These People Are Calling You Sick

As I resume my book, I find more and more interesting facts inside that are blog worthy. As I have said before, these companies and doctors are broadening the guidelines to make everyone a patient. These two doctors from Vermont, Dr. Lisa Schwartz and Dr. Steve Woloshin, are also concerned about this growing trend. Dr. Schwartz says, "It's an effort to make everybody sick, and the trend is global." Later in the book she also says, "We've scared everyone into this state and drugs offer an easy way that you can do something about it." They both agree that the problem isn't lowering your cholesterol, but it is looking at the bigger picture of health and preventing the things that result from the high cholesterol. The cholesterol is the starting point, they are really trying to prevent heart disease, stroke, and premature death. Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Woloshin agree with a majority of modern doctors, that these medications should only be given to patients who have already suffered from some form of the more serious conditions because in those patients, the medications would benefit them the most. They are giving these drugs to people who are not immediately in need of them.


As said in the video, muscle pain or weakness can become a rare but serious side effect. That is the problem with these drugs. Cholesterol lowering medications, or statins as they are called in medical terms, can be harmful for people who have not had serious problems before such as a heart attack or stroke. In the book, it talks about how there is not much long term research done. In a recent review of clinical trials of the statins, only a third of all the trials were fully reported. Most didn't mention any side effect and omitted anything wrong with the drug or even the possible side effects. The two main severe, but rare, side effects of these drugs area fatal muscle wasting condition called rhabdomyolysis and liver damage. Patients who are not in immediately need of these medications are taking a risk of developing new health problems they never had before the drug was taken. The medication Baycol made by Bayer has had 11,000 lawsuit cases against them for these same sever side effects. Bayer claims they marketed the medication responsibly but they are handling each law decision case by case.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review and assess the safety and effectiveness of medications. They are a respected government company that is relied on by all Americans for their decisions about the drugs that come out on the market. During the recent years though, more than half the funding for the FDA comes directly from the pharmaceutical industry. Some of these people's salaries are dependant on the funding. These pharmaceutical giants are dominating the drug world, the patients who buy the products they produce, and even government organizations that consider and review our safety. While I was reading through that paragraph about the FDA, it makes me question the government progam and I wonder if there is any bias there when passing drugs through inspection. No matter who you consider to have knowledge of medications whether is your doctor of the FDA source, they all seem to be connected and may be biased toward these drug companies that are giving so much money back to the source.

The chapter ends in a well written paragraph that I thought was good enough to share.

"Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a more rational debate about cholesterol,
heart disease, or any other health problem, is the simple fact that too many of
the people we turn to for advice on such matters-our doctors-are tied to the
makers of drugs. Sometimes those ties involve serveral hundred thousand dollars
a year, sometimes just a few warm doughnuts."