• +Audience
• Big Pharma Pharmaceuticals

Yes­ter­day, I was mean­de­ring through a small biking/river run­ners store, exchan­ging a vest I got my son for Christ­mas that tur­ned out to be too large, and loo­king intently for a repla­ce­ment gift he’d like.

The only other shop­per left — a tall, dark and hand­some young man. And almost as quickly, he re-entered,  approached me, and asked if that was my car out there.

“My car?” I replied. “Yes, why?”

“I’m curious about the stic­ker you have on your back win­dow,” he sta­ted with a friendly but curious smile.

The stic­ker is of Cal­vin peeing on the word of a par­ti­cu­lar T4-only medi­ca­tion.  I give these away free if someone requests it with their current order of the STTM book.  And this was not the first time I’ve been asked about that attention-getting sticker.

So I pro­cee­ded to tell him that I’m a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist, owner of Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness, about the his­tory of T4, how lousy many patients have repor­ted doing on it for nearly 60 years with their own variety and inten­sity of lin­ge­ring hypo symp­toms, and how much bet­ter natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been for patients all over the world.

I then inno­cently asked: “Are you on Synth­roid?” I just knew I had one more vic­tim of this treat­ment who nee­ded enlightenment.

“Nope”,  he said with a con­fi­dent and defiant air.  “I have until recently been a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal rep with Abbott Labs.”

THWACK.   Stan­ding before me stood a mighty well-trained Big Pharma cham­pion for Synth­roid who was going to reveal and defend his pro­pa­ganda like a mas­ter. And that led to the most hea­ted and pier­cing give-and-take I’ve ever expe­rien­ced, right in front of the cha­gri­ned and wide-eyed sales per­son at the chec­kout desk. We were like sumo wrest­lers but­ting our words against each other.

When I explai­ned the slew of con­ti­nuing symp­toms repor­ted by patients world­wide who have been on T4, and no mat­ter how high they rai­sed it…his res­ponse?  “Those symp­toms can be the result of many issues other than hypothy­roi­dism.“

I res­pon­ded: “Well isn’t it odd that those who are hypo and on Synth­roid, and who get on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, find those symp­toms com­ple­tely removed.”

His reply?? “Heroin can do the same thing”.  Groan. I simply had to laugh at him. How many times have we heard the same kind of baloney.

He pro­cee­ded to tell me in great detail with each point he made that:

1. He has wor­ked with many patients and they do well on Synth­roid (A rep has wor­ked with many patients? And what in the world does “well” mean?)
2. Cli­ni­cal trials have pro­ven that Synth­roid works. (Ah! You mean those finan­ced by Abbott Labs and which are con­trary to the repor­ted expe­rience of millions of patients around the world? Those??)
3. The TSH lab test gives proof about the effi­cacy of T4 (Funny how patients all over the world have pro­ven by their con­ti­nuing symp­toms that the TSH lab test for the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism belongs at the bot­tom of a trash heap)
4. There are many dif­fe­ren­ces in the effi­cacy of T4 brands to explain any issues in patients (Funny how not ONE brand of T4 has been exempt from lea­ving con­ti­nuing symp­toms accor­ding to the glo­bal rex­pe­rience of a huge body of patients) 
5. Bla­ming T4 for the amount of adre­nal fati­gue that “sup­po­sedly” some T4-treated patients find them­sel­ves with is silly since there can be other rea­sons for it. (Another laugh on my part.  Clearly, when someone isn’t ade­qua­tely trea­ted on T4, something has to kick in to keep them going, and voila – it’s those trusty dusty adre­nals which even­tually just poop out thanks to T4 and the TSH.)

There were much more machine gun stan­ces bet­ween us, but that would make this blog post far too long.

One truth we did agree on? That “some” patients do get bene­fit from using T4. He spe­ci­fi­cally refe­rred to the elderly. And my quick res­ponse? Why accept “some” when patients all over the world report get­ting rid of that “some” with desic­ca­ted thy­roid (and espe­cially for cer­tain ones who also treat their low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, and other issues most likely rela­ted to an infe­rior treatment.)

Clearly, we were each dead­loc­ked in our posi­tions.  And he conc­lu­ded, loo­king at the sales asso­ciate, that neither of us were wrong; we just repre­sen­ted two sides.

And I tur­ned my head, loo­ked him straight in the eye, and said:  Uhhh, no. YOU are com­ple­tely and totally wrong.

P.S. After he left, the sales gal said she was totally in tune with what I was saying, and wrote down the name of this web­site. lol lol

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See the blog post below about favo­red Cana­dian phar­ma­cies, plus many more com­ments by patients.

What the heck is going on with desic­ca­ted thy­roid and current shor­ta­ges? Read about it here.

I have been watching with inte­rest the past week about the jus­ti­fied ire of patients being expres­sed all over patient groups in the inter­net. And in case you’ve been too busy with school star­ting or end-of-summer acti­vi­ties, it invol­ves one of the nation’s lar­gest mail order phar­ma­cies as well as the lar­gest Phar­macy Bene­fits Mana­ger (PBM):  Medco.

In a sta­te­ment you can read right on their web­site, they state:

1)  there is a “nation­wide shor­tage of porcine-derived desic­ca­ted thy­roid“
2)  they are “uncer­tain about con­ti­nued avai­la­bi­lity.“
3)  “ask your doc­tor if a synthe­tic thy­roid medi­ca­tion, such as levothy­ro­xine is right for you.”

In Medco’s direct mes­sage to doc­tors, they state;

1)  desic­ca­ted thy­roid does not have the U.S. Food and Drug Admi­nis­tra­tion (FDA)  Fede­ral Drug appro­val“
2)  the FDA  “may remove any remai­ning unap­pro­ved pro­ducts from the mar­ket.“
3)  the shor­tage is due to this “uncer­tainty”.
4) “the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist recom­mends levothy­ro­xine over desicc­ca­ted thy­roid, lio­trix, com­bi­na­tion of thy­roid hor­mone, or triio­dothy­ro­nine (T3) for the treat­ment of hypothyroidism.”

Cla­ri­fi­ca­tion on their statements

If you are just now fin­ding out about this,  do note the following:

1) There is not a nation­wide shor­tage of all desic­ca­ted thy­roid. There is a shor­tage of Armour because of its 2009 refor­mu­la­tion. (See my blog posts below about pro­blems with the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour.)
2) Natu­reth­roid by RLC Labs con­ti­nues to be avai­la­ble. They are wor­king hard to keep up.  See my post on Natu­reth­roid.
3) Desic­ca­ted thy­roid was around long before the esta­blish­ment of the FDA, so they are grand­fathe­red in and still work with the FDA gui­de­li­nes.
4) There has been no sta­te­ments by the FDA that they are remo­ving desic­ca­ted thyroid.

An even more impor­tant reve­la­tion in this entire Medco scandal

There is actually an underl­ying mes­sage in the entire Medco fiasco that you should find even MORE dis­tur­bing: the con­ti­nued  pro­mo­tion of T4, aka levoth­ro­xine, as an ade­quate treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism.  And this is not just a faux pas of Medco, it con­ti­nues to be the igno­rant opi­nion of far too many doc­tors, medi­cal schools and medi­cal boards. All you have to do is look at what has hap­pe­ned in the UK with the Royal College of Phy­si­cians to see the idiocy abounding.

Over 100 years ago, desic­ca­ted thy­roid was found to be an exce­llent treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism.  I give pre­cise details about the first use of desic­ca­ted thy­roid in Chap­ter 2 in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book. It worked!

But in the early 1960’s, the tide tur­ned thanks to a batch of desic­ca­ted thy­roid that tur­ned out not to be what it said it was.  This is docu­men­ted in the 1970 Phar­ma­co­lo­gi­cal Basis of The­ra­peu­tics.  And phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, espe­cially  Knoll Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals who first table­ted levothy­ro­xine aka Synth­roid in 1955,  jum­ped to pro­mote T4-only as a “new and modern medi­ca­tion”.  (See page 41 and 42 in the STTM book).  And doc­tors and medi­cal schools fell for it hook, line and sinker.

And to this day, levothy­ro­xine con­ti­nues to be pur­por­ted as an accep­ta­ble and logi­cal treat­ment choice for hypothy­roi­dism.  But patients all over the world beg to dif­fer.  T4 medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine and others simply leave all patients with their own uni­que amount and degree of lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms, no mat­ter how high you raise it.

I also find it hugely dis­tur­bing to refer to AACE (Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of  Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists) as if they are the grand poo­pah of kno­wing what’s right for thy­roid patients. They are NOT.  Millions of thy­roid patients who have switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid, T3, or a combo of T4 and T3 will tell them hands-down that they have got­ten FAR bet­ter results, and most espe­cially with desic­ca­ted thy­roid like the “old” Armour, and now Naturethroid.

Visi­ting nume­rous thy­roid patient groups will reveal how patients feel about Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists they have visi­ted throughout the years.  Their expe­rien­ces are far from flat­te­ring. In other words, with a few excep­tions, thy­roid patients are NOT impres­sed with Endo’s.

Medco’s sta­te­ments are defi­ni­tely a con­cern for patients and range from pre­sump­tous to unfac­tual.  But those sta­te­ments only repre­sent a far wider pro­blem around the world in the medi­cal com­mu­nity.  Cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion and wis­dom has been thrown out the win­dow by doc­tors.  So patients have to con­ti­nue sprea­ding the word about the far supe­rior treat­ment of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and their pro­ble­ma­tic expe­rience with T4.

Want to be infor­med of these posts so YOU can be infor­med? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left at the bot­tom of the links.

***50% off sale!! All STTM t-shirts are now on sale. I love sales. Not only do they help sup­port this site, they are a great way to spread the word. Go here.   Did you know that Laughing Grape Publishing will send a STTM book directly to your doc­tor?

Nume­rous and ongoing com­ments to my blog posts below about the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour are shoc­king and despairing.

Addi­tio­nally, thy­roid patients are crying out about the loss of being able to do Armour sublin­gually. (Was Forest Labs not paying one hoot of atten­tion to thy­roid patients the last few years in their praise of Armour because of it’s sublin­gual effec­ti­ve­ness??) Sublin­gual admi­nis­tra­tion was a god­send for thy­roid patients who had diges­tive issues, inc­lu­ding glu­ten into­le­rance and Celiac, as well as those who nee­ded to take iron tablets (which you can’t do at the same time as you swa­llow desic­ca­ted thy­roid, but could do with taking Armour subingually)

So how in the world did Forest Labs get away with refor­mu­la­ting and pro­du­cing a pro­duct that so many patients are repor­ting to be problematic?

It’s not FDA appro­ved. As many of you may know, Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid, even when it was pro­du­ced by a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal other than Forest Labs, was around far before the FDA (Fede­ral Drug Admi­nis­tra­tion) came into being in 1938.  That’s why it does not have the desig­na­tion of  “FDA appro­ved” as do those drugs which were crea­ted after the FDA exis­ted. It’s called an unap­pro­ved drug, but Armour was pre­su­med to be safe and effec­tive already.

From the FDA: Under the 1938 grand­father clause (see 21 U.S.C. 321℗(1)), a drug pro­duct that was on the mar­ket prior to pas­sage of the 1938 Act and which con­tai­ned in its labe­ling the same repre­sen­ta­tions con­cer­ning the con­di­tions of use as it did prior to pas­sage of that Act was not con­si­de­red a new drug and the­re­fore was exempt from the requi­re­ment of having an appro­ved new drug application.

Because it’s not “FDA-approved”, it does not have an NDA, aka New Drug Appli­ca­tion. An NDA is used by the FDA to esta­blish if the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­duct is safe,  EFFECTIVE, more bene­fi­cial than side effects, and has in-house  “con­trols” which main­tain the qua­lity, strength and purity of the pro­duct. (Thanks to “Ben” the phar­ma­cist for remin­ding me of this.)

So…without that NDA, Forest Labs is, and has been, on their own, inc­lu­ding with the latest intro­duc­tion of a newly for­mu­la­ted Armour. So you might say, WE as patients were the gui­nea pigs.  And sadly, we’ve been squea­ling and it’s a muddy picture.

The most impor­tant fact to state: USP (Uni­ted Sta­tes Phar­ma­co­peia) desic­ca­ted thy­roid is an effec­tive and impor­tant drug which is chan­ging the lives of a huge and gro­wing body of indi­vi­duals around the world. That was evi­dent before Armour was refor­mu­la­ted, and is still evi­dent with pro­ducts like Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid, which many patients are switching to.  See my blog post about Natu­reth­roid here, plus RLC Labs com­ment about Natu­reth­roid here.

But something has gone terribly wrong with the refor­mu­la­tion of Armour, and patients appear to be lea­ving it behind in the dust in favor of another great and effec­tive brand like Natu­reth­roid. And whether it’s the fillers are not, Forest needs to take a new look at their refor­mu­la­tion of what was once a GOOD pro­duct, and hope­fully this time, LISTEN TO PATIENTS.

*Want to be infor­med of these impor­tant blog posts? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions to the left and below the links.

*SALE! Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness T-shirts are now 50% off just because I like sales. A great way to spread the word about our patient revo­lu­tion for the supe­rio­rity of desic­ca­ted thy­roid over T4-only meds. You’ll also see funny bum­per stic­kers. Also…when you order the STTM book and request it (i.e. you have to request it),  you get a Cal­vin peeing on….(you’ll see) bum­per stic­ker for FREE, and it’s a hoot.

In 2002, when I first got on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and it abso­lu­tely chan­ged my life, it hap­pe­ned to be the brand name called Armour by Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.  And I swoo­ned.  You could do it sublin­gually (even if it wasn’t made that way), and I prai­sed Armour for that. So did other patients after we spread the word on patient groups, on the STTM web­site and in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.

My fond­ness for Armour did not take away my prai­ses for other presc­rip­tion brands, though, inc­lu­ding Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid by RLC Labs.  I simply made a doe-eyed com­mit­ment to Armour for my per­so­nal treat­ment because you could do it sublin­gually. I have also used the name “Armour” interchan­geably to repre­sent all good desic­ca­ted thy­roid products.

But because of a suc­ces­sion of three events, I think it’s time to give back my going-steady ring.

The first blow to my romance with Armour cen­te­red around the extreme tight-lipped sec­recy from Forest when the refor­mu­la­tion of Armour began. We can sur­mise the trou­ble begin in 2007 when patients were fin­ding Armour in the lar­ger sizes to be sud­denly inef­fec­tive.  For the entire year of 2008, sup­plies were extre­mely limi­ted and only the one grain size or lower could be found, if at all.  Patients were worried and unhappy.  I even sup­por­ted Forest in my blog posts, assu­ring patients that everything would be fine.  But Forest said prac­ti­cally nothing. Why was and is Forest mum about why this was happening ?

The second blow to our courtship was the change to the “refor­mu­la­ted” Armour. Sud­denly, patients find that doing Armour sublin­gually was a thing of the past. Now all we get is a never-ending chalky pasty resi­due.  Addi­tio­nally, many patients have been repor­ting that the amount of Armour that once remo­ved all symp­toms, was now brin­ging them back.  Huh?? In spite of an appa­rent draw­back in some batches in 2007, why would Forest take an effec­tive pro­duct and change it?

And the third and final straw to my affair of the heart? I made a phone call to Forest using the same 800 num­ber you all can use. That was Tues­day, May 5^th. My intent was to ask about the word anhy­drous which is now after the ingre­dient dex­trose in the Armour ingre­dients lis­ting. (It means that all mois­ture has been with­drawn, but I wan­ted to con­firm the details for the brands page.)  When I reached the repre­sen­ta­tive for Forest, and after she asked my name and I gave it (oops),  the tune of the con­ver­sa­tion chan­ged.  She said she could not ans­wer my ques­tion since I own a public web­site, and would have to inform the “Media group” from Forest, and they would call me back. When I asked when, the ans­wer was a vague as Synth­roid is in trea­ting hypothy­roi­dism i.e. she didn’t know. I even called back the next day to get the same drib­ble.   Why have repre­sen­ta­ti­ves on the Forest hot­line been ins­truc­ted not to ans­wer a sim­ple ques­tion from someone like myself,  and I still have not recei­ved a phone call from Forest?

Sob.  Yup, brea­king up is hard to do, but a gal can only take so much strange betra­yal, tight-lipped silence…and igno­ring a sim­ple ques­tion from someone who has done a LOT to put money in their poc­kets out of extreme gra­ti­tude. Besi­des, there’s another phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal cour­ting me at my door:  RLC Labs. Thank good­ness there are other fish in the sea.

(Want to be noti­fied of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use Noti­fi­xious to be infor­med. Look on the bot­tom left of the links where you can sign up. )

Recently, after we watched a semi-scary movie about being suc­ke­red, a friend brought up my blog post of last July where I desc­ri­bed a terrifyingly-real horror movie.

The plot: stun­ningly con­vince hun­dreds of millions of indi­vi­duals world­wide that what is obvious, isn’t. i.e. it’s all in your head, you are ade­qua­tely trea­ted on Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Nor­ton, et al,  and not only that, we’ll ban­daid your con­ti­nuing pro­blems with more medi­ca­tions.

A second plot: also com­ple­tely hood­wink those with top notch higher medi­cal edu­ca­tions and expe­rience by chur­ning out the the exact same poppy­cock, and reward their stu­pi­dity with gifts.

The cen­tral villian: Big Pharma, follo­wed by the doc­tors who bought the lie

Exactly a year ago this month, Science Daily came out with an article, citing two York Uni­ver­sity researchers who esti­ma­ted that the U.S. phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry spends almost twice as much on pro­mo­tion as it does on research and deve­lop­ment, con­trary to the industry’s claim. In other words, the researchers esti­ma­ted that $57.5 billion in US dollars was spent on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­mo­tion in 2004 – the year they were stud­ying. Yes, I said BILLION.

Brea­king that down, Big Pharma spent appro­xi­ma­tely $61,000 per phy­si­cian in pro­mo­tion of their pro­ducts.  And they conc­lu­ded that both figu­res were UNDE­Res­ti­ma­tes.  In other words, they conc­lu­ded that the US phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry is marketing-driven rather than “life-saving”.

And adding fuel to the fire: most doc­tors believe every thrust of that mar­ke­ting. I recently par­ti­ci­pa­ted in com­ments with other won­der­ful patients in res­ponse to a DO/Endocrinologist, Dr. Tho­mas Repas, who has clearly bought the Big Pharma mar­ke­ting when it comes to levothy­ro­xine. You can read his posts and our com­ments here, here, and here.   Dr. Repas is exactly the kind of doc­tor who has  sta­rred in our horror movie, and the kind of doc­tor that patients have lamen­ted about for years.  Read the  Give Me a Break list of com­ments made by doc­tors, as well as further com­ments on the January 1^st blog.

But Dr. Repas is in good com­pany. Doc­tors have belie­ved the Big Pharma lie about T4-only medi­ca­tions, and against desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid, etc. for 50 years.  In the patient-to-patient  Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, you can read about the first table­ting of Synth­roid in 1955 and the stra­te­gic and suc­cess­ful pro­mo­tion of T4-only, in spite of the fact that T4 was known to be uns­ta­ble for decades.

And today, more than 50 years later, very few of us have been untouched by the Big Pharma push for levothy­ro­xine T4-only treat­ment.  My own mother was suc­ke­red, and I was suc­ke­red.  And until patients star­ted to make a huge push for desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment the last few years, nearly every sin­gle doc­tor around the world had been suckered.

We still have a way to go. But we’ll get there, bit by bit.