By Devra Davis, PhD, MPH

Review by Leslie Botha, Holy Hormones Honey!

In a recent interview on CSPAN Davis stated, “For much of its history, the cancer war has been fighting the wrong battles, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies.”

The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Dr. Devra Davis shows, decade by decade, how the campaign has targeted the disease and left off the table the things that cause it—tobacco, alcohol, the workplace, and other environmental hazards. Conceived in explicitly military terms, the effort has focused on defeating an enemy by detecting, treating, and curing disease. Overlooked and suppressed was any consideration of how the world in which we live and work affects whether we get cancer. The result is appalling: over 10 million preventable cancer deaths over the past thirty years.

This has been no accident.

With each page of Davis’ carefully crafted book, readers will become more conscious of the obvious issues that have been ignored or marginalized and appalled by the attitude and actions of America’s medical profession, the American Cancer Society, the petrochemical industry and, “our” government. Many of us concerned with the health and wellness of women and girls knew something just wasn’t right; but Dr. Davis’s book moves us from inkling to awareness.

Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information. The Secret History of the War on Cancer is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain. It carefully documents how, over time, the “WAR” on Cancer has come to be orchestrated by the leaders of those industries that made cancer-causing products, and who sometimes profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease.

Davis, driven by the conviction, writes with passion about premature deaths, and preventable illnesses resulting from exposure to industrial toxins and presents a powerful call to action. In the book she proposes a kind of truth-and-reconciliation approach to get industry and public health experts mutually involved; but notes that, based on the continued loss of life, change is simply not happening fast enough.

Among the Findings Described in The Secret History of the War on Cancer

— As early as 1936, the world’s leading cancer scientists understood that tobacco, diagnostic and solar radiation, benzene, and hormones caused cancer. The preparation and conduct of World War II with its focus on immediate survival effectively sidetracked these early findings of cancer hazards.

— Many more young people (those under 40 years of age) are getting cancer. One of the reasons may be the excessive use of x-rays in infants and children, and our failures to reduce exposures to other cancer hazards like those in urban air or agents that can leach from some plastics. Earlier this year, the American College of Radiology advised against unnecessary and excessive use of CT and other forms of diagnostic radiation in children, warning that this will further add to the growing cancer burden in young people today.

— When first reports emerged that coke oven workers had higher rates of lung cancer in the 1970s, some suggested that this was because most of them were black. Not until similar findings showed up in white Mormon workers five years later, was the link between coke oven work and lung cancer established. While one in eight Americans today is black, one in three works in a blue collar job, and one in five lives within two miles of a hazardous waste site. This increased environmental burden has never been considered when trying to understand why rates of prostate, breast, and colo-rectal cancer are so much higher in blacks than whites.

— Davis cited women chemist in Shanghai had a 14% increased incidence of breast cancer; chemists around the world also have a higher rate of cancer – due to poor protection in the laboratory.

— The life-saving test for cervix cancer, called the Pap smear, was not put into use for more than a decade after it was shown to save lives, because of fears that it would undermine the private practice of medicine. These delays led to the deaths or unnecessary surgery of millions of women, who succumbed to an illness that could have been avoided.

— Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease and was concerned about infectious disease. His dying words were; “remember the host; remember the host conditions” – in reference to milkmaids and their carrying infectious germs – without necessarily becoming ill from them.

— Old approach to curing cancer came out of WWII and the poison Gas Therapy

Leukemia – over abundance of white blood cells (weiss blut) chemotherapy was developed as a poison gas to fight the cells and was developed as secret army research.

—New paradigm of treating cancer includes boosting the immune system and the development of extracts from broccoli, chocolate and red wine to fight what many are coming to believe are cancers that are viral in nature.

Concerning Hormones and Cancer…

Davis reintroduces Barbara Seaman’s 1969 book, The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill, which was the basis for the Nelson Pill Hearings on the safety of the combined oral contraceptive pill. As a result of the hearings, a health warning was added to the pill, the first informational insert for any prescription drug. Robert Finch, Secretary of HEW, wrote Seaman “… THE DOCTORS’ CASE AGAINST THE PILL… was a major factor in our strengthening the language in the final warning published in the Federal Register to be included in each package of the Pill.” The dramatic events surrounding the hearings also brought together many soon-to-be prominent health feminists for the first time, and encouraged them to pursue further action. In 1975 Seaman co-founded the National Women’s Health Network with Alice Wolfson, Belita Cowan, Mary Howell, M.D., and Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. According to Davis – we should have listened to Barbara’s warning thirty years ago. Dr Seaman is now celebrated in the same medical circles that blackballed her then. The government has finally confirmed that her warning about synthetic estrogen was correct.

— Davis cites studies showing HRT raises the risk of breast cancer, blood clots, heart attacks and dementia.

— About HPV …it is a factor in not just cervical cancer, but laryngeal and an anal — however the vaccine has not been fully tested as an agent against infectious disease.

—Questionable HPV Trail Methodology — Less than 20,000 girls between the ages of 15 – 25 were tested, and yet the CDC recommends the vaccine for girls as young as 11 and 12. Davis raised the question of what about the boys? And noted that two of three sexual encounters for teens less than 18 yrs old ARE NOT CONSENTUAL.

What People Are Saying

“A breathtaking, impeccably documented wake-up call for what we should have done and what we must do!”

— Teresa Heinz Kerry, co-author of This Moment on Earth

“With the mastery of a great writer, Devra Davis takes the reader inside the successes, the failures, and the ambiguity of research on cancer.”

— Lorenzo Tomatis, MD, Former Director,

International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization

“The Secret History of the War on Cancer is a masterful combination of scientific insights and investigative journalism. If you want to know why one in three Americans develops cancer, read this book.”

—Mitchell Gaynor, MD, President, Gaynor Integrative Oncology

About the Author

Devra Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Professor of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health. She was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in 1994 and also served as Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Science. She works in Pittsburgh, and lives in Washington, D.C.

A portion of the profits from this book will go to support research on cancer prevention.

OK! OK! I’ve read it NOW WHAT!

This book is a timely, well-written, and stunning exposé — Share It.

• Request your local library ordered a copy of the book.
• If your local bookstore is not carrying the book, request that they order it.
• Start a reading group based at your local bookstore.
• Request that your local high school and college libraries order the book. If they don’t have the budget, buy it your self and donate the book to the library (Donations are a tax deductible action)
• Buy and send a copy to our congressional representative, and ask what he/she plans to do to stop the uncontrolled use and dumping of toxins into our environment and to protect the health of people who what to work with or around these chemicals and environmental toxins.
• Talk to your friends and family about the book and what it means to their health.

Inconvenient Women do not get Angry — We Get ACTIVE!

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Women who take combined hormone therapy for about five years have a higher risk of abnormal mammograms and breast biopsies.

This, in turn, may decrease the effectiveness of these methods of detecting breast cancer, according to a new study published in the Feb. 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Women need to be aware of the risks, and it’s not just risk of increased breast cancer. It’s a risk of possibly having abnormal mammograms and really being tortured by them,” said Dr. Kristin Byrne, chief of breast imaging at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved with the study. “It’s a whole slew of things they need to be aware of before making a decision to go on hormone therapy.”

Study lead author Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, a medical oncologist with the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said that for women with severe menopausal symptoms, the new findings “won’t be an issue.”

“It [hormone-replacement therapy] is safer than we thought maybe a year and a half ago,” he said. “Certainly, no one is going to brush off a breast biopsy. But for women trying to decide whether to start on hormone therapy or who want to see if their symptoms get better, they have to think about whether they would mind having a call back” for a mammogram.

The landmark Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study found that combined estrogen plus progestin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) increased the risk of breast cancer. One recent study indicated that the risk was greater for lobular breast cancer than ductal carcinoma malignancy.

Since 2003, there has been a decline in breast cancer incidence that coincided with a decline in HRT use for menopausal symptoms. Nevertheless, Chlebowski pointed out, “a lot of people are still using hormone therapy.”

For the new study, the authors looked at 16,608 women who participated in the WHI from 1993 to 1998. The women were randomly assigned to receive combined hormone replacement therapy (estrogen plus progesterone) or a placebo.

Mammograms and breast exams were conducted annually and biopsies performed, if indicated.

More than one in 10 women had otherwise avoidable mammogram abnormalities (an increase of 11 percent), while one out of 25 women had otherwise avoidable breast biopsies (an increase of 4 percent), after taking the hormone therapy for five years.

Ten percent of women in the HRT group had to have a biopsy, compared to 6.1 percent in the placebo group. Yet the biopsies only detected 14.8 percent of cancers in the HRT group, compared with 19.6 percent in the placebo group.

“Your breasts become denser [with HRT], and we all know that mammography isn’t as sensitive for the detection of breast cancer in women with dense breasts,” Byrne explained.

The increase in abnormal mammograms persisted for at least 12 months even after discontinuing hormone therapy, the study found.

For the medical community, Chlebowski said, this finding “focuses attention that diagnosis is hindered. We have additional imaging modalities, and maybe we should evaluate them to see if we can get rid of this hindrance or delay in diagnosis. It hasn’t been a factor for attention before, but it probably should be.”

Chlebowski has consulted for several pharmaceutical companies.

A prepared statement from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which makes the hormonal product Prempro, said: “While the [study] authors report a link between an increase in abnormal mammograms and breast density among women taking combined estrogen plus progestin, this does not mean they are at an increased risk for breast cancer.

“The data used in this sub-analysis were taken from the combined estrogen plus progestin database of the WHI study and does not reflect the experience of the majority of women taking hormone therapy — those who take estrogen-alone,” the statement concluded.

Sources: Forbes.com

The Women’s Health Initiative —  U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Increased risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes and invasive breast cancer — and reduced risk for fractures and colorectal cancer — did not persist after women discontinued HT.

In the summer of 2002, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) randomized trial of estrogen plus progestin was stopped after the WHI writing group concluded that the results showed more risk than benefit: An increased risk for venous thromboembolism and modestly increased risks for stroke, cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD), and invasive breast cancer outweighed the reduced risks for fractures and colorectal cancer. In this latest update, WHI investigators report on outcomes 3 years after study medication (estrogen-plus-progestin hormone therapy or placebo) was halted.

In contrast to findings at the time study medication was discontinued, no increased risk for thrombosis, CHD, or stroke was observed during the subsequent 3 years in women who had received HT; furthermore, neither a statistically significant increased risk for invasive breast cancer nor reduced risk for fractures or colorectal malignancies was seen. The global risk index for the entire 8 years of follow-up (hazard ratio, 1.12; 95% confidence interval, 1.03–1.21), elevated at the time the trial was stopped, was noted to be 1.11 (95% CI, 0.99–1.27) during the post-discontinuation years of observation. The all-cause death rate was higher during the post-discontinuation follow-up than during the overall follow-up, although this difference was not statistically significant (HR, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.95–1.39 and HR, 1.04; 95% CI, 0.91–1.18, respectively). Three years after randomized trial discontinuation, the risk for diagnosis of any cancer was modestly higher than during the active trial in those women who had been assigned to HT versus those who received placebo (HR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.04–1.48). The authors noted that the increased cancer incidence in women previously assigned to HT seemed to reflect a higher risk for diagnosis of cancers other than those prespecified as outcomes (in particular, lung malignancies).

Comment: The observation that increased risks for adverse cardiovascular outcomes or invasive breast cancer and prevention of fractures and colorectal cancer all did not persist after women discontinued HT represents a notable take-home message from this follow-up analysis of WHI participants. Recent WHI reports have suggested that HT, particularly estrogen-only therapy, might be associated with a lower risk for CHD in recently menopausal women and menopausal women in their 50s (Journal Watch Women’s Health May 3 2007 and Jun 21 2007). Accordingly, we await with interest the age-specific follow-up analyses of both the estrogen-plus-progestin and the estrogen-alone WHI clinical trials focusing on cardiovascular outcomes. At the same time, the overall increase in risk for malignancies calls for continued surveillance after estrogen-plus-progestin HT is stopped.

Source:     Andrew M. Kaunitz, MD

                    Published in Journal Watch Women’s Health March 4, 2008

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Gerardo Heiss, MD; Robert Wallace, MD; Garnet L. Anderson, PhD; Aaron Aragaki, MS; Shirley A. A. Beresford, PhD; Robert Brzyski, MD; Rowan T. Chlebowski, MD; Margery Gass, MD; Andrea LaCroix, PhD; JoAnn E. Manson, MD; Ross L. Prentice, PhD; Jacques Rossouw, MD; Marcia L. Stefanick, PhD; for the WHI Investigators

JAMA. 2008;299(9):1036-1045.

Context The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial of estrogen plus progestin vs placebo was stopped early, after a mean 5.6 years of follow-up, because the overall health risks of hormone therapy exceeded its benefits.

Objective To report health outcomes at 3 years (mean 2.4 years of follow-up) after the intervention was stopped.

Design, Setting, and Participants The intervention phase was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial of conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) 0.625 mg daily plus medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) 2.5 mg daily, in 16 608 women aged 50 through 79 years, recruited by 40 centers from 1993 to 1998. The postintervention phase commenced July 8, 2002, and included 15 730 women.

Main Outcome Measures Semi-annual monitoring and outcomes ascertainment continued per trial protocol. The primary end points were coronary heart disease and invasive breast cancer. A global index summarizing the balance of risks and benefits included the 2 primary end points plus stroke, pulmonary embolism, endometrial cancer, colorectal cancer, hip fracture, and death due to other causes.

Results The risk of cardiovascular events after the intervention was comparable by initial randomized assignments, 1.97% (annualized rate) in the CEE plus MPA (343 events) and 1.91% in the placebo group (323 events). A greater risk of malignancies occurred in the CEE plus MPA than in the placebo group (1.56% [n = 281] vs 1.26% [n = 218]; hazard ratio [HR], 1.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.48). More breast cancers were diagnosed in women who had been randomly assigned to receive CEE plus MPA vs placebo (0.42% [n = 79] vs 0.33% [n = 60]; HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 0.91-1.78) with a modest trend toward a lower HR during the follow-up after the intervention. All-cause mortality was somewhat higher in the CEE plus MPA than in the placebo group (1.20% [n = 233] vs 1.06% [n = 196]; HR, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.95-1.39). The global index of risks and benefits was unchanged from randomization through March 31, 2005 (HR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.03-1.21), indicating that the risks of CEE plus MPA exceed the benefits for chronic disease prevention.

Conclusions The increased cardiovascular risks in the women assigned to CEE plus MPA during the intervention period were not observed after the intervention. A greater risk of fatal and nonfatal malignancies occurred after the intervention in the CEE plus MPA group and the global risk index was 12% higher in women randomly assigned to receive CEE plus MPA compared with placebo.

Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00000611

Author Affiliations: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Dr Heiss); University of Iowa, Iowa City (Dr Wallace); Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington (Drs Anderson, Beresford, LaCroix, Prentice, and Mr Aragaki); University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio (Dr Brzyski); Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California (Dr Chlebowski); University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio (Dr Gass); Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (Dr Manson); National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland (Dr Rossouw); and Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford, California (Dr Stefanick).

Source: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/299/9/1036

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

”What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?”

Hey if a Camel® is good enough Doctors, surely cigarette smoke is safe?

Right! Who would question a doctor back in the golden days of black and white TV?

Western Medicine has a long and completely unapologetic history of being wrong. The are better ways of handling symptomatic behavior than ingesting chemicals a group a guys “think” won’t cause you harm.

”What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?”

The following is a summary of an article that appeared on www.medscape.com.

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) has released a statement on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and cardiovascular risk, emphasizing that HRT does not appear harmful in younger women in early menopause and may indeed be beneficial in this group [1]. “With this in mind, and given the powerful effects of estrogen therapy in relieving menopausal symptoms, we believe that physicians may safely counsel women to use estrogen for the relief of menopausal symptoms. Each patient should be evaluated for the severity of her symptoms, her age, and specific risk factors that might impact on her use of hormonal therapy,” the statement concludes.One of the authors of the statement, past AACE president Dr Rhoda Cobin (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York), told ‘Heartwire’ that a review of all the available evidence suggests that younger women who are close to menopause have less to fear from HRT than older women in terms of cardiovascular risk. “We think the data offer some reassurance to women close to the menopause, with the suggestion that estrogen supplementation may even protect against heart disease in these younger women. And even if it is not protective, it doesn’t appear to be harmful so can probably be used safely to treat menopausal symptoms. There does appear to be a window of opportunity for use of estrogen.”

She added: “After all the negative publicity from the HRT trials, physicians are now fearful of prescribing estrogen at all. But we believe there are advantages and disadvantages to such treatment and that cardiovascular risk in particular is not the same for everyone. Each woman should be considered individually, and many factors should be taken into account when thinking about prescribing HRT. These include age, time from menopause, other cardiovascular and thrombotic risks, and menopausal symptoms.

“The evidence is particularly reassuring for estrogen-only therapy, which has not been associated with increases of either cardiovascular disease or breast cancer in younger women. So for women who have had an early hysterectomy and therefore do not have to have progesterone, they should not be deprived of estrogen replacement therapy,” Cobin commented.

The AACE statement notes that in animal studies, estrogen is effective in inhibiting progression of early-stage atherosclerosis but it is much less effective in inhibiting progression of more advanced atherosclerosis in older animals. After these observations, data from the major HRT studies were reexamined to determine the effect of treatment on cardiovascular risk when stratified by age or time from menopause.

The reevaluation of the Nurses’ Health Study found that women beginning hormone therapy near menopause had a significantly reduced risk of CHD (RR=0.66 for estrogen alone; RR=0.72 for estrogen with progestin). A recent meta-analysis of 23 trials of HRT that compared results in younger women (younger than 60 or less than 10 years since menopause) vs older women showed that HRT significantly reduced CHD events in the former (OR 0.68) but not in the latter (OR 1.03). And in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial, when stratified by time since menopause, the hazard ratios for CHD were 0.76 in the women fewer than 10 years from the onset of menopause, 1.1 in those 10 to 19 years from onset of menopause, and 1.28 in those women more than 20 years from onset of menopause. By age, the hazard ratios for cardiovascular disease were 0.93 for ages 50 to 59, 0.98 for ages 60 to 69, and 1.26 for ages 70 to 79.

The AACE statement notes that further data on HRT in younger women will come from the Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study (KEEPS), which is evaluating five years of HRT vs placebo in 720 women aged 42 to 58 years within 36 months of final menstrual period. The end points will include prevention of progression of carotid intimal medial thickness and accrual of coronary calcium, but results will not be available for several years.

Sources: American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, Press Release January 2, 2008, “AACE Analysis shows no excess cardiovascular risk from hormone replacement therapy for most patients”

Sue Hughes, January 7, 2008 Heartwire.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Women on hormone replacement therapy have a 20 per cent higher risk of dying from ovarian cancer, says a new report.

The research, from the authoritative Million Women study, suggests that as many as 1,000 women may have died from ovarian cancer between 1991 and 2005, partly because they were using HRT.

But health experts say that current advice will not change and that women using HRT should do so for the shortest possible time.

For millions of women it was a liberating treatment. HRT banished hot flushes, fatigue, mood swings, night sweats and many other symptoms of the menopause.

In recent years, though, health scares about hormone replacement therapy put many women off taking it.

Now new research suggests that in some cases using HRT can be fatal.

There has been a series of health scares associated with HRT -

• In 2002 an American study found it increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer.
• In 2003 British research concluded that using HRT over 10 years doubled the risk of breast cancer.
• In April 2007 a new American study revealed that there was NO increased risk of a heart attack in women in their 50s.

The study found that women on it have a 20 per cent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer, as well as an increased risk of dying.

And there’s a 63 per cent higher combined risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers.

The study concludes that 1,000 extra British women died between 1991 and 2005.

“What concerns me is they’re extending the period of the research from five years to 14 years, and claiming that a thousand woman would die over that time. This is really replacing science with sensationalism.”

—John Stevenson, Women’s Health Concern

The alarming findings are already causing controversy among medical experts, some questioning the science behind them.

The confusion over whether HRT is safe has seen the number of women using it fall dramatically, from two million in 2001 to one million four years later.

The British Menopause Society and the Women’s Health Initiative are just two organisations who have in the past condemned contradictory statistics put out by American researchers.

If the latest research is correct, it means that in Britain one woman in every 2,500 taking HRT will develop ovarian cancer.

But with so many conflicting messages, many women will remain unsure as to whether they should continue or even begin treatment.

Posted With Permission —

Source: By: Bridgid Nzekwu, TV Channel 4, PO Box 1058, Belfast Ireland, BT1 9DU

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Once again, Leslie Botha has been proven to be an accurate soothsayer. In her radio program, on her website and in her seminars, Leslie has pointed out that, Big Pharma is mirroring the successful marketing strategies of the American Cigarette Industry — lure the young with misinformation and the promise of sophistication without personal price.

The “Pill Pimp” behind Fewerperiods.com is Duramed Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

On thier “helpful, informational site, Fewerperiods.com, there is the following set of warnings:

“Birth control pills have serious risks, which can be life threatening. They include blood clots, stroke, and heart attack. Smoking increases these risks, especially if you are over 35, so Pill users should not smoke. Common side effects include nausea, vomiting, weight gain, breast tenderness, and difficulty wearing contact lenses.

Some women should not take the Pill, including women who have blood clots, certain cancers, a history of heart attack or stroke, as well as those who could be pregnant. The Pill does not protect against HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).”

A site visitor would probably only notice the warnings if they are a professional researcher, reading specifically for content, or type stylist trained to look at the type and design layout.

These crucial warnings are in white type on a screened light green background. It is likely that most site visitors would not even notice the warnings based on this type treatment.

When considering taking ANY pharmaceutical suggested by your health care professional, remember the Inconvenient Woman’s mantra:

Doctors are not infallible; Ask Questions; Demand Answers; Verify Answers with an Independent Source; and Make informed Decisions. It’s YOUR Body and Your Life.

The Following Information is directly quoted from the Barr Pharmaceuticals Annual Report.

Barr is a publicly traded company, and their Annual Report a public document. You can look up this type of information on any publicly traded company. Their Annual Report, Investment Prospectus are all available either through online sources, or in hard copy through your local library business research desk. — HSCB

2005 Barr Pharmaceuticals Annual Report

Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a Delaware holding company whose principal subsidiaries, Barr Laboratories, Inc. and Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Inc., develop, manufacture and market generic and proprietary pharmaceutical products, respectively. The Company’s generic products are marketed under the “Barr” label, and proprietary products are marketed under the “Duramed” label.

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2006, the Company recorded net earnings of $337 million on revenues of $1.3 billion. Of the $1.3 billion of revenues in fiscal 2006, $839 million were from sales of generic products, $330 million were from sales of proprietary products, and $146 million were attributed to revenues derived from co-promotion alliances, development agreements and other sources.

Barr’s business has two reportable segments: generic pharmaceuticals and proprietary pharmaceuticals. In the generic pharmaceutical segment, the Company currently manufactures and distributes approximately 150 different dosage forms and strengths of approximately 75 different generic pharmaceutical products, including 22 oral contraceptive products, representing the largest category of the generic product portfolio.

In the proprietary pharmaceutical segment, the Company currently manufactures and distributes 19 proprietary pharmaceutical products, largely concentrated in the female healthcare arena. These products include the SEASONIQUE™ (levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol) extended-cycle oral contraceptive product, ENJUVIA™ (synthetic conjugated estrogens, B) line of hormone therapy products, Plan B® emergency contraceptive (levonorgestrel) product, the ParaGard® T 380A Intrauterine Copper Contraceptive product, and Mircette® oral contraceptive.

Corporate Development

To supplement internal efforts in support of its business strategies, the Company continually evaluates business development opportunities that it believes will strengthen our product portfolio and help grow both our generic and proprietary businesses. The Company regularly evaluates opportunities, particularly in the areas of strategic product acquisitions and/or corporate mergers and acquisitions. It also evaluates partnership arrangements that may involve: new technology platforms on which to expand our barrier to entry generic strategy, women’s healthcare products in late stage development, and products or companies for a new, second proprietary therapeutic category. As Barr continues its growth strategy, the Company expects that business development activities, including product and company acquisitions will continue to increase.

Barr’s proprietary development activities are currently focused on expanding its portfolio of female healthcare products including additional oral contraceptives and treatments for menopause/perimenopause and endometriosis. The Company is also pursuing products in urology, and is developing an oral vaccine product to prevent Adenovirus (Types 4 & 7) infections. The Company continues to identify other proprietary product candidates that further expand its product offerings in these areas and is evaluating additional therapeutic categories.

We are excited about the progress we have made in growing our proprietary business. Less than six years after initiating activities in this area, we have a growing proprietary products business with significant future potential.

We currently have 13 proprietary products on the market, five of which we actively detail to physicians. We have four proprietary product applications pending at the FDA and seven in clinical development, one of which is in Phase III studies. We are committed to consolidating our leadership position in women’s healthcare, as well as pursuing additional therapeutic categories. Our pipeline includes products in female healthcare, including oral contraceptives, hormone therapy and our transvaginal ring technology products; oncology; urology; and anti-infective/anti-viral products.

Our SEASONALE extended-cycle oral contraceptive, which created an entirely new category when launched in October 2003, continues to gain market acceptance. Since launch, nearly 1 million prescriptions have been filled.

We will expand this product franchise following the approval of our SEASONIQUE product and are working with the FDA regarding issues raised in the Approvable letter.

We have also filed a NDA for the SEASONALE Lo (levonorgestrel/ethinyl estradiol tablets 0.1 mg/0.02 mg and ethinyl estradiol tablets) extended-cycle oral contraceptive.

In the area of hormone therapy, we are building a full line of tablet strengths for our EnjuviaTM (Synthetic Conjugated Estrogens, B) product. Enjuvia is a plant-derived, synthetic conjugated estrogen product that contains a blend of the ten estrogenic substances found in the brand Premarin®. This year, the FDA approved our application for the 0.3 mg and 0.45 mg tablets and had previously approved our 0.625 mg and 1.25 mg tablets. We are awaiting the approval of the 0.9 mg tablet strength. Although we were disappointed with the FDA’s Not Approvable letter, which we received in April 2005, for our application for our BijuvaTM (Synthetic Conjugated Estrogens, A) vaginal cream, we continue to work closely with the Agency and we are confident the outstanding issues can be resolved. Bijuva, if approved, is intended as a local treatment for vaginal atrophy.

Question:

With the introduction of Enjuvia, Barr will be marketing both synthetic conjugated estrogen products – Cenestin® and Enjuvia. What do you see for the potential for this product franchise, now that we are several years out from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study?

While there has been a reduction in the number of women using estrogen replacement therapy following the publicity surrounding the WHI study, hormone therapy remains a nearly $2 billion a year market.

We believe that hormone therapy is appropriate for addressing issues associated with menopause, and believe that women, in consultation with their physicians, are looking to these products for shorter terms of usage, and looking for a full range of dosages in order to select the lowest appropriate dose. Once Enjuvia is launched, women will have two synthetic conjugated estrogen options, Enjuvia and Cenestin, from our company.

Question

Is the Company’s sales force adequately staffed to appropriately detail Barr’s product pipeline?

Our 250-person Duramed Pharmaceuticals’ Women’s Healthcare Sales Force currently promotes our SEASONALE extended-cycle oral contraceptive product, our Cenestin hormone therapy products and Plan B emergency contraceptive product to female healthcare practitioners.

This sales force will market additional female healthcare products, such as SEASONIQUE and SEASONALE Lo if approved. We also expect that as new female healthcare products are developed, or acquired, we will add them, where appropriate, to the portfolio of products presented by this team.

Our 43-person Duramed Specialty Sales Force promotes our TrexallTM product directly to rheumatologists and dermatologists. As a result of our co-promotion agreement with Kos Pharmaceuticals, Inc., this team also promotes the Niaspan and Advicor cholesterol treatments to obstetricians, gynecologists and other practitioners with a focus on women’s healthcare. Additionally, they will communicate the benefits of extended-cycle contraceptives to this physician audience. We expect to use this sales force to promote additional products as we develop or acquire them.

Question

Supporting proprietary products requires a considerable investment in marketing. Can you discuss the Company’s physician, professional and Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) marketing initiatives?

Our Women’s Healthcare Sales Force details SEASONALE and other female healthcare products directly to more than 40,000 healthcare providers who we have determined are among the most productive prescribers of oral contraceptive products in the United States. SEASONALE is the first extended-cycle oral contraceptive, and with its launch, we created an entirely new product category. As a result, education is a significant component of our detailing activities.

Marketing support includes professional education materials, published data from our clinical studies demonstrating the safety and efficacy of the extended-cycle concept, and product sampling kits that contain extensive information for patients. We reinforce our detailing activities with a trade advertising program in leading medical journals and a DTC advertising campaign.

During fiscal 2005, we executed four key business development initiatives, including the agreements with Kos Pharmaceuticals, PLIVA and Cephalon that I have already discussed. We also completed an agreement with King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for exclusive rights in the U.S. for Nordette® oral contraceptive and Prefest® hormone therapy.

In addition to these developments, we completed the integration of our 250-person Duramed Pharmaceuticals’ Women’s Healthcare Sales Force, and exercised our option to make a one-time royalty payment of $19 million to Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) related to the SEASONALE extended-cycle oral contraceptive. We also established a $175 million, five-year, senior unsecured revolving credit facility that will be used for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions and other general corporate purposes.

All of these activities meet our objectives of providing additional opportunities for long-term growth and expansion of our business.

Proprietary Products

To help diversify our existing revenue base and to provide for additional long-term opportunities, we initiated a program more than five years ago to develop and market proprietary pharmaceutical products. We formalized this program in 2001 by establishing Duramed Research. Today we have a substantial number of employees dedicated to the development and marketing of our proprietary products including approximately 300 sales representatives that promote directly to physicians four of our products and two products related to the Co-Promotion Agreement with Kos Pharmaceuticals. In addition, we sell but do not actively market seven other proprietary products.

Growth in proprietary product sales over the last three fiscal years has been accomplished through product acquisitions and through higher sales of our first internally developed proprietary product, SEASONALE®.

Oral Contraceptives

Sales of our generic oral contraceptive products decreased 2% in fiscal 2005 compared to fiscal 2004. Price declines and lower volumes resulting from additional competitors reduced sales on certain of our products, mainly Apri and Aviane, and a slowdown in the growth rate of generic substitution more than offset (1) full year contributions from products launched during fiscal 2004, (2) two new products launched in fiscal 2005 and (3) market share gains on other existing products.

Oral contraceptives are the most common method of reversible birth control, used by up to 82% of women in the United States at some time during their reproductive years. Oral contraceptives have a long history with widespread use attributed to many factors including efficacy in preventing pregnancy, safety and simplicity in initiation and discontinuation, medical benefits and relatively low incidence of side effects. From fiscal 2002 to fiscal 2004, sales of our generic oral contraceptive products more than quadrupled.

This growth was fueled by new product launches, the addition of new customers and by increasing rates of generic substitution. We currently manufacture and market 22 generic oral contraceptive products under trade names, two of which we launched during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2005. This portfolio now represents nearly all oral contraceptives that are eligible for generics. Additionally, the growth in generic substitution rates for this heavily genericized portfolio of products slowed, even as we continued to gain market share on certain products within the portfolio. We anticipate that these trends will continue in fiscal 2006 as competitors launch new products and as the portfolio continues to experience a slowing of overall growth in generic substitution.

However, despite our expectation that sales of our generic oral contraceptive portfolio will decline in fiscal 2006 versus fiscal 2005, we believe that we are well positioned to maintain market share for many of our products and that our portfolio of oral contraceptives will continue to be a significant component of our revenues in fiscal 2006.

Proprietary Products

Sales of our proprietary products almost doubled in fiscal 2005 as compared to the prior year. This increase relates primarily to: (1) higher sales of SEASONALE, which totaled $87.2 million for the fiscal year, reflecting higher unit sales in support of prescription growth and higher pricing compared to last year; (2) full year sales of Loestrin/Loestrin Fe and Plan B which we acquired in February 2004 and March 2004, respectively; and (3) sales of Nordette and Prefest, which we acquired in November 2004 and December 2004, respectively.

SEASONALE prescriptions, according to IMS data, topped 800,000 for our fiscal year ended June 30, 2005, a 370% increase over prescriptions in the prior fiscal year.

This increase is a direct result of our significant marketing initiatives, including direct-to-consumer advertising and the detailing efforts by our Women’s Healthcare Sales force.

While we look for growth in fiscal 2006 for SEASONALE prescriptions and sales, we expect much lower growth rates than those achieved in fiscal 2005. We have been active in acquiring proprietary products over the last two fiscal years and the contribution from those products has increased our proprietary revenues substantially over that period. Certain of the products which we have acquired no longer enjoy patent protection and are experiencing declining prescription volumes. As a result, while these products are expected to still generate healthy margins and predictable cash flows, we do not expect them to generate the year-over-year sales growth we experienced in fiscal 2005. In fact, some may show year-over-year decreases in sales. As a result, growth in our proprietary product sales in fiscal 2006 will be mainly dependent on growth in SEASONALE, Cenestin and Plan B, and the launch of ourEnjuvia product during the second half of fiscal 2006.

Cost of Sales Data

The remaining increase in selling, general and administrative expenses for the year ended June 30, 2004 as compared to the prior year period was primarily due to: (1) increased marketing costs for SEASONALE of $28 million; (2) higher costs of $12 million associated with the nearly doubling of our women’s healthcare sales force; (3) $14 million in higher legal costs, primarily related to patent matters, the Solvay arbitration and product liability matters; and (4) $8 million of increased information technology costs, including consulting costs related to the initial phases of designing and implementing our new enterprise resource planning system.

HSCB Bottom line…

If ever any of your audience doubted that women’s health was secondary to shareholder equity this should prove beyond a doubt that women, and now girls represent profit potential to be exploited.

Relentless marketing to medical professionals and impressionable young women was profitable for the BARR share-holders, earnings per common share – basic rose from $1.69 per share in 2003 to $2.08 in 2005. That is a $0.39 per share increase. Projected earnings are looking very good for 2006.

I invite you to roam the site yourself and if you have questions or comments, contact these folks and let them know what you think of their profit strategy.

Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

400 Chestnut Ridge Road

Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677

1-800-BARRLAB

http://www.barrlabs.com

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