August 30th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Longtime readers may recall that late last year, the New York Times published an essay about how hard Big Pharma has worked to market menopause as an estrogen deficiency disease. Despite that exposé and others of the well-documented risks and limited benefits of hormone therapy, plus thousands of lawsuits pending over the role of HT in breast cancer, there’s apparently still quite a large potential market for pharmaceutical treatments for menopause (and other women’s health concerns).
To find out exactly how to mine that market, you can purchase the research report titled Women’s Health Therapeutics Market to 2016 – High Unmet Need will Drive the Uptake of Novel Drugs in Menopause and Osteoporosis from GBI Research. The report promises the following:
- Analysis of the women’s health market in the leading geographies of the world, which include the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.
- Market characterization of the women’s health market, including market size, annual cost of therapy, sales volume and treatment usage patterns.
- Key drivers and barriers that have a significant impact on the market.
This will better allow you to “align your product portfolio to the markets with high growth potential” and “develop market-entry and market expansion strategies by identifying the leading therapeutic segments and geographic markets poised for strong growth”. Not to mention the ability to “reinforce R&D pipelines by identifying new target mechanisms which can produce first-in-class molecules with more efficiency and better safety”.
It all looks very useful. Too bad I don’t have an extra $3500 in my back pocket.
Tags: advertising, big pharma, marketing, Menopause, women's health
Posted in Advertising, Menopause, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 2 Comments »
June 25th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
The New York Times published an op-ed piece a few days ago about making the birth control pill available without a prescription. Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, offers the following rationale:
Women don’t need a doctor to tell them whether they need the pill — they know when they are sexually active and want to avoid pregnancy. Pill instructions are easy to follow: Take one each day. There’s no chance of becoming addicted. Taking too many will make you nauseated, but won’t endanger your life, in contrast to some over-the-counter drugs, like analgesics.
I have mixed feelings, myself. I’m in favor of just about anything that makes contraceptives more accessible to the people who need them, but I fear that the likely increase in cost of OTC pills means the availability won’t benefit those who most the need them – the young and the poor. Also, there are some contraindications for pill use, such as high blood pressure, history of migraine, and use of certain anti-seizure drugs for epilepsy. And despite the happy, shiny images of Yaz and Seasonique commercials, some women just can’t tolerate the side effects, for any number of reasons.
What do you think, re:Cycling readers?
Tags: Activism, big pharma, birth control pill, Health Care, oral contraceptive pills
Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Newspapers | 5 Comments »
May 7th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
In the flood of media commemorating the 50th anniversary of FDA approval of the birth control pill, this story from the Washington Post about its newest iteration may just slide under your radar: FDA approves new birth control pill from Bayer.
Bayer, as you may recall, is the manufacturer of Yaz and Yasmin, which is currently facing more than 1100 U.S. lawsuits and two Canadian class action suits. The new drug, Natazia, contains various dosing of estrogen and progestin throughout the cycle, making it the first four-phase hormonal contraceptive. The new pill uses dienogest, rather than drospirenone, the synthetic progestin in Yaz that is the apparent source of its dangerous side effects. The most common side effects of Natazia in clinical trials included irregular bleeding, headaches, nausea, and vomiting.
Yaz and Yasmin are Bayer’s best-selling prescriptions, by the way - combined sales for 2009 were $1.64 billion.
Tags: Bayer, big pharma, birth control pill, lawsuit, progestins, side effects, yaz
Posted in Birth Control, Pharmaceutical | Comments Off
April 23rd, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock
Recently the New York Times published a long article entitled the Estrogen Dilemma. It’s an article rich with many issues, and previous blogs have critiqued its uncritical acceptance of the timing hypothesis, and its failure to distinguish between the transient symptoms of perimenopause, early menopause, and the rest of your long, healthy, post-menopausal life.
But it is quite remarkable to me that, when speculating about potential hormonal treatment for poor memory and issues of staying on task, the only steroid hormone that seemed to be on anyone’s radar was estrogen. The writer had a lot of space (7600 words) and gave the scientist a lot of freedom to speculate, so I’m guessing that the absence of progesterone in the article is a true representation of her conceptual blind-spot. Progesterone was mentioned a few times, in the context of protection from uterine cancer, and in the context of using MPA (a synthetic relative) as a possible scapegoat in interpreting the WHI randomized hormone therapy trial data. But never did I see any suggestion that progesterone might be anything other than a necessary evil.
In fact, there are some intriguing new research areas that look at progesterone as therapy in neurological domains. Continue reading...
Tags: big pharma, estrogen, hormones, neurology, progesterone
Posted in Menopause, Menstruation, New Research, Newspapers | Comments Off
April 22nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
So here’s an odd little study: when women are given a choice between oral contraceptives and the contraceptive vaginal ring, what characteristic is most highly correlated with a slightly greater interest in using the vaginal ring? If you said “tampon use”, you’re right!
Among contraceptive vaginal ring and OCP users, 247 (79%) reported using tampons. Contraceptive vaginal ring users were not significantly different from OCP users in terms of age, race or ethnicity, marital status, insurance, body mass index, or parity. Adjusted analysis indicated that tampon users were more likely to choose the contraceptive vaginal ring instead of OCPs.
The study was published this month in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The researchers conclude, “but all women should be offered the contraceptive vaginal ring regardless of experience with tampon use”. No kidding. Sadly, they don’t appear to be offered any non-hormonal contraceptive options, as this research was conducted in conjunction with The Contraceptive Choice Project, described in the research report as “a longitudinal study of 10,000 St. Louis area women promoting the use of long-acting, reversible methods of contraception and evaluating user continuation and satisfaction for all reversible methods.”
It seems to me that the researchers want to predict contraceptive choices based on how willing contraceptive users are to touch their own genitals, but apparently they can’t directly ask them. They might accidentally discover an interest in using a diaphragm or cervical cap!
Tags: big pharma, birth control pill, hormonal birth control, oral contraceptive pills, tampons
Posted in Birth Control, Disposable menstrual products, Menstruation, New Research, Pharmaceutical | Comments Off
April 19th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by Jerilynn C. Prior, Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research
I just read “The Estrogen Dilemma” in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, and I feel like weeping—in sorrow and deep sadness. This article by Cynthia Gorney is about energetic, intelligent women who feel they must take estrogen in order to survive perimenopause yet have deep worries about its risks. I know personally the anguishing changes that erupt during perimenopause. “The Estrogen Dilemma” also evoked my frustration and even rage. It is wrong that symptomatic women in the midst of the long and stormy midlife transition have to face a conundrum—to take estrogen or not. It arises from a Nixonian-style cover-up of three proven and important-for-women truths: 1) Perimenopause causes higher and not lower estrogen levels. (By perimenopause I mean the transition from fertile menstrual cycles to menopause, or the life phase beginning one year beyond the final menstrual flow.) 2) Progesterone, estrogen’s essential partner hormone, in contrast to estrogen, truly is lower in perimenopause. 3) Women survive perimenopause and “graduate” into a less symptomatic menopause. Continue reading...
Tags: big pharma, estrogen, guest post, hormones, Menopause, perimenopause, progesterone
Posted in Menopause, New Research, Newspapers, Pharmaceutical | 2 Comments »
March 31st, 2010 by Chris Bobel
Today, there’s a front page story in the New York Times about Astra-Zeneca’s move to market their cholesterol pills (known as statins, and as the NYT reports, already the most prescribed drugs in the US) at healthy people in spite of unresolved concerns about risks, namely an elevated risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Gee. This sure sounds familiar: a product aimed at healthy people, approved by the FDA, even before there’s ample evidence of safety.
I am imagining the new ad campaign…”Why let cholesterol worries slow you down? Choosing healthy foods and getting adequate exercise is sooooooo 20th century.Take a pill. Done.”
Of course, the comparison I am hinting at here is flawed. High levels of cholesterol ARE a genuine hazard. Heart disease is deadly. Conversely, menstruation is NOT a disease and under most conditions, need not be treated.
But my point here is to call attention to Big Pharma’s too-quick impulse to sell drugs of questionable safety to healthy people and FDA collusion in this. Marketing cycle-stopping contraception (a.k.a. menstrual suppressive contraception a la brands Lybrel and Seasonique, for example) to healthy women is not an isolated incidence of the premature and high-risk mainstreaming of prescription medications. See recent critiques here and here (and the official Society for Menstrual Cycle Research position statement on cycle-stopping contraception here).
In the eyes of Big Pharma, if we aren’t sick, we will be soon. If we aren’t dosing The. Next. New. Drug, we aren’t taking charge of our health.
Sick? I think THAT’S sick.
Tags: advertising, big pharma, birth control pill, menstrual suppression
Posted in Advertising, Menstruation, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 4 Comments »
March 18th, 2010 by Laura Wershler
Women on the pill live longer. So touts a March 12, 2010 Reuters news story out of London, England reporting on a study published March 11 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). A misleading headline if ever there was one.
The study followed 46, 000 women for up to 40 years, to see if the mortality risk among women sho have used oral contraceptives differs from that of never users. What the study actually found, according to the public release issued by BMJ on March 12 is this: “Women in the UK who have ever used oral contraceptives are less likely to die from any cause, including all cancers and heart disease, compared with never users.”
The study also found a slightly higher risk (of death, I presume) in women under 45 years old who are current or recent users of the pill. As such, the authors assert:
Many women, especially those who used the first generation of oral contaceptives many years ago, are likely to be reassured by our results. However, our findings might not reflect the experience of women using oral contraceptives today, if currently available preparations have a different risk than earlier products. Continue reading...
Tags: big pharma, birth control pill, menstrual suppression, Menstruation, oral contraceptive pills, ovulation
Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 2 Comments »
February 9th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
There are Tupperware parties, Passion Parties, Pampered Chef parties, and…Mirena IUD parties? Yes, apparently these events popped up early last year and were a joint effort from Bayer Pharmaceuticals and the mom marketing site Mom Central.
Here’s one mom blogger’s description of the Mirena party that she hosted:
Then tonight I hosted a party at my house with Mom Central. Mom Central had found me through this blog and asked me if I would be interested in hosting an event sponsored by Mirena. As I welcome any opportunity to sit down with some girlfriends with some free food and drink, I was happy to accept. Before the party started, I walked around nervously, terrified that only a couple of people would show up. We’re all so busy, and I worried that people would end up skipping a strange commercial-sounding event. But one by one, they rolled in and I began to relax.
We had an amazing evening, talking about sex, fashion, and living a simpler life. I realized that we don’t actually spend a lot of time talking about sex and relationships. We laughed a lot but also went home with some great tips. Continue reading...
Tags: advertising, big pharma, Birth Control, blogging, drugs, economics, government agencies, guest post, IUD
Posted in Advertising, Birth Control, Law/Legal, Pharmaceutical | 3 Comments »
January 25th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: advertising, big pharma, birth control pill, FemCare advertising, Humor, internet, period control, viral video
Posted in Birth Control, FemCare, Humor, Internet, Media, Menstruation | 2 Comments »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
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