A colleague of mine, Dr. Jeffrey Dach, wrote an eye opening article in his latest TrueMedMD newsletter about the use of Dr. Robert Jarvik as a spokesman for Lipitor. I got permission from him to reproduce his article in its entirety. If you would like to learn more about this excellent physician, go to his website at www.drdach.com

Lipitor, Jarvik and Cholesterol

Perhaps you have seen the Direct-to- Consumer TV and print advertisements with Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the Jarvik Heart, speaking on behalf of the Pfizer’s anti-cholesterol drug, Lipitor, the best selling statin drug, the best selling drug in the world, and most prescribed drug in the U.S. with 13 billion dollars in sales last year.

Jarvik is best known from the media circus surrounding the 1982 implantation of his Jarvik-7 into the Seattle dentist, Barney Clark. Although the artificial heart continued to beat in his chest, Barney died of multi-organ failure 112 days after the heart implantation operation, tethered to a dishwasher sized air compressor. The heart device acted as a blender which chewed up the blood cells. Recipients of the Jarvik-7 suffered horribly for months, finally succumbing to infections, strokes, convulsions and immune system failure.

During the ensuing media coverage, the New York Times dubbed the Jarvik Heart the “Dracula of Medical Technology”. Jarvik-7 patients had the Kevorkian option of assisted suicide, a small on-off button which allowed the mechanical heart to be stopped when too unbearable. About 90 people received the Jarvik-7 heart before it was banned.

Why would Pfizer select an MD like Jarvik as spokesman for their Direct to Consumer (DTC) campaign? Jarvik himself doesn’t have the strongest of professional credentials, he enrolled for the first two years of medical school at the University of Bologna in Italy, later returning for the MD degree at the University of Utah. Jarvik never did an internship or residency, and never actually practiced medicine. And the heart device had been invented by somebody else, Paul Winchell, the ventriloquist, who assigned his patent to the University of Utah.

Why does Jarvik’s “Dracula of Medical Technology” make him an expert on statin drugs? It really doesnt.

Eight controlled clinical trials have shown that statin drugs like Lipitor cause depletion of Coenzyme Q10, an important vitamin for cellular energy production. Heart muscle requires high levels of Co-Q10. Side effects of Co-Q10 deficiency include muscle wasting, muscle pain, heart failure, neuropathy, amnesia, and cognitive dysfunction. Muscle pain and statin-drug induced heart failure can be prevented by supplementing with Co-Enzyme Q10, found at your local health food store, an intervention considerably less expensive and less traumatic than an artificial heart operation followed by cardiac transplantation.

Perhaps Jarvik is not really the best choice for the Lipitor Ad campaign which has had mixed reviews. Instead of Jarvik, a more convincing yet unlikely spokesman would be the popular Duane Graveline MD MPH, a former NASA astronaut, and author who was started on Lipitor during an annual astronaut physical at the Johnson Space Center, and 6 weeks later had an episode of transient global amnesia, a form of sudden memory loss described in his book. Dr. Graveline points out that 50 percent of the dry weight of the cerebral cortex is made of cholesterol, an important substance for memory and cerebral function.

Graveline also points out that statins are useful for prevention of heart disease in patients who already have clogged arteries and pre-existing coronary artery disease, however this benefit is independent of how low the serum cholesterol goes in response to the statin drug.

Contrary to the findings in patients with known heart disease, no statin primary prevention study has ever shown a benefit in terms of all cause mortality in healthy men and women with only an elevated serum cholesterol, and no known coronary artery disease.

Patients with known heart disease are customarily placed on statin drugs by the medical system with no need for direct to consumer (DTC) advertising to this group. DTC ads for Lipitor are clearly directed at the larger group of untreated primary prevention patients, for which there has been no benefit in terms of all cause mortality in multiple statin drug studies.

The Japanese, J-Lit study actually showed higher mortality at the lowest serum cholesterol (both total and LDL-C), a paradox called the J-Shaped Curve. The highest mortality was found at the lowest total cholesterol of 160 mg/dl, and lowest mortality at serum cholesterol around 240 mg /ml, exactly the opposite one would expect if cholesterol lowering was beneficial for health. The authors state that the increased mortality at the lower cholesterol levels was due to increased cancer.

Another statin trial, CARE (Cholesterol And Recurrent Events), showed 1500 % increase in breast cancer among women in the statin treated group, explained as merely a statistical aberration. This is disputed by Uffe Ravnskov who feels that the difference is significant, and points to rodent studies showing statin drugs cause cancer in animals.

The Honolulu Heart Study of elderly patients showed the lowest serum cholesterol predicted the highest mortality in this patient group.

A study by Krumholz found lack of association between cholesterol and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity in persons older than 70 years. Jenkins (BMJ) states that no statin drug study has ever shown an all cause mortality benefit for women.

The Jarvik-Lipitor Ad campaign is a perfect example of why prescription drug ads are dishonest, do not promote public health, increase unnecessary prescriptions, and can be harmful or deadly to patients. New Zealand and the US are the only two industrialized nations to allow direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs. Here in the USA, thirty nine public interest groups have proposed congressional legislation to ban DTC prescription drug ads.

Two more unlikely spokesmen for the Lipitor ad campaign include Mary Enig and Uffe Ravnskov. Should either one be selected as Lipitor spokesman, I myself would run down to the corner drug store to buy up the drug. It seems unlikey that even Pfizer’s deep pockets could ever induce them to recant their opposing position on the cholesterol theory of heart disease. Mary G. Enig writes, ”hypercholesterolemia is the health issue of the 21st century. It is actually an invented disease, a problem that emerged when health professionals learned how to measure cholesterol levels in the blood.

Uffe Ravnskov MD PhD, who opposes the Lipid Hypothesis, is spokesman for Thincs, The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, and author of “The Cholesterol Myths, Exposing the Fallacy That Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease”. His controversial ideas have angered loyal cholesterol theory supporters in Finland who demonstrated by burning his book on live television.

How many people suffer from the adverse side effects of statin drugs? Will we ever know? People experiencing adverse side effects from statin drugs may share their experiences in discussion groups . One such group has 3800 messages.

For More Information Click Here: drdach.com or click here: TrueMed.com