Hi Betty! Welcome to our forum. Please know we are not in the medical
profession; however we are all on the journey of cancer in one form or
another. I am a breast cancer survivor, who was once on the drug Tamoxifen
and removed myself after 5 or 6 months because of the complications I was
having. At the time I thought I was as fruity as a fruit cake, my doctor
did not believe me. Once off the drug the swelling of the meningies around
the brain went away; but I was left with pernment damage and am on
disability now. I would suggest you ask your doctor about Arimidex as a
substitute for tamoxifen. I am inclosing information for you to make your
decision and yes there is a section on effects to eyes. I certainly wish
you luck on this. Warmly, your friend, lillian
> THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF TAMOXIFEN
> (Excerpt From Cancer & Hormone Paper)
>
> Tamoxifen has been formally declared by the World Health Organization as a
> carcinogen. Under State Proposition 65, California must publish and
> maintain a list of all known carcinogens. In 1995, the state's Carcinogen
> Identification Committee voted unanimously to list tamoxifen. Tamoxifen's
> known side effects include:
>
> Liver Damage : Britain withdrew from studies on the use of tamoxifen
when
> it was discovered that tamoxifen's manufacturer withheld unpublished data
> indicating that the drug may induce liver tumors. Liver damage has
occurred
> in every animal study using tamoxifen. Animal studies show tamoxifen
> produces potentially carcinogenic DNA and alterations in the liver, as
well
> as eye damage.
> Uterine Cancer : Although the drug has had some success in preventing
> recurrences in women who have been successfully treated for breast cancer,
> it does promote particularly aggressive uterine cancer. A large Swedish
> study, and another in the Netherlands, found a 6-fold increase in uterine
> cancer among those patients who took tamoxifen. In a University of
> Pittsburgh study, 23 out of 1,000 given the drug, contracted uterine
cancer.
> Endometrial Effects : A Danish/British study detected endometrial
> abnormalities. Uterine tumors, endometrial thickenings, and cancers
> occurred in a significant number of women taking tamoxifen.
> Blood Clots : It is also known to cause fatal blood clots in the lungs,
> irritating the walls of the veins, and leading to inflammation.
> Osteoporosis : Taxmoxifen users are at risk of developing early symptoms
> of menopause, including accelerated bone mineral loss and osteoporosis.
>
> Other adverse reactions which are seen infrequently are hypercalcemia,
> peripheral edema, distaste for food, pruritus vulvae (vaginal itching),
> depression, dizziness, light-headedness, headache, hair thinning and/or
> partial hair loss, and vaginal dryness.
>
> NOLVADEX has been associated with changes in liver enzyme levels, and on
> rare occasions, a spectrum of more severe liver abnormalities including
> fatty liver, cholestasis, hepatitis and hepatic necrosis.
>
> Tamoxifen: A Major Medical Mistake?
>
> by Sherrill Sellman
>
> Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 5, #4 (June - July 1998)
>
> Once praised for its benefits in preventing breast cancer
> recurrence, the lucrative pharmaceutical drug tamoxifen is now
> implicated in causing dangerous side-effects, including other
> types of cancers.
>
> In the early 1970's, a shameful chapter closed on the widespread
> use of a known carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting drug called
> DES (diethylstilboestrol), the first synthetic, non-steroidal
> estrogen drug. Against the advice of its creator, Sir Charles
> Dodd, between four and six million American and European women and
> 10,000 Australian women innocently used DES for the prevention of
> miscarriage and pregnancy complications.
>
> In addition, DES became a popular though unproven drug for a
> variety of other conditions. It was used for the suppression of
> lactation, the treatment of acne, the treatment of certain types
> of breast and prostatic cancer, and as an inhibitor of growth in
> young girls, an estrogen replacement in menopause and a "morning
> after" pill.
>
> It would take 30 years to accept what laboratory tests had
> indicated as early as 1938 - that DES was a highly dangerous and
> harmful drug. It was reported that, 20 years after taking DES,
> mothers had a 40 to 50 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than
> non-exposed mothers. In addition, the children of DES mothers
> showed a high incidence of reproductive abnormalities,
> miscarriages, vaginal cancer, testicular cancer, sterility and
> immune dysfunction. In fact, it is feared that repercussions of
> this drug will be felt for generations to come.
>
> The irony of this entire debacle is that the medical establishment
> finally acknowledged that DES was useless in preventing
> miscarriages. Thus, DES, another disastrous experiment on women,
> was added to the long list of major medical blunders.
>
> Out of this early research, a new drug appeared on the horizon
> which would be soon be heralded as a shining star in the war
> against the growing epidemic of breast cancer. In the late 1960's
> the pharmaceutical industry developed a drug called "tamoxifen".
> As a synthetic, non-steroidal compound with hormone-like effects
> (many of which are poorly understood), tamoxifen has a similar
> structure to DES. In fact, it was observed that tamoxifen caused
> the same abnormal changes seen in cells of women taking estradiol
> and DES. (1) This similarity raised alarm bells for some.
>
> Pierre Blais, well known as a drug researcher who was ejected from
> Canada's health protection bureaucracy when he spoke out about
> silicone breast implants, describes the story of tamoxifen as "the
> story of modern drug design which produces garbage drugs". He
> says, "Good drug design ceased, unfortunately, in the 1930s."
> Tamoxifen, Blais asserts, "...is a garbage drug that made it to
> the top of the scrap heap. It is a DES in the making." (2)
>
> Blais's dire predictions were ignored with the promise of a
> potential drug treatment for breast cancer. Tamoxifen was first
> approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use as a
> birth-control pill; however, it proved to induce rather than
> inhibit ovulation. Although tamoxifen didn't work as a
> contraceptive, it was found to lower mammary cancer rates in
> animals. Animal studies showed that tamoxifen prevented estrogen
> from binding to receptor sites on breast tissue cells. Tamoxifen
> also reduced the incidence of breast cancer in rodents after
> administration of a breast-carcinogenic substance. This discovery
> provided the impetus to study its effects in treating human breast
> cancer.
>
> Estrogen is the common link between most breast cancer risk
> factors, i.e., genetic, reproductive, dietary, lifestyle and
> environmental. It both stimulates the division of breast cells
> (healthy as well as cancerous) and, especially in its 'bad' form,
> increases the risk of breast cancer. Thus, hormonal drugs such as
> tamoxifen that block the effects of estrogen on the breast were
> expected to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurring in women
> treated for breast cancer. (3)
>
> Tamoxifen acts as a weak estrogen by competing for estrogen
> receptors much as phyto-estrogens do. Like phyto-estrogens,
> tamoxifen has mild estrogenic properties but is considered an
> anti-estrogen since it inhibits the activity of regular estrogens.
> More accurately, tamoxifen is an estrogen-blocker. It fights
> breast cancer by competing with estrogen for space on estrogen
> receptors in the tumor tissue. Every tamoxifen molecule that hooks
> onto an estrogen receptor prevents an estrogen molecule from
> linking up at the same site. Without a steady supply of estrogen,
> cells in an estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) tumor do not thrive
> and the tumor's ability to spread is reduced. (4)
>
> However, tamoxifen exhibited two conflicting characteristics. It
> could act either as an anti-estrogen or as an estrogen. Therefore,
> while tamoxifen is anti-estrogenic to the breast, it also acts as
> an estrogen to the uterus and, to a lesser extent, the heart,
> blood vessels and bone. So, although it initially showed the
> tendency to counter breast cancer recurrence, it would soon be
> revealed that it also promoted particularly aggressive uterine and
> liver cancers, caused fatal blood clots and interfered with many
> other functions.
>
> Doctors, however, were quick to jump on the tamoxifen bandwagon,
> turning a blind eye to its more injurious tendencies. Starting in
> the 1970's oncologists began using tamoxifen to treat women with
> cancer, often in combination with other drugs, radiation or
> surgery such as lumpectomy and mastectomy, with modest success.
> Like DES, tamoxifen's benefits were then extended for use as a
> preventive against osteoporosis and heart disease.
>
> Today, doctors are treating about one million American breast
> cancer patients with tamoxifen, about 20 per cent of them for more
> than five years. As studies published in the New England Journal
> of Medicine in 1989 and the Journal of the National Cancer
> Institute in 1992 showed, women with breast cancer who took
> tamoxifen reduced their chances of developing cancer in the other
> breast (contralateral cancer) by about 30 to 50 per cent. (3)
> These findings would later be challenged.
>
> Tamoxifen is now recommended for all pre-menopausal women with
> hormone-positive cancers, as well as for most postmenopausal women
> with breast cancer and/or a growing number of women with
> hormone-negative cancers. Tamoxifen is currently used by more
> women with breast cancer than any other drug. (6)
>
> Tamoxifen (brand name Nolvadex) is now the most widely prescribed
> cancer medication in the world. It generated revenues of US $265
> million in 1992. By 1995, worldwide sales of Nolvadex reached $400
> million. (7) And at AUD $90 for one month's supply, it doesn't
> come cheap (the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme covers
> $70).
>
> Tamoxifen was developed by UK-based Imperial Chemical Industries
> (ICI), one of the world's largest multinational chemical
> corporations. Zeneca, an ICI subsidiary, is responsible for
> manufacturing and marketing the hormone and is now the world's
> largest cancer-drug company.
>
> It is no surprise that ICI's profits come from playing both sides
> of the cancer industry. ICI's agrochemical division, which
> includes Zeneca, manufactures chlorinated and other industrial
> chemicals including herbicides. All are poisonous, and many are
> known endocrine-disrupters that have been incriminated as causes
> of breast cancer. ICI's profits swell by manufacturing chemicals
> that on the one hand cause breast cancer, and on the other hand
> reputedly cure breast cancer.
>
> LIMITED BENEFITS OF TAMOXIFEN
>
> Tamoxifen 's benefits are determined by several factors: (8)
>
> * Postmenopausal women who are ER-positive (have a positive
> estrogen receptor status) get the most benefit.
> * For postmenopausal women who are ER-negative, the benefits
> appear to outweigh the risks.
> * For pre-menopausal women who are ER-positive, it's a tough
> call. Potential benefits are small.
> * Pre-menopausal women who are ER negative receive virtually no
> benefit.
> * Tamoxifen is more effective in women who have cancer in their
> lymph nodes than in those whose nodes are cancer-free.
>
> In 1992 the Lancet published a review of a number of studies in
> which a total of 30,000 breast cancer patients were randomly
> assigned either to take tamoxifen or not. The average patient in
> this collaborative study was followed up for between five and six
> years. Of the patients taking tamoxifen, 74.4 per cent survived,
> as compared with 70.9 per cent in the non-tamoxifen group - a less
> than impressive improvement.
>
> The report found that the group helped most consisted of
> post-menopausal women with ER-positive status. The study went on
> to report that pre-menopausal women who are ER-negative had
> absolutely no benefit from taking tamoxifen. (9)
>
> Despite tamoxifen's proven ability to reduce breast cancer
> recurrence in postmenopausal women, major studies have shown that
> tamoxifen reduces death from breast cancer only marginally. (10)
> The majority of women who take tamoxifen live no longer than women
> who do not take it. (11) Furthermore, some breast cancers learn
> how to use tamoxifen to stimulate their growth.
>
> The benefits of tamoxifen are limited. Virtually all women who
> take it become resistant within five years. (12) A recent
> randomized controlled study showed that tamoxifen reached its
> maximum protective effect on breast tissue with women who took it
> for five years. Taking it for five more years didn't offer any
> more protection, and may actually have caused more cancers. In
> other words, after a while the breast cells become resistant to
> tamoxifen and actually start to be fed by it. (13)
>
> This result surprised the researchers. According to Dr. Susan
> Love, author of Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book: "This is a dramatic
> example of why you need good, long-term studies. If we had based
> all of our recommendations on the five-year data without doing
> further studies, we would have had women taking tamoxifen forever.
> So convinced were we that tamoxifen was a wonder drug that the
> only reason researchers did the later study at all was to prove it
> wrong. Luckily, we found out that we were wrong in time to prevent
> doing further damage. We have learned, not for the first time,
> that more isn't always better." (l4)
>
> TAMOXIFEN'S DARK SIDE
>
> While the initial findings of tamoxifen's role in breast cancer
> treatment seemed so promising, as with so many of the synthetic
> hormone drugs, further research presented grave concerns for its
> widespread use. In fact, the MIMS Annual lists 25 adverse
> reactions to tamoxifen: some of l these can be fatal.
>
> Menopausal Symptoms
>
> Tamoxifen often induces menopausal symptoms in menstruating women.
> About half of these women experience hot flushes. Fluid retention
> and weight I gain occur in about 25 per cent of l women and can be
> controlled by reducing the dose. Vaginal discharge and vaginal
> atrophy are additional symptoms. Some studies have also found l
> that pre-menopausal users are at risk of developing accelerated
> bone-mineral loss and osteoporosis.
>
> Menstrual irregularities also occur in pre-menopausal women.
> Amenorrhea (absence of the menstrual cycle) often results and can
> be permanent.
>
> Eye Damage
>
> According to a 1978 study in Cancer Treatment Reports and another
> published in Cancer in 1992, about six per cent of women taking
> even low-dose tamoxifen suffer damage to the retina and corneal
> opacities and decreased visual acuity. Irreversible corneal and
> retinal changes can occur in those taking 20 mg. of tamoxifen
> twice a day (twice the usual dose). These changes may have no
> immediate effect on visual acuity, but may predispose the eyes to
> later problems including cataracts.
>
> Blood Clots
>
> Tamoxifen irritates the walls of the veins, and inflammation (a
> natural healing response to irritation) follows. The constant
> irritation and inflammation weakens the veins, causing bleeding,
> clotting, thrombophlebitis and, in the worst cases, obstruction of
> the blood vessels serving the lungs, which can be deadly and can
> occur with little warning. The incidence of thrombophlebitis in
> women using oral contraceptives is generally regarded as
> significant (1 in 2,000); however, with tamoxifen it's 30 times
> greater."
>
> Several studies, including one reported to the FDA's Oncological
> Drugs Advisory Committee by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast
> and Bowel Project in 1991, showed that the risk of developing
> life-threatening blood clots increases about seven times in women
> taking tamoxifen. (6)
>
> Psychological Symptoms
>
> Depression has been reported as a potential side-effect of
> tamoxifen in 30 per cent of women. Cases have been reported of an
> inability to concentrate.
>
> It is important that patients observe their moods and mental
> states. If it is suspected at tamoxifen is causing depression or
> lack of concentration, it is suggested that a period of tamoxifen
> avoidance be considered.
>
> Other Symptoms
>
> Tamoxifen can trigger asthma attacks in some sensitive patients.
>
> Changes to the vocal cords resulting in impairment of singing and
> speaking abilities are occasionally caused by tamoxifen.
>
> CARCINOGENENIC EFFECTS
>
> It wasn't long before laboratory studies showed that tamoxifen
> acted as a carcinogen. It has been found that tamoxifen binds
> tightly and irreversibly to DNA, the genetic blueprint of a cell,
> causing a cancerous mutation to take place. Even Australia's
> conservative National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
> warned that no amount of tamoxifen is safe when it comes to
> carcinogenic effects.
>
> In California there is a law called "Proposition 65" that requires
> the state to publish and maintain a list of all known carcinogens.
> In May 1995, the state's Carcinogen Identification Committee voted
> unanimously to add tamoxifen to its list.
>
> Following suit, in 1996 the World Health Organization formally
> designated tamoxifen a human carcinogen, grouping it with 70 other
> chemicals - about one quarter of them pharmaceuticals - that have
> received this dubious distinction.
>
> Liver Cancer and Liver Disease
>
> Tamoxifen is toxic to the liver, and there have been reports of
> acute hepatitis in patients treated with tamoxifen. Liver damage
> has occurred in every animal given tamoxifen. According to Gary
> Williams, medical director of the American Heart Foundation,
> tamoxifen has been shown in animal studies to be a "rip-roaring"
> liver carcinogen, inducing highly aggressive cancers in about 12
> per cent of rats. (7)
>
> The latest human studies show a six-fold increase in liver cancer
> among women taking tamoxifen for more than two years." Liver
> failure and tamoxifen-induced hepatitis, although rare, have been
> reported. Even Zeneca admits that tamoxifen is a liver carcinogen
> - while nevertheless aggressively promoting its use.
>
> Uterine (Endometrial)
> Cancer
>
> As early as 1967, ICI scientists noted that "tamoxifen persists
> for some days in the uterus". In rats, a tamoxifen metabolite (a
> breakdown compound almost similar in structure to the original)
> was found to influence the uterus to be more receptive to
> estrogen. (The more estrogen, the greater the chance of unnatural
> cell-division leading to cancer.) ICI also reported liver
> carcino-genicity of tamoxifen as well as both ovarian and
> testicular tumors in mice in its description of the drug in the
> standard Physicians Desk Reference.
>
> Uterine growths such as polyps, tumors, endometrial thickenings
> and cancers occur in a significant number of women taking
> tamoxifen. One study detected abnormal endometrial cells in
> subjects the day after the first tablet was taken. (9)
> Pre-cancerous uterine and endometrial changes were seen in 10 per
> cent of the women taking tamoxifen in a recent study. The higher
> the dose of tamoxifen and the longer it is taken, the greater the
> risk of changes. Women taking the standard dose of 20 mg. for two
> years run a risk of uterine cancer that is 2 to 3 times greater
> than normal. After five years, the risk is 6 to 8 times greater.
> (20)
>
> In February 1996 a review by the International Agency for Research
> on Cancer, composed of scientists from various countries,
> definitively concluded that "there is sufficient evidence to
> regard tamoxifen as a human carcinogen that increases a woman's
> risk of developing cancer of the endometrium, the inner lining of
> the uterus" (21)
>
> A large Swedish study linking tamoxifen to uterine cancer forced
> Zeneca to send letters in April 1994 to 380,000 physicians across
> the USA, in defense of the drug. The Swedish researchers had
> studied 1,371 breast cancer patients who took 40 mg. per day for
> two to five years and found that there was a six-fold increase in
> uterine cancer among those patients who took tamoxifen when
> compared to 1,327 who did not. A second study involving patients
> who took 20 mg. per day (the recommended dose) also showed a
> marked increase in uterine cancers compared with the control
> group. (22)
>
> When the news came out that breast cancer patients who took
> tamoxifen for five years or longer (the same regimen that seems to
> prevent recurrence) might have tripled their risk of uterine
> cancer, British cancer researcher Richard Peto, head of the cancer
> research unit at Oxford University, sought to dismiss it. If
> caught early, he said, endometrial cancer seldom kills, so "it's
> no big deal". That statement infuriated critics who noted that the
> treatment for uterine cancer is hysterectomy. Dr. Adriane
> Fugh-Berman, a leading women's health activist, angrily responded:
> "To some of us, it is a big deal to lose your uterus."
>
> Shortly after Peto's flip dismissal of uterine cancers,
> researchers at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center at Houston and at
> Yale University School of Medicine discovered that breast cancer
> patients who develop uterine cancer while using tamoxifen are
> likely to have a fast-moving, lethal form of the disease. (23)
>
> It should be noted that tamoxifen has also been associated with
> gastrointestinal cancers.
>
> Breast Cancer
>
> The premise for taking tamoxifen is its supposed role in
> protecting breast cancer patients from recurrence of the cancer.
> It was further postulated that it prevented breast cancer from
> occurring in the opposite breast (contralateral).
>
> However, disturbing findings continue to surface, challenging
> tamoxifen's effectiveness. In 1992 the New England Journal of
> Medicine showed that tamoxifen may reduce the incidence of
> contralateral cancer, but this was demonstrated only in
> pre-menopausal women and only in three out of eight trials. In
> another 1992 study, reported in Octa Oncologica, it was shown that
> tamoxifen not only failed to reduce contralateral cancers in
> pre-menopausal women, but it actually increased their incidence.
> (24)
>
> The irony of tamoxifen is that, while widely publicized as the
> leading treatment against the recurrence of breast cancer, it is a
> known and listed carcinogenic substance.
>
> Heart Disease and Osteoporosis
>
> Another promise of tamoxifen was its supposed protective benefits
> for the heart and bones. It was theorized that its estrogenic
> properties would help reduce heart disease and osteoporosis in
> women, but once again the theory crumbled under the weight of hard
> facts.
>
> Several trials with tamoxifen failed to show that it has any
> effect on bone density and thus on prevention of osteoporosis. In
> three other trials, bone density increased slightly in lower
> spinal vertebrae but not in longer bones or hip bones which are
> particularly susceptible to fractures and potentially fatal
> complications.
>
> Initial data seemed to indicate that it decreased the incidence of
> heart attacks, but they have been disproved by more recent
> studies. According to Dr. Susan Love: "It doesn't seem to have a
> bad effect on lipids, but that's a far cry from preventing heart
> attacks."
>
> A detailed review of the drug's alleged protective cardiovascular
> effects prompted the British National Heart, Lung and Blood
> Institute, a once strong proponent of tamoxifen, to withdraw its
> support because the evidence of benefit proved so inadequate. (25)
>
> According to the January 1996 issue of The Network News, it was
> reported at a closed-door meeting of the National Cancer Institute
> that tamoxifen failed to prevent heart disease in breast cancer
> patients.
>
> THE BREAST CANCER PREVENTION TRIAL
>
> Based far more on wishful thinking than on science, the U.S.
> National Cancer Institute (NCI) leaped to the conclusion that
> tamoxifen's anti-estrogenic effects in relation to breast cancer
> treatment meant that the drug would prevent breast cancer from
> developing in healthy women.
>
> Disregarding all the research implicating tamoxifen with serious
> and potentially fatal side-effects, the NCI launched a US$60
> million breast cancer prevention trial in April 1992, aiming to
> recruit 16,000 healthy women in the United States, Europe, Canada,
> Australia and New Zealand. Still ongoing, the trial now involves
> 13,000 healthy women over the age of 35 who are considered at high
> risk. Australia has recruited 1,350 women, with a target of 2,500.
> For five years, half the women receive tamoxifen and half receive
> a placebo. The drug is supplied free of charge by manufacturer
> Zeneca.
>
> Dr. Samuel Epstein, Professor Environmental Medicine at the
> University of Illinois School of Public Health and author of The
> Breast Cancer Prevention Program, raises serious concerns.
> "Unfortunately, this misguided and dangerous approach to
> prevention stems from the entrenched fixation of the NCI on the
> use of chemical drugs to prevent cancer which may have been
> induced by chemical pollutants, medical technology (such as
> radiation from X-rays) and carcinogenic/estrogenic drugs in the
> first place. Instead of attempting to reduce the carcinogenic
> chemical burden under which we struggle to maintain our health,
> the NCI believes that the solution is to add more chemicals to the
> mix."
>
> Dr. Susan Love concurs: "It is a sad state of affairs when we have
> to add yet more chemicals to counteract the effects of other
> chemicals."
>
> This attitude extends to the way the NCI treats the women in the
> trial. They are given no guidance on alternative protective
> measures such as increasing exercise, maintaining a healthy
> weight, eating a protective diet and avoiding exposure to
> environmental carcinogens; nor are they being fully informed about
> the serious risks of tamoxifen.
>
> Dr. Lynette Dumble, Senior Research Fellow in History and
> Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne, believes
> that the global trial to prevent breast cancer with tamoxifen is a
> modern and very large chapter of "medical imperialism". Back in
> October 1994 she commented on ABC TV's Quantum science program
> that the tamoxifen trial was the medical equivalent of mutilating
> surgery which prevents a woman from developing breast cancer by
> cutting off both her breasts.
>
> Dr. Dumble sees women as vulnerable guinea pigs for the trial, and
> questions both the breast cancer risk of healthy women
> volunteering for the trial (how can you tell whether fate or
> tamoxifen prevents a woman from developing breast cancer?) and the
> terms of the trial's positives and negatives (if a woman dies of
> tamoxifen-related endometrial or liver cancer, does this count as
> a tamoxifen success in preventing breast cancer?).
>
> It seems absurd, but why would the powers-that-be continue to
> promote a trial that promises to substitute one cancer for another
> in otherwise healthy women? Once again, healthy women are targeted
> as the guinea pigs for a drug treatment that has already been
> proven to be a cause of a variety of cancers including breast
> cancer. In the case of tamoxifen, medical research has once again
> taken a back seat to profits. It is the population that is at
> risk. The cancer establishment would certainly be eager to prove a
> tamoxifen-prevention role, since it would then open up another
> huge, billion-dollar market.
>
> ALTERNATIVES TO TAMOXIFEN
>
> While the cancer establishment continues to invest vast amounts of
> money into research, manufacturing and trialling of harmful drugs
> for the prevention and hopeful cure of breast cancer, there are
> safer and more effective options that already exist.
>
> Estriol, one of the estrogens produced by the ovaries, is
> considered a safe estrogen in that it has been shown to inhibit
> breast cancer. Dr. Henry Lemon and his colleagues conducted a
> study in women who already had breast cancer that had spread to
> other areas of the body. One group was given Estriol and another
> not. At the end of the study, 37 per cent of those women who
> received estriol had either a remission or an arrest of their
> cancer. Might not estriol, a natural, safe hormone with almost no
> side-effects, be able to accomplish what tamoxifen does but
> without the toxic side-effects?
>
> There is also convincing evidence that natural progesterone has an
> important role in breast cancer treatment and prevention. A study
> conducted in 1981 at Johns Hopkins University revealed that when a
> group with a low progesterone level was compared with a
> normal-level progesterone group, it was found that the occurrence
> of breast cancer was 5.4 times greater in the women in the low
> progesterone group. That is, the incidence of breast cancer in the
> low progesterone group was over 80 per cent greater than in the
> normal progesterone group. When the researchers looked at the low
> progesterone group for all types of cancer, they found that these
> women experienced a tenfold increase in all malignant cancers,
> compared to the normal group.
>
> In a 1995 study published in the Journal of Fertility and
> Sterility, researchers found that women using a topical
> progesterone cream had dramatically reduced breast cell
> multiplication rates compared to women using either a placebo or
> estrogen. This exciting study demonstrated that natural
> progesterone creams impressively decreased breast cell
> proliferation rates. (27)
>
> Lifestyle factors also play a significant role. In a prospective
> study of 25,624 Norwegian women aged 20 to 54, after an average of
> 14 years of follow-up the investigators found strong evidence that
> everyday exercise, both at work and at leisure, reduced the breast
> cancer risk. Women who exercised at least four hours a week during
> leisure time were found to have a 37 per cent reduction in risk of
> breast cancer, compared with sedentary women. The study found that
> the more time spent exercising, the lower the breast cancer risk.
> (28)
>
> As Dr. John Lee pointed out in his best-selling book, What Doctors
> May Not Tell You About Menopause: "Herbs and food contain
> phyto-estrogens. Their benefit parallels that of tamoxifen
> (without the adverse side-effects) in that phyto-estrogens occupy
> estrogen receptors and are less estrogenic than those made by the
> body. Since it is now known that reducing caloric intake reduces
> estrogen levels, and recent studies find 46 per cent less breast
> cancer among women consuming more fruit and vegetables, it would
> seem that women interested in preventing breast cancer could make
> modest changes in diet and derive better and certainly safer
> results." (29)
>
> History continues to repeat itself. Time and time again women have
> been reassured that the wonder drugs or treatments offered them
> would be their salvation, only to discover they were exposed to
> harmful carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals.
>
> In addition to the DES debacle, the disasters of thalidomide,
> silicone breast implants, estrogen replacement therapy and now
> tamoxifen (to name just a few) continue to demonstrate how readily
> women's lives have been sacrificed in the pursuit of profits. The
> warnings have been drowned out by the glossy advertising campaigns
> and the reassurances of "medical experts".
>
> There are solutions to the breast cancer epidemic. However, they
> will be found more by altering lifestyle, dietary and stress
> factors, and reducing or eliminating exposure to the many known
> toxic, carcinogenic chemicals that are polluting the environment,
> than by some miraculous drug discovery. It is also up to women not
> only to continue to become fully educated about safe health
> options but to demand them from health providers. Too many women
> have already been maimed and sacrificed to unproven and unsafe
> drug treatments.
>
> It is widely believed that today's drugs are tomorrow's poisons.
> In the case of tamoxifen, tomorrow has already arrived.
>
> file://www.worstpills.org/tamoxifen.htm
>
>
> http://www.selene.com/healthlink/tamoxifen.html
>
> http://www.all-natural.com/tamox.html
>
> http://www.stopbreastcancer.org/press/tamox.asp
>
> http://207.226.63.9/hrg/PUBLICATIONS/1479.htm
We invite you to take a look at our Album.
www.angelfire.com/sc/molangels/index.html
( Very informational, good tips, Molers pictures, art work and much
more....
----- Original Message -----
From: <Betycal@AOL.COM>
To: <mol-cancer@meds.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 1:20 PM
Subject: [MOL] Tamoxifen and eye problems
> I have been on Tamoxifen for 3 years and continue to have floaters. Most
of
> the time, it appears that I am looking through cob webs. I have been to
an
> opthamologist and he says that he can see the floaters but I don't seem to
> have complications that come from Tamoxifen. I believe that the floaters
are
> complications from the Tamoxifen. My question is: Will these go away
when I
> stop taking Tamoxifen in two years?
> Thank you for your response.
> Betty Wilson
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