2005 - Deaths Linked to Heart Drugs

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Deaths. MedicalConspiracies@googlegro linked to heart drugs

Lois Rogers, Medical Editor

 

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1512613_1,00.html

EXPERTS are calling for a complete safety review of heart drugs taken by

millions of Britons. Government figures released last week show that 92 deaths

have been linked to the statin drugs developed to lower cholesterol.

It is believed that the death toll could be higher because doctors are reluctant

to blame drugs they prescribe for harming patients.

 

 

 

More than 37 of the deaths were attributed to a formulation called simvastatin

which is now being sold over the counter in low doses under the brand name

Zocor.

 

Many specialists are concerned that the drug, produced by Merck, should be

available without a prescription. A statin called Lipitor, made by Pfizer, was

associated with 36 of the deaths.

 

Three other leading statin brands — Novartis’s Lescol, BMS’s Lipostat and

AstraZeneca’s Crestor — have been associated with 19 deaths since they were

introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

 

As well as the deaths there have also been reports of 7,000 side effects

reported to the Department of Health by doctors, including kidney and liver

damage and muscle weakness.

 

Doctors accept that the cholesterol-lowering effects of statins have saved

thousands of people from dying prematurely of heart disease, but question

whether they should have been distributed so widely. There are an estimated 3.9m

people taking the drugs, almost a third more than a year ago.

 

The drug companies are targeting at least 4m more middle-aged Britons said to be

at “moderate risk” of a heart attack in the next 10 years because they are over

55 and overweight.

 

Anxiety about overuse of the drugs is coupled with a growing body of research

suggesting the connection between cholesterol levels and health is more complex

than previously thought. A number of investigations have found that people with

higher amounts of cholesterol live longer than those with lower levels,

suggesting it may only be a cause of heart disease in much younger people.

 

Next month an inquest is to take place into the death of Ivor Meacher, 71, a fit

former tennis coach from Okehampton, Devon, who became ill and died within weeks

of being prescribed a statin for an irregular heartbeat.

 

Research by his daughter, Jay Ballard, has produced what she says is irrefutable

evidence that his death was caused by the drug atorvastatin, manufactured by

Pfizer and marketed in Britain as Lipitor.

 

She was, however, unable to persuade her father’s doctors to make an official

report of the death through the government’s “yellow card” scheme for adverse

drug reactions.

 

Eventually she contacted Andrew Herxheimer, emeritus fellow of the United

Kingdom Cochrane Centre and co-founder of DIPEx (an electronic database of

patients’ experiences) in Oxford. He has filed a yellow card on her behalf.

 

Cholesterol, a type of fat, is needed in the body for the production of

hormones, but if there is too much it sticks to the walls of blood vessels and

eventually blocks them. Statins block a liver enzyme needed to produce

cholesterol.

 

The body reacts by pulling in cholesterol from the bloodstream, thus lowering

circulating levels.