Bad News for the Heart
Posted on March 30, 2008
Here is my rant against many of the medical corporations doing business in the US.
Reports were released today of a failed trial showing that Vytorin, prescribed for high cholesterol levels (especially to reduce LDL levels), failed to improve heart disease. Millions of Americans already take the drug or one of its components, Zetia. Doctors were stunned to learn that Vytorin failed to improve heart disease even though it worked as intended to reduce key risk factors.
This was an especially important study because Zetia and Vytorin have racked up $5 billion in sales despite limited proof of benefit. Two Congressional panels launched probes into why it took drugmakers nearly two years after the study’s completion to release results.
Doctors have long focused on lowering LDL or bad cholesterol as a way to prevent heart disease. Statins like Merck & Co.’s Zocor, which recently came out in generic form, are known to prevent heart disease.
Vytorin, which came out in 2004, combines Zocor with Schering-Plough Corp.’s Zetia, which went on sale in 2002 and attacks cholesterol in a different way. The study tested whether Vytorin was better than Zocor alone at limiting plaque buildup.
The results show the drug had “no result - zilch. In no subgroup, in no segment, was there any added benefit” for reducing plaque, said Dr. John Kastelein, the Dutch scientist who led the study.
That happened even though Vytorin dramatically lowered LDL, fats in the blood called triglycerides and a measure of artery inflammation - CRP.
The New England Journal which published this report today also published a report showing that Vytorin and Zetia’s use soared in the United States amid a $200 million advertising blitz.
I tell you I’ve been decrying this outrage for a few years now and it’s just getting worse, much worse.
Time for regulation!
Look to the North. In Canada you can’t advertise prescription medication. Wake up Congress! Don’t you see how this scheme works? We (drug companies) spend $200 million advertising — where? Some to the public, some to the doctors. We tell the folks at home ‘you need to talk to your doctor about our new medicine FleeceUm, guaranteed to relieve you of your hard earned cash’. Then we tell the doctors ‘you’ve just got to prescribe FleeceUm, the public is crying to be taken to the cleaners (plus our commissions to you are better than any other product)…’
Been to the doctor lately? Did you notice there are about as many drug reps waiting to see the doctor as there are patients? Let’s see now, if I multiply by 2 and add 4, then raise that to the 3rd power, calculation says — NO WONDER our drug prices are so high that people can’t afford insurance, we got to pay for reps, advertising, doctors, corporate profits, and who knows what else.
Our officials must act to stop this madness. It’s a profit machine that’s out of control.
Ban all advertising, that’s my plea. Require adequate testing before the first sale is ever made. Only in cases where there is no acceptable medication to treat a disease or illness should a new drug be allowed on the market until proof can be shown that it works better than existing medications used for the same purpose.
When a drug goes generic, in most cases, the parent company has plans to enter a substitute drug into the money stream, thereby (with advertising) recapturing the monies that would otherwise be lost. They will then downplay the old drug to the doctors, convincing them it’s not in the best interest of the patients to prescribe a medicine that has been used successfully for 10 years or more (and is now on the $4 list at the local pharmacy), because a better one is now available.
Give me the proof.
One more thing and then I’ll let you go.
It’s my belief that no doctor should be allowed to prescribe medicine in the first place. Did you know that doctors get very little training in medications in medical school? So where do they get their ‘knowledge’ ? Remember that queue of reps at the doctor’s office? Bingo! Now you know.
But there is someone who knows. Your local pharmacist is the one who received the training. Place into their hands the full responsibility for prescriptions. They aren’t bothered by a bunch of drug reps knocking on the window. Let them be analytical and with a history of the patient’s medical conditions, make the right choice based on research studies and understanding of reactions and implication, of which the doctor has scarcely a clue.
Does this make sense? Let the doctor diagnose and the pharmacist prescribe.
I’m done.
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