The Cholesterol Myth

Study Links Statins to 300+ Adverse Health Effects

By Kelly Brogan, MD

A new study finds the chemical war against cholesterol using statin drugs was justified through statistical deception and the cover up of over 300 adverse health effects documented in the biomedical literature.

Better safe than sorry, right? This is the logic that defines the grasp that the pharmaceutical company has on our psyche. Perhaps your mother, father, brother, and boyfriend have been recommended cholesterol-lowering medication, just to help hedge their bets around a possible chest-clutching demise. In fact, recent guidelines have expanded the pool of potential statin medication recipients, so that there seem to be very few of us walking around with acceptable levels of artery-clogging sludge.

It turns out that a common sleight of hand in the medical literature is the popularization of claims around “relative risk reduction” which can make an effect appear meaningful, 

when the “absolute risk reduction” reveals its insignificance. 

In this way, 100 people are treated with statin medications to offer 1 person benefit, and the change from a 2% to a 1% heart attack rate is billed a 50% reduction rather than a 1% improvement, which is what it actually is.

Perhaps this would still qualify as better safe than sorry if these medications weren’t some of the most toxic chemicals willfully ingested, with at least 300 adverse health effects evident in the published literature so far, with at least 28 distinct modes of toxicity:

• Muscle damage (myotoxicity): view 80 studies here.
• Nerve damage (neurotoxicity): view 54 studies here.
• Liver damage (hepatoxocity): view 32 studies here.
• Endocrine disruption: view 16 studies here.
• Cancer-promoting: view 9 studies here.
• Diabetes-promoting: view 8 studies here.
• Cardiovascular-damaging: view 15 studies here.
• Birth defect causing (teratogenic): view 11 studies here.

While no study has ever shown any association between the degree of cholesterol lowering and beneficial outcomes described in terms of absolute risk reduction (likely because they would be perceived as insignificant), the adverse effects are not only always presented in these terms, 

but are also minimized through the technique of splitting common side effects up into multiple different categories to minimize the apparent incidence.

Statins: Not Worth the Harm

Of course, none of these findings nor their suppression should be surprising because there is no pharmaceutical free lunch, and because Americans are so accustomed to interfacing with human health through the lens of a one pill-one ill model. We are yanking on that spider web and expecting only one thread to pull out.  This perspective would be less disturbing if it didn’t serve as the foundation for medical practice, determined by boards such as the American College of Cardiology and The American Heart Association , the majority of whom have extensive ties to the pharmaceutical industry. An industry that has paid out 19.2 billion dollars for civil and criminal charges in the last 5 years alone.

So, the next time you hear of a doctor recommending a cholesterol-lowering intervention, tell him you’ll take that 1% risk and spare yourself cancer, cognitive dysfunction, myopathy, and diabetes. And then go have a 3 egg omelette WITH the yolks.

MARCH 14, 2018

Twenty-Seven Years of Pharmaceutical Industry Criminal and Civil Penalties: 1991 Through 2017

Public Citizen published a report that catalogues all major financial settlements and court judgments between pharmaceutical companies and federal and state governments from 1991 through 2017. The report found that drugmakers entered into 412 settlements totaling $38.6 billion in criminal and civil penalties, but that the number and size of federal and state settlements against the pharmaceutical industry remained low in 2016 and 2017, with federal criminal penalties nearly disappearing.

Conclusion

The number and size of federal and state settlements against the pharmaceutical industry remained low in 2016 and 2017, with federal criminal penalties nearly disappearing. Financial penalties continued to pale in comparison to company profits, with the $38.6 billion in penalties from 1991 through 2017 amounting to only 5% of the $711 billion in net profits made by the 11 largest global drug companies during just 10 of those 27 years (2003-2012).

To our knowledge, a parent company has never been excluded from participation in Medicare and Medicaid for illegal activities, which endanger the public health and deplete taxpayer-funded programs. 

Criminal prosecutions of executives leading companies engaged in these illegal activities have been extremely rare. Much larger penalties and successful prosecutions of company executives that oversee systemic fraud, including jail sentences if appropriate, are necessary to deter future unlawful behavior. 

Otherwise, these illegal but profitable activities will continue to be part of companies’ business model.

[It's already factored into their business model DYI.]

DYI: 

I’m having a difficult time adding anything of value to these two articles.  The U.S. and the world with its war against saturated fat and cholesterol since the 1960’s has created this run away freight train filled with statins.  The negative side effects for statin group of drugs are staggering and as far as I’m concerned cholesterol has as much to do with heart disease as EMT’s causing traffic accidents!  I’m not a health care provider of any kind and this is my opinion.  And by the way my doctor wants me on statins and I told her I’ll pass “thank you very much!”

DYI