FDA approves drug that allegedly prevents breast cancer, but it promotes blood clots that cause cancer to spread

A drug that raises the risk of blood clots that then facilitates the spread of cancer is the second drug approved by the Food & Drug Administration to prevent breast cancer. The drug, Evista (Raloxifene), also used to treat osteoporosis, was found to increase the relative risk of dying from a stroke by 49 percent in a study published last year. Nonetheless, the FDA approved Evista as an alternative to tamixofen. But many women refuse to take tamoxifen because of its side effects.

The FDA press release says evidence from three studies show that Evista reduces the risk of invasive breast cancer by 44 to 71 percent, while a fourth larger study showed no advantage over tamoxifen. Why was the data from the largest study separated from the other three reports? (Obvious, all totaled it would have shown no advantage at all).

Since 1998 it has been quoted that Raloxifene (Evista) reduces the incidence of breast cancer by a reported 76%. But that figure is specious. The Canada Drug Guide Project explains Raloxifene this way:
It is claimed that Raloxifene (Evista) reduces incidence of breast cancer by 76% with only a 1% risk of side effects. What it didn’t make clear is the fact that the patients who took the drug in the study went from having a 1% absolute risk of having breast cancer down to a 0.24% absolute risk of having breast cancer over three years (hence, the “76%” reduction). If measured in relative terms, many of the side effects increased much more than 76%--in fact some risks, such as those for blood clots, increased, relatively speaking, by 300%. (See reference here*)

-Copyright Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc