STUDY AFTER STUDY CONFIRMS FOSAMAX INCREASES RISK OF FEMUR FRACTURE

Repeated epidemiologic studies have confirmed that long-term Fosamax (alendronate sodium) use increases the risk of spontaneous femur (thigh bone) fractures.  In 2005, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center published a case series identifying that Fosamax therapy results in severe suppression of bone turnover which in turn results in spontaneous fractures, including in the femur (thigh bone).  (LINK TO JCEM ODVINA PAPER HERE.)  In 2008, researchers from the world-renowned Hospital for Special Surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University published a case-control study titled Low-Energy Femoral Shaft Fractures Associated with Alendronate Use.  This study revealed that Fosamax patients had an odds ratio of 139.33 for developing non-traumatic femur fractures when compared to similarly situated patients who were not taking Fosamax; in other words, Fosamax patients were 139 times more likely to suffer a spontaenous fracture.  (LINK TO J ORTH TRAUMA SURGER NEVIASER PAPER HERE).  The Journal of the American Medical Association, in February 2011, published a major case-control study, Bisphosphonate Use and the Risk of Subtrochanteric or Femoral Shaft Fractures in Older Women, through which the researchers confirmed that "treatment with a bisphosphonate for more than 5 years was associated with an increased risk of subtrochanteric or femoral shaft fractures".  (LINK TO JAMA PARK-WYLLIE PAPER HERE.)  Less than three months later, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a Swedish population-based nationwide analysis through which it was revealed that Fosamax patients had a greater than 3,000% relative risk increase of atypical femur fractures when compared to those patients not on Fosamax.  (LINK TO NEJM SCHILCHER ARTICLE HERE.)  These studies confirm and re-confirm that long-term Fosamax use is associated with a remarkable increased risk of spontaneous femur fracture.

The Fosamax Examiner