The drugs that are market toward woman young and old for depression, psychiatric disorders, vaccinations and hormone replacement traditionally have very short trials. I often say that the drug manufacturer use woman’s bodies and minds for profit.

Let me give you a few examples. Let’s start with one of the most profitable drugs ever market toward woman. Yes it’s birth control pills. Did you know that the only study that was done on birth control pills was done in the mid 1950’s on a hand full of woman for Puerto Rico for three months. The Woman’s Initative Study was the first study ever done on hormone replacement (HRT). I often wonder why there is so much controversy regarding bioidentical hormone replacement (BHRT) when birth control pills, made up of synthetic hormones, are one of the most profitable drugs on the planet.

Up until recent years woman were not used in clinical trails. They did their studies on men, mice and monkeys.

About four years ago I happened on a conversation with a gentleman who identified himself as the CFO of the largest drug manufacture in the world. At the time of this meeting I was in a state of outrage over the suicidal deaths of teenagers as a result of antidepressed drugs that were never tested for their use. Did you know that individuals die during clinical trails. Do you think the drug manufactures actually provide this information during their approval process. The drug manufactures are well know for not reporting adverse affects that result in their trials. Back to my conversations. When I expressed by outrage to this gentlemen he told me something that I will never forget. He told me that drugs are manufactured to be useful for the majority of the population. He told me that the manufactures know that some people won’t do well on the drugs but that as long as the majority of people do well this was just part of the business. I asked him if his teenager had died as a result of taking an antidepressant who would he feel. He did not have an answer.

Often times when a drug is approved for one thing and it’s found during the clinical trail it also has benefits for other conditions the FDA will simply do a quick approval for the new found use. This is the case with Pristiq. The billion dollar question I want answered is this. Declining levels of reproductive hormones in midlife are know to cause an wide range of symptoms from mood swings to hot flashes, to weight gain, depression and so many others so what is this antidepressant really affecting.

Did you know that if you look at that small tightly wrapped piece of paper that comes with your prescription and unravel it you will find a copy of the results of the the clinical trail for the drug. Something else you will find is that for the majority of drugs that are tested the placebo results are as good as the result that individual have taking the drugs.

My suggestion to every woman is get your hormone levels checked by a physician who has taken the time to be retrained understanding the connection between symptoms and reproductive hormone levels. You save yourself the risk of being on drugs that have hundreds of side effect and I know from my own perimenopause nightmare that once you hormones are balanced you’ll feel like a million dollars.