What is Finasteride

General Discussion
#1

Mew do you have any reading on the birth or creation on Finasteride. This is for my general interest more than anything as this is a hot topic for me right now.
Im wondering if Fin was discovered by accident, meaning 5ar2 inhibiting was not the aim of what ever was being made or is it a synthetic version of a natural inhibitor or were they specifically trying to come up with a compound that inhibits only the 5ar2.
I’ve tried to search for this but couldnt find anything, maybe its not information that is available to the public.

Thanks

#2

i know its synthetic, and i know the patent for it from merck is on here somewhere if you care to dig further

#3

I remember that i read in some fórum for hairloss, that finasteride was descovered in Amazônia (Brazil). But i don’t know if the pills have or what adiccional synthetics things.

#4

There was a study on ‘pseudo-hemaphrodites’ in the Dominican Republic by Jennifer Imperato-Mcginley in 1974 which noted that they had smaller prostates and no hairloss. Merck realised formulating this could cash in on treating BPH and also of course hairloss and make $$$$. Never mind that these genetic freaks were raised as girls until their balls dropped at age 12, and had micropenises.

Here’s an article about it:http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/business/keeping-the-pipeline-filled-at-merck.html?pagewanted=1

What is interesting is that alongside that muthafukka Keith Kaufman (now Merck VP) who smilingly lied about the extent of side effects in front of the FDA, Imperato-Mcginley defended fin too.
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#5

I just read the NYTimes article http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/business/keeping-the-pipeline-filled-at-merck.html?pagewanted=1 and learned for the first time that finasteride was intentionally engineered to match some of the symptoms of pseudo-hermaphroditic children in the Dominican Republic. I was previously aware of 5-alpha reductase deficiency but did not conceive it to be possible that the drug was modeled after the condition. If you read the FDA approval minutes, you will see they discussed the hermaphrodites at length, which makes it even more surprising to me this drug was approved.

Anyway, my point is that I really think the origins of the drug deserve more attention, at least on this website. The connection between finasteride and the children conveys the point that this drug tweaks with some serious biological processes, a truth that I had suspected but was advised against when I had decided to start treatment.

Mew - would you have any interest in figuring out a way to highlight this information on the awareness page? This is just a suggestion but I feel strongly that this information is very persuasive in its stand-alone format. Other opinions and comments are welcome.

By the way, the first page is all that is really worth reading, but it is a must-read in my opinion. It is pretty sickening, but I imagine everybody here is already pretty desensitized.