Cholesterol lowering drugs and the human cost!

January 28, 2010

Lipitor - The Human Cost

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http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2004/01/31/lipitor_the_human_cost.htm

Health

Pharma

Lipitor, a cholesterol lowering drug made by Pfizer and sold to millions of health conscious but ill informed patients, is one of the most profitable drugs the pharmaceutical industry has ever come up with. Sales account for a quarter of Pfizer's $ 32 billion annual sales. Expected to gross more than $ 10 billion this year, Lipitor is poised to become the largest-selling pharmaceutical in history, surpassing Pfizer's other wonder drug, Viagra.

But the price to society is much higher than a mere 8 to 10 billion dollars. Lipitor and other drugs in the statin class, such as Bayer's version Baycol - removed from the market by its maker - are not only lowering cholesterol. These drugs apparently ruin perfectly good lives with "side effects" that lead to slow degradation into physical disability. The story of Doug Peterson and other residents of Tahoe City may be coldly dismissed as "anecdotal evidence", but there is no excuse for scientific statistical sofistry. Every tragedy is real - when it happens to you, the risk is 100%.

Let's look at the pharmaceutical profit model for a moment. Drugs are developed and they have to be sold, otherwise - no profit. In the case of Lipitor and its similars, that means a market has to be created. Cholesterol, a beneficial substance in the human body, is targetted as a bad sign of impending heart disease. Drugs are promoted to "lower cholesterol". Mind you, not to prevent heart disease but to turn off the blinking warning lights. Billions are made, a huge empire of multinational corporations is built to "take care of our health" - by selling us drugs. National economies are all but bankrupted by the costs of health care, most of it to pay for drugs. What's more, national and personal economies are also bearing the cost - sometimes vastly greater than the mere cost of a prescription - of these drugs' side effects, the cost of drug induced illness and disability.

Who is responsible? The drug barons? The medical researchers? The media which never told us?Or

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