Osteoporosis Screenings a Marketing Juggernaut

According to an article written by Susan Kelleher of the Seattle Times, by targeting women in their 50s, manufacturers of drugs for osteoporsis have helped transform it from an underrecognized disease in elderly women into what some say is a disease affecting tens of millions. This was accomplished by:

1) Expanding the disease to include a new condition, osteopenia (or pre-osteoporosis), with boundaries so broad they include more than half of all women over 50.

2) Promoting osteopenia and osteoporosis directly to young, healthy women, telling them they are at risk and should consider taking bone strengthening drugs.

3) Define the conditions with readings from bone-density machines that the drug industry promoted, subsidized, and helped put in doctor's offices.

Many experts now say that the chances of your average healthy 50 year-old woman getting a fracture are very, very low. Although, this is the age group the drug makers are targeting.