WITH A STROKE OF THE PEN

[Guest guest]

http://www.cancer-coverup.com/newsletter/08-2003/default.htm

 

WITH A STROKE OF THE PEN

 

 

BY KATHLEEN B. DEOUL

 

On May 14th, with a stroke of the pen, a group of NIH bureaucrats made 45

million Americans sick – literally, not figuratively. The way they did it was by

creating a new disease called “prehypertension” that turned millions of healthy

people into candidates for expensive multi-drug treatments. And what, exactly

does “prehypertension” entail?

 

Nothing more, really, than a change in the rules. To understand the change,

though, you need to know what your blood pressure measurement actually is.

 

Blood pressure is measured with two numbers. The first of these is called

“systolic” pressure and is measured as the heart beats. The other is called

“diastolic” and is measured as the heart relaxes. Your blood pressure

measurement is expressed as systolic pressure over diastolic pressure. Until the

change a systolic blood pressure of under 140 or less and a diastolic blood

pressure of under 90 or less (expressed as 130/80) was considered within normal

limits, and has been for generations.

 

On May 14th, all that changed.

 

Under the new rules, the cut-off for normal blood pressure is a systolic

pressure of 130 and a diastolic pressure of 80 – in other words ten points less

than was considered normal the day before!

 

But that’s not all!

 

In a new twist, the new NIH guidelines also say that at a systolic pressure of

120 and diastolic pressure of 80 an individual is “prehypertensive.” Although

treatment with drugs is not mandatory at this level, it is permitted “for

compelling indications.” Since 45 million Americans have blood pressures between

120 and 139 over 80, they all have just become candidates for drug therapy!

Granted, for “prehypertensives” the drug therapy is not mandatory, but what

doctor is going to risk a malpractice lawsuit by not prescribing them?

 

For the drug companies it will be a bonanza! The two-drug therapy recommended by

NIH includes a diuretic plus either an ACE Inhibitor, Beta Blocker or Calcium

Channel Blocker. Any of these will cost a patient from $500 to $1,000 per year.

That works out to between $2.25 billion and $4.5 billion in new sales – to

healthy people!

 

For the people who have suddenly become “sick,” however, there is more than just

a financial risk involved.

 

No drug is innocuous. Side effects can vary, but they are always there, and some

of the drugs included in the potential treatment for “prehypertensives” have

serious side effects indeed.

 

ACE Inhibitors can cause arrhythmia – irregular heartbeats – confusion, numbness

in the hands and feet, fainting and edema just to name a few. In some cases they

can even damage your immune system.

 

Beta Blockers, too, are not without their dangers. They can cause an abnormally

slow heart rate, dizziness, shortness of breath and fainting. Most important

they can cause an increase in cholesterol levels – creating a problem as

dangerous as the high blood pressure they were intended to treat.

 

Calcium Channel Blockers can cause an abnormally slow heart rate, low blood

pressure, an accelerated heart beat, edema and fainting. In some cases they can

even damage a patient’s central nervous system.

 

Unlike patients, the doctors will bear no risks by prescribing these unneeded

and potentially dangerous drugs to otherwise healthy patients – they’re just

following the rules! Indeed, they will run a risk if they don’t because failing

to comply with the national standards set by NIH might be viewed as malpractice!

 

Meanwhile, Big Pharma is laughing all the way to the bank!

 

What’s worse, is that this isn’t the first time Big Pharma and its allies at NIH

have pulled this trick, and given its success, it most certainly won’t be the

last.

 

But where did this new bureaucratic boondoggle come from?

 

The ball really got rolling in 1998, and has been picking up speed ever since.

 

In June of 1998, Big Pharma got the bureaucrats at NIH to change the chart used

to determine who was overweight on the basis of body mass index, or BMI.

 

Your body mass index is a simple calculation that measures your height against

your weight and comes up with a number. If you have a BMI number of between 26

and 29.9 you are considered overweight, and if your BMI is 30 or more you are

considered obese.

 

To illustrate what happened, prior to June of 1998, a five-foot four-inch tall

woman would have to weigh more than 145 pounds in order to have a BMI of 26 and

therefore be considered overweight. A five-foot ten-inch tall man would have to

weigh 185 pounds to have a BMI of 26. All that the NIH bureaucrats did was to

shift the lines on the chart to reduce the acceptable weights by ten pounds so

that the woman would have a BMI of 26 if she weighed 135 pounds and the man if

he weighed 175 pounds.

 

No big deal, right?

 

Wrong!

 

With that simple shift, 25 million Americans who had been within acceptable

weight limits the day before, were suddenly overweight! But that’s not all.

Because BMI does not take muscle mass into account, people who actually were in

exceptional physical condition were suddenly fat!

 

For example, under the new rules, based solely on BMI, Arnold Schwarzenegger and

Sylvester Stallone are obese and Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford are

seriously overweight! In fact, virtually every professional athlete would be

considered obese if only their BMI were considered!

 

Dr Judith Stern of the University of California criticized the change at the

time it was made noting “A lot of people who have increased muscle mass will be

called overweight, and they certainly are not at risk.”

 

More important, according to Dr. Stern “My bottom line is, why needlessly

stigmatize 25 million more American adults by calling them overweight? It

doesn’t help treatment and it isn’t justified.”

 

Indeed, why?

 

The answer is simple: profits!

 

Once they got the BMI chart changed, the next step for Big Pharma and its allies

was to start a drumbeat of publicity about the “obesity crisis.” Public

officials issued grave statements. The Department of Health and Human Services

(HHS) put out a fact sheet claiming that 61% of all Americans were overweight.

Think about that statistic. Are nearly two out of every three people you know

fat? That’s exactly what the HHS fact sheet says! Over time, as the propaganda

took hold, Big Pharma made its next move: declare obesity a disease!

 

Why did that matter?

 

As soon as obesity was declared a disease, treating it became eligible for

reimbursement under most health insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid. Big

Pharma’s feeding trough was about to be filled. Doctors and hospitals, too, were

going to get in on the bonanza with everything from weight loss clinics to

stomach stapling – now reimbursable by health insurance!

 

It was such a great scam, they could not resist the temptation to repeat it, and

it didn’t take long for them to find a new target: cholesterol.

 

In March of 2001, just three years after NIH bureaucrats changed the rules on

BMI, they did the same for cholesterol levels. For decades, it was not thought

necessary to medicate most people with cholesterol levels below 300. Diet and

exercise could usually do the trick. But Big Pharma was looking to expand the

market for its statin drugs. Although they were already a cash cow for the

pharmaceutical industry, and Big Pharma was already the most profitable

industry, it wanted more. Besides, all it had to do was change the rules.

 

NIH was more than willing to comply.

 

With a stroke of the pen, the NIH bureaucrats changed the level of cholesterol

requiring medication from 300 to 200. All of a sudden, 36 million Americans who

did not require medication before the move suddenly did. Once again, it was a

bonanza for Big Pharma, and once again, patients were put at risk.

 

Even more than Ace Inhibitors, Beta Blockers and Calcium Channel Blockers,

statin drugs carried a real risk. About a quarter of the public is allergic to

them and they can cause serious liver damage. Also, many people experience

muscle deterioration as a consequence of taking statin drugs. Not only that, but

clinical studies have called into question many of the alleged benefits they are

supposed to confer.

 

For example, one reason many Americans are put on statin drugs is that they are

supposed to reduce the risk of death from a second heart attack. Yet, clinical

studies showed that they only reduce the risk by from 0.4% to 0.9%, hardly

enough to justify the other dangers they pose.

 

More important, in giving them to people who do not need them, doctors are

exposing their patients to unwarranted risk of severe side effects. However,

just as was the case with high blood pressure medications, the doctors had

little choice. The new standard said they had to administer the drugs, and if

they didn’t they could be accused of malpractice. So even those who were willing

to buck Big Pharma did so only at their peril. They could be sued for

malpractice or even lose their license to practice. Few would take the chance –

no matter how much they questioned the requirement.

 

But, HHS and NIH claim the public benefits from these new mandates. The only

trouble is that the evidence calls this claim into question.

 

Take for example the whole issue of obesity.

 

The claim is that being overweight – as defined by BMI – is a guarantee of

health problems down the road. But is it?

 

Not according to the American Journal of Public Health!

 

In a March 2002 article, Dr Paula Diehr of the University of Washington School

of Public Health reported the findings of a study of 4,317 nonsmoking men and

women between the ages of 65 and 100. According to Dr. Diehr:

 

“We found no correlation between body mass index and mortality among study

participants. … Instead, it appears that significant, unintended weight loss

should be of primary concern.”

 

The results of the study were quite compelling. Women with a body mass index of

20 or lower all had a higher mortality rate than others. For a woman five feet

four inches tall, that translates into a weight of 115 pounds or less. Subjects

who lost 10% or more of their weight since the age of 50 also had a

significantly higher mortality rate. Among women the rate was 15.9% higher and

among men a whopping 30.3% higher.

 

Now, none of this is to say that there is no danger in being grossly obese.

Clearly if someone is grossly overweight they will run the risk of serious

health consequences. Rather, it calls into question the obsession with BMI as an

indicator. In fact, the average American woman has a BMI of 26 (equal to 150

pounds for a five foot, four inch tall woman) which is defined as being

overweight! Yet, had the chart not been changed, this would not be the case.

Under the old chart, that same woman’s BMI would have been 24, within normal

limits!

 

But, you might ask, doesn’t the lowering of cholesterol and blood pressure

benefit the public?

 

Of course it does, but the real question is whether the only means of lowering

it is through drug therapy! The answer to that question is a resounding NO – at

least where the so called “prehypertensive” and marginal cholesterol levels are

concerned. The simple fact is that the risks associated with many of these drugs

far outweigh any minimal benefit an individual in these categories might gain.

At the same time, the estimated $500 to $1,000 annual cost for each drug will

only serve to further increase the nation’s health care costs, and may, indeed

create a whole new host of problems.

 

One need only look at the checkered history of prescription diet drugs to know

that this is true. Amphetamines, the earliest form of diet drug soon proved

addictive and was associated with cardiac arrhythmia and other serious medical

conditions. Phen-fen was found to cause pulmonary hypertension and damaged

thousands. Other diet drugs cause high blood pressure, insomnia and chest pains.

 

A real cause for concern is that these powerful medications might be prescribed

by doctors for patients who only need to lose a few pounds, and who might get

equal or even better benefits from modest changes in diet and exercise. It may

not make medical sense, but that is certainly what Big Pharma is hoping for.

 

But what is even more disturbing is the notion that bureaucrats, with a stroke

of the pen can label millions of healthy people as sick. Just consider what has

already happened. First, 25 million American adults are labeled as “overweight.”

Then another 36 million are classified as having high cholesterol when they

really don’t! Then, to make matters even worse, 45 million suddenly have high

blood pressure! If that isn’t fishy, I don’t know what is! That’s 106 million

new illnesses, yet, it’s only going to be the tip of the iceberg if Big Pharma

has its way.

 

Now that the notion of “preconditions” has been established, the next step is to

expand their numbers, all the while selling the public a bill of goods that

asserts the new mandates and drug therapies are really just for their own good!

What are these new “preconditions” and what dangers do the treatments for them

pose?

 

Next month, in the second part of “With the Stroke of a Pen” we’ll look at

what’s on the horizon, including a pill that doctors want to force all seniors

to take even though it poses grave and possibly fatal risks, and the move to

place millions of children on dangerous psychotropic drugs.