Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Drug companies’ advertisements touting the benefits of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) sold Delores Ann Spann Whatley of Tyler, Texas on the idea that her mood swings and hot flashes could be wiped away with just a daily pill. The estrogen-and-progestin cocktail was touted as a miracle drug, able to squash menopause symptoms while warding against osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer. But the pharmaceutical companies soon realized that the HRT that was making them rich was actually making consumers sick. But instead of notifying the public and pulling their product, the drug companies attempted to cover up the mounting statistics and continued to advertise to women about the benefits of HRT.

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Women who reported new-onset breast tenderness following use of estrogen-plus-progestin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were at a much greater risk of developing breast cancer than women on the same HRT who did not report tenderness in their breasts, according to a study by researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California – Los Angeles.

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The advertisements no longer blanket magazines or fill television screens, but the message cannot be deleted. Over the years, millions of women were told that estrogen loss during menopause could be dangerous to their health, contributing to problems such as osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, tooth loss and blindness. It could also cause uncomfortable symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness and mood swings. The ads said menopause was a nasty disease that could be eliminated by just taking a once-daily pill, a hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that would help women feel like women again.

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The message was heard loud and clear – powerful drug companies that make billions from products they know pose a significant risk of life-threatening health consequences to the people who take them, owe their victims. Big time.

This week, Pfizer, which recently acquired Wyeth, the makers of the hormone replacement therapies (HRT) Prempro and Premarin, were hit with more than $100 million in two punitive-damage awards from Philadelphia juries. The two plaintiffs, Connie Barton and Donna Kendall, claimed the drugs caused their breast cancer.

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Drug maker Wyeth paid ghostwriters to write articles for medical journals that were favorable to the company’s hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Prempro , even after the drug was found to raise a woman’s risk for breast cancer and other serious health concerns, according to newly unveiled court documents. Medical journals such as The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and The International Journal of Cardiology name doctors as authors of articles that typically involve heavily research topics and offer a judgment on how to treat a particular condition. It is believed that doctors are often swayed by those published opinions and may be influenced by them when prescribing medication to their patients.

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Use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) among postmenopausal women has been linked to a sharply increased risk of ovarian cancer, according to a study conducted by a team of researchers in Denmark. The study included data from 900,000 Danish women ages 50 to 79 over eight years and found 140 extra cases of ovarian cancer – or a 38 percent greater risk of contracting the disease compared to women who did not use HRT.

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A decrease in reported cases of breast cancer across the country linked to the decline of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is more significant in affluent, urban areas, according to a study published in the journal BMC Medicine.

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U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. has ordered scientific data collected by the Cancer Research Center since August 2005 as a follow up to a study on the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on postmenopausal women should be released to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals as it defends itself against numerous lawsuits over the safety of its HRT meds.

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Researchers in Ottawa, Canada are hoping to ease women’s fear of hormone replacement drugs by creating and testing synthetic hormones to combat aggravating symptoms of menopause, according to Canada.com. The research follows an earlier grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation to explore the re-engineering of estrogen estradiol, which is one of the components of the popular hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Premarin. The new grant, funded by a $267,000 research grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, seeks to evaluate those compounds of synthesized molecules on the liver, cardiac and other types of cells. The goal is that it must relieve menopausal symptoms while not promoting breast or uterine cancer.

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Women who took Wyeth’s hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Prempro at least five years are at greater risk of dying from non-small cell lung cancer, according to a recent study presented at an American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

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