I have been writing about this for a while now, but I wonder why can’t we get some numbers crunched here?  We keep hearing about the Bio Identical hormone treatments that are customized, but why can’t we get some numbers that compare “FDA Approved” Bio identical hormones compared to Premarin? 

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Myself and I’m sure there’s a ton of other women who would like to see some statistics on this.  Again, I am not talking customized Bio Identical drugs as what makes the news today, I want:

FDA Approved Bio Identical HRT and Premarin Numbers that show cases of breast and ovarian cancer

The FDA and Health Insurance companies have numbers on this so why can’t we get some SQL query statements run to show some numbers?   The FDA with their new Sentinel system were supposed to get raw data to provide some of this, so what’s happened here?  Health insurance companies could run their own analysis with all the data they have collected with no identities, but rather just women with cancer taking Premarin, and those with cancer taking bio identical drugs, past and present.

How safe are Estrace, Evamist, Vagifem, Estraderm and Climara, inquiring women want to know! 

Last year I had this discussion with Dr. Erika Schwartz, who speaks frequently at Harvard and at many other institutes and we pondered this, and here we are today wit no numbers yet!  This is an important issue that is being overlooked, and is it because the companies who make the FDA approved bioidentical HRT drugs don’t make enough money on their sales?  I don’t know but again would like to know if they are safe and how they compare.  I would think with all the “scoring” that health insurance companies do today with risk assessment that this would have been long done as they dance around all other areas that involve women’s health to include scrutinizing who gets the Myriad genomic breast test. 

Myriad's BRACAnalysis Tests Scrutinized by Insurance Carriers – Many Do Not Qualify and Myriad Marketing Questioned

I would think for their own information use that this issue would be some business intelligence the insurers would want as it goes hand in hand with the genomic testing! 

Here’s a bit of what Dr. Erika and I talked about last year and the full article can be read at the link below.  BD 

Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy– Interview with Dr. Erika Schwartz

I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Erika Schwartz recently about Bio Identical Hormone Therapy, one of the foremost experts in the United States on the subject. She has written 4 best selling books and is also seen on Extra Lifechanger. Dr. Erika trained at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, NY in Internal Medicine and Critical Care on the front lines and became the Director of Emergency Medicine at Westchester County Medical Center. She also lectured on the topic of bioidentical hormones at Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bio-identical hormones to many, and self included here are a confusing issue as there are both the drugs which are standardized dosages and approved by the FDA, and those that are personally compounded at pharmacies, which means is a custom mix and not out of the box or bottle. When many today seem to think of bio-identical hormones, we automatically believe that they are only drugs compounded by the pharmacy, and that is simply not true. Bioidenticals are synthesized hormones that mimic those produced in women's ovaries, more natural than those produced from

horses. You can read more about Estradiol and Levonorgestrel here.

Dr. Schwartz named several FDA-approved drugs that are bio identical to include Estrace, Evamist, Vagifem, Estraderm, and Climara for estrogen and Prochieve, Prometrium, and Crinone for progesterone. Well guess what, I had been using an FDA bio identical drug and didn’t even know it, so there again is where my education on hormones began.

1 comments :

  1. Numbers indeed! I would like to see those too. I am reading Dr. John Lee's series of books "What your doctor may not tell you about...pre-menopause, breast cancer, menopause" and am blown away by the information. It's amazing how the FDA can approve synthetic hormone drugs with nasty side effects, yet doctors who prescribe natural hormone replacement creams (and get results) are considered quacks.

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