Am I A Prophet Or Am I Just Really Smart? It's Hard To Say Sometimes

I'm leaning toward prophet this night. Totally towards prophet. Because you know what the first thing I said was when I read about Reclast?

First you should probably know though, before I amaze you with my brainpower, that Reclast is a treatment for osteoporosis. It's a member of a class of meds called biophosphates, like Fosamax, Actonel, and Boniva, that have been around for years. Reclast's claim to fame when it hit the market was that it only had to be given once a year. Seriously. They stick it into your veins and it does its thing for a full 12 months. So, getting back to my amazingness, you know what the first thing I said was when I read about this?

"Holy crap, what happens if you find out there's some freaky side effect to this stuff the day after they shoot you up with it? Screwed for a whole friggin year you are"

Of course I didn't say it here. But really, I said it. I'll bring in my keystone tech to verify if I have to.

Anyway, here we go:

New questions have emerged about whether long-term use of bone-building drugs for osteoporosis may actually lead to weaker bones in a small number of people who use them.

The concern rises mainly from a series of case reports showing a rare type of leg fracture that shears straight across the upper thighbone after little or no trauma. Fractures in this sturdy part of the bone typically result from car accidents, or in the elderly and frail. But the case reports show the unusual fracture pattern in people who have used bone-building drugs called bisphosphonates for five years or more.

Some patients have reported that after weeks or months of unexplained aching, their thighbones simply snapped while they were walking or standing.

Welcome to the information vacuum. The first thing to pop into your head when you read that was probably something like "Well how likely is it that someone taking biophosphates can be standing around and have their leg snap in half?" I'm sorry, but even my supernatural mental prowess can't give you an answer on that one. This is the kind of situation you'll find yourself in when you approve a drug for sale based on tests on 3 or 4 thousand people, then require absolutely no follow up as it's sold to 3 or 4 million:

Last year, The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery published a Singapore report of 13 women with low-trauma fractures, including 9 who had been on long-term Fosamax therapy.

“I have several similar patients myself,” said Dr. Susan M. Ott, associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “Prior to these recent articles, there were a few cases here and a few cases there, but they are kind of starting to add up.”

My spidey sense tells me Big Pharma won't hesitate to say that there's very little evidence of leg snapping while taking the biophosphates. They'd be right. There was also very little evidence the earth was round before Christopher Columbus set sail. And until you start to look, you're not gonna find much evidence. Not many people have been looking until now.

And here's the thing Big Pharma. We can't trust you anymore. After Baycol, after Bextra, after Duract, Posicor, Propulsid, Tequin, Redux, Trasylol, Seldane, and Vioxx. After you withheld evidence that Paxil may raise the suicide risk in children, After the way you sat on data in order to prop up sales of Vytorin and Zetia, after we found out the estrogen you were pushing on the MILFS was giving them breast cancer, your words aren't nearly as reassuring as they were when I was a wet behind the ears new graduate telling patients not to be overly concerned about their Rezulin.

Don't get me wrong. Osteoporosis and hip fractures are not to be fucked with. They can kill you. As long as you take into consideration the risks involved, preventing or slowing osteoporosis is a good thing. In order to do that though, you kinda have to know what those risks are.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the jawbone rot yet.

Good luck.