Pediatricians pushing statins for fourth-graders
Get ready for Snap, Crackle and Crestor — because next they’ll be putting statins in our kids’ breakfast cereal!
For years I’ve told you how Big Pharma has used every sleazy trick in the book to get millions of American adults on cholesterol-lowering statins.
They’ve paid off doctors, run million-dollar scare campaigns, and even pressured medical groups to lower cholesterol guidelines.
But now they’ve got bullseyes painted right on our kids’ backs.
Because a group of pediatricians with ties to the drug companies has started a push to prescribe statins to children as young as nine years old.
And if their crazy plan goes through, they’ll be sentencing our kids and grandkids to lifetimes of heart disease, vision loss and even diabetes.
They did it with ADHD meds. They did it with antidepressants. And now they’re getting ready to do it with statins.
And all it’s going to take is a nudge from the American Academy of Pediatrics — a group of 64,000 pediatricians that admits it’s been working hand-in-hand with the drug companies for years.
You see, buried inside AAP’s new list of screenings for kids — the kind your grandchildren get during their “well child” visits — you’ll find cholesterol testing for children between the ages of 9 and 11.
These are kids who haven’t had their first day of middle school yet and are still trying to master their times tables!
And make no mistake about it — this is a push to sell statin drugs, plain and simple.
Seven years ago this same group tried to get kids screened for cholesterol and, if needed, started on statins as young as eight!
Author and pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene predicted that it would “open the door” for Big Pharma to start advertising and promoting statins to kids.
Maybe Pfizer could run some ads in the Weekly Reader?
And Dr. Lawrence Rosen at Hackensack University Medical Center said the idea was so reckless he was “embarrassed for the AAP.”
Well, embarrassing is one thing — and dangerous is another.
Look, we already know what these drugs can do to adults. I’m talking about cataracts, muscle pains and fatigue, and as we just found out, hardening of the arteries.
But the biggest risk of all for kids may be diabetes. And that’s no small risk, either. One recent study on healthy adults found that statins can increase your chances of getting type 2 diabetes by a frightening 87 percent!
Now imagine what would happen if these kids stayed on statins for 60 years or more!
Listen, I’ve been telling you for years — and plenty of research backs me up — that cholesterol isn’t nearly the boogeyman that the mainstream has made it out to be. But even if your child or grandchild does have a serious cholesterol problem, some good, old-fashioned lifestyle changes should do the trick.
That means helping him steer clear of artery-clogging added sugars, fructose, and trans fats that are being dumped into thousands of processed foods.
Sources:
“Pediatricians unveil new recommendations for office visits” Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, December 7, 2015, Live Science, livescience.com
