Media Trumpet Dangerous Heart Drug

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

"As a result, the JUPITER trial was riddled with obesity, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes and genes predisposing to heart disease," said Healy. "Almost 3,000 enrollees were smokers, a big-time CRP elevator, and only 10 percent took aspirin, an inexpensive preventive medicine that protects against both heart disease and stroke. (Aspirin also lowers CRP.) Other study patients were really healthy, free of any known risk factors, and yet had elevated CRP for no obvious reason." 

While the press bought AstraZeneca's contrivance that the JUPITER study was so conclusive it was ended early, many of the 470 doctors who posted online comments after the study in the New England Journal of Medicine (Nov. 20, 2008) said you ended the trial when? 

"It is well established that RCTs [randomized controlled trials] stopped early overestimate benefits significantly," wrote a physician from Rochester, Minn. 

"It is shocking that this trial was terminated 50 percent through, based on a small, absolute benefit, with real questions about long-term risk," said a poster from the Public Health Law Program, LSU Law Center. 

"There is no justification for stopping the follow-up, even if the trial lists felt it was unethical to recruit new patients," wrote a physician from Yorkshire, United Kingdom. "Congratulations to AstraZeneca for selling the results to the uncritical lay media. I feel sorry for all the family doctors who will be pestered by patients for some time to come."

Doctors also balked at the study's ipso facto preference for a pill over lifestyle changes like diet and exercise -- including the well-known Dr. Dean Ornish of Preventive Medicine Research Institute, who noted the nation spent $20 billion on cholesterol-lowering drugs last year. 

While cardiologists were soft on the study -- except one who assailed the Western "pandemic food addiction and the mirage of immortality in a bottle of pills" -- many other doctors detected behind JUPITER the disease-mongering of the sort that sold hormone-replacement therapy and Vioxx to anyone over 50. 

Even a medical student wasn't impressed. 

"I don't think risking the patient's life by giving him statins is a correct procedure. I would be giving him/her benefits for a disease which has not been diagnosed yet and increasing the odds of developing another disease (diabetes)," she wrote.

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.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »