1. This is an incredible indictment of the "alternative" industry. How can you possibly know what's in any herbal preparation you purchase?
You can't.

Signs of health fraud

Promoters of cures who claim that the medical establishment is conspiring to keep information away from consumers. Legitimate doctors don't keep proven cures and treatments away from patients who would benefit from them.

Testimonials from people who supposedly have been cured. These are usually made up by the promoter.

"Secret formulas." If a drug or treatment has been proven effective for certain diseases, it is widely available to the public, not to just a select few.

The use of "infomercials" - TV programs that look like news, but are just lengthy ads paid for by the promoter.

Posted at 1:57PM on Aug 13th 2006 by Michelle

2. Michelle states: "This is an incredible indictment of the "alternative" industry."

Tamoxifen, once the gold standard as a breast cancer chemoprevention drug, is widely known for increased risks of uterine cancer and blood clots. Is that an incredible indictment against drugs prescribed by conventional western medicine physicians? No.

I don't know that this news is an "incredible indictment" regarding the alternative therapy industry as a whole as it is more an issue to the frustrating lack of treatment options for women who suffer menopause naturally or as a result of chemotherapy and the dangers to this specific choice of treatment for menopausal symptoms -- and the need to be more questioning before accepting the validity and safety of any treatment.

Posted at 4:01PM on Aug 13th 2006 by Dalene

3. On really rough days, at the end of the day, I tell myself, "Well, that is one day I won't have to relive. I just wonder how many more there will be before I come out on the other side!"

I guess is is my own version of what my friend said when her brother died. She checks for him in the morning and says, "Yup, he's still dead." Me? I check and go, "Yup, I'm still alive!"
v

Posted at 4:16PM on Aug 13th 2006 by Kate

4. Kate -- I have chosen to simply tough it out and adapt when it comes to menopause symptoms because -- as a breast cancer survivor diagnosed with estrogen-positive breast cancer -- there do not seem to be any safe treatments to minimize the life quality-limiting and challenging symptoms that come with menopause. Other than a hand-held fan and loose cotton clothing to survive hot flashes. For other symptoms, I am quite the list-maker and I don't even try to sleep if sleep does not come easy. I get up and read. And I try to find humor each day, something to lift my spirits and make me laugh. But menopause is not easy on some days and I too assure myself that one day I will be on the other side of menopause.

Dalene

Posted at 4:53PM on Aug 13th 2006 by Dalene

5. Dalene states, "Tamoxifen, once the gold standard as a breast cancer chemoprevention drug, is widely known for increased risks of uterine cancer and blood clots. Is that an incredible indictment against drugs prescribed by conventional western medicine physicians? No."

No, it's not an indictment and you, in fact, state the case when you say, "widely known."

An alternative medicine proponent will often say (and I am not saying that you are one), "Well, conventional medicine makes people ill, too."

We know this is the case because it has been researched and documented.

For example, in the The Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT), women who took tamoxifen had more than twice the chance of developing endometrial cancer compared with women who took a placebo. The risk of endometrial cancer in women taking tamoxifen was in the same range as (or less than) the risk in postmenopausal women taking single-agent estrogen replacement therapy. Most of the endometrial cancers that have occurred in women taking tamoxifen have been found in the early stages, and treatment has usually been effective.

Data from large treatment studies suggest that there is a small increase in the number of blood clots in women taking tamoxifen, particularly in women who are receiving anticancer drugs (chemotherapy) along with tamoxifen. The total number of women who have experienced this side effect is small. The risk of having a blood clot due to tamoxifen is similar to the risk of a blood clot when taking estrogen replacement therapy.

The linked article states, "There has been very limited research into these preparations and women taking the compounds are essentially guinea pigs."

Yes, guinea pigs. When you go to a Chinese herbalist, compounding pharmacy, supplement store, you pay your money and take your chances. When you get a Tamoxifen prescription, you get literature with it that states the risk. You get routinely checked by your gynecologist and get lab tests for fibrinogen, platelets, etc. and pay close attention to any symptoms of DVT.

Do you do that when you take an unregulated, unresearched product?

The word "alternative" may suggest "adequacy for some purpose." As Drs. Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer noted in a 1998 editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine: "There cannot be two kinds of medicine -- conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work."

Good news is just around the corner. A new bill would require reports on ill effects of supplements.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1154497999138030.xml&coll=1

Posted at 7:58AM on Aug 14th 2006 by Michelle