Merck: wishing you a jaw-rotting New Year
A few weeks ago, NPR published a spot-on assessment of the invention of an illness – osteopenia – to spur the sale of a Big Pharma cure – Fosamax, a bone-building drug. Until 1992, the word ‘osteopenia’ didn’t even exist. Then, under less-than-ideal conditions at a WHO conference in Rome, experts coined the term to designate a group of people whose bone density measurement fell somewhere between a few arbitrary numerical metrics:
“Ultimately it was just a matter of, ‘Well … it has to be drawn somewhere…And as I recall, it was very hot in the meeting room, and people were in shirt sleeves and, you know, it was time to kind of move on, if you will. And, I can’t quite frankly remember who it was who stood up and drew the picture and said, ‘Well, let’s just do this.’”
So there in the hotel room someone literally stood up, drew a line through a graph depicting diminishing bone density and decreed: Every woman on one side of this line has a disease.
That was all it took for Merck – my favorite little faux-medical journal-writing pharma company – to jump on the bone-density wagon. They launched an aggressive campaign to install bone densitometer machines in more doctor’s offices, and started promoting a lower dose of Fosamax as a cure-all for osteopenia. In other words, a new disease was born, and Merck already had the treatment. A treatment that could be prescribed to millions of American women who weren’t quite ready to shatter a hip, but didn’t quite have the bones of a 20-something. Says Steve Cummings, director of clinical research at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute:
“When millions of women are getting the word ‘osteopenia’ from the bone density test that they are getting in their 50s and 60s, they get worried,” Cummings says. “When a clinician sees the word ‘osteopenia’ on a report, they think that it’s a disease. They want to know: What should I do?”
Osteoporosis is a serious illness: more than half of women over the age of 50 are diagnosed, and many who break a bone never return to full mobility. Hearing that you’re “at risk” and “osteopenic” is scary. And I would know, because I’ve been there, done that. At 19, I had a full bone scan (thanks, Canadian health care, for footing that one) and saw a batch of squiggly green, red and yellow lines that apparently designated me “osteopenic” – bad news for a competitive runner, and someone who appreciates walking down the stairs without clutching the handrail.
In the throes of my horror and disbelief (I hadn’t broken more than a toe at the time), I saw two specialists: one suggested calcium supplements and weight gain, the other advised me to start an aggressive, once-a-week Fosamax plan. And, again motivated by trepidation and visions of wheelchairs and early death, I went for the drugs.
And let me tell you, if you’ve not heard much about their side-effects, be warned. Users can’t eat, lie down or engage in activity for 30 minutes to an hour after taking their weekly dose. I did none of the three, and still wound up with a burned esophagus in week one. Week two, I threw up twice. Week three, I flushed the pills down the toilet and bought a box of Caltrate.
It seemed rash at the time, but I was disillusioned – confused to be taking pills meant for a 50-something, worried when a doctor warned me that I couldn’t (ever) get pregnant, because the pills “stay in your bones for decades” and a little bit antsy that they had been linked to lifelong bone and joint pain, and osteonecrosis (“bone death”) of the jaw.
So I stopped, and spent four years wondering if I’d just signed my ticket to a lifetime of low-impact exercise. Ugh. But I either did something right, or got very lucky: last year, another bone density scan (thanks, U.S. health insurance, for charging me $800 for that one) revealed that I’d bulked up my bones by around 10 percent. I was now – almost – “normal.”
Good thing, because otherwise, I might have opted to try my luck with Fosamax again – mere weeks before the New York Times reported that the drug, and its counterparts, are being blamed for an increased risk of “a low-trauma fracture of the thigh bone or other major bone – and a delay in healing or complete failure of a fracture to heal.”
How ironic.
So, let’s get our cards in line here: Merck creates an osteoporosis drug, then capitalizes on the creation of an arbitrary “health condition” to sell billions in meds to women who may not really need them – but who will endure nausea, vomiting, sore joints and muscles, a raw esophagus and a rotting jaw. And the stuff doesn’t even really work? In my case, I was probably better off having flushed my prescription and opting to eat well and cross my (now less brittle) fingers.
Hey, Merck? I am unimpressed – and downright disgusted. Vioxx was pretty bad, ditto with sponsoring medical journals to tout your own research. But marketing drugs to women – of all ages – to “cure” a non-disease that’s been used as a fearmongering tool to convince us that we’ve got one leg in a wheelchair? And a drug with side-effects that are downright contradictory? That sucks.
May you develop chronic diarrhea that can’t be treated by Rotateq. And a full-body fungus that’s immune to Cancidas.
And may your jaws rot in an osteonecrotic hell.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jon Summers, sponso RING. sponso RING said: Merck: wishing you a jaw-rotting New Year – Katie Drummond – The …: Vioxx was pretty bad, ditto with sponsoring medic http://url4.eu/14KYZ [...]
True. True. True. Love your passion about this. What you’ve pointed to — what capitalism does to health care — is why I and so many others wanted the U.S. to have a single-payer system. When you can’t trust the medications your own physician prescribes … what a mess.
But what really caught my eye was your sentence “let’s get our cards in line here.” Is this a new expression? If so, could you explain it to me please? Or perhaps it is a mix of “put your cards on the table” and “get all your ducks in a row”?
My dad says that. Maybe it is a Canadianism? Or just a John Drummondism…he’s got a few.
In response to another comment. See in context »Terrific post, Katie. Several doctors I’ve interviewed have mentioned their concern that osteoporosis is largely a disease manufactured by the drug companies. But I was unaware of the grim side effects of the drug. (And of course the power of the drug companies makes it very hard to publicize these dangers.)
Another point (as someone who has drawers full of drugs I don’t take and don’t know how to get rid of): Don’t pills you flush down the toilet end up in the water system? Are you likely to be Fosamaxing our water supply?
Wonderful post, Katie. Thanks!
Yes and yes. My mom fell when she was >50 and broke a vertebra. Doc immediately put her on foxamax and her health deteriorated for the next 20 years until she died in excruciating pain. Her bones had disintegrated. She hated having to take the fosamax as it made her so sick she couldn’t eat, BUT she thought she was keeping her bones “safe”.
I so wish that one outcome of the Health Care bill would ban pharma from advertising on TV in all forms. It’s bullshit meant to terrorize. Have you seen the one where the stretcher follows a woman around the golf course? “You’ve had a heart attack and are in danger or another one…so you should be taking this…”
Wow, sophiecrist, that is really scary. I felt the same way, with regards to the meds “keeping my bones safe” — because I was so scared of what seemed like the reality if I didn’t take the Fosamax.
Thank goodness I’m young and stubborn. I had a bad feeling and I went with it. And now 10 percent “denser” as a result…
As for Pharma ads – coming from Canada, the extent to which the U.S. health care system allows for medicinal promotion is astonishing. I caught glimpses on American TV channels during my childhood, but you’re right. It really is criminal. Sure, these companies operate to make profit, just like any other — but at the expense of patient health? Not to mention the fear-mongering the ads perpetuate.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hi Katie, I loved your orig post on this subject. Very close to my heart. Here’s to stubborn women! My advice to all women: drop the fosamax and pick up some weights. Worry less about that extra 15 lbs you carry if you’re a woman over 50 and keep those bones healthy with exercise and supplements, oh, and I’ll email Sally Field and suggest she get a new gig….
In response to another comment. See in context »These horrors are apparently inevitable when the profit motive has few or no curbs, with a governmental regulatory bodies that are in the pockets of the corporations. What I want to know is where is the individual responsibility of the researchers, the developers, the marketers, and all the rest of the human beings who are selling these poisons to their neighbors. Is there not on honest concerned brave person among them all ?
The same thing happened with restless leg syndrome – invented because a parkinsons drug fixed it! the side effect of the drug is gambling addiction that has ruined many many people with formerly restless legs.
a) I totally have restless leg syndrome
b) I had no idea that a drug could cause gambling. I’ll have to look into that.
Kate — See Science Daily at:
In response to another comment. See in context »http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070208222800.htm