Fancy seeing you here

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Interesting discovery.

OH REALLY???

Comments

4 responses to “Fancy seeing you here”

  1. Peter N Avatar
    Peter N

    From the linked article — these are Gorski’s own words:

    This is a drug that doesn’t have very many uses. Perhaps the most common use is in men with metastatic prostate cancer, because prostate cancer is an androgen-dependent tumor. … Another use for Lupron is in women with estrogen-dependent conditions, such as endometriosis and uterine fibroids. One troubling side effect of its use in women is the onset of menopausal symptoms, often quite severe, a problem that sometimes causes women to stop taking it. … But we’re not talking about adults here. We’re talking about children. Are there any medically accepted uses of Lupron in children? Yes, but only one: Precocious puberty. Precocious puberty is defined as the onset of secondary sexual characteristics before 8 years old in girls and 9 years old in boys. It can be the result of tumors, central nervous system injury, or congenital anomalies. The package insert for Lupron emphasizes that children should not be treated with Lupron unless they meet the following criteria:

    — Onset of secondary sexual characteristics before age 8 in females and age 9 in males.

    — The clinical diagnosis must be confirmed by a pubertal response to GnRH (adequate secretion of LH in response to a challenge with injected GnRH) and bone age advanced at least one year beyond chronological age.

    — Baseline evaluation has to include: Height and weight measurements; sex steroid levels; adrenal steroid level to rule out congenital adrenal hyperplasia; beta-chorionic gonadotropin (beta-HCG) to rule out a beta-HCG-secreting tumor; pelvic and adrenal ultrasound to rule out a steroid-secreting tumor; and a CT of the head to rule out an intracranial tumor.

    Strangely I don’t see girls who thinks they would rather be boys on that list.

  2. Peter N Avatar
    Peter N

    Oh, I see that while I was reading, Ophelia was writing this up in a following post.

  3. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    It merits saying more than once.

  4. Dave Ricks Avatar
    Dave Ricks

    Andy Lewis collected his Twitter points and more into a blog post, The Decline and Fall of Science-based Medicine. He concluded,

    However this now unfolds, this is becoming a very damaging event for, not just the SBM blog, but for the very fight that it is right to insist medicine happens within a rational and scientific framework, where free discussion of evidence an[d] its meaning can take place.

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