Don’t fall for this new trick to push risky cancer drug

If there were ever a sucker punch aimed at women with breast cancer — or those told they have a high risk of developing it — this would surely be it.

A group of smug researchers from the Queen Mary University of London believe they have the answer as to why women are refusing to take the cancer drug tamoxifen.

The reason, they claim, is simply confusion. And they intend to set the record straight.

It’s the latest example of how women have been prodded, coerced and insulted into thinking this risky drug is what they need to take in order to treat or dodge breast cancer.

And nothing has ever been farther from the truth.

The non-adherers club
Tamoxifen was originally among a group of “anti-estrogen” drugs being researched as “morning after” pills in the late 1950s.

And it appeared to work, in the lab at least. But in people, not so much, which is why it’s sometimes now used to help women become pregnant.

And that’s like the rest of the tamoxifen story, because it’s turned out to be the cancer drug that actually causes cancer.

A black-box warning about cancer of the uterus is even on the drug’s label, along with other “serious and life-threatening events” such as stokes and blood clots.

But it doesn’t look like this group of UK researchers gave those warnings more than a passing glance before dismissing such adverse reactions as “rare.”

Their study, published in the prestigious Journal of Clinical Oncology, tries to make the case that the only reason women are resisting taking tamoxifen is that they’ve mistaken symptoms of menopause for side effects from the drug.

And they reached that conclusion by analyzing data on close to 4,000 patients from several different countries who were said to have a higher than normal risk of breast cancer. They were divided into two groups, one given daily tamoxifen and the other a placebo pill.

During the course of the first year-and-a-half, however, close to one-third of those taking the real deal said no thanks and ditched the drug (tamoxifen is usually prescribed for a minimum of five years).

Now, while there are plenty of reasons why a woman wouldn’t want to take this med, the researchers seem to think they have it all figured out why so many are “non-adherers” to the full course of treatment.

But seriously, it looks like the confused ones here are these university know-it-alls. Because if you delve further into this study, you find out that they don’t even know if the symptoms (or side effects) went away when the drug was stopped.

They also admitted that they “did not ask specific questions” about any such reactions the women were having, nor did they even do a follow-up. One thing they were very clear on, however, is that placebo is “better tolerated.”

Wow, nothing gets by these geniuses!

It’s important to know the real story about this research because there is no doubt this study will be used by many doctors to push tamoxifen prescriptions as much as possible.

Unbelievably, the researchers even had the nerve to say that if you’re “negative” about drugs, it’s more likely that you will think you’re suffering from a drug’s side effect, but it’s really something else.

So, the only thing we need to fix here is your “attitude problem”! You’re kidding me, right?

I’d say it’s perfectly normal to have a “negative” attitude towards Rx medications, as legal drugs — approved by the FDA, prescribed by a doctor and taken as directed — kill over 100,000 in the U.S. every year.

And it’s more than reasonable to have a negative attitude towards tamoxifen. That’s why more and more women who learn the truth about it are refusing to take it under any circumstances.

Hopefully that includes you… or any of the women in your life.

“RCT: Menopause symptoms mistaken for tamoxifen side effects” Roxanne Nelson, July 6, 2017, Medscape, medscape.com