Apologies for cross-posting.

**For Immediate Release**

 From Women and Health Protection and the Canadian Women’s Health Network:

“Miracle Pills” for Disease Prevention an Alarming Trend, Researcher Finds
Drugs promoted to maintain health can cause disease instead.

A new study calls on the federal government to tighten regulations on drugs 
being tested and prescribed to prevent disease. “Current policies encourage 
a strategy of disease substitution, with toxic pills that can do as much 
harm as good,” says Prof. Sharon Batt, the study’s author.

“We have two recent, dramatic examples of drugs given to women to prevent 
disease which actually cause life-threatening conditions,” says Prof. Batt, 
who holds the Elizabeth May Chair of Women’s Health and the Environment at 
Dalhousie University. The hormone combination estrogen/progestin, marketed 
for over two decades to mid-life women to prevent diseases of aging, was 
recently shown to increase the risk of both heart disease and breast cancer. 
Tamoxifen, a drug used to prevent breast cancer, reduces the risk of this 
disease but causes blood clots, endometrial cancer and cataracts.

At the same time that research to develop expensive “miracle pills” is being 
avidly pursued, traditional public health safeguards -- such as clean air 
and water, safe food and drugs, adequate housing and workplace safety -- are 
quietly eroding, says the report.

Current policies assume that health risks are to be managed rather than 
reduced or eliminated. “The federal government’s risk management framework 
actually favours drugs over these proven strategies for protecting health,” 
says Prof. Batt. “The first rule of disease prevention is to put safety 
first, and that means before trade and profits.”

“The findings of this study are consistent with other research we've 
sponsored,” says Anne Rochon Ford of Women and Health Protection, which 
commissioned the study. “We need health protection legislation that ensures 
the safety of drugs and drug trials, enforcement of the ban on prescription 
drug ads and a health regulatory system that’s independent of industry.”


The report was funded by the Women’s Health Bureau, Health Canada and 
prepared by the Women and Health Protection Working Group.

To see the complete document, Preventing Disease: Are Pills the Answer? 
visit: http://www.whp-apsf.ca

For interviews, contact:
Study Author 
Prof. Sharon Batt 
Elizabeth May Chair of Women’s Health and the Environment, Dalhousie 
University 
Email: [log in to unmask] 
Phone: (902) 229-3514 
Website: http://www.whp-apsf.ca
Anne Rochon Ford 
Central Coordinator, Women and Health Protection Working Group 
Email: [log in to unmask] 
Phone: (416) 712-9459 
Website: http://www.whp-apsf.ca

Or: 
Kathleen O’Grady, Director of Communications 
Canadian Women’s Health Network 
Email: [log in to unmask] 
Phone: (514) 886-2526; Fax: (204) 989-2355 
Website: http://www.cwhn.ca

Mona Dupré-Ollinik, BSW, BA
Coordonatrice de liaison/Outreach Coordinator
Canadian Women's Health Network/Réseau canadien pour la santé des femmes
419, avenue Graham, Suite 203
Winnipeg (MB) R3C 0M3

Tel: (204) 942-5500 ext,/poste 13
Fax/Télécopieur: (204) 989-2355
Toll free/Numéro sans frais: 1-888-818-9172
www.cwhn.ca 
e-mail/courriel: [log in to unmask]

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