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Health & Wellness

Media Trumpet Dangerous Heart Drug

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet. Posted December 17, 2008.


Crestor has been named one of the top five most dangerous drugs by the FDA. Yet it's being sold as immortality in a bottle.
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When Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston presented the results of the AstraZeneca-funded JUPITER study at the American Heart Association conference in November, there were a lot more stenographers than skeptics in the press corps.  (JUPITER standing for Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention.)

How could a drug-company-funded study designed to show why the general population should use its drug (Crestor, or rosuvastatin) be objective? Or even newsworthy? Especially when its lead author is co-inventor on the related patent? And its authors list 131 financial ties to drug companies? Hello? 

But the media didn't let overt conflicts of interest -- COIs as pharma calls them, because they're so common -- ruin the story. 

"AstraZeneca's Crestor Cuts Death, Heart Attack," exalted Reuters, remembering the PR dictum of getting name and company in the headline. "Crestor Study Seen Changing Preventive Treatment!" 

"Wider Cholesterol Drug Use May Save Lives," trumpeted other headlines. "Statins for Everyone!"  "Crestor in the Water?" 

Was this the same Crestor that was vilified in a Lancet editorial three months after its 2003 U.S. approval as "inadequately investigated?" The one named one of the top five most dangerous drugs by the FDA's Dr. David "Vioxx" Graham on Capitol Hill in 2004? Petitioned for recall by the Washington-based Public Citizen?  Found worthless against chronic heart failure just one month earlier in Lancet?  

In the feeding frenzy to cover the self-engineered drug breakthrough, where was media mention of another American Heart Association finding about Crestor in its journal Circulation in 2005? The one that said Crestor "was significantly more likely to be associated with the composite end point of rhabdomyolysis, proteinuria, nephropathy or renal failure," than other drugs? 

Where was mention of the FDA warning about rhabdomyolysis -- the muscle disease that did in Bayer's Baycol -- that was added to Crestor in 2005 after a patient death -- along with warnings to physicians about Crestor use in Asian patients, people with severe kidney disease and patients taking cyclosporine?  

Oops. 

But while the gee-whiz press focused on the JUPITER study's startling results -- the Crestor group had a 54 percent reduction in heart attacks, 48 percent reduction in strokes and 20 percent reduction in death compared to placebo -- especially in light of the fact that the study group was free of heart disease and high cholesterol, most doctors wouldn't drink the AstraZeneca Kool-Aid. 

The study's 17,802 enrollees may have had normal levels of the bad LDL cholesterol, but some were "walking vasculopaths," with abnormal C-reactive protein levels [CRP] which indicate inflammation in the body said Dr. Bernadine Healy, health editor for U.S. News & World Report. 


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See more stories tagged with: media, health, drug companies, crestor, heart health

Martha Rosenberg is a columnist and cartoonist who frequently writes about the impact of the pharmaceutical, food and gun industries on public health. A former medical copywriter, her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, as well as on the BBC and in the original National Lampoon.

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Me Too Drugs Are Me Too Drugs
Posted by: quiact on Dec 21, 2008 5:00 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Facts Believed to be Associated With All Statin Medications:

Adverse events associated with the statin class of pharmaceuticals are thought to occur more often than they are reported- with high doses of statins prescribed to patients in particular. However, ince this class of drugs has existed for use for over 20 years, statins are considered safe and effective for enhancing the clearance of LDL noted to be elevated in the lipid profiles of patients.
Additionally, there is no reduction in cardiovascular morbidity or mortality, as well as an increase in a person’s lifespan, if one is on any particular statin medication for their lipid management over another, others have concluded. So caution should perhaps be considered if one chooses to prescribe such a drug for a patient if they are absent of dyslipidemia to a significant degree, or are under the belief that one statin medication provides a greater cardiovascular benefit over another. In other words, the health care provider should be assured that any statin therapy for their patients is considered reasonable and necessary if the LDL in their patients need to be reduced perhaps at this time with the evidence that exists regarding statins.
Abstract etiologies for those who choose to prescribe statin drugs on occasion for reasons not indicated by these statin drugs- such as reducing CRP levels, or for Alzheimer’s treatment, or anything else not involved with LDL reduction may not appropriate prophylaxis at this point for any patient. All other benefits that appear to have favorable effects in such areas are speculative at this point, and require further research for disease states aside from dyslipidemia, according to many.
Statins as a particular class of drugs that seem to in fact decrease the risk of cardiovascular events significantly, it has been proven. Statins also decrease thrombus formation as well as modulate inflammatory responses (CRP). For those patients with dyslipidemia who are placed on a statin, the effects of that statin on reducing a patient’s LDL level can be measured with the efficacy of the statin after about five weeks of therapy on a particular statin drug. Liver Function blood tests are recommended for those patients on continued statin therapy, and most are chronically taking statins for the rest of their lives to manage their lipid profile in regards to maintaining the suitable LDL level for a particular patient presently.
Yet some have said that about half of all strokes and heart attacks that do occur are not because of increased cholesterol levels of these patients. Others believe that it is oxidized cholesterol that causes vulnerable plaques to form on coronary arterial walls, which is the catalyst for a heart attack, and that there is no medicinal treatment for the formation or stabilization of these plaques to prevent heart attacks or strokes. Others who promote and support statin medicinal therapy claim that these drugs, do, in fact, stabilize these plaques, and therefore are beneficial.
As stated previously, in regards to other uses of statins besides just LDL reduction, there is evidence to suggest that statins have other benefits besides lowering LDL, such as reducing inflammation (CRP) with patients on statin therapy, those patients with dementia or Parkinson's disease may benefit from statin medication, as well as those patients who may have certain types of cancer or even cataracts. Yet again, these other roles for statin therapy have only been minimally explored, comparatively speaking. Because of the limited evidence regarding additional benefits of statins, the drug should again be prescribed for those with dyslipidemia only at this time involving elevated LDL levels as detected in the patient’s bloodstream.

Dan Abshear

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Clarity Counts
Posted by: When In Doubt on Dec 22, 2008 3:19 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Space between paragraphs makes far easier reading.

Density is dense.

Especially if the information is important.
That is why i have prescription reams of dense 4 point type tending to turn people off.

Space, please

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