you gotta laugh

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HSI ............ just in today's mail

 

 

Dear Reader, "The Word is Out on Unapproved H1N1 Products."That's the barking from some FDA watchdogs. They're in a mad hunt for products "claiming to diagnose, prevent, or otherwise act against the 2008 H1N1 influenza virus."This has actually been going on for several months. The LA Times reports that more than 80 companies have been warned against promoting unproved treatments as H1N1 fighters, cures, etc. Well, I've already got a hot tip on an outrageous claim being made for an unproved flu treatment. Admittedly, it's not an H1N1 claim, but it is outrageous and it is about the flu. And some medical types are actually stating that this magical pill will reduce your risk of dying if you're hospitalized with seasonal flu.Drum roll, please…Meet the newest unproved flu treatment: statins. I kid you not. And the so-called "evidence" is reed-thin. But that hasn't stopped Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University from calling it "intriguing and exciting," adding that the benefit from statins is "substantial."Of course, he was one of the doctors who worked on the study, so he may have been intoxicated by visions of Nobel Prizes dancing in his head.--------------------------Go ahead…try 'em--------------------------Dr. Schaffner told the Associated Press that there are "relatively few downsides to trying statins." Hysterical! "Relatively" few? Yeah? Not nearly as few as not trying them at all. He also said they're cheap and "relatively safe." Again – hysterical! Downsides and safety – shall we quickly run down some statin side effects? Sure. Why not? Let's go with Zocor, a popular statin made by Merck. Downsides include risk of myopathy (muscle pain and weakness), liver dysfunction, nausea, headache, and abdominal pain. But the most common adverse reaction reported in clinical trials was (really, you won't believe it) upper respiratory infection. And they want to use this stuff to treat influenza – an upper respiratory infection. Hmmm. Can you think of any problems with that scheme? I have to admit, I didn't pick Zocor at random. Because there's another safety wrinkle with this particular statin. Earlier this year I told you about two different studies that showed Zocor to be effective in lowering cholesterol. Just one little problem. In both studies, artery wall thickness increased among Zocor users. Yeah. Read that again. It's amazing. This drug is designed to prevent narrowing of arteries. But ARTERY WALL THICKNESS INCREASED! If the Three Stooges made a statin drug, Zocor would be their product. But never mind all that because, you know, statins are "relatively safe." In this new study, a small number of flu patients died in the hospital or within a month of being released. The difference between statin users who died and non-statin users who died was about two percentage points. So based on this one study (which, by the way, was not a placebo-controlled clinical study mainstreamers are always holding up as the "gold standard") we're supposed to believe that statins offer "significant protection" against death due to flu complications? Sorry. Doesn't wash. Not even close. And one more interesting note: Some subjects received the flu vaccine before the study began. But not only did they get the flu, and not only were their conditions bad enough to require hospitalization, but the vaccine also provided no protection against flu-related death.Maybe that flu product should have stayed unapproved.