So, we now know that a residual and potentially toxic soup of pharmaceuticals is in the drinking water of cities across the country.
Many pharmaceuticals, we can safely assume, are contraindicated for those with liver disease.
People with undiagnosed (and diagnosed) liver disease drink in this water over years.
We wonder why their liver disease advances. Maybe it’s time to think outside our environmental box and see that the human liver and the environment are entwined?
These comments by the epidemiologist are in need of revisiting.
I offer the services of our unbiased, non pharmaceutical industry funded charitable organization to get to the heart of this matter.
I absolutely know my team can untangle this knot. We are the first organization dedicated to hepatitis C in the world and we have refused huge amounts of money from the industry to cover up, misinform or sell products under the guise of advocacy.
We are real, honest to goodness grassroots (comprised of professionals) not astro turf organizations funded by industry to train and schmooze government dignitaries to talk of treatment but never prevention. For that, we have no funding. We do it anyway because it just has to be done.
We tell the truth. You cannot save lives or prevent further infections any other way. Even the CDC’s educational programs are a “partnership” with the pharmaceutical industry.
No governmental epidemiologist, department, or licensing board has taken on the risks in spas and tattoo establishments. This is not about beauty and art, this is bout science and preventing disease.
If invited, I will, as I have done in other parts of the country, offer presentations and help establish priorities with those the citizens of Las Vegas decide to put feet to fire. Do not let them tell you there are no answers. It blatantly is not so. Revoking a license should be the beginning of protecting you, not a bone thrown so you feel better. You shouldn’t feel better. You should feel that more answers need to be revealed to protect you and your families. Recinding a license is a political solution, not a preventative one.
I have the science to back up every statement I make. ( tattooing) Our medical director spoke to the NIH Consensus management conference on Hepatitis C.
I have personally presented to Women’s Health National Organizations, American Public Health Association (in 2000)and have been invited to convene a panel in 2008. I am invited to speak all over the world, yet have no funds to get there. (Google: thanbey, hepatitis C Outreach Project)
There is NO EXCUSE to remain ignorant any more and let this continue. You have not yet scratched the surface, Las Vegas! And if any city can rise up with one voice, it’s you.
Step up to the plate and DEMAND the truth, backed up with science and consumer protection in your mind. And know that greed and the greasing of palms happens every day across this country. It’s cloaked in “privately funded” Foundations that suddenly spring out of no where and have access to very important people.
I’m here for you, Las Vegas. All you have to do is ask. I am not a doctor, yet that may very well be my highest qualification.
Teresa Hanbey
Hepatitis C Outreach Project, since 1992
Portland, OR
This is a blog from For links and comments, please visit bizmology and tell Kristi what you think of all the “off labels” marketing that has been going on all these years in the hep community, where the treatment has risks for those with underlying heart problems. Kristi is my nominee for hepheroism of the week.
by , March 10th, 2008, 5:28 am
The stakes couldn’t be higher for this week, as it
another FDA hearing on Thursday related to anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen. The two drugs, as well as one sold by subsidiary under a license from , have spent the past year under fire from the scientific and medical communities, and the questioning doesn’t seem likely to stop any time soon.
The drugs are known as erythropoiesis-stimulating agents; they are bioengineered proteins that stimulate red-blood cell production in cancer patients taking chemotherapy or people with chronic kidney disease. (Both classes of patients commonly experience anemia.) And they are blockbuster products, prescribed to some 4 million people since they’ve been on the market and generating a combined $9 billion for and in 2007.
Problem is, numerous studies published over the last 18 months have questioned the safety of the drugs, especially when used at high doses. Those studies have suggested that Aranesp, Epogen, and Procrit (the version of the drug) increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death, and even possibly the more rapid growth of tumors in cancer patients. Not good.
and revised the labels on the drugs in 2007 to reflect these risks, but since then, have come out underlining the drugs’ dangers. And so the FDA advisory committee that specializes in cancer drugs has called another meeting to decide their fate, at least in relation to chemotherapy-induced anemia. Several analysts told to place further restrictions on the drugs, with a slim possibility that they’ll recommend Aranesp and Procrit not be prescribed for cancer patients at all.
Although any bad news coming out of the Thursday meeting will hurt both companies, it would be far more devastating to , which depends on Aranesp and Epogen for more than $6 billion in sales, about 40% of total revenue. ( is obviously far more diversified but still gets about 5% of its revenue from sales of Procrit.)
has already gone through a round of in response to lower sales of the drugs, and the company’s has suffered mightily. Both employees and investors will no doubt be paying attention to what happens Thursday. Stay tuned
