As confusion over the existence and efficacy of bioidentical hormones continues in the media and literature, I think a primer on commercially available bioidenticals is in order.
Those who want to keep doctors and women in the dark would like you to believe bioidenticals are only available through compounding pharmacies who are not supervised by the FDA but do use FDA approved products.
So the big pharma uses the media and their communications to physicians to try to demolish the credibility of compounders. The result is that most mainstream doctors are confused and fearful and unwilling to learn more about compounding; they believe the big pharma story. Thus emerged the false belief that biodienticals are snake oil and not to be trusted.
I am not writing today about the virtues of compounding but it is important for you to know that the first and still most effective way to get medication individually tailored is through compounding. Compounding preceded pharmaceutical production of drugs by hundreds of years.
Whether compounded hormones or commercially-available hormones are best for you personally is a decision to be made between you and your doctor. But before that conversation can take place, physicians must stop acting like the lapdogs of big pharma and shift their allegiance to their patients.
Until that happens, you must take full responsibility for the knowledge and types of bioidentical hormone preparations available on the market today.
Bioidentical hormones are commercially available and have been on the mass market from as early as the 1940s. They are FDA approved and were on the market before non-identicals/synthetics (Premarin, Prempro and Provera) made their appearance.
Pharmaceutical companies manufacture and sell bioidentical hormones but you'd never know it from the media. A concerted effort to hide the difference between bioidentical hormones, which are identical to the human hormones estrogen and progesterone and non-human identical hormones, has been intentionally created to cause the present state of confusion and fear permeating the mainstream medical community. This confusion takes the focus off Premarin, Prempro and Provera which have been proven dangerous for more than 20 years. The medical literature is chuck-full of data to that effect.
(I will start posting on the www.drerika.com site listings of the scientific articles in support of the safety and efficacy of bioidenticals and the dangers of non-human identicals in the next few weeks to help both women and their doctors better understand the truth)
Commercial FDA-approved bioidenticals come in a variety of forms - gels, patches and pills, and they are marketed by the pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Parke Davis, Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pharmacia UpJohn.
At last count there were at least a dozen available:
- Alora: FDA approved 1996 - Watson Labs
- Climara: FDA approved 1994 - Bayer
- FemPatch: FDA approved 1997 - Parke Davis
- Vivelle-Dot: FDA approved 1994 - Novartis
- Estraderm: FDA approved 1986 - Novartis
- Esclim: FDA approved 1998 - Women's First Healthcare
- Estrace: FDA approved 1993 -Bristol Myers Squibb
- Estring: FDA approved 1996 - Pharmacia UpJohn
- Premetrium: FDA approved 1998 - Solvay
- Androgel: FDA approved 2000 - Unimed Pharmaceuticals
- Crinone: FDA approved 1997 - Columbia Labs
When you go to your doctor take this Blog with you and show him/ her the names of the bioidenticals and the drug companies that make them!
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