The unnecessary and risky test millions of women are conned into taking
If you’re a woman over the age of 50, you may have a reminder card from your doctor’s office sitting in your mailbox right now.
It’s inviting you to one of the most useless, unreliable medical screenings around today — the DXA bone density scan.
A disturbing new study proves that the DXA scan is being given to countless women a year who don’t need it — and for whom it was never intended.
But this isn’t part of some new war on osteoporosis or thinning bones. The explosion in DXA scans is the final result of a major drug company plot… 20 years in the making… designed to get millions of healthy women hooked on some of the most dangerous meds on the planet.
The test is so inconsistent that results can vary by 20 percent based on which model machine you use — enough to accidentally diagnose you with weakening bones or osteoporosis. Even the clothes you wear or shadows on your bones can throw the DXA machine off.
The AARP has warned its members about DXA scans. And, unless you have a serious risk of bone disease, women under 65 aren’t supposed to get them.
But a new study out of the University of California, Davis is showing a frightening trend. More than half of healthy, low-risk women between the ages of 50-64 reported getting DXA scans — and there’s only one reason for that.
It’s part of a greed-fueled push led by major drug companies to expand the market for dangerous bone-building drugs. In fact, it’s a dangerous game they’ve been playing for 20 years.
You see, when bone drug Fosamax first hit the market in 1995, Merck couldn’t give it away — and sales consultant Jeremy Allen quickly discovered the problem.
Bone scan machines cost a fortune and few docs were investing in them. And if you didn’t have a bone scan like the DXA to diagnose you with osteoporosis or thinning bones, you certainly weren’t going to get a prescription for Fosamax.
“[The test] was expensive and inaccessible,” Allen said, “so lo and behold, nobody did it.”
Merck decided to spark Fosamax sales by getting bone scanning machines into every doctor’s office in America. They pressured manufacturers to lower their prices. They purchased a small scanner company and practically gave its equipment away.
Merck even started a bogus trade group to lobby Medicare to pay for bone scans.
And it worked. In just four years the number of bone scanning machines in doctors’ offices jumped from 750 to 10,000. Millions of women were getting scanned and diagnosed, and Fosamax became a billion-dollar drug.
But companies like Merck have always had larger designs for their bone drugs — and that includes selling them to healthy women as a way to prevent osteoporosis or other bone issues.
Years ago, they began promoting their drugs for conditions like osteopenia, a natural bone thinning that may start in your 40s and wasn’t even considered a serious condition 15 years ago. Younger women are now regularly getting bone scans and are being diagnosed with osteopenia — and these women are one of the fastest-growing markets for bone drugs.
“We never imagined that people would come to think of osteopenia as a disease in itself to be treated,” said Dr. John Kanis, a former World Health Organization official.
Drug companies are recommending bone scans for younger patients simply to increase market share for their meds. And they have the perfect partner in crime in the DXA scan, because of its tendency to falsely diagnose women with bone problems.
Just one bad DXA scan, accurate or not, could be enough for you to end up on bone drugs — and in lots of cases, that’s where your serious bone problems begin. Fosamax, Boneva, Atelvia and Reclast (known as bisphosphonates) can actually eat away your bones and cause fractures in your femur, the strongest bone in your body.
The drug companies — and plenty of mainstream docs — will stop at nothing to push DXA scans and bone-building pills on more women. In fact, the study from UC Davis recommended electronic prompts that will remind doctors to snag you while you’re in their offices.
But no matter what Big Pharma would have you believe, there are plenty of things you can do to protect your bones without ever popping a dangerous pill or stepping foot near a DXA scanner.
Try taking calcium citrate (which is best absorbed by your body) and add vitamin K to make sure the calcium heads to your bones instead of your arteries. And supplements like vitamin D and magnesium have been proven to help you maintain strong bones — without risking your safety.
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