Dangers of Chemotherapy

[RedStarWarrior]

My great-aunt was diagnosed with leukemia about a month ago. She underwent two chemotherapy sessions before it became apparent that there was something wrong. She had an allergic reaction which shut her liver down. She slipped into a coma and passed away a couple of days ago.

The thing is that she has probably had the leukemia for years and it hadn't really progressed to the point that it was causing symptoms until quite recently (hence the recent diagnosis). She may have lived for a few more years had she not undergone chemotherapy. I hadn't really heard of people having an allergic reaction to chemotherapy (more specifically the pre-radiation medication), but I searched and found a multitude of cases where people have died as a result of the chemo. The most unfortunate were the young women who had masectomies and were believed to be cancer free. They only underwent chemo as a precautionary measure and had reactions resulting in the failure of their livers and/or kidneys and ultimately their deaths.

I don't find it surprising that people can be allergic to the pre-radiation medication, but I find the lack of public reports on the deaths resulting from such reactions to be appalling. I'm also a bit concerned that there isn't established procedures for testing for such allergies prior to undergoing treatment. Are the drug companies or hospital systems keeping this from being made more of a public issue? I mean, chemo itself is rather dangerous, so you'd think that more attention would be paid to all steps in the process.

[Heald]

I've never heard of any danger of chemotherapy aside the usual side-effects. Certainly never heard of an allergic reaction.

I would imagine the problem of the lack of reporting on such risks of the chemo drugs is that chemo drug production is controlled by big Pharma companies who have billions of dollars in a legal war chest, and it is rather well known that anyone who publishes any kind of report into the dangers of a commercial drug will get sued to hell and back for libel, regardless of the evidence in favour of them. The few drugs that have been successfully taken off the market are the really, really bad ones like thalidomide, and even with that people were scared of publishing the danger of that drug because of the likely legal action that would follow.

So yeah, unless you can afford to conduct a comprehensive study into the chemo drugs, and then afford the legal action that would follow, then you can't do anything about it.
Big Pharma controls governments.

[RedStarWarrior]

Well, I think it's more a case of "If you keep your mouth shut, we'll throw money at you" as when stories like this usually become big public issues, it's because the family wouldn't agree to a payoff to sign a confidentiality agreement.

[Blademaster]

Big business controls governments.

FTFY