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Hidden Truth About Cholesterol Lowering Drugs
By education and by trade, I was a drug chemist. My passion for science motivated a successful career in drug design and synthesis - in both academia and industry. As a scientist, I witnessed firsthand the priorities of international pharmaceutical companies, which ranked wealth first and health a distant second. My suspicion of modern medicine began while I was employed by Eli Lilly to design a new generation of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) drugs. Such drugs include tamoxifen and raloxifene. Initially, these drugs were thought to block estrogen receptors (excess estrogen can initiate cancer growth) and thereby halt cancer. As time progressed, though, it was learned that they were also capable of activating estrogen receptors. The end result was a biochemical environment favorable to cancer growth among users. The risk of cancer associated with HRT drugs had been hidden from doctors by drug companies. And it's easy to understand why the doctors themselves hadn't noticed the ability of these drugs to cause cancer - because their patients already had the disease. At any rate, my task was made clear: Design HRT "knock-offs" that are effective without causing cancer. My attempt to design safer alternatives was unsuccessful. And after one year, the project was ended. However, access to HRT drugs like tamoxifen was not. They remained on the market. (In fact, tamoxifen is still the gold standard used by doctors to treat breast cancer.) The fuel driving the continued use of HRT drugs was disinformation via Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) advertising. Since 1962, monitoring DTC advertising has been the sole responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But in a ghastly conflict of interests, the FDA granted the duty of DTC advertising to the pharmaceutical companies in 1997. Officially, this was done as a means of "promoting health awareness to ensure health and safety." Unofficially, it was done to sell more drugs. DTC advertising dictated that all women over 50 should use HRT to remain healthy. Women scurried to their doctors and asked them to prescribe it. My suspicion grew into conflict. The disinformation campaign behind HRT drugs is not an isolated case. I learned that drug advertising and science are frequently in direct opposition to each other. For example:
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