Mad Men

The Mad Men of Madison Avenue have been wildly effective in convincing the public that cholesterol is deadly. And the “B Side” of that message has been just as effective: You can save your life if you just do as your doctor tells you and take Lipitor or Zocor or any of the other cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.

If these drugs were even half as effective as the advertising they might actually be worth taking. But the evidence shows that statins are practically worthless – unless, of course, you’re a drug maker who shares in the nearly $30 billion in sales that statin drugs rake in worldwide every year.

Do you know someone who takes a statin? If so, share this e-Alert with them and they might end up thanking your for saving them quite a bit of money on something they probably don’t even need.

Good business sense

When I need insights into medical issues, I don’t reach for a copy of Business Week. And yet, a couple of weeks ago, there it was on the newsstand – a Business Week cover that stated in large black and red letters: “For many people, cholesterol drugs may not do any good.”

That probably rocked a few BW readers back on their heels. But the article inside was even more damaging to the reputation of this cash cow drug. And that’s what rocked ME back on my heels. I’ve never seen such an honest, hard-boiled look at statins from a mainstream media source.

Author John Carey did an exhaustive job in uncovering the reality of statin drug use, and I’ve picked five key highlights from his article that ought to convince just about anyone that most people are throwing their money away when they spend around $1,000 per year on a statin drug.

Highlight One: It Really Works!

That’s right, statin drugs really do lower LDL cholesterol. And yet, according to James M. Wright, M.D. (director of Therapeutics Initiative, a Canadian organization that reviews the effectiveness of drugs), statin trials reveal that ANY amount of reduction in LDL cholesterol does not reduce heart attack risk for people over the age of 65, or for women of any age. (The one exception: Those who have already had a heart attack or are at high risk of heart disease may slightly reduce their risk of heart attack.)

Dr. Wright told Business Week: “Most people are taking something with no chance of benefit and a risk of harm.”

Why would anyone take this stuff?

Highlight Two: Drug company math is a shell game.

You’ve probably seen the Lipitor ads Pfizer is currently running. Dr. Robert Jarvik – the inventor of the artificial heart – tells us that Lipitor reduced the risk of heart attack by 36 percent in a clinical trial with subjects at high risk of heart disease. This reduction is impressive until Mr. Carey breaks down the math for us.

Here’s the catch: In the featured study, for every hundred people who took Lipitor, two had a heart attack, and for every hundred people who took a placebo, three had a heart attack. Impressive? Not so much. Sure, the math is correct: It’s a 36 percent risk reduction. But it means that the vast majority of Lipitor users with a high risk of heart disease received very little benefit.

Highlight Three: Just as effective as a sugar pill?

Mr. Carey writes: “The only large clinical trial funded by the government, rather than companies, found no statistically significant benefit at all.”

Highlight Four: Want big numbers? Check the side effects.

An estimated 10 to 15 percent of statin users experience side effects that I’ve noted in many previous e-Alerts: muscle pain, memory lapses, sexual dysfunction, and damage to the liver and kidneys. Dr. John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, told BW: “We should tell patients that the reduced cardiovascular risk will be replaced by other serious illnesses.”

Greasing the palms

Highlight Five: It’s all about the greenbacks, of course.

So with such tepid evidence that statin use is at all effective, why do so many doctors (such as Dr. Robert Jarvik) and media shills insist that statin drugs are life-savers?

Dr. Rodney A. Hayward, professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School summed it up neatly for BW: “It’s almost impossible to find someone who believes strongly in statins who does not get a lot of money from industry.”

Source:
“Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?” John Carey, Business Week, 1/17/08, businessweek.com