Statin Drugs. Are they safe? The Debate goes on!

Once Statin drugs were so safe doctors told us that everyone, ill or not, should take them! Now the advice patients are given is so conflicting it is probably safer not to prove it - either way.

The problem with Statin drugs is that their safety has always been questioned. This does not deter pharmaceutical medicine from telling us they are ‘safe and effective’, and patients who take them, and suffering side effects, regularly disagreeing.

Once, conventional medicine told us that Statins were so effective in preventing heart disease, and so entirely safe, that even fit and healthy people should take them. This was the starting point for Statins. Soon the evidence from patients was challenging this from personal experience. As usual the medical profession ignored, minimised or discounted the concerns: the benefits outweighed the harm, et al - the usual defences were trotted out.

In 2015 I wrote that even doctors are now conflicted about the safety of Statins. At the time they were being told to give them to even more patients, but they seemed ‘resistant’ to doing so.

Over a decade later the safety of Statin drugs is still being hotly disputed. Recently a study, reported here by Medscape, found that there was “Good news for patients worried about Statin side effects”; they “most never happen”.

          “Patients worried about potential side effects of statins can rest easy, according to a new large-scale study: The vast majority of adverse effects listed on statin medications simply never occur. The study, published in The Lancet, analyzed individual patient data from 154,000 patients in 23 large, randomized controlled trials conducted by the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration. Researchers compiled 66 non-muscle, non-diabetes outcomes that statin labels claim may be caused by these drugs — including cognitive problems, depression, sleep issues, kidney injury, sexual dysfunction, liver disease, and many others”.

So nothing to worry about then? Well, Dr. Wojak’s recent article on Substack fundamentally disagrees. He stated that “Statins are an insidious scam” that were “exposing the Cholesterol myth”, and that “any doctor still recommending statins is inexcusably ignorant or corrupt”.

In his article Dr Wojak walks us through the history of Statin drugs, and the myths about the dangers of Cholesterol, over the past 80 years or so.

“The original theory, popularized in the 1950s, blamed cholesterol as a whole. The claim was that eating saturated fat - primarily from foods like red meat, butter, eggs, and full-fat dairy - raised blood cholesterol, which in turn caused heart disease”.

“When this story failed to hold up under scrutiny, the goalposts were moved. Total cholesterol quietly faded from focus. Cholesterol was split into two different types: “good” (HDL) and “bad” (LDL), and LDL cholesterol alone was rebranded as the villain. From that point on, medical intervention targeted LDL cholesterol specifically—pushed ever lower with each new set of guidelines”.

And still, year-by-year, Statin patients continued to report serious side effects emanating from the drug.

So what is certain is that anyone who is taking Statin drugs, plus anyone who is prescribed them in the future, should read both these articles in order to make an informed choice. It is clear that patients who over decades have reported serious “side effects” have not been believed. The bland reassurances about Statin safety continues to be peddled by the Conventional Medical Establishment.

What everyone should remember is that even the bland reassurances outlined in the Medscape article is a climb-down from the position pharmaceutical medicine was taking in the early years of Statins - that they were “completely safe”, so safe, in fact, that everyone (even those who did not suffer from heart issues) should be taking them.

          “Only four of the 66 undesirable outcomes attributed to statins met false discovery rate significance criteria: abnormal liver transaminases, minor urinary composition changes (mostly mild proteinuria), edema, and other liver function test abnormalities. Absolute risks for these outcomes, however, were under 0.2% annually”.

          “By contrast, the authors found moderate-intensity statin use for 5 years would typically prevent about 1000 major vascular events per 10,000 patients with established cardiovascular disease and about 500 events per 10,000 high-risk patients without prior events — placing the small excess risks for adverse events in a clinical context”.

No problem there, then!

So I urge everyone to make their own decision about Statin drugs. Do you believe the millions of patients, over the last 70 years, who have reported serious harm?

Or do you believe the pharmaceutical industry, whose reputation and wealth depends on selling us drugs, and convincing us that they are safe?

The decision is for each one of us to take.

Statins drugs going out of favour?

BBC News is today promoting yet another vaccine. It is part of its role as the 'echo chamber' for the pharmaceutical industry, an unofficial, unpaid position that our 'public service broadcaster' has accepted for many years now.

Michelle Roberts, the Health Editor, has produced this article on the BBC website, "Cholesterol-lowering jab to help prevent heart disease". The article informs us that human trials of a "cholesterol-lowering vaccine" is being produced to help prevent heart disease. As usual, it sounds like another amazing medical breakthrough, but before popping off to see you doctor for the jab, hold on! There have been "successful studies in mice" to date, according to researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, and they are testing the safety of the vaccine on 72 volunteers!

               "It will take years more of testing to know if the treatment will be safe and effective enough for human use.... Even if it does become available, in six years' time, it should not be seen as an excuse for people to avoid exercise and eat lots of high-fat food".

So we have another 6 years to wait before this wonder-vaccine will begin to have an impact on the epidemic levels of heart disease we are currently experiencing, allegedly caused by 'fatty deposits clogging up our arteries!'

The BBC does this all the time, giving us the 'good news' about pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, which is always about the good news that will  happen in the years to come! Years which never seem to arrive!

At the same time as hearing BBC News promoting the pharmaceutical industry this morning (20th June 2017) I received an email of WDDTY (What Doctor's Don't Tell You). They reported two items. The first was Aspirin is a bigger killer among the over 75's than everyone thought! I wrote about this in my recent blog, "Aspirin causes gastrointestinal bleeding, so the solution is to take PPI drugs which cause .... and so it goes on!" Did the BBC pick up this important piece of news? Of course not!

The other WDDTY article was about the deaths caused by pharmaceutical drugs in the USA, estimated to be nearly 500,000 annually. Did the BBC pick up this important (and regular) piece of news? Of course not!

The BBC tells us about the 'good' news, that may (or may not) happen in 6 years time. But it refuses to cover the news about what is happening to patients right now (and for decades past)!

Yet there is another, more interesting news story here. I ought to mention it as the BBC is unlikely to do so! For decades patients have been told that Statin drugs prevented 'fatty deposits clogging up our arteries'. Moreover, these drugs were entirely safe, so safe in fact that everyone should be taking them. The BBC have been part of this media hype about the benefits and safety of Statin drugs for a long time. It was the 'good news' story of yester-year! The question is, why is there a need to develop a vaccine to do what Statins have been doing, apparently so successfully and safely, for decades? The BBC has the answer, probably straight from the news release of the pharmaceutical industry!

               "It would offer patients an alternative to taking daily pills to cut their risk of stroke, angina and heart attacks."

Or, alternatively, is it more to do with the fact (unmentioned by the BBC of course) that Statin drugs are now implicated in having serious side effects, including liver dysfunction, kidney failure, muscle weakness, cataracts, and more recently, memory loss, confusion and dementia?

So maybe this is the first indication that conventional doctors are now beginning to realise that the drugs they have been giving to patients for years are causing more harm to patients then they realised, or were told. They are certainly doing more harm than the BBC has ever informed us about!

And this is, of course, what happens regularly in the world of the pharmaceutical drugs. Dangerous drugs and vaccines are marketed, they cause harm to patients, and when the harm becomes to great to hide (and profitability is reduced because patents run out) they are quietly withdrawn. And this process seems to happen more quickly when Big Pharma has a replacement!

The new vaccine would also appear to be a profitable venture too. As the BBC article suggests, booster jabs will be required, "the researchers envisage that patients could have a yearly booster shot to top up their immunity."

And conventional medicine presents this as medical progress!

Can anyone trust the BBC and its coverage of health issues? Absolutely not. Or mainstream newspapers (who similarly peddle pharmaceutical propaganda)? Absolutely not. The newspapers wonder why their circulations are declining! The BBC are beginning to understand (in non-health areas anyway) the reason why people are turning to 'alternative' news sources, and are rejecting the 'establishment' view on many social issues, including health. The reason is simple.

It is because the public is beginning to realise that the mainstream media has consistently refused to tell us the truth! 

Statins. An attempted rehabilitation by Big Pharma?

Most new pharmaceutical drugs are heralded as 'wonder cures' or 'main bullets', none more so than Statin drugs. When drug companies found that statins reduced cholesterol, they invented a connection between cholesterol and the heart. So taking statins reduced cholesterol and our hearts would benefit. Yet finding any real link between cholesterol of heart disease is proving difficult to find, other than its ability to sell the drugs!

However, statins, had arrived, and pharmaceutical companies proceeded to invent yet another lie. They were, they said, entirely safe! Indeed they were so safe we should ALL be taking them! So prescriptions for statins rocketed, and the pharmaceutical cash registers sang their songs of profit. The  drug companies were delighted.

But then, as happens with all pharmaceutical 'wonder' drugs, problems began to emerge. Statin drugs were not 'entirely safe', although the drug companies, the drug regulators, our doctors, and the mainstream media, decided not to tell the general public. The usual mantra was recited. The benefits outweigh the advantages! But as the years passed, and the evidence increased, his was increasingly difficult to justify. Doubts began to multiply about just how bad cholesterol was for our health.

The situation took a serious turn for the worse in 2010 when a Nottingham university study was published in the British Medical Journal. It found that people taking Statin drugs have a higher risk of

• liver dysfunction, 
• kidney failure, 
• muscle weakness,
• cataracts. 

The study was a large one, covering over 2 million people in Britain. Yet the list of adverse reactions was even then not comprehensive. The link between Statin drugs and diabetes (now at epidemic levels and usually blamed on our diet) was now linked to this 'entirely safe' drug.

Worse was to follow. The FDA (the USA drug regulator) reported on its website in January 2015 that statins were also linked with memory loss, confusion and dementia. The FDA stated that "it has been been investigating reports of coagnitive impairment from statin use for several years" and that "the agency has reviewed databases that record reports of bad reactions to drugs and statin clinical trials that included assessments of cognitive function." The report stated that memory loss, forgetfulness and confusion spanned "all statin products and all age groups."

Even some doctors now became concerned, and there was an increasing reluctance to prescribe them. So the pharmaceutical industry began to worry about its profits. It needed to take action. And, as they normally do in such situations they turned to medical science to help them preserve their most successful and profitable drug.

Scientists were recruited, (very carefully as we will see) and they produced a report that was published in the Lancet on 1st September 2016. "to help clinicians, patients, and the public make informed decisions about statin therapy for the prevention of heart attacks and strokes."

Basically, the report said that the benefits of Statin drugs were being under-appreciated, and the side effects were being exaggerated. Indeed, they found that the RCT evidence of the benefits were strong, and that the adverse events attributed to statins were not actually caused by them!

These findings were reported without too much critical examination by the mainstream media, and no doubt many people were re-assured. After all, medical science had spoken!

Yet this is a typical response of the pharmaceutical industry when profitable drugs begin to decline, when patients become more resistant, when even doctors are no longer willing to take the reassurances of the drug companies at face value, and are increasingly reluctant to prescribe them.

               It has happened in exactly the same way with HRT, and I wrote about it recently (August 2016) in this blog.

               And it happened in exactly the same way with MMR, when the vaccine was linked with Autism in the early 2000's. I wrote about this in September 2015.

• Find money for some more medical research on the drug. 
• Select the 'scientists' who are prepared to produce a report that refutes the doubts, and supports the efficacy of the drug. 
• Make sure that the academic foundations doing the work is well funded. 
• And make sure that their media allies publicise the new research!

So how was this Lancet report funded? Within the report, tucked away, there is a rather long 'declaration of interests' statement. This confirms that the 'Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit' (CTSU) at the University of Oxford received grants from some of the largest pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Schering, and Solvay. There followed a long list of 'declarations of interests' by each of the reports authors, all "governed by University of Oxford contracts that protect its independence", of course

Most media accounts of this report, if they bother to mention these conflicts of interest at all, do so only in passing. For instance, the BBC Article, reports almost exclusively on the 'good news' of the report, leaving just a few short sentences at the end to indicate that there are critics of the report. Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, is quoted as saying that:

          "This still does not address the calls for a thorough, independent review of the evidence of statins. This is especially important in view of the guidance which recommends that large numbers of healthy people should take a tablet every day."

Then, London cardiologist, Dr Assem Malhotra, is quoted as saying that:

          "There are serious question marks about the reliability of industry-sponsored studies on the side effects of statins, and essentially that's what this review is. And a lot of the scientists involved in the original studies were involved in this review. It is not an independent review."

The Huffington Post published an article in April 2016 by Dr Assem Malhotra, entitled "The Great Statin Con", and this is well worth reading as it contains more on his experience and criticism of Statin drugs. (And certainly the BBC is never likely to publish them)!

So only those people who bothered to read to the bottom, the small print, of the BBC article would have got this message. This is typical of BBC News, and the mainstream media generally. They exist to do the bidding of the conventional medical establishment!

And worse is likely to follow. This report will now be used by the media to stifle any further discussion. Medical science has spoken! No counter arguments will be allowed for several years, until the evidence of Statin harm becomes overwhelming, and impossible to ignore.

Meanwhile, patients who have not been properly informed, will continue to take Statin drugs; they will suffer their side effects,'the pharmaceutical companies will continue to profit from them; diabetes, dementia, and other statin 'side effects' will continue to increase; and the NHS will be moved another step towards bankruptcy!

Well, that's how the conventional medical establishment works!

Cholesterol, Medical Science, RCT's and Statin Drugs

Cholesterol? Now, lets get this right! Medical science, and our doctors of course, have been telling us for decades that cholesterol is bad for us, and that if we have high cholesterol, we need to take pharmaceutical drugs to reduce it. 

Well, this was the original basis for the rise and rise in the prescription of Statin drugs.  That is why millions of patients throughout the world now take them regularly. That is why most patients who go to see their doctor are tested for their cholesterol levels. And if that reading is deemed to be too high we are put on Statins in order to prevent heart attacks and stroke. Statins, of course, are completely safe!

Then, as I recall, the message changed. We were told by medical science that there were two types of cholesterol, one good and other bad. Obviously, we needed the good stuff. But we did not need the bad stuff.

Simple? Well, it's not quite that simple!

It was then discovered that by reducing the 'bad' stuff, we were in danger of suffering dementia, because our brains actually needed it. For more information on this, click here. 

So bad cholesterol isn't bad at all, it is actually good! It keeps our minds active and in good order. And by seeking to lower it through Statins drugs is now linked to dementia (which, of course, is running at epidemic levels). Anything to do with Statins? Of course not! The pharmaceutical companies, and our doctors strenuously deny this. The always do, of course, and they will continue to prescribe the drugs ragardless of the dangers.

Yet there is always good cholesterol. Isn't there? Well, no, not really! We have now been told, by another study undertaken by 'medical science', that "high levels of 'good' cholesterol may not be good for us after all. The study, involving 1,764,986 men, suggests that the relationship between HDL cholesterol and death is not so straightforward - that both too little and too much of the 'good' stuff increases our chances of dying!

So let's try to be clear about what medical science is telling us!

• that good cholesterol is bad! 
• that bad cholesterol is good! 

Now, we really should try hard not to be too confused about this! Yet the conventional medical establishment does appear to be somewhat confused, and divided. Recently, NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) in Britain, wanted our doctors to prescribe Statin drugs to lots more people, with a much lower risk of heart attack or stroke. But doctors did not want to do this, presumably because they knew something about the risks of Statins - even though they have told us, hitherto, that they were entirely safe!

So if conventional medicine is confused, what about patients? Well, thankfully, we patients are not confused at all! After all, no one ever tells us anything about the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, so if doctors prescribe them, we just take them, believing them to be safe, and accepting any side-effects there might be. Whatever happens to us, however alarming it might be, is nothing to do with the drugs we are taking, it just the result of  'bad luck'! 

More reassuring, of course, is that if the side effect is that we get dementia we will never get to know about it anyway!

Clarity is possible, but only if, when analysing all this important scientific and medical information, we bear in mind the following understandings.

1. Medical science is based on RCT (Randomised Controlled Tests), an important feature of which is that the test results can be anything you want them to be. So if you pay for them (as pharmaceutical companies do) they can get whatever results they want!
2. RCT testing has been the technique that medical science has used to prove that every pharmaceutical drug and vaccine, since Thalidomide, is both effective and safe. Unfortunately not a single drug or vaccine has ultimately been found to be safe, in the real world. Despite this medical scientists still says that RCT's are 'the gold standard'. Perhaps what they mean is that RCT drug testing leads to pots of gold for the pharmaceutical companies, a fact that is hard to deny!
3. The link between heart attacks, strokes and cholesterol has long been known to be false, even by medical science. Conventional medicine does not tell us this though. After all, it is a business, and they want to continue selling pharmaceutical drugs.

So if you have been told that you are at risk of heart attack or stroke, if your cholesterol readings are high, if you are taking Statin drugs, you might want to look at some of the information you are not being told. I have written about the Statin - Cholesterol debacle on many occasions. Here are just some of the links to my previous blogs.

• The dangers of Statin drugs.
• Is Cholesterol harmful? Do we need Statin drugs?
• Cholesterol. Conventional medicine gets it wrong again!
• Statins. Those nice safe drugs we should all be taking!
• Cholesterol. Just how important are Statin drugs to our health?
• Statins. From Wonder drug to Killer drug!
• Statin drugs. Now, doctors, are they still entirely safe?
• FDA warning. Statins now linked to memory loss.
• Dementia and Alzheimers. Are they cause by pharmaceutical drugs?

Nobody should be taking Statins, or any other pharmaceutical drug or vaccine, without being fully informed about the harm they can cause - their 'side effects'. The conventional medical establishment, including our doctors, have consistently failed to do so. Therefore it is difficult, if not impossible for patients to make a fully informed choice about whether to take the drugs prescribed to them, or to refuse them.

The confusion about cholesterol demonstrates something even more alarming. The conventional medical establishment, itself, is in a state of total and utter confusion! Medical science, and the RCT's on which it is based, are at the heart of this confusion. RCT's can prove anything and everything about anything and everything so only confusion will result. And that is what we are dealing with here.

Conventional medicine is totally and utterly confused!

Is Cholesterol harmful? Do we need Statin drugs?

Conventional drug-based medicine is supposed to be based on science. The pharmaceutical companies tell us this all the times. My last blog raised the question - how secure is this science? It did so in relation to a single, alcohol dependence drug, Nalmefene.

Now, the same question needs to be asked about the medical science that for decades has been telling us that cholesterol, especially LDL cholesterol, was harmful, and that to counter the dangers of cholesterol we should all take statins.

Now, a new paper has been published by the BMJ (the British Medical Journal). It is called "Lack of an association or an inverse association between low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol and mortality in the elderly: a systematic review." A group of international scientists reviewed 19 studies into the effect of LDL cholesterol on mortality. Contrary to what doctors have been telling us for over 40 years, they found that in most studies there was actually an inverse relationship between LDL cholesterol levels and mortality for those over 60. The authors concluded that "our study provides the rationale for a re-evaluation of guidelines recommending pharmacological reduction of LDL-C in the elderly as a component of cardiovascular disease prevention strategies."

The study has been discussed in the Telegraph, on BBC News, and in the doctors e-magazine, Pulse, and in each the study has been heavily criticised by the conventional medical establishment. Pulse provides us with a statement from the British Heart Foundation, which is typical of the reaction:

          "There is nothing in the current paper to support the author’s suggestions that the studies they reviewed cast doubt on the idea that LDL Cholesterol is a major cause of heart disease or that guidelines on LDL reduction in the elderly need re-valuating."

In contrast, the authors of the paper provide us with a forthright and contrary view.

          "Lowering cholesterol with medications for primary cardiovascular prevention in those aged over 60 is a total waste of time and resources, whereas altering your lifestyle is the single most important way to achieve a good quality of life."

So, one part of the conventional medical establishment is advising patients that to avoid heart disease we are all need to take Statin drugs, because they are very effective. Another part is saying statins are 'a total waste of time and resources'!

So who is right? Who are we to believe? And where is the science behind the assertion that cholesterol causes heart disease? And that statins prevent heart disease?

Two things are certain about this 'debate' going on with the conventional medical establishment , and neither of them are 'scientific'.

• The first is that the response to the new paper is not that it has raised important doubts that require further investigation. It is straight denial, an outright refusal to investigate further. As the British Heart Foundation has said - the study does not cast doubt on previous finding - and there is no need to re-evaluate.

• The second is that nowhere, in any of these discussions, is there any mention of the serious and harmful side effects that statin drugs are now known to cause - including dementia, diabetes, liver and kidney disease, et al (see 'The Dangers of Statin Drugs'). 

Medical science is no guarantee of the safety or the effectiveness of drugs. It is not a reliable informant about the causes of illness.

Medical science has, for too long, been the creature of the pharmaceutical companies, who have used their massive wealth to purchase the science it has wanted to sell its drugs.

• we have a drug that can reduce cholesterol? Well, let's tell patients that cholesterol causes heart disease so that we can sell the drug to huge numbers of patients!
• let's also tell patients that the drug is 'entirely safe', that everyone should be taking it, even after it has proven to cause serious illness and disease to patients who take it regularly.

This is not a 'scientific' disagreement. It is not even a 'scientific' discussion. It is a demonstration that conventional medical science has been bought and paid for by pharmaceutical money for decades. This new study suggest that what I, and many other people having been saying about cholesterol and statins for many years is true. It shows the extent to which the public has been duped into thinking that statin drugs have been beneficial to our health. But this possibility will be studiously ignored!

What it demonstrates is that when 'science' might result in a reduction of drug or vaccine sales it is routinely castigated and ignored. Only the 'science' that supports pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and can be used in their promotion, is considered to be 'scientific'.

It is not science that underpins conventional medicine, it is drug promotion!

What this situation demonstrates is that no-one should believe anything that the conventional medical establishment tells us about our health!

Cholesterol. Just how important are Statin drugs to our health?

The conventional medical establishment has for decades now told us that high cholesterol levels is one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease, and that it raises our risk of future heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular problems.

Yet, as Agora Health stated, in their recent newsletter, the problem is that lowering your cholesterol is virtually useless for preventing heart disease! They say that there is 'a ton of evidence' proving that cholesterol is not the deadly demons it has been made out to be!

     "For instance, did you know that fully half of all people admitted to hospital with a heart attack had no previous symptoms… and had cholesterol levels in the normal range?"

     "Moreover, studies also show that most people with high cholesterol almost NEVER have a heart attack. If they did, heart attack rates would be TRIPLE what they currently are!"

The problem with this kind of evidence is that it does not sell pharmaceutical drugs! The cholesterol myth has been the main reason for the enormous commercial success of Statin drugs. Therefore, the conventional medical establishment is loath to tell us, and our doctors are probably not allowed to do so.

It is, of course, one thing to take a drug that is useful. It is quite another to take a drug that is known to have serious side effects, drugs that to use a less pejorative term, causes illness and disease.

Our doctors have been telling us for years that Statin drugs are entirely safe. Indeed, many doctors have thought they were so safe they wanted all of us to take them! But my website on Statin drugs outlines the damage that useless Statin drugs can cause.

     "In 2010, a Nottingham university study was published in the British Medical Journal, and reported here in Reuters. It found that people taking Statin drugs have a higher risk of liver dysfunction, kidney failure, muscle weakness and cataracts. The study was a large one, covering over 2 million people in Britain, but the author's of the report were reported as saying that the study was unlikely to affect of Statin drugs!"

     "The link between Statin drugs and Diabetes is also strong. Diabetes is now at epidemic levels, and is usually dismissed as being the result of what we eat. But Statin drugs appear to play a significant role in this too."

     "Memory loss, confusion and dementia are now also linked to Statin drugs. The FDA,(US drug regulator) states on its website, dated 20th January 2015,  that "it has been been investigating reports of cognitive impairment from statin use for several years" and that "the agency has reviewed databases that record reports of bad reactions to drugs and statin clinical trials that included assessments of cognitive function. The FDA report talks about memory loss, forgetfulness and confusion that "span all statin products and all age groups".

Statins have been called the greatest medical fraud of all time, and perhaps in time this is how they will be recognised, and the conventional medical establishment will see fit to tell patients, honestly and truthfully, about the harm Statin drugs cause. However, despite all the evidence, it will probably be a long time before our conventional doctors are allowed to tell us, and the pharmaceutical industry  has the honesty, based on the scientific information already available to it, to withdraw and ban this too-profitable drug.

Statins. From 'wonder' drug to 'killer' drug?

Statin drugs have rapidly moved from ‘Wonder Drug’ to ‘Killer Drug’. This is something that happens all too often within the world of Big Pharma, and the drug and vaccine-ridden world of the Conventional Medical Establishment.

Statin drugs were first tested in the 1970‘s, and were found to block substances used by your body to create cholesterol, and also helped the body to re-absorb the cholesterol it created. Lovastatin (brand name Mevacor) was approved for sale in 1987. By the mid-1990‘s Big Pharma produced evidence suggesting that Statin drug’s reduced mortality in people with high cholesterol. Statins had arrived, and soon many new Statin drugs were put on the market - pravastatin, simvastatin, fluvastatin, cerivastatin, atorvastatin and rosuvastatin, with trade names such as Lipitor, Lescol, Pravachol Zocor and Crestor. And no doubt many others!

Statins replaced drugs such as Bile acid resins (Questran, Colestid), which it is now admitted had dreadful side effects, causing gastrointestinal distress, especially constipation; and Niacin, which was not well tolerated because of itching, increased liver toxicity, and increased blood glucose levels. These drugs were also known to be ineffective - so Statins were treated as a welcome new ‘miracle’ drug by the drug companies.

Now, many millions of people take Statins throughout the world. They can cost about £150 per patient per year, and the NHS bill for statins approaches nearly £1 billion annually. What is worse, the UK was the first country to make Simvastin, the most used statin drug, available for sale ‘over the counter’, that is, a Statin drug that can be bought by people without the need for a doctor’s certificate.

Why have we got into this situation? For many years, our doctors have been telling us, unashamedly and unreservedly, that Statins were so safe, and so effective in treating heart disease, that everyone should be taking them! Indeed, we were all told this as recently as 2012. These articles, using almost identical language (no doubt the language of a Big Pharma press release), all appeared on 17th May 2012, each giving us the official message from the conventional medical establishment.

• see this Daily Mail article.
• and this Daily Express article.
• and this Guardian article.
• and this Telegraph article.
• and this BBC article.

“....the NHS should impose a blanket policy of prescribing up to 20 million people statins at a potential cost of £240million a year. Currently, the only people considered at high risk, those with a one-in-five chance of having a heart attack in the next 10 years, are given the cholesterol-lowering drugs. Half of men aged 50 or over and almost a third of women qualify for statin treatment. About five million people are thought to take them. National guidelines should be amended to lower the threshold for treatment to those with a one-in-10 risk over a decade, the experts said”.

Clearly, and quite typically, our mainstream media continues to be willing to pass on to us Big Pharma, and Conventional Medical Establishment propaganda about drugs and vaccines.

• Statins are safe drugs, with only mild and acceptable ‘side-effects’ .

“Side effects of statins can include muscle aches, stomach disturbances, and altered liver function. Patients have also reported sleep and memory problems, depression and headaches.

• Statins prevents heart disease.

“The risk of a heart attack or stroke is cut by a fifth in those who have no sign of heart disease, shows research by scientists at Oxford University”.

• And Statins are so good we should all be taking them, even if are were perfectly healthy.

“The Oxford researchers says the NHS should consider giving statins to healthy people”. 

The Statins website confirms this simple message. Statins benefit everyone, we are told. Statins save thousands of lives (50,000 each year is mentioned). Treating people with Statins leads to huge savings, particularly in hospitalisation costs!

“.... the National Director for Heart Disease and Stroke said that a 'blanket approach' to give everyone above a certain age a daily dose of statins would save lives, NHS funding and doctors' time”.

The NHS appears to agree with this assessment, perhaps not too surprisingly as the NHS has become, over the decades, a monopoly, free-of-charge supplier of conventional medical drugs. This NHS Choices page is entitled “Statins may help even healthy over-50’s”, and it seems quite content to repeat this simple, positive message to its patients. However, it did at least admit that the study on which this message was based “did not include possible adverse effects” but it quickly returned to message, immediately adding that “Statins are safe drugs that have been associated with a small risk of side effects”. So that’s okay then!

This ongoing propaganda campaign about Statins has been going on for over 25 years now. They have achieved ‘super-drug status’, with claims that the drug can treat not only heart disease and stroke, but high blood pressure, diabetes, dementia, osteoporosis, arthritis, and even erectile dysfunction. 

Yet there are two truths emerging rapidly from this long-term, blanket advertising of Statin drugs within the NHS, and the mainstream media.

1. Cholesterol does not cause heart problems, and that lowering cholesterol levels has serious consequences to our health. (See for example these articles, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), and many more.
2. The ‘side effects of Statins are serious, causing both disease and death for patients.

In my book, the Failure of Conventional Medicine, I have written about the ages of drugs, from ‘wonder drug’ to ‘banned drug’, a journey every conventional medical drug has taken, or is currently undertaking (see also here), (and here).

It is becoming increasingly clear that conventional medical claims for Statin drugs are being overtaken by an increasing awareness of their inherent dangers. These dangers can be found elsewhere (see, for example, my blog "Statin Drugs. Why are they not banned?") where I outline the evidence that these drugs are known to be causing a number of serious disease-inducing-effects. These include:

• cataracts
• heart failure
• pneumonia
• nerve damage
• muscle pain, muscle tissue breaking down
• diabetes
• prostate cancer
• liver damage
• kidney disease
• memory loss (dementia?)

How many people suffer from these ‘side effects’? A Dutch survey of 4,738 Statin users were asked about side effects and found that just over a quarter (27%) said they suffered from them. Around 40% of these sufferers experienced muscle pain and almost a third (31%) had joint pain. It also reported that 16% had digestion problems and 13% had memory loss.

Other research shows patients who had definite or probable side effects from Statin drugs tended to be dismissed by their doctors, who denied any specific Statin-linked causality, and refused to appreciate the effect on their lives. This is not only unacceptable for individual patients, but unacceptable because serious adverse reactions are thereby not reported thus allowing the Conventional Medical Establishment to continue claiming that the drugs are safe!

And according to Malcolm Kendrick, in his book, ‘The Great Cholesterol Con’ (John Blake Publishing), there has been “no large trial of women statin users who already have cardiovascular disease has been shown to increase life expectancy by one day. More importantly, the use of statins in women at lower risk has not increased life expectancy nor prevented heart attacks and stroke”.

As Kendrick says, this raises the question whether women should be prescribed statins at all? His conclusion? They should not!

In addition to these ‘side-effects’, Statin drugs are also known to be dangerous for anyone with liver disease, pregnant and breastfeeding women. Alcohol and Statins also do not mix well!

Drug interactions are also now admitted to be a problem. There are known problems with Nicotinic Acid or Niacin; Bile Acid Sequestrants, Fibrates, Samdimmune or Neoral, Fluvoxamine, Anti-fungal drugs ending with “-azole”, Mycelex (miconazole), or Sporanox (itraconazole), Antibiotics ending in "-mycin", High blood pressure medications, Cordarone (Amiodarone), HIV Protease Inhibitors, Coumadin (warfarin), Prilosec (omeprazole), Tagamet (cimetidine), Zantac, Oral contraceptives, Lanoxin (digoxin), Antacids containing magnesium or aluminum hydroxide. 

Even St. John's Wort is said to decrease the effectiveness of some statins. With all this in mind, perhaps any patient might be better just taking St. John’s Wort!

Another little-known fact about Statin drugs is that at least 3 have had to be withdrawn either before, or after they were marketed. 

• Mevastatin was never marketed because of its adverse effects of tumours, muscle deterioration, and sometimes death in laboratory dogs (Wikipedia). 
• Compactin was also withdrawn from the market because of unwanted side effects. 
• And the muscle damage caused by one Statin drug, Cerivastatin (Baycol) was sufficiently severe and widespread (it killed several hundred people) it had to be withdrawn (quietly) in 2001.

Yet the drugs that remain on the market seem to be no better! But patients are expected to believe that other Statin drugs are sufficiently safe, or well-tolerated, for everyone to take them, without any risk or harm to our health!

Now, some doctors are beginning to take Statin drugs into its ‘old age’, and so closer to death. For instance, Dr Malcolm Kendrick argues that the disadvantages of Statins now outweigh the possible benefits for the majority of people.

“I tell patients with a cholesterol level of between 5 and 7 they’re healthy. If it’s above 7, it’s probably due to a family history of high cholesterol and if any relatives have early heart disease then it’s worth taking a statin. The body needs cholesterol - 25% of it is in the brain and is vital for it to function properly. For patients who have suffered heart attack or stroke or have existing cardiovascular disease (disease of the heart and blood vessels) taking a statin can benefit them. But, the real question is by how much?

“Patients should ask doctors, “How much longer will I live if I take a statin?” The answer is, not very long. If you’re at high risk of heart disease or stroke and you take a statin for 30 years, you’re likely to live an extra nine months.

I suppose that means as long as they don’t die of kidney or liver failure - or prostate cancer - or pneumonia - or suffer from dementia before this!

Undoubtedly, patients who are taking Statin drugs need more honest information. They are unlikely to get it from the Conventional Medical Establishment, including from our own GPs, who appear to be reluctant to tell us. So we need to demand this information of them, preferably before Statins are banned, or we suffer the serious DIEs now known to result from them.

The Failure Conventional Medicine. Statins: those nice, safe drugs we should all be taking!

Statin drugs are supposed to be safe. This is what we have been hearing about them from the Conventional Medical Establishment now for many years. They were first introduced in 1987, and quickly became a blockbuster drug. One Statin drug, Baycol, caused over 50 deaths, and was linked to over 1000 cases of muscle weakness. It was quickly (and silently) withdrawn.

Soon, Big Pharma propaganda had convinced us that these drugs were entirely safe. The magazine 'What Doctors Don't Tell You', WDDTY, in January 2007 observed that 'everyone seems to be popping a cholesterold-lowering statin drug these days. They have become part of the daily health regime for millions of people, and they are considered to be so safe that one statin, Simvastatin, is available over-the-counter in the UK without a prescription".

And as late as May 2008, the Independent was able to publish an article - 'Prescribing more Statins could save lives'. The article reported that, in 2007, Professor Roger Boyle, the Government's 'heart tsar' had suggested that every man over 50, and every woman over 60, could be offered a daily Statin to reduce their heart attack risk. It also reported that NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Evidence) was advising that all adults aged 40 to 75 should be assessed for their risk of heart disease - and should be offered Statin drugs.

These were incredible, but quite typical claims that have been made for Statin drugs for over 25 years now. But by the time this article was published the dangers of Statins were known, but well hidden from view.

I have copies of WDDTY going back to the early 2000s - and they were regularly reporting on the dangers of Statins - all studiously avoiding by the mainstream media, Big Pharma, the Government, the NHS, and our own GPs.

The Health Sciences Institute has also been saying for years that Statins are unsafe. Indeed, as they say, the known disease-inducing effects (DIEs) of these drugs now include liver damage, acute kidney failure, memory loss, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, muscle weakness (including a condition, rhabdomyolysis, that can be fatal), fatigue, depression, type 2 diabetes and cataracts.

There is now considerable, if not overwhelming evidence, pointing to the dangers of Statin drugs. Indeed there is much more evidence than even I had imagined when I began researching for this blog. This article is perhaps the most useful link - as it provides links to a considerable number of scientific studies that points to the dangers of Statins - from peripheral neuropathy and poly-neuropathy, to neuro-toxicity, to psychiatric reactions, to cognitive function, memory loss, mental effects, to Alzheimers disease, and much more.

One of the most recent connection has been with diabetes. Statin drugs has been found to increase the risk of diabetes in post-menopausal women by a massive 70%. A long-term study in the USA, involving 1000's of women, found that female patients prescribed Statins had 48% greater change of developing diabetes. And this rose to 70% in older women. There is more on this research here. And the research is outlined here.

Equally important, Statin drugs is implicated with many kinds of nerve damage. There is now research evidence indicating that if you take Statin drugs for 2 years or more, nerve damage becomes the rule rather than the exception. An amazing claim indeed.

EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE DANGERS OF HIGH CHOLESTEROL
Yet, to understand the full enormity of the Statin drug scam, we also have to understand about cholesterol, and whether it is (as we have been told) an important contributory cause of heart disease. Remember, the main reason for people taking Statins is that we have been convinced that high levels of cholesterol cause heart disease. Yet there is a major clue that this link may be quite wrong, namely, that as cholesterol levels have become lower, rates of heart disease have not followed suit.

” … between 1994 and 2006 the percentage of men aged 65 to 74 with ‘high’ cholesterol decreased from 87% to 54% … Despite this, the rate of coronary heart disease for this age group stayed about the same … Other age groups have experienced an increase in the rate of heart disease as the number of people with ‘high’ cholesterol has decreased.”

The Big Pharma companies do, of course, have good reason to invent and/or support such a link. Indeed, as this article explains, there are about $29Billion Reasons to lie about cholesterol!

The evidence linking high cholesterol with heart disease is, at best, tenuous. And where there is a problem, it is probably best to deal with it is through diet rather than drugs!

SO WHAT ARE WE TOLD ABOUT THE DANGERS OF STATINS?
There continues to be a deafening silence about the dangers of Statin drugs. The research outlined in this blog is rarely, if ever, reported in the mainstream Media. They appear content going along with the views of the conventional medical establishment, and the drug companies. So as patients we are not told anything beyond a few bland and understated cautions, and the mantra that 'the benefits outweigh the disadvantages'.

The information is not even found on websites selling these drugs, or indeed, in the information contained within the packaging. One study, undertaken by the school of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (University of Portsmouth), and reported by HRI, asked this question, and discovered the following:

* General contraindications regarding statin use were absent in more that 92% of website advertising Statins.

* Contraindications relating to interactions with other medication were absent in over 47% of websites.

* Warnings about the potential for muscle damage were absent in 37% of websites

* Warnings about the potential for liver damage were absent in almost 50% of website.

The conclusion HRI reached, after looking at this research, was that it was impossible for consumers to make 'informed choices' about the likely benefits and harms of these drugs. Their dedicated blog, 'The Cholesterol Truth', believes that 'statin drugs are nothing but money-spinning concoctions that are putting people's health at risk'. It is difficult to disagree with this summary. They say, further:

"It's ridiculous to think doctors are prescribing drugs that are supposedly preventing a killer disease ... but in turn these drugs also increase the risk of another major disease - diabetes. It's hardly surprising that the number of people being diagnosed with diabetes is reacing epidemic proportions given the widespread use of statins.


Yet this is what we get with all Big Pharma drugs. We take them for one condition, only to find that we soon go down with another disease, often much worse than the original disease.

Big Pharma companies, supported by the Media, politicians and the NHS, continue to push Statin drugs quite shamelessly. This article describes the idea that they should be prescribed for the treatment of flu - something that is described as 'a ludicrous recommendation'.

Quite so. But perhaps recommending Statin drugs to treat any condition is equally ludicrous!

Cholesterol. Conventional Medicine gets it wrong again!

Cholesterol is not bad after all, apparently. Just a ploy for Big Pharma to get people to take drugs! So whereas the magazine WDDTY says that 'doctors - and the drug companies - have got it badly wrong' this is not entirely correct. (http://www.wddty.com/bad-ldl-cholesterol-is-good-after-all-and-keeps-us-alive.html). 

The idea that cholesterol is 'bad' has earned the drug companies £billions in Statin drug sales, and that was the object of the exercise. It always is for them!

Once we were told that all cholesterol was 'bad'; then, there was 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol. But now a new study has found that the 'bad' cholesterol is also 'good' - as it plays a vital role in keeping us alive!

          "Researchers from Texas A&M University question the headlong rush to reduce LDL (low-density lipoprotein) levels, which has been seen as the body’s ‘bad guy’ that merely clogs the arteries and reduces blood flow to the heart. In a study of 52 people aged between 60 and 69 years, the researchers discovered that LDL cholesterol plays an important role in restoring muscle mass.  They put the participants through a rigorous exercise programme, but only those who had high LDL levels saw any improvement in their muscles.

Not only that, LDL is the body’s early warning signal, says lead researcher Steve Riechman.  

          “LDL acts as a warning sign that something is wrong and it signals the body to these warning signs.  If you did get rid of all your LDL cholesterol, you would die,” he says.

Source: Texas A&M University.  

http://tamunews.tamu.edu/2011/05/04/%e2%80%98bad%e2%80%99-cholesterol-not-as-bad-as-people-think-shows-texas-am-study/.

So conventional medicine has been getting us to take drugs to get rid of something in our body that we need. And Statins (once thought to be entirely safe) are now known to cause dreadful disease-inducing-effects (DIEs). Not a good deal for patients! A great deal for the drug companies!

See also http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-bad-cholesterol-people.html

The dangers of Statins - and Cholesterol

People using statins, which reputedly lower cholesterol,  have a higher risk of liver dysfunction, kidney failure, muscle weakness and cataracts - according to a study that covered more than 2 million people in Britain by researchers from Nottingham University.

The findings have been published in the British Medical Journal, and by Reuters

Statins have been considered to be wonder drugs, with few if any side-effects. Some doctors are still saying that everyone at risk of heart attack of stroke should take them. Just a few weeks ago one doctor suggested they should be taken by everyone who has a 'fast-food' meal.

The mainstream media does not think it is worth passing on to their readers, listeners and viewers, even though Statin drugs have been prescribed to millions of patients on the basis that they are entirely safe, and have become the best selling ConMed drugs, and of course, highly profitable.

All pharmaceutical drugs are dangerous, and consequently should be avoided. Most of them, 85% it has been calculated, are also useless. So there is no point taking them. Your body controls the levels of cholesterol, and as long as you have a good diet, and a healthy lifestyle, you can leave it to your body. If in doubt, consult a homeopath - who will at least do nothing to harm you, and if you have high cholesterol, homeopathy can help you body get back in control of its production.