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Herceptin seems to have a number of side effects that are begining to come to light – see this Daily Mail article for evidence of this.
Unfortunately the receptors found in Herceptin seem to get in the way of other cell receptors in the body as well – notably in the heart and lungs (clin. breast cancer, 2002; suppl 2:275-9). It appears that heart damage seems to occur in around 1 in every 25 patients and in up to 40% of cases the following side effects can occur:
- severe flu like symptoms
- nausea and vomiting
- fatigue
- closing of the throat
- swelling of tongue, hands, lips and feet
- rashes and hives
- lung problems
- coughing
- fast and/or irregular heartbeat
- heart failure
- shaking, dizziness and a feeling of weakness
- respiratory distress
- fever and/or chills
- headache
- white blood cell count anaphylactic shock
Currently, research has suggested that there is a 50% increase in the survival rate of patients taking Herceptin. However, when you look at the figures it reads more like 12%, this is because 75.4% of patients were found to be disease free after three years on conventional treatment, whilst 87.1% were disease free after three years on Herceptin.
In other trials Hercpetin has increased the death rate after three years from 91.7% to 94.3%, which is an icrease of just 3% and in one trial that compared Herceptin to no treatment at all the death rates ‘were NOT significantly differnent’ with just over 2% deaths for no treatment to just under 2% of deaths with Herceptin.
It’s all in how you read the figures, sure the study might show a 33% increase in survival, but that 33% comes from the difference between 8% and 5%!
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