Tamoxifen, Tears and Terror

by Betty Martini



Dear Editor: I read the article DRUG NEARLY HALVES BREAST CANCER. Actually, it was the Atlanta Constitution that has done such an excellent expose on Tamoxifen. Some of the titles by Jeff Nesmith of your Washington Bureau says it all:

News of cancer death-tamoxifen link delayed
Uproar over faked data slows breast cancer study (3/30/94)
Tamoxifen deaths kept in dark (4/23/94)
Breast cancer study warnings were rejected (3/19/94)

Tamoxifen, is a controversial synthetic hormone also sold in England as Nolvadex. A world best seller to the tone of $500 million a year, it's sold to women after breast surgery to prevent cancer from spreading to the other breast. Science News of March 4, l989 reported slight benefits: 9% in one study, 6% in another, but the negative effects increased by hundreds of percent!

A Swedish trial indicated a 400% increased risk of endometrial cancer for those 5 years on tamoxifen. With longer use the risk might be higher as "duration (of use) is more important than dosage" said Flora van Leeuwen of the Netherlands Cancer Institute. What she said is easy to understand: few smokers get cancer from tobacco in five years; it takes time. A five year study would probably pronounce nicotine as safe as nectarines. they want to dose us with Tamoxifen for life but only count the corpses for five years. The bottom line is that the longer you take this ""preventative" the more likely you are to die of cancer!

A March 1994 Journal of Clinical Oncology report showed that 67% of the tumors in tamoxifen users were "high-grade" compared to only 24% of endometrial cancers in other women, which works out to an 180% increase in bad tumors. For women with breast tumors who were later diagnosed with endometrial cancer the interval averaged 12 years for those who did not use Tamoxifen. This shortened to 5 years for users of the drug. Perhaps they should rename it TUMOR OFTEN!

R. J. Kedar of King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry in London studies 61 women in a tamoxifen trial and said: "Our study detected endometrial abnormalities at various times from THE FIRST TABLET OF TAMOXIFEN." The endometrium appeared abnormally thick in 24 of these women (39%) and 10 of these underwent potentially pre-cancerous changes. Science News reported that in this test only 5 of the 50 women given a placebo had an abnormal endometrium, and none showed the cell changes. The score was 10 to Zero against Tamoxifen. (Science News, June 4, 1994 - Study Reaffirms Tamoxifen's Dark Side).

Imperial Chemical Industries, with its affiliate Zeneca Group PLC got the National Cancer Institute to spring for a $68,000,000 "study" on 11,000 victims to procure a blessing on TAMOXIFEN as a "breast cancer preventative." Then Imperial cut a deal with the University of Pittsburgh to have Dr. Bernard Fisher lead the tests on healthy female volunteers. Imperial also cut a $600,000 check to the University of Pittsburgh in honor of Doc Fisher. No sense taking a chance the test results won't be good with billions$ at stake!

The tests began in 1992 without telling the women that Tamoxifen caused fatal endometrial cancer , serious eye damage and blood clots which can lead to strokes. The UP and Imperial knew this from an earlier 5 year test in which the Tamoxifen group developed 23 womb cancers while the untreated control group had only 2 such malignancies. SCORE: Tamoxifen cancer increase, 1,050%!

Imperial/Zeneca and U of P concealed these hazards from the volunteers in the 1993 test, fearing "potential negative publicity" (Let the women die!) / This is the same Zeneca that was being sued by the United States and the State of California for allegedly dumping DDT and PCBS into Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors. In June of 1993 they demerged from Imperial Chemical Industries. Zeneca also makes $300 million worth of carcinogenic herbicide called acetochlor every year. First they give us cancer with a poison, then they concoct another to treat us!

Under the headline "Uproar Over Faked Data" the Atlanta Constitution on March 30, 1994 revealed that for two years the organizers of the Tamoxifen study knew a Canadian researcher submitted fake data on more than 100 women. Included in his phony research was follow-up data on a woman who was already dead for two years. Dr. Fisher was removed from the program.

Two epidemiologists, Dr. Trudy Bush and Dr. Kathy Halzosouer, predict endometrial cancers plus other side effects; eye damage and strokes which have been ignored in the damage estimates for the test. On Dec 14, l994 Dr. Bush (University of Maryland School of Medicine), told me when I mentioned Tamoxifen has to target other organs - "I tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen". She gave me the new predictions for the study:

122 breast cancers will be avoided (hopeful guess)
84 endometrial cancers will be caused (could be more)
??? Side effects, eye damage, strokes, etc. (not considered)

If Tamoxifen creates 84 endometrial cancers in 5 years, how many more will it cause in 6 or 10 years, or a lifetime? Suppose there was a great new experimental drug for testicular cancer and the NCI funded $70 million for a test on 16,000 young men in good health. Further suppose the designers of the test predicted it would prevent 122 cases of cancer of the testicles, but would require 84 penildectomies. Additionally, an unknown number of the guys would go blind, and others would have a stroke and lose the ability to speak; but these injuries were not to be considered. How many would sign up for the test? Just imagine that by some crazy crooked contrivances this stuff got approved by the FDA as a cancer preventative; how would it sell to American males for just $1200/year.

Ever since God created Eve men have admired our breasts as enchanting symbols of feminity, beauty, motherhood, nurture and grace. Vulgar Zeneca sees them only as a crass business opportunity!

In his book INDICTED: CANCER RESEARCH, Tibor J. Hegedus PhD says: "Tamoxifen is given to women with breast cancer to block the entrance of estradiol into the tumor cells dependant upon this hormone to stimulate growth. When the hormones are blocked from reaching their primary targets, they are forced to travel to other organs." This stimulates proliferation of cells in the lining of the womb, and in certain cases Bingo: Endometrial Cancer! Dr. Hegedus says other side effects are nausea, vomiting, menstrual irregularities, vaginal bleeding, pulmonary embolism.

"Tamoxifen stimulates cell proliferation by sensitizing cells to proliferative effects of IGF-I" wrote L R Wiseman, Pathologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, in a paper on breast cancer. IGF, is a hormone designed to make things grow up, calves and babies, it also stimulates and accelerates cancer in sensitized women, those taking Tamoxifen.

One of the reasons for the uproar in Monsanto marketing the bovine growth hormone which is injected into cows is the outrageous increase in IGF (insulin growth factor) which will yield a firestorm of cancer from the milk. A chemical company is selling us a gasoline named Tamoxifen to put out the fire.

From the book MILK: THE DEADLY POISON by Robert Cohen it says: "The single most disturbing aspect of rBGH from a human safety standpoint, concerns Insulin-like Growth Factor-I (IGF-1), which is linked to breast cancer. IGF-I occurs naturally in human beings as well as cows, but rBGH injections cause substantial and sustained increases of IGF-I levels in milk says Samuels S Epstein, M.D., professor of occupational and environmental medicine at the Illinois School of Public Health. Worse yet, 'IGF-I is not destroyed by pasteurization, survives the digestive process, is absorbed into the blood and produces potent growth promoting effects," according to Epstein. He says it is highly likely that IGF-I helps transform normal breast tissue to cancerous cells, and enables malignant human breast cancer cells to invade and spread to distant organs."

Get the picture? Can you imagine anyone using both the milk and Tamoxifen!!? In l994 I wrote in an article: "Tamoxifen has been tested and retested for more than 15 years. The testers admitted fraud, many contraindications were just ignored, test results were limited in duration and after-effects not tallied, though women sickened and died from them. The tests didn't prove the stuff works, so they're doing them over again, with your money. They'll keep testing until they can figure a way to rig the results in favor of healthy women buying the poison for a disease we don't have, but the drug will give it to us!" Is that day here?

In April, l996 the World Health Organization of the United Nations formerly declared Tamoxifen a carcinogen, but Zeneca wants to market it anyway. To take a carcinogen to stop the spread the cancer is simply Russian Roulette using an automatic!

As founder of Mission Possible International, warning the world off the deadly neurotoxin aspartame (marketed as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) I am familiar with industry research. Two U.S. Prosecutors were told to indict Searle, the original manufacturer of aspartame, for fraud. (Monsanto bought Searle in l985). Both prosecutors went to work for the law firm defending the case and let the statute of limitations expire. When the District Attorney goes to work for the godfather accept acquittal. These same studies ended up approving aspartame when Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, FDA Commissioner, over-ruled his own Board of Inquiry. Then he went to work for the PR firm of the manufacturer and has refused to speak to the press ever since. The FDA report last 92 documented symptoms from four types of seizures to coma and death. No doubt more people have died from aspartame than victims in many wars.

I hope that more will be written about Tamoxifen bringing out its past coverups, the subjects in the studies who lost their lives to endometrial cancer, and other information that will prevent women from consuming a carcinogen to stop the spread of cancer.

Notwithstanding triumphs of science that benefit humanity, we must bear in mind that scientists are only human. They are not beyond temptation and corruption. Their motives are not always noble. Truly, science has its proper place in society, but it is not an infallible guiding light in an ever darkening world. Today we see so much fraud in science that consumers must now take responsibility for their own health.

Betty Martini, Founder
Mission Possible International