A couple of years ago, I got concerned about what I was reading in Joe Mercola’s newsletters about the dangers of long-term use of Lipitor and other statin drugs, so I talked to my doctor. His reply: “All of us baby boomer doctors are taking statins. They’re perfectly safe.” So I’ve continued to take Lipitor. But I wonder…
Now I see that there are concerns about Vytorin and Zetia. The NY TIMES reports that these drugs have not received strenuous testing from the FDA and that there is some evidence they may cause cancer. the NYT article says, casually, that statins are “an older form of cholesterol-lowering medicine whose effectiveness and safety are not in question.” Lipitor has been noted as the most-prescribed drug in the world. Are all of these people taking Lipitor in danger? Who knows? A segment of Good Morning America in February had a good discussion of some of the issues surrounding use of Lipitor; the segment was titled, “It’s the Lipitor, stupid.”)
There are benefits to being old and remembering the past, and then there are drawbacks. Remember Thalidomide? Are the statins another case of what I call “Lucy and the football”? If you remember in the Peanuts comic strip, Lucy kept promising Charlie Brown that she would hold the football for him while he kicked it, but every time, she pulled it away at the last minute. She kept promising to hold the football, but each time he trusted her, and each time she broke her promise. That’s what I feel like with the FDA and the drug companies. They keep saying, “trust us,” but how can we?
In the years since the drug companies discovered the wonders of advertising, I’ve been concerned more and more that they are trying to control the FDA, the AMA, and the rest of the medical world. If the FDA would approve drugs with only limited clinical trials, how safe are other new medications? How much do you know about the drugs you’re taking? What does it say about a drug advertisement when the discussion of the side effects is longer than the discussion about the benefits?
What do you think? Are you taking a statin? Do you worry about the safety of these drugs?
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