BRAS

Just Say No to Drugs


It is so ironic to me that we spend millions teaching our children the slogan, “Just say no to drugs!”  Don’t you think it’s time that we apply our own advice to the drugs that have insinuated their way into every facet of our lives?  A drug is a drug is a drug.  They are foreign to our bodies and will cause problems—our body doesn’t know an illegal drug from an over the counter prescription deemed safe by our ultimate protector, the FDA.

Here’s a few statistics that affect each and every women.

  • 47 drugs have been specifically linked to breast cancer in mammals.
  • Combinations of drugs are linked to breast cancer.
  • 17 synthetic hormones are linked to breast cancer. (Also see hormone chapter!)
  • Antibiotics use is associated with a 20-30% breast cancer risk.
  • Statistics are skewed to make us think the drug is protecting us when it isn’t.
  • The time period for the trials are short, guaranteeing that cancer, a long term problem does not show up.
  • Trials may be influenced by money. The FDA may not be protecting us.

47 Drugs Associated with Mammary Gland Cancers in Animals

There are 47 drugs that are connected with breast cancer that have been compiled by the Susan B. Komen for the Cure association.  Further research into the actual drug use show the majority of these drugs are for chemotherapy, followed by anti-microbial uses for tuberculosis, yeast, fungi, and parasites.  Urinary tract infections are also represented as are drugs that affect all of us with indiscriminate use in livestock.

The compiled list is from http://sciencereview.silentspring.org/mamm_browse.cfm

Pharmaceuticals (n = 47)

  • 1-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-3-[(5-nitrofurfurylidene)
  • amino]-2-imidazolidinone
  • 5036-03-3 P – antimicrobial agent.
  • 1,2-Dimethyl-5-nitroimidazole 551-92-8 P – treat histomoniasis in poultry
  • 1-[(5-Nitrofurfurylidene)amino]-2-Imidazolidinone
  • 555-84-0 P,I,C 2B –  urinary-tract infections.
  • 2-Amino-5-(5-nitro-2-furyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole 3775-55-1 P -Antimicrobial pharmaceutical.
  • 2-Amino-5-(5-nitro-2-furyl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole 712-68-5 P,I,C 2B – gastroenteritis and as a topical agent for relief of hemorrhoids, anal fissures, and proctitis.
  • 2-Amino-5-nitrothiazole 121-66-4 P,I 3 _ – veterinary antiprotozoal agent
  • 4,40-Sulfonylbisacetanilide 77-46-3 P – anti-infective, anti-malarial and leprostatic agent
  • 4-Methyl-1-[(5-nitrofurfurylidene) amino]-2-imidazolidinone 21638-36-8 P – urinary infections
  • 5-(Morpholinomethyl)-3-[(5-nitrofurfurylidene)-amino]-2-oxazolidinone-l form 3795-88-8 I 2B – urinary infections.
  • 5-Azacytidine 320-67-2 P 2A –experimental anti-cancer drug
  • Acronycine 7008-42-6 P,N,C – Experimental anti-cancer drug
  • Doxorubicin (Adriamycin) 23214-92-8 I,N,C 2A _  – chemo drug
  • Amsacrine 51264-14-3 I 2B – treatment of leukaemia in adults and children
  • anti-(1/-)-trans-7,8,9,10-Tetrahydrobenzo
  • [a]pyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide
  • 58917-67-2 C
  • Bemitradine 88133-11-3 P,C – A diuretic anti-hypertensive agent (ToxLine
  • Chloroambucil 305-03-3 P,C 1 – treatment of lymphomas, chronic leukaemias, and certain solid tumors
  • Cyclophosphamide 50-18-0 N,C 1 _ – used in cancer treatments, rheumatoid arthritis
  • Cytembena 21739-91-3 P,N,C – folate inhibitor in cancer treatment. Not produced or used in the US
  • Dacarbazine 4342-03-4 P,I,N 2B _ – used in cancer therapy
  • Daunomycin 20830-81-3 – Anti-mitotic agent used in cancer chemotherapy. Not produced or used in the US
  • Dibromomannitol 488-41-5 P – bone marrow transplants, chemotherapy
  • Furosemide 54-31-9 P,I,N,C 3 _ – hypertension, edema (23 million prescriptions in 1981)
  • Griseofulvin 126-07-8 P 2B – jock itch, athlete’s foot, and ringworm; and fungal   infections of the scalp, fingernails, and toenails
  • Hexamethylmelamine 531-18-0 P – chemotherapy drug
  • Indomethacin 53-86-1 P – nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, painkiller
  • Isoniazid 54-85-3 P 3 – tuberculosis treatment
  • Isonicotinic acid vanillylidenehydrazide 149-17-7 P – anti-bacterial agent to treat tuberculosis.
  • Isophosphamide 3778-73-2 N,C 3 – anti-neoplastic and immunosuppressive drug.
  • L-5-Morpholinomethyl-3-[(5-nitrofurfurylidene)
  • amino ]-2-oxazolidinone HCl
  • 3031-51-4 P – No information found.
  • Merphalan 531-76-0 I,C 2B – anti-neoplastic agent for medical treatments
  • Metronidazole 443-48-1 P,I,N,C 2B- Flagyl, anti-parasitic, for h.pylori, giardia
  • Mitomycin-C 50-07-7 C 2B – antineoplastic or cytotoxic chemotherapy drug
  • Nithiazide 139-94-6 P,I,N,C 3 _ -veterinary medicine, in tissues and eggs of poultry
  • N,N0-Dimethylnitrosourea 55120-47-3 C – anti-neoplastic and immunosupresive agent
  • N-[4-(5-Nitro-2-furyl)-2-thiazolyl]acetamide 531-82-8 P,I,C 2B – anti-infective.
  • Niridazole 61-57-4 I,C 2B  – an anti-parasitic drug, not often used
  • Nitrofurantoin 67-20-9 I,C 3 _ used in treating urinary tract infection
  • Nitrofurazone 59-87-0 P,I,N,C 3 _  antibiotic most commonly in the form of ointments
  • Norlestrin 8015-12-1 P  – oral contraceptive containing estradiol and norethindrone.
  • Phenacetin 62-44-2 P 2A _   APC” (aspirin, phenacetin, caffeine) in painkillers
  • Phenesterin 3546-10-9 P,N   experimental anticancer agent
  • Procarbazine hydrochloride 366-70-1 P,I,N,C 2A –chemo drug for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and certain brain cancers
  • Reserpine 50-55-5 P,I,N,C 3                          high blood pressure
  • SQ 18506 28754-68-9 C
  • Thiotepa 52-24-4 I,N,C 1 _ – cancer therapy
  • trans-2-[(Dimethylamino)methylimino]-
  • 5-[2-(5-nitro-2-furyl)vinyl]-1,3,4-oxadiazole
  • 25962-77-0 I 2B –
  • Uracil mustard 66-75-1 I,C 2B – chemotherapy drug for non-Hodgkins lymphoma

17 synthetic hormones are linked to breast cancer.

  • 17a-Hydroxyprogesterone caproate 630-56-8 I 2B
  • Chlormadinone acetate 302-22-7 I,C 2B
  • Conjugated estrogens I 1 _ _
  • Diethylstilbestrol 56-53-1 P,I,N,C 1
  • Estradiol-17b 50-28-2 I,C 1 _
  • Estriol 50-27-1 I,C 1
  • Estrone 53-16-7 I,C 1 _
  • Ethinylestradiol 57-63-6 I,C 1
  • Ethynodial diacetate 297-76-7 I,C 2B
  • Lynestrenol 52-76-6 I 2B
  • Medroxyprogesterone acetate 71-58-9 I,C 2B
  • Megestrol acetate 595-33-5 I,C 2B
  • Mestranol 72-33-3 I,C 1
  • Norethisterone 68-22-4 I,N 2B
  • Norethynodrel 68-23-5 I,C 2B
  • Progesterone 57-83-0 I,C 2B _
  • Testosterone 58-22-0 I,C 2A
  • 2644 CANCER Supplement June 15, 2007 / Volume 109 / Number 12

Combinations of Drugs Linked to Breast Cancer

•      Alcohol and Hormone Replacement Therapy
•      Alcohol and Oral contraceptive interaction
•      Alora and Progestin interaction
•      C.E.S and Progestin interaction
•      Cenestin and Progestin interaction
•      Climacteron and Progestin interaction
•      Climara and Progestin interaction
•      Climestrone and Progestin interaction
•      Congest and Progestin interaction
•      Delestrogen and Progestin interaction
•      Depo-Estradiol and Progestin interaction
•      DV and Progestin interaction
•      Esclim and Progestin interaction
•      Estinyl and Progestin interaction
•      Estrace and Progestin interaction
•      Estraderm and Progestin interaction
•      Estraguard and Progestin interaction
•      Estratab and Progestin interaction
•      Estrogen and Progestin interaction
•      Estrovis and Progestin interaction
•      Feminone and Progestin interaction
•      Femogen and Progestin interaction
•      Femogex and Progestin interaction
•      Gynetone and Progestin interaction
•      Gynodiol and Progestin interaction
•      Gynogen LA and Progestin interaction
•      Menest and Progestin interaction
•      Menotab and Progestin interaction
•      Menotab-M and Progestin interaction
•      Menrium and Progestin interaction
•      Milprem and Progestin interaction
•      Minestrin and Progestin interaction
•      Neo-Pause and Progestin interaction
•      Oesclim and Progestin interaction
•      Oestrilin and Progestin interaction
•      Ogen and Progestin interaction
•      PMB and Progestin interaction
•      PMS-Estradiol and Progestin interaction
•      Premarin and Progestin interaction
•      Premphase and Progestin interaction
•      Prempro and Progestin interaction
•      Progynon Pellet and Progestin interaction
•      Synthetic Conjugated Estrogen and Progestin interaction
•      TACE and Progestin interaction
•      Valergen-10 and Progestin interaction
•      Vivelle and Progestin interaction
•      Vivelle-Dot and Progestin interaction
•      White Premarin and Progestin interaction [i]

Although this list is overwhelming, what it does not say is staggering.  One needs only to do an engine search for “breast cancer causing drugs” to dig up more sad news.  Again we have to remember how cancer statistics and information are disseminated to the public.

Antibiotics use is associated with a 20-30% breast cancer risk.

A study in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2004 concluded that “the use of antibiotics is associated with increased risk of incident and fatal breast cancer. It cannot be determined from this study whether antibiotic use is causally related to breast cancer, or whether indication for use, overall weakened immune function, or other factors are pertinent underlying exposures. Although further studies are needed, these findings reinforce the need for prudent long-term use of antibiotics.” [ii]

More than 22.6 million antibiotic prescriptions for nonbacterial acute respiratory infections were filled in 1995.  Now, the evidence is stacking up with many studies showing the connection between overuse of antibiotics and breast cancer.

The authors of this JAMA study found that women who took antibiotics for more than 500 days – or had more than 25 prescriptions – over an average period of 17 years had more than twice the risk of breast cancer as women who had not taken any antibiotics. The risk was smaller for women who took antibiotics for fewer days. However, even women who had between one and 25 prescriptions over an average period of 17 years had an increased risk; they were about 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than women who didn’t take any antibiotics. The authors found an increased risk in all classes of antibiotics that they studied.

The National Institute of Cancer was quick to point out that the results of this study do not mean that antibiotics cause breast cancer. “These results only show that there is an association between the two,” explained co-author Stephen H. Taplin, M.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences and formerly of the GHC. “More studies must be conducted to determine whether there is indeed a direct cause-and-effect relationship.” [iii]

This study referenced twenty-four other studies that had been done on the association with antibiotic use and cancer.  Ten of them were specifically about breast cancer.  How many studies do you need?  Stay away from antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, especially long term use of antibiotics.

In another study with 9 years of follow-up covering 2.1 million women, medical records were reviewed for antibiotic use.  This review suggested that acne and/or rosacea associated with long-term antibiotic therapy could be a factor and found by others to be associated with risk of breast cancer. [iv]

There seems to be four  possible theories to explain why frequent antibiotic use might increase risk of breast cancer but these are not all correlated directly to the drugs themselves.

  1. It may be the type of infection the antibiotics are treating that increases cancer risk.
  2. People who have a weakened immune system get more infections and so take more antibiotics – it could be the weakened immunity that increases risk of breast cancer.
  3. Antibiotics affect your immune system and how it responds to inflammation, both of which could lead to developing cancer.
  4. Antibiotics indiscriminately kill all bacteria, including the natural bacteria living in your bowel which may affect the way certain foods, thought to protect us against cancer, are broken down in the body.

It’s Hard to Know about New Cancer Connections

The internet has turned our world around-literally on a dime.  We can connect and find all kinds of information not available in the past.  Like any tool, we do have to be careful, everything we read is not correct.  But sometimes we find problems years before the medical community knows there is a problem, tests it with double blind random studies and then warns us about it.  It pays to read before you take a drug recommended by your doctor.

Here’s a few example I found with just an internet search for “breast cancer causing drugs.”

Cholesterol Drugs Related to Breast Cancer and Other Cancers

Well-designed studies have shown the link between cholesterol-lowering drug use and cancer. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Thomas B. Newman MD, MPH and co-workers show that all cholesterol-lowering drugs, both the early drugs known as fibrates (glofibrate, gemfibrozil) and the newer drugs known as statins (Lipitor, Pravachol, Zocor), cause cancer in rodents at the equivalent doses used by man.[v]

Evidence from the cholesterol-lowering drug trial known as CARE (Cholesterol And Recurrent Events) showed that Pravachol (a cholesterol-lowering drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb) reduced the chance of suffering from a heart attack by an absolute reduction rate of 1.1%. This miniscule benefit was accompanied by a 1500% increase in breast cancer among women taking Pravachol. An increase in cancer rates among Pravachol users was also shown in the drug trial known as PROSPER. “


How Statistics Are Skewed

In a typical trial of 100 people, pharmaceuticals might have information saying an average of two would be expected to develop cancer.  If the drug trial statistics show that only 1 person out of 100 developed cancer, they think it’s a winner to market with millions of dollars of advertising.  A decrease of 1 in 100, looks like a 1% improvement when I do the math or figure the absolute benefit reduction rate. [viii]

The pharmaceutical companies’ figures change drastically as they calculate the relative reduction rate; 2 out of 100 could be expected to get cancer, but only 1 developed cancer. That equals a 50% relative benefit.

New Zealand doctors writing in the British Lancet medical journal say unpublished data from trials of the breast cancer drug Herceptin show that it may be up to a third less effective than has been claimed.

The doctors, from the Government’s Pharmaceutical Management Agency (Pharmac), said in the journal that they may have identified a new case of publication bias – in which drug companies publish only trial results that are favorable, the Guardian newspaper reported.

The missing data is important and related to a trial involving nearly 1000 women, wrote Dr Scott Metcalfe and his colleagues at Pharmac.[ix]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10510576

Trials Are Short

It is rare that cancer would show up in most other cholesterol-lowering drug trials. Drug company-funded studies for these drugs are conveniently short in nature, typically 5 years or less. It can take decades for cancer to develop. Therefore, cancer rarely shows up. In fact, even heavy smoking will not cause lung cancer within 5 years.[2] Yet it is a well-known fact that smoking leads to lung cancer. Therefore, as long as statin drug trials last only 5 years, this side effect will continue to fly below the radar. [x]

The FDA ‘protects’ the big drug companies and are subsequently rewarded, and using the government’s police powers they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. … The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day. Dr. Herbert Ley, former U.S. FDA commissioner

Trials May Be Influenced by Money

In February of 2005, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which encompasses the NCI, banned all staff scientists from taking drug-company fees because he wanted “the NIH to be a source of health information that could be trusted.”7 Government scientists had moonlighting jobs and were receiving large fees and stock options from pharmaceutical companies, which is clearly an unethical conflict of interest.

More alarmingly, in 2005 the prestigious British journal Nature published a study which showed 15.5% of scientists with NIH grants anonymously admitted to “changing the design, methodology, or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source,” which is a form of scientific misconduct.8

http://www.bcpinstitute.org/brochure2.htm

Prices for new cancer therapies have skyrocketed. Cancer drug costs rose nearly 16 percent in 2006, while other prescription drugs averaged a 3 percent price increase.

Avastin, when used to treat colorectal cancer, sold for $50,000 per year. However, once it was approved to treat breast and lung cancer as well, Genentech announced a new price tag: $100,000 per year, even though it may extend your life by no more than a few months. .

EVISTA, an Eli Lilly drug was found to prevent breast cancer by one-third in a study of more than 10,000 postmenopausal women. Your true cost? Trading your breast cancer prevention for a 50 percent increased risk of fatal strokes and blood clots. Ironically, Evista is sold as an osteoporosis drug, being illegally promoted for treating cardiovascular disease back in 2002.

It seems that the more serious and life threatening the disease, the more expensive your drug solution is. The very vocal former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell, sums up the situation brilliantly: “It’s really exploiting the desperation of people with a life-threatening illness.”

http://uan.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/737107472/m/3991067791 records of two cases from Pempro by Wyeth lawsuit….very good.

The company has said it faces about 5,000 cases over its hormone-replacement drugs, including Prempro and Premarin.

But plaintiffs’ attorneys say cases involving at least 10,000 people have been filed nationwide in federal and state courts, including roughly 1,800 people in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas. Almost all involve breast cancer.

In the annals of pharmaceutical liability, Wyeth already stands out for its $21 billion cost in settling lawsuits over the diet-drug combination known as fen-phen.

[i] www.wrongdiagnosis.com

[ii] http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/291/7/827

[iii] http://www.nci.nih.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/Antibiotics

[iv] http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/11/2102

[v]http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/01/14/lipitor_zocor_pravachol_cholesterol_lowering_drugs_cause_cancer.htm

[vi] International Journal of Gynecological Cancer 2007

[vii] http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/278810/is_cancer_a_fungus.html

[viii] www.mercola.com

[ix] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10510576

[x] http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/01/14/lipitor_zocor_pravachol_cholesterol_lowering_drugs_cause_cancer.htm

http://www.breastcancerfund.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=kwKXLdPaE&b=70679&ct=90271

http://sciencereview.silentspring.org/mamm_detail.cfm?cid=5036-03-3

http://www.imaginis.com/breasthealth/drugs.asp#aromatase breast cancer drug chart/info