I don’t know if our government’s obsession with aspirin is preventing any headaches — but it’s giving me plenty!
The Feds and Big Pharma have been in cahoots for years trying to force a daily aspirin regimen on every poor adult in America. They’ve even ignored years of research proving that aspirin is more likely to cause deadly stomach bleeds than prevent heart attacks.
But now a new government group is making the most ridiculous aspirin claims yet.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — an “independent” panel that’s in the pocket of the drug companies — is claiming that aspirin can prevent heart disease and cancer!
But this new advice is based on two dangerous lies our government doesn’t want you to know about. Lies that could cost you your life.
Fudging the numbersWhen it comes to the new aspirin guidelines the USPSTF is getting ready to roll out, one of the top heart doctors in the country isn’t mincing words.
The group “has gotten it wrong,” said Dr. Steve Nissen, cardiology chief at the Cleveland Clinic, and it’s a mistake that will affect “millions of people.”
After a public comments period (more on that in a moment) ends in October, USPSTF will start telling doctors to put you on aspirin to prevent heart attacks and cancer. The advice is supposed to be based on an “exhaustive” review of the research — but when I dug into it, I found the USPSTF was spreading two deadly lies.
Lie #1: Evidence proved that aspirin can prevent heart attacks
The USPSTF claims its analysis showed aspirin can keep you safe from heart disease — and the media ate this nonsense with a spoon. I even saw one headline that read, “Aspirin Therapy Helps Elderly Prevent Heart Attack.”
Are you kidding me? Is nobody actually reading this research?
The fact is, the USPSTF found smoking-gun proof that millions of people are taking daily aspirin right now who shouldn’t be. If you’re younger than 50 or older than 69, the group couldn’t find a shred of evidence that aspirin can help you.
And if you’re between the ages of 50 and 69? Well, the news wasn’t much better.
The USPSTF found that for folks aged 50-59, aspirin may provide a “moderate” benefit (that’s some endorsement, huh?) but only if:
- You’re at an increased risk of heart disease;
- You have no risk of gastrointestinal bleeding; and
- You’re willing to take the stuff for 10 years straight!
How many of us are really going to pass that test? And the evidence that aspirin can help people in their 60s was so weak that even the USPSTF rated it a “C” on an A-F scale.
In other words, who knows? And I don’t know about you, but it’s going to take a lot more than a C to get me to risk a deadly stomach bleed.
And if you’re as outraged as I am that the Feds would recommend you keep popping aspirin based on almost no evidence, wait until you hear the second lie they’re telling.
Lie #2: Aspirin can cut your cancer risk
The USPSTF research supposedly “proved” that daily aspirin can reduce your chances of dying from colorectal cancers by 33 percent.
Like heck it did. What the USPSTF was slow to mention was that the people in these trials were taking up to 1,200 mg. of aspirin a day for 10-20 years.
That’s nearly 15 Bayer low-dose aspirin tablets every single day. Forget run-of-the-mill gastrointestinal bleeding — your guts will be springing leaks like an old faucet!
And the claims on how aspirin can reduce your cancer risk are based on nothing but a statistical magic trick called “relative risk.”
That means scientists take a pool of people and estimate how many of them should get colorectal cancer. If they expect two patients to develop the disease — and only one does instead — they’ll claim aspirin cut your risk by 50 percent.
In other words, there wasn’t a shred of proof that aspirin really prevented a single case of cancer. This is just a smoke-and-mirrors technique that drug companies use all the time.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped groups like the American Cancer Society from telling the New York Times that aspirin may even help prevent esophageal and stomach cancer, too.
Based on what? Don’t be shocked if you see Bayer sponsor the next ACS walk-a-thon.
We have until October 12 to send comments to the USPSTF and demand they drop these recommendations. Tell them that if any of these claims are proven true, you’ll eat your hat. And while that might not help your stomach, it will probably cut heart attack and cancer risk as much as aspirin ever will.
Sources:
“In a first, aspirin is recommended to fight a form of cancer” Roni Caryn Rabin, September 14, 2015, The New York Times, well.blogs.nytimes.com
“Draft recommendation statement” U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org
