Esophageal cancer, jaw bone necrosis, and giant floating osteoclasts!

 

Not a happy new year so far for Merck pharmaceuticals with a swathe of damning reports on their osteoporosis drug Fosamax appearing on January 1^st:

·         Dr Diane Wysowski of the FDA reports an increased risk for cancer of the esophagus with Fosamax use in the New England Journal of Medicine;

·         The Journal of the American Dental Association publishes a study by Parish Sedghizadeh and his colleagues finding an alarming four percent of their dental patients taking Fosamax have osteonecrosis of the jaw;

·         A further NEJM article contradicts everything we have been told about the way bisphosphonates work in the body.  It now seems they increase rather than decrease osteoclast cell production and that these feral bone-absorbing cells are giant and detached. What this means nobody knows. Hardly stuff to inspire confidence in users!

If bisphosphonates offered significant fracture prevention it may be worthwhile debating the benefits and risks. But the majority of the millions of people who take these drugs do not stand to benefit AT ALL.  Meanwhile these are toxic compounds that stay in the body. Their mechanics of action are still not understood, and users remain guinea pigs in a massive experiment.

A diagnosis of osteoporosis on the basis of a bone density test alone is flawed and close to meaningless. The widespread prescribing of bisphosphonates based on a bone density diagnosis has the ‘worried well’ taking the drug in droves believing they are preventing a disease may never have.

The lengthening litany of side-effects: chronic and acute joint bone and muscle pain, sudden serious fractures of the femur, atrial fibrillation, osteonecrosis of the jaw, inflammatory eye disease, and now cancer of the esophagus should have even the most passive of Fosamax , Boniva, Didronel and Actonel users closely questioning their doctors.