Exactly. The best thing we can do is look at the clinical data, and evaluate the safety that way. Doing that it's clear that 5-ARIs are one of the safest drugs you will ever take, and only a small minority will have issues on them over 5 years.
No, not exactly, because if the clinical data is biased and based on interests, it does not mean sh*t, and those same thousand of anecdotal reports have more value than all those financed with interests studies. And all the recent info available suggests clearly that it's not that safe as it was pushed into the market. Desperate people, especially young and insecure ones will believe only what they want, it's even a term in psychiatry and psychology, it's something like a selective vision, where you only see and accept what fits your narrative. If you chose after all the other things that are against your narrative or the treatment that is the only thing that gives results, just because you are desperate, insecure and suicidal, that does not mean that the treatment is actually safe. There are people who have all the sides and say that for them, it's worth it, who the f*** am i to say they are not, for them...
What i never understood about finasteride fanatics and people who chose these treatments, wtf are you all so deeply emotionally invested, do you really not see that you have other problems that is causing this obsession in defending a pill made by some people that made and make a fortune out of you buying it? Who the f*** cares about it, i mean i don't give a f*** what you take or accept, you can grow a vagina if you ask me, if you are good with it, i don't care, i don't want the drug or other drugs to be banned if they keep you from killing yourself and any normal human would think the same. The problem is that when a drug is causing massive damage around the world, like VIOXX did, one of the many other drugs that Merk manufactured, when you know how they manipulate studies, FDA approvals and many other things that none of us actually know, if you chose even then to actually see only what your desperation and insecurities want you too see, than what can i say, good luck and don't wonder if you end up in that pool of "unlucky 2%" of people who get fucked, or maybe permanently.
There are tons over the hair loss forums that are just like you, or were like you until they got fucked, and after, just look at them coming and crying that they were sorry they did not believe others and that they thought that everybody was insane and that the studies were right and the drug was safe...
Here are your finasteride studies, a meta analysis of all of them plus a bonus from the Korean Journal of Urology, check their sources, their conflicts of interests if you find any and after chose to believe whatever the f*** you want, let's hope you nail it and in the long term that choice won't come back and haunt you...
The Dark Side of 5α-Reductase Inhibitors' Therapy: Sexual Dysfunction, High Gleason Grade Prostate Cancer and Depression
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4064044/
Adverse Event Reporting in Clinical Trials of Finasteride for Androgenic Alopecia: A Meta-analysis.
RESULTS:
Of 34 clinical trials, none had adequate safety reporting, 19 were partially adequate, 12 were inadequate, and 3 reported no adverse events. Funnel plots were asymmetric with a bias toward lower odds ratio for sexual adverse effects, suggesting systematic underdetection. No reports assessed adequacy of blinding, 18 (53%) disclosed conflicts of interest, and 19 (56%) received funding from the manufacturer. Duration of drug safety evaluation was 1 year or less for 26 of 34 trials (76%). Of 5704 men in the clinical data repository who were treated for Androgenetic Alopecia with finasteride, 1.25 mg/d or less, for Androgenetic Alopecia, only 31% met inclusion criteria for the pivotal trials referenced in the manufacturer's full prescribing information and 33% took finasteride for more than 1 year.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:
Available toxicity information from clinical trials of finasteride in men with Androgenetic Alopecia is very limited, is of poor quality, and seems to be systematically biased. In a cohort of men prescribed finasteride for routine treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia, most would have been excluded from the pivotal studies that supported US Food and Drug Administration approval for Androgenetic Alopecia. Published reports of clinical trials provide insufficient information to establish the safety profile for finasteride in the treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25830296
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.692.4105&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Court let Merck hide secrets about a popular drug’s risks
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-propecia/
