Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12517

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Publication type: news

Lite J.
Osteoporosis drugs oversold - docs
The Daily News 2008 Jan 21
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2008/01/21/2008-01-21_osteoporosis_drugs_oversold__docs-2.html

Full text:

Drug companies are exaggerating the benefits of lucrative osteoporosis drugs and downplaying their dangers for women at low risk of fractures, European researchers say.

Makers of drugs such as Evista and Fosamax, among others, heavily promote the medicines to women with osteopenia, or “preosteoporosis.”

Yet few of those women – said to encompass more than half the white postmenopausal women in the United States – are likely to ever suffer a fracture, according to an analysis in the British Medical Journal.

“These are women who are apparently at risk of being at risk,” wrote Dr. Pablo Alonso-Coello, who reviewed four analyses of the drugs used to justify their promotion to women whose bone loss was less severe than osteoporosis.

The drugs are a $5.8 billion industry in the United States, according to the tracking service IMS Health.

“The drug companies have been eager to promote the use of the term osteopenia because it makes people think that they have some major problem,” said Dr. Michael McClung, director of the Oregon Osteoporosis Center. “The term implies a disease state which in many circumstances isn’t real.”

Guidelines expected in the coming months will narrow which women with osteopenia are likely to benefit from the drugs. Instead of basing prescriptions on bone density alone, the guidelines will factor in age, previous fractures and other factors, McClung said.

Officials at Eli Lilly, which makes Evista, were unable to comment. Merck said in a statement that it “promotes Fosamax consistent with approved product label” and that it clearly labeled its side effects.