Subject:  Fw Tamoxifen study is a joke! (fwd)
Date:     Wed, 15 Apr 1998 045748 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:12:55 +0200
From: Peter Heindl 
To: "Roy L. Beavers" 
Subject: Fw: Tamoxifen study is a joke!

- No comment -

Regards
   Peter


-----Original Message-----
From: Sheri Nakken 
To: homeopathy@lyghtforce.com 
Date: 13 April 1998 01:37
Subject: Tamoxifen study is a joke!


>>From Australia...
>
>US doctors under fire over cancer claims
>
>By TANIA EWING
>
>American scientists who announced this week that they believe the drug
>tamoxifen can prevent breast cancer have been attacked as incompetent by
>their British counterparts.
>
>The US researchers said the drug could prevent breast cancer, according to
>early findings from their arm of an international trial in progress.
>
>British doctors have said the Americans were incompetent for halting the US
>arm of the tamoxifen trial 14 months early, and that stopping it would
>prevent further study into the long-term effects of the drug and falsely
>raise women's hopes of a cure.
>
>Australian doctors involved in the trial have decided to break the secret
>code that will tell them which of the 1500 Australian women are taking the
>drug, and which are taking a placebo.
>
>The decision to offer the women on placebos (sugar pills) tamoxifen was
made
>after an ethics committee approved the drug here, according to Dr Ray
>Snyder, an oncologist from Melbourne's St Vincent's Hospital who is
involved
>in the UK-Australian trial.
>
>But Dr Roger Blamey, president of the British Association of Surgical
>Oncology, said he was outraged after the National Cancer Institute in
>Washington declared tamoxifen an unequivocal success.
>
>"I am shocked really. At best this is incompetence and, at worst, they are
>trying to get themselves publicity," he said.
>
>It would take 15 years of trials to determine the full effects of the drug.
>The US trial, involving 13,000 women, started in 1992, while the UK trial,
>with 2600 women, has been going for four years, he said.
>
>Dr Snyder said that the US trial failed to address some important
questions:
>whether the drug delays the development of breast cancer by five years (the
>length of the trial) or prevents it over a longer period.
>
>He said the preliminary results from the US trial did not disclose which
>women benefited from the drug - those who had a family history of the
>disease, or those who had a predisposition unrelated to genetics, for
>instance some premalignant evidence of cancer.
>
>Dr Snyder also warned that, while exciting, the results showed only a small
>difference between the group taking the drug and those on a placebo. Out of
>13,000 women, 154 cases developed breast cancer in the placebo group
>compared to 85 in the drug treatment group.
>
>A major concern, however, was that endometrial cancer, a side-effect of
>tamoxifen use, was more prevalent in the group taking the drug - with 33
>cases, compared to 14 in the placebo group.
>
>Dr Snyder was cautious in his criticisms of his US counterparts, explaining
>the harsh statements made in Britain as "probably due to professional
>rivalry . . . the trial was a British conception and the US trial finished
>first, simply because they accrued patients more rapidly", he said.
>
>If the Australian trial continues, Dr Snyder said he hoped to get 8000
>patients involved.
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>-------
>Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Director email - wwithin@nccn.net
>http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/welcome.html
>Well Within and Well Within's Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours
>Broadcaster/DJ at KVMR FM - Community Radio, 89.5, 99.3, 103.7,
> Nevada City California
>Homeopathic Education, Weekend Wellness Retreats, Dangers of Vaccination,
>Holistic Homestudy Courses for Nurses, Books & Music, Mythology & Mystery
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>




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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html