worry over osteoporosis pill

[Jacqui D]

Jaw disease alert for women taking popular osteoporosis pills
By Jenny Hope
Last updated at 8:08 AM on 02nd January 2009

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Alert: The osteoporosis drug Fosamax may raise the risk of jaw disease

Women taking tablets to protect their bones from osteoporosis could be at risk of serious jaw damage, claim researchers.
A study suggests for the first time that drugs such as Fosamax could be linked to a condition which can lead to long-term infection or even destruction of the jawbone.
As many as one in 25 users could be at risk of osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ), according to a study published yesterday.
British dentists are calling for doctors to advise women about ONJ when prescribing drugs to prevent bonethinning, and for any major dental work to be carried out first.
But they stressed that women should not stop taking the drugs, called bisphosphonates, as the benefits outweigh the risk of possible side effects.
Researchers at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry studied 208 healthy patients who had taken Fosamax tablets.
The report in the Journal of the American Dental Association said they found nine patients had ONJ - one in 25 - despite claims from the manufacturer Merck that the risk was largely confined to patients receiving the drugs intravenously.
Parish Sedghizadeh, assistant professor of clinical dentistry, believes the problem is more likely to be triggered by tablets than previously thought, although the study has been dismissed by Merck.
The U.S. drug watchdog has received 23 reports of patients taking Fosamax who developed cancer of the oesophagus

'Here at the School of Dentistry we're getting two or three new patients a week with bisphosphonate-related ONJ, and I know we're not the only ones seeing it,' he said.
Reports emerged in 2003 linking intravenous bisphosphonate treatment with ONJ, in which bone tissue dies, resulting in loss or destruction of the jawbone.
The exact cause of the disease is unclear but one theory is that the trauma of major dental work could trigger ONJ.
London implant specialist Eddie Scher said the key message was that patients about to start on the drugs should see their dentist first.
He said: 'Doctors prescribing this medication should advise patients to delay taking it until they have had dental treatment, especially implants and extractions.
'We need to get the mouth healthy and keep it that way to minimise the risk.' A spokesman for Merck said the study had 'methodological flaws and scientific limitations, making it unreliable as a source for valid scientific conclusions'.
Merck is the manufacturer of Fosamax, which has been tied to 21 of the 27 reports in Europe and Japan
In a separate development, a drug safety chief warned that bisphosphonates may trigger cancer of the oesophagus, or gullet.
In a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration official Diane Wysowski said that since Fosamax, also known as alendronate, became available in 1995, the FDA has received 23 reports of patients who developed oesophageal tumours, including eight deaths.
Typically, there was two years between the start of the drug treatment and the development of cancer.
In Europe and Japan, 21 cases involving Fosamax have been logged, as well as six cases involving drugs made by other companies. Six patients died.
Inflammation of the lining of the oesophagus is already known to be a side-effect of the drugs.
However, the FDA also said it was aware of conflicting findings on cancer risk in other studies.
The National Osteoporosis Society does not have an exact figure for the number of British bisphosphonate users, but says it is tens of thousands.

This class of drugs has also been associated with causing
fractures. There very problem they are given to prevent.

[Jacqui D]

All drugs should come with a warning sign!
Never believed in taking anything if possible.
90% of side effects in drugs will show you on any medication that the actual relief of symtom will bring about the very thing you are suffering from!

How can you trust medication when it says this!

Still people believe that doctors have the answer when they are only experimenting on us.

Many years ago my mother worked on the assembly line for Boroughs and Welcome the drug company that have now gone in partnership with Smith &
Kline in those days the early 70's there were no masks to be worn or protective clothing.
My mother counted, packed a certain cancer drug at that time.
In the early 80's my mother died of cancer herself, i have often wondered if the continuous packing each day with no protective clothing and the inhalation of particles that were in the air may have had an affect on her health.

I also lost a close friend with cancer in the late 90's she too worked for this company doing very much the same as my mother.
It does make you wonder!

[Avid]

I really recommend the Lorraine Day interview
http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/members/lday3.htm

[Humble Janitor]

There's an entire industry dedicated to making medicines that cause more harm than good. Quite ****ed up if you ask me.

[alyscat]

Well, the percentages are small, but if you get it, it's 100%.

I admit that until we get something that can determine what meds will work for each of us based on our own genetics, I'm not thrilled with modern meds.

The older meds don't seem to have these issues - but as they run out of patent the drug companies tend to try to make minor tweaks to get them back under patent. I'd much rather have some of the older antibiotics than the newer ones, TBH.

The interesting thing here is that in the US the dentists and oral surgeons are more concerned about this issue than the docs, who have bought into the "osteoporosis is a deadly scourge and it's better to play the odds than to not do the osteo meds."

I've had osteoporosis for years - diagnosed in 2002, and I"m guessing have had it for years - a combo of low D and constant dieting. And I had a fairly serious accident on my Segway in 2005 - but the "damage" was a couple of cracked ribs. I stopped worrying about the osteoporosis at that point, and started looking more at nutritional work with exercise to control it.

alys