It’s been several years since I got all exercised about the male medical establishment’s treatment of women patients. I used to get really mad when all the studies on new drugs were done on men. When women couldn’t get their physicians to take their symptoms seriously. Or when, instead of taking the time to listen to their problems, doctors would hand out samples of drugs, some wholly inappropriate.
“You could try this and see if it helps,” they’d say.
This was in the days before drug companies were allowed to advertise their latest chemical achievements, complete with two pages of caveats in type too small for anyone over 25 to read. Who could know what the doctor was prescribing?
Now, at least if we’re paying attention, we can find out a little more about these amazing miracles of science. We can make choices. Like would we rather make some adjustments to our lifestyle or have liver failure? Would we rather bear the symptoms we have or fly to others that we know not?
Very recently, in fact, we found out that hormone replacement therapy isn’t all it was cracked up to be. Doctors, who regularly touted estrogen as the answer to all the ailments of aging, are now backpedaling. It seems hormones just replace hot flashes, thinning bones, dry skin and wrinkles with an increased risk for heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer. Not a tough choice.
I can remember my doctors recommending hormones as protection against heart disease and stroke. They downplayed the breast cancer risk and touted another hormone, progesterone, to mitigate the increased risk of uterine cancer caused by estrogen alone. I weighed the alternatives and decided to give it a miss.
I was not embarrassed to fan myself in public, even when temperatures were in the sixties. Sleepless nights were a good chance to read and write. Exercise and diet would protect the integrity of my bones and Clinique might stave off at least a few wrinkles.
I just never fell for the drug manufacturers’ mantra: Whatever ails you, take a pill.
In the first place, the idea that menopause is a disease that needs to be cured seemed way off the mark. Mid-life is not a crisis. It’s a chance to rearrange one’s priorities.
Every age has its own problems. Youth is fraught with peril, conflict, strife. Teen-aged angst is the stuff of literary treasure, not a disease to be cured with antidepressants.
Tell that to Eli Lilly. In the news last week was the case of a Florida teen who received a one-month supply of Prozac in the mail. Unsolicited, unprescribed by his physician, and unbeknownst to his parents. How scary is that?
The envelope, hand-addressed to the 16-year-old boy, bore the return address of a local Walgreens drugstore. The boy’s parents said he had never been treated for depression or taken any antidepressant drug. They said they may join a class-action lawsuit filed this month in Florida state court against Eli Lilly, the Walgreen Co. and several doctors. The suit claims the drugstore chain and the drug maker misused patients’ medical records and invaded their privacy, among other things.
And we thought all we had to worry about was our kids smoking, drinking and sampling illegal substances. Who knew a drug company would try to get kids hooked on prescription drugs? Right.
Also reported last week was a California Supreme Court decision upholding the state’s medical marijuana law. The court ruled “the possession and cultivation of marijuana is no more criminal-so long as its conditions are satisfied-than the possession and acquisition of any prescription drug with a physician’s prescription.”
One glitch remains. A California cancer patient growing pot with his doctor’s blessing can still be prosecuted in federal court.
We can only hope the feds will leave seriously sick people their remedies and concentrate on more pressing issues. Maybe they could crack down on drug companies that minimize the risks of their medicines and push antidepressants on unsuspecting teens.