Would You Put Your Life In The Hands Of The FDA?

Posted 2008-03-07

By Luanne Austin

DNR On-line

But it’s approved by the FDA!

That’s the argument an acquaintance used last week when we were discussing artificial sweeteners. She said that since aspartame, sucralose and saccharine were all approved by the FDA, that meant they were safe.

Tell that to the women who used HRT (hormone replacement therapy). Remember when the news came out in 2002 that HRT increased a woman’s risk of breast cancer? Thousands of women stopped taking it.

This week, a study of 16,600 women who stopped taking HRT in 2002 showed that the risks associated with HRT lingered for three to eight years after discontinuing the drug. The Women’s Health Initiative followed up on these women and found they had a 12 percent greater risk of death — from heart disease, various cancers, stroke, fractures and other causes of death — than women who’d been taking a placebo.

Granted, that translates to few dying of any particular cause, as the doctors in the Journal of American Medical Association article pointed out. Still, if their doctors had told them, “Taking this will increase your risk of dying by 12 percent,” would they have taken it? It’s a bit of information that women can use when making the decision about whether to take HRT.

Like many women my age, I have suffered some of the debilitating effects of menopause. Fortunately, my doctor — a man full of old-fashioned common sense — believes menopause is a natural process and not a disease. I agree.

Having had breast cancer, I operate on the premise that natural is best. Because who knows what caused the breast cancer in me? Was it something in the water I drank growing up? Pesticides in my food? Toxins in plastic food containers? A drug I took long ago? Anger at my mother? Who knows?

While researchers speculate about these things, I’m not waiting. Within reason, I’m not putting anything into my body — FDA-approved or not — that has been tampered with. Taking any kind of medicine is a last resort. When a doctor recommends I take a drug, I consider all the benefits and detriments. I discuss it with people who have taken it. I pray about it. I make a decision.

For instance, after having surgery in 2006, the nurses taking care of me kept insisting I use the morphine so conveniently placed at my bedside and rigged into my veins. “Press that button,” they said again and again. But I had no pain. No pain whatsoever. So I disobeyed.

When it comes to getting through menopause, several things have helped minimize the difficulties so it does not affect my “quality of life.” There are many other ways to assure a good night’s sleep besides HRT.

The type of medicine most widely practiced these days is called “allopathic.” Did you know there are many other valid types of health practices? There’s naturopathic, homeopathic, traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism and acupuncture, to name a few.

I’m not privy to information withheld from the masses. I rely on authoritative books, articles and Web sites, along with my medical doctor and naturopathic doctor. Lots of research being done in these other health fields doesn’t make headlines.

The whole “it’s FDA approved” reasoning is like a child coming home from school and saying, “My teacher said … ” It scares me that people have that mentality, like this woman in our discussion about artificial sweeteners.

Sucralose and/or aspartame have been implicated in the cause of memory loss, dizziness, anxiety, mood changes, panic attacks, kidney and liver damage and impaired immune response. Studies conducted by manufacturers of these products produce results denying these reports. They always come out saying these products are “safe for consumers.”

However, if there’s any chance that these products can tamper with my cells in any way, then nope, they’re not for me.

Their products may be safe for consumers — nonentities whose existence is based on providing fuel for the Most Holy Economy (remember the Borg? The Matrix?) — but I am a fully-alive human soul. A person. A woman, mother, grandmother, sister, niece and cousin whose priority is to live long to love the people in my life.

And, most likely, not FDA-approved.