to I-Scarry's latest post. It > seems to be her mission to keep us terrified while we are doing our best [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > I will continue to take it and be sure my Oncologist is aware of the > side effects so that I can be watched for other problems. Arimidex acts in a totally different manner than tamoxifen. Arimidex blocks the enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone into estradiol (E2). HIgh aromatase activity is almost always present in breast cancer (in post-menopausal women, the concentration of E2 may be as high as 20 times as much at the tumor site as it is the blood), and may well be the initial step for most breast cancer cases. High local levels of E2 upregulate (upregulate is a fancy way of saying indirectly causes the increase of) telomerase activity, and upregulate the protein bcl-2 (which protects the cancer cells) if enough estrogen receptor (ER)-alpha and membrane-ER is present. So arimidex is protective both because it shuts down telomerase and it usually ends up decreasing bcl-2. Tamoxifen on the other hand, acts benificially only because it blocks ER-alpha. This will result in a decrease in bcl-2 if enough ER-alpha is present. However, tamoxifen seems to bind to the ER-alpha homodimers and turns on telomerase activity just as E2 does, at least for breast cancer and prostate cancer (and possible other tissues, but I haven't seen any studies that prove this yet). However, breast cancer already has high local E2 activity, since telomerase doesn't prevent E2 like arimidex does, so there is no increased growth rate of the breast cancer cells, but they usually die sooner because of the lower levels of bcl-2. I realize that this is fairly technical, but if you want to learn more about the molecular biology of breast cancer or if you want to check the references for the statements I made above, then you should check out: http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/28 The bottom line is if you take arimidex, don't be concerned about side effects reported with tamoxifen. Ed Friedman > The bottom line is if you take arimidex, don't be concerned about side > effects reported with tamoxifen. True. Many of the side effects are common to both, such as an increased risk of osteoporosis, but the increase in risk of endometrial cancer is specific to Tamoxifen. Tim |
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