by Heidi Stevenson
Gaia-Health.com

A recent study clarifies that statins are the greatest medical fraud of all time. The claims made for them are false. The amount of harm they do is staggering, resulting in millions of lives devastated and ended. The worst part of all, though, is that it was entirely predictable—but studies were designed to hide the truth. The media, the health agencies, and the doctors all provided cover for Big Pharma. After all, there was money to be made.

Statins are one of the most dangerous drugs prescribed by doctors. The risks from them were obvious before they were ever  marketed. Nonetheless, they are among the best selling drugs of all time. Finally, genuine science has been looking at their adverse effects and lack of benefit to document the truth that was obvious from the beginning:

Statins are the greatest medical fraud ever perpetrated.

A new review of the science reports:

The statin industry, with all of its spin-off(s), is a 20-billion-a-year industry. We are observing the revealing of the utmost medical tragedy of all times. It is unprecedented that the healthcare industry has inadvertently induced life-threatening nutrient deficiency in millions of otherwise healthy people.^[1]

The only point on which I can disagree is the statement that the travesty of statins was somehow “inadvertent”. There is, in fact, absolutely no excuse for it.

The authors of the study, Sherif Sultan and Niamh Hynes, have produced a paper that is utterly condemnatory of the use of statins. Not only do they condemn the drugs, they also condemn the pseudo science behind it. Though they don’t state it, and obviously could not take such a risk, there is simply no way around the fact that the science behind statins has been largely fraudulent, and that fraud has been perpetrated by Big Pharma.

So what did the study actually say?

Sultan and Hynes reviewed a large number of studies, using Pubmed, EM-BASE, and Cochrane review databases to find them. They focused primarily on clinical reviews, meta-analyses, and large-scale randomised controlled trials. The entire list of studies they selected is included in their paper, which you can read because it isn’t hidden behind a pay wall.

They stated:

We seem to have fallen into the marketing trap and ignored the niggling side effects with regard to the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors

The “we” the authors referred to was the medical industry. HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors are statins. Their function is to interfere with HMG-CoA, which is a molecule that’s a precursor to cholesterol. Of course, the purpose of a statin is to reduce cholesterol, which they do accomplish.

So what’s the problem? As the authors state:

Cholesterol is crucial for energy, immunity, fat metabolism, leptin, thyroid hormone activity, liver related synthesis, stress intolerance, adrenal function, sex hormone
syntheses and brain function.

Cholesterol is a primary requirement for an enormous array of absolutely critical functions in the body. Obviously, if cholesterol is reduced, then health must be harmed:

• Energy levels must be reduced.
• There must be interference with fat metabolism.
• The thyroid must not be able to function properly.
• Our ability to deal with stress is stressed.
• The adrenal glands’ functions must be damaged.
• Sexual function and reproductive ability must suffer.
• Our brain must be damaged, which can mean any part of our existence may be harmed, including mental functioning, autonomic processes, coordination, and every other function, including the heart.

There is simply no excuse for not recognizing that not only is there an obvious risk inherent in statins, but that it would be stunning if they didn’t produce harm.

The Benefit of Statins

In terms of benefit, the authors noted that the only people who are helped at all are middle aged men who have already suffered heart attacks. (Readers of Gaia Health will be familiar with this fact, as it’s been stated here many times.) And that benefit is minimal. In fact, the authors point out that statins produce less benefit for these men than aspirin. Please note that Gaia Health does not support aspirin as a treatment for heart disease, either.

In effect, statins produce not one whit of benefit to anyone in any manner.

The Adverse Effects of Statins

The authors found that, for every 10,000 individuals in good health who take statins:

• 307 extra patients suffer from cataracts.
• 23 additional patients develop acute kidney failure.
• 74 extra patients develop liver dysfunction.
• Statins increase muscle fatigue by 30% and cause an 11.3% incidence of rhabdomyolysis at high doses.
• They also state, “What’s more, it induces inflammatory myopathy, including necrotizing autoimmune myopathy with immunosuppression and the statin-related myopathy can last for 12 months.”

They also point out that statins cause erectile dysfunction, and that young men suffer 10 times as much erectile dysfunction on low doses of statins. Beyond all these adverse effects:

• According to the FDA’s adverse event reporting system, about 40 out of every 10,000 statin reports are for interstitial lung disease, which causes scarring in the lungs that is almost never reversible.
• Statins cause hyperglycemia after eating in both diabetics and nondiabetics.
• Statins “induce full blown type 2 diabetes in women.”
• Statins increase the risk of developing HbA1c in people with and without diabetes. HbA1c is a condition that causes glucose to stick to hemoglobin, which is an indicator of greater harm from diabetes.
• Statins prescribed to the elderly cause a 9% increase in diabetes.
• Statins can cause insulin resistance.
• A correlation between Parkinson’s disease and low cholesterol exists, which clearly implicates statins.
• A correlation between statins and early-onset cataracts has been found. Statin users may be 50% more likely to develop cataracts early.

Here’s the most shocking health risk of statins:

[S]tatin use is associated with an increased prevalence and extent of coronary plaques calcification. Ironically for a drug which was marketed to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, the confirm registry identified a strong association of statin use to the progression of coronary artery plaque features.

This isn’t simply irony. Statins increase the harm that they are supposedly meant to decrease!

In relation to this particular heart risk, the authors also found that:

Statin use was correlated with a greater incidence of severe coronary artery stenosis as well as increase in the numbers of coronary vessels developing obstructive coronary artery disease. Furthermore, statin use was linked to an increase in the prevalence and extent of mixed calcific plaque. Five prospective studies have borne witness to the fact that statin therapy does not induce any coronary calcium regression and evolution of
coronary calcium continues regardless of statin treatment

That is, statins increase the narrowing of coronary arteries, which can only increase the chance of heart attacks. They increase the development of obstructive coronary artery disease. Statins may increase calcium-related arterial plaques.

Statins also produce a significant increase in the risk of cancer and neurodegenerative dysfunction in the elderly.

The authors point out even more than this—but just how much more do you need to know? Statins are health destroyers.

Intentionally Hiding the Facts

The study points out that statins may increase the risk for nonmelanoma skin cancers by 1.6 times. The authors then state:

For unknown reasons, since these publications the squamous cell carcinoma has been excluded in all reports from subsequent statin trials.

Is there any way to interpret that other than that the statin industry does not want there to be more evidence that statins cause skin cancer?

The authors referenced studies that had claimed to demonstrate benefits from statins. However, when they were reanalyzed by independent scientists—that is, scientists who genuinely didn’t have ties to Big Pharma—they found that the claimed results were false. The studies actually showed that statins produced no benefit and a great deal of harm.

Cohorts in Crime

It’s bad enough that Big Pharma produces studies that can only be called junk science to give an impression that statins are effective and safe. It’s obviously fraudulent, and all those who have willingly taken part in such  studies—whether by paying for them or doing them—should be prosecuted criminally. There is simply no way to get around the fact that, at the very least, many of these people are guilty of negligent homicide by providing false evidence of both efficacy and safety.

News Media

The news industry has also been guilty, as this study was published over two months ago, yet there’s been virtually no coverage by the mainstream media. This is news that could save the lives of millions of people, yet the mainstream media hasn’t bothered with it. Clearly, their interests are not in real news, but are in their owners’ financial interests. Every mainstream media corporation in the United States is owned by another corporation that also owns at least one major pharmaceutical corporation or is controlled by someone with heavy interests in them. For example:

• News Corporation owns Viacom.
• Ropert Murdoch founded News Corporation.
• Murdoch sits on the board of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

If that weren’t enough, consider also that the pharmaceutical industry is, by far, the biggest advertiser on mainstream media. To suggest that the news media hasn’t also been complicit is either naive or intentionally misleading. The mainstream news media has clearly determined that their duty, to provide information that the public needs, is not their concern.

Health Agencies

The agencies that are supposed to protect us from harmful health products, such as the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH, have all been complicit in the promotion of statins. Even now, the CDC stronglyrecommends the use of statins. The FDA does nothing more than add warnings to the package inserts of statins, an utterly meaningless endeavor that has never been shown to have any significant effect on sales of drugs. The NIH states, “Statins are relatively safe for most people.”

It’s obvious that our health agencies are acting almost exclusively as marketing agents for Big Pharma.

Doctors

Last, but certainly not least, are the doctors who prescribe statins. They tend to argue that it’s not their fault, that they can only go by the studies. But the reality is that it’s their job to stand between their patients and dangerous drugs. If they are unable or unwilling to do their jobs—which is clearly the case for any of them who prescribe statins without informing their patients of the risks and almost complete lack of benefit—then they are no different than those who produce pseudo science, junk science, or outright fraudulent science to support these poisons. At a minimum, they are guilty of failing in their duty to their patients. They may also be guilty of negligent homicide for any patient who dies as a result of their lack of diligence.

The Greatest Medical Fraud of All Time

Statins are the greatest medical fraud of all time. It had to be known from the very beginning that they would likely produce a great deal of harm. As the authors point out, statins interfere with the production of cholesterol, thus producing deficits in metabolic functions that are necessary for life.

There is, therefore, no excuse for doctors not to know.

There is no excuse for the news media not to do the research that would have shown them the fraud being perpetrated.

There is no excuse for the health agencies that approved statins or the ones that promote them. They had to have the relevant information.

And finally, there is no excuse for the doctors, because they should have known. If they didn’t, then they were derelict in their duty.

Everyone involved in the development, marketing, approval, promotion, and prescription of statins is guilty of perpetrating the greatest medical fraud of all time. Tallying up the death toll is most likely impossible, but there can be little doubt that the numbers run into multiple millions.

Please forward this article to anyone you know who is taking statins or considering it. They have a right to know the truth—and that truth is not being told by any doctor who prescribes them.

Read the full article here: http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2013-09-18/statins-are-the-greatest-medical-fraud-of-all-time-study-reports/

Source:

1. The Ugly Side of Statins. Systemic Appraisal of the Contemporary Un-Known Unknowns;  Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases; Sherif Sultan and Niamh Hynes; doi:10.4236/ojemd.2013.33025.

Remembering Heidi Stevenson of Gaia Health

UPDATE Feb. 2014:

Australian regulator sues Pfizer over Lipitor sales tactics

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