What You Should Know About Women's Health Care

In a world of profits before health, women are being lied to and receiving second-rate care. In the year 2000 alone, more women went to alternative health care practitioners than to conventional physicians, even though insurance doesn't pay for the majority of alternatives.

After hearing the shocking news about the dangers of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), women are demanding answers. They want to know why they were told hormone replacement therapy would prevent heart attacks and stroke, only to find out now that it increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, invasive breast cancer, and ovarian cancer. They also want to know how these deadly drugs could have been approved without adequate testing. Rightfully so.

There is equal concern about the safety and effectiveness of mammograms. Samuel S. Epstein MD, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, warned women in 2002 that; "Mammography is dangerous, besides ineffective."

A Canadian Breast Screening Study, published in the Annuals of Internal Medicine in 2002, showed that although more breast cancers were detected in the mammography group, there was no difference in the end in how many women died.

An announcement by the Physicians Data Query Screening found that all seven of the major mammography studies conducted to date had serious flaws and that mammograms may not be beneficial. The benefit, in terms of lowering cancer rates, is minuscule, while the downside, though rarely addressed, is enormous.

We've also had it pounded into our heads that high cholesterol and high blood pressure are the evil villains that cause heart attacks.

The truth is, ten thousand people die from heart disease every year from known causes such as high homocysteine levels and insulin-resistance that they were never checked for.

The fact is, half of Americans who suffer heart attack have normal cholesterol levels and don't have high blood pressure. Clever advertising for cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins) is at the root of this lie.

Twelve million Americans are taking these dangerous drugs that can block the production of CoQ10. CoQ10 deficiencies can lead to liver damage, which can cause myopathy (muscle weakness and soreness) and progress into rhabdomyolysis (significant deterioration of muscle tissue) that can result in the buildup of toxins leading to kidney failure, and death. All the while Big Brother Pharma is smiling as they enjoy a whopping $10 billion a year.

What about osteoporosis? It's made it into the top ten list of diseases spawning a multi-billion-dollar industry. By using dual x-ray absorptimetry (DEXA), low bone density, a simple risk factor for osteoporosis, has been turned into a disease.

You might be surprised to learn that there are no standards for this new technology. Yes, no standards. You can be considered normal on one machine and have severe osteoporosis on another. Even worse, this equipment measures and compares a woman's bone density against that of healthy young women twenty to thirty-five years old!

In truth fragility fractures are rare in healthy women. Most hip fractures occur only in the very elderly and are linked to many complicating factors.

It's normal to lose bone as we age. Low bone density is not necessarily a sign of brittle bones. Bone density tests measure just that - density. They do not measure bone strength or quality, and these are the factors that determine whether or not a bone is apt to fracture. If bone is good, you can actually lose 25 percent or more of bone-mass and still resist fractures.

Despite these truths, clever marketing is causing healthy women to treat a disease they probably don't have with dangerous drugs like Fosomax, which have minimal bone-sparing or anti-fracture evidence to justify their use. In some cases the evidence is non-existent.

Yet, these drugs that are hard on the kidneys, cause deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D (all essential to building strong bones), cause severe permanent damage to the esophagus and stomach, can cause diarrhea, flatulence, rash, headache, and muscular pain, are being prescribed to millions of women.

So, why are women being lied to? And, why is the FDA approving dangerous drugs? Money and politics is the answer. In my book, Finally the Truth About Women's Health Care, you'll learn that the FDA's involvement with pharmaceutical companies has been called the most notorious revolving door in Washington, with one conflict of interest after another.

For example, a study reported in USA Today found that more than half of the experts hired advised the government on the safety and effectiveness of medicine had a direct financial interest in the drug or topic they were asked to evaluate. These conflicts of interest included helping a pharmaceutical company develop a medicine, then turning around and serving on an FDA advisory committee that judges the drug. It's like having the coyotes watch over the hen house.

Another concern is this: pharmaceutical companies only have to submit two studies showing satisfactory results to get their drugs approved, even though other studies might show the drug causes adverse reactions in an unacceptable number of cases. And, the so-called "academic scientists" who are the authors of these studies, are often just a "window dressing".