The Cholesterol Drug War: ABC Australia Bans Documentary Exposing Statin Drug Scandal

August 20, 2014 

Source: Health Impact News Daily

 

Health Impact News Editor Comments

Dr. MaryAnne Demasi’s documentary on the criminal activity of the pharmaceutical industry regarding cholesterol-lowering statin drugs sent shock waves through the mainstream media in Australia last year. Published in two parts on the popular news show The Catalyst, the pharmaceutical industry complained loudly after the first show, and requested the network not air the second episode, “Heart of the Matter Part 2 – Cholesterol Drug War.”

ABC Australia aired it anyway, but the pharmaceutical influence is apparently too strong, as it was announced that the network would remove the videos from their website because “they breached its impartiality standards.” They also removed them from YouTube.

These two episodes were among the most watched videos on Health Impact News in 2013, with tens of thousands of “likes” on Facebook alone, helping the videos go viral outside of Australia.
We found other copies on YouTube for now, but it may only be a matter of time before YouTube bans these altogether. If you or anyone you know have been prescribed cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, then you need to watch this documentary. It could save your life.

Here are the two episodes, with our original commentary:

Outside of the United States, the myth that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease is quickly falling apart. Sweden just recently became the first western nation to reject the low-fat dietary philosophy in favor of a high-fat low-carbohydrate diet. A leading cardiologist in the U.K. made shock waves recently by appearing in the mainstream media and stating that saturated fats were not the cause of heart disease, but refined carbohydrates were.

Now, ABC TV in Australia has released a news documentary with the title: “HEART OF THE MATTER: The Cholesterol Myth: Dietary Villains and Cholesterol Drug War.” This documentary interviews cardiologists, science writers, and other experts who expose the saturated fat and cholesterol myth. This is part 1 of a 2-part series.

Part 1 caused so much controversy when it was aired (watch it below), that Australia’s top medicine safety expert, Emily Banks, urged the ABC not to air the follow-up, because it might encourage people to go off their anti-cholesterol statin drugs. “If people stop using their statins . . . it’s very likely that it will result in death,” she said. (Source.)

Wow, talk about scare tactics! If the science that is represented in this documentary is wrong, why not refute the science instead of using scare tactics to endorse censorship? Fortunately, ABC Australia did not censor it, and you can watch Part 2 here.

People around the world are waking up to these dietary myths, as well as the scam of cholesterol-lowering drugs and how harmful they actually are. But given how much of a threat exposing this myth is in losing billions of dollars in profits in the United States, will the mainstream media and the U.S. Government follow other western nations? Those of us in the alternative media, via the Internet, have been covering this issue for more than a decade now!


ABC News in Australia has done an incredible investigative report on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, daring to expose organized crime in the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. This is an area where no mainstream media outlet in the USA dares to go, due to the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.

 

In this excellent investigative documentary, cardiologists are interviewed to reveal the fraud of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, and the criminal activity that has allowed this class of drug to become the best-selling class of drugs all-time.

After ABC Australia aired Part 1,  The Heart of the Matter, Australia’s top medicine safety expert, Emily Banks, urged ABC not to air the follow-up, because it might encourage people to go off their anti-cholesterol statin drugs. “If people stop using their statins . . . it’s very likely that it will result in death,” she said.

But those scare tactics and attempts at censorship failed, and below is Part 2 as it was aired in Australia, and is now available for the world to watch via the ABC TV Catalyst YouTube channel. Some of the top cardiologists in the U.S. have stated that there is not one single study showing that people who take statins will actually live longer. This fraud is now coming out into the open.

If you or someone you know are prescribed a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, you would do well to invest 30 minutes of your time to watch this investigative report. You are not likely to learn this information from your doctor, and it could literally change your life.

Link: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/the-cholesterol-drug-war-abc-australia-bans-documentary-exposing-statin-drug-scandal/.

 

 

Cholesterol drug risks 'being ignored'

14 August 2014
Eilish O'Regan
Source:  Independent.ie

MEDICINES that lower cholesterol – hailed as wonder-drugs in the battle against heart disease – may be doing more harm than good to otherwise healthy people.

Statins are taken by more than 250,000 Irish people to help lower "bad cholesterol", a risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

However, a review by one of the country's leading vascular surgeons has found a lack of evidence to show that statins should be given as a means of prevention to healthy people who have high cholesterol but no heart disease.

Sherif Sultan, of University College Hospital in Galway, warned that statin use can increase the risk of diabetes, cataracts and male impotence.

"They can also significantly increase the risk of cancer and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease in the elderly, along with a myriad of infectious diseases," he said.

Mr Sultan said there were benefits in prescribing some dosages of statins for certain patients already diagnosed with heart disease or who had a history of heart attack or stroke.

However, otherwise healthy people with high cholesterol would do better losing weight, improving their diet, taking exercise and stopping smoking to avoid heart disease.

Mr Sultan and his colleague Niamh Hynes based their findings on a review of studies involving nearly 400,000 patients published in the 'Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases'.

He said his findings showed major adverse effects had been under-reported, which he said was a "scientific farce".

There is ample evidence to show statins increase cardiovascular risk in women, patients with diabetes and the young.

Too many doctors had fallen into the marketing trap behind the over-selling of statins and ignored side-effects linked to different doses, said Mr Sultan.

SIDE-EFFECTS

Other potential side-effects include inflammation of the liver, muscle and joint pain and insomnia.

Patients for whom Mr Sultan makes an exception are those with high cholesterol because of an inherited faulty gene which cannot be reduced by lifestyle changes. In that case, he would prescribe a statin.

He advises his own patients to adjust their lifestyle and to exercise regularly, go off wheat, increase their intake of greens, drink three litres of water a day and try not to eat after their evening meal.

Around 250,000 prescriptions for statins are written every month, and they account for 8pc of the HSE's €1.7bn annual drugs spend.

The Irish Medicines Board has received 59 reports of suspected adverse reactions to statins since the start of 2012.

Dr Angie Brown, the medical director of the Irish Heart Foundation, said the mainstay of preventing heart disease involved lifestyle changes including stopping smoking, being active, having a healthy weight and getting blood pressure and cholesterol checked.

"In some individuals with a significant risk of developing cardiovascular disease or with very high cholesterol levels, it may not be possible to reduce levels sufficiently with lifestyle change alone, and in these people the advice is to start a cholesterol-reducing tablet," she said.

Irish Independent

Link:  http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/cholesterol-drug-risks-being-ignored-29598618.html.

Why I've ditched statins for good

23 Mar 2014
 By Haroun Gajraj
Source: The Telegraph

As experts clash over proposals that millions more of us take statins to prevent heart disease and stroke, a vascular surgeon explains why he feels better without them 

  When I had a routine health check-up eight years ago, my cholesterol was so high that the laboratory thought there had been a mistake. I had 9.3 millimoles of cholesterol in every litre of blood — almost twice the recommended maximum. 

 It was quite a shock. The GP instantly prescribed statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs that are supposed to prevent heart disease and strokes. For eight years, I faithfully popped my 20mg atorvastatin pills, without side effects. Then, one day last May, I stopped. It wasn’t a snap decision; after looking more closely at the research, I’d concluded that statins were not going to save me from a heart attack and that my cholesterol levels were all but irrelevant.

When I informed my GP of my decision three months later, I wasn’t entirely honest. Rather than say I was sceptical about the drugs, I told my doctor I’d quit the statins because they were causing pain in my arm.

He didn’t bat an eyelid. Evidence from the drug industry published this month – evidence I suspect was heavily reliant on data from the drug industry, as Dr James Le Fanu pointed out on these pages last week – may suggest that side effects are uncommon, but previous studies have found that one in five people on statins suffers adverse side effects, from muscle pain and diarrhoea to memory loss and blurred vision.

The GP simply suggested I try another brand of statin. The sooner the better, he said, given that I’d already been off my prescription for three months. “Hang on,” I said. “Could you give me a blood test first?” When the results came back, he was amazed that my total blood cholesterol was lower than when I’d been on statins. After three months without the pills, it was 5.4mmol/l (5.4 millimoles per litre of blood) compared with 5.7 mmol/l a year earlier.

 The only major changes I’d made to my lifestyle since coming off statins were eliminating sugar (including alcohol and starchy foods such as bread) and eating more animal fat. Many experts now believe that sugar is emerging as a true villain in the heart-disease story; while after decades of demonisation, saturated fat has been acquitted of causing heart disease by a recent “meta” analysis of 70 studies by Cambridge University.

Typically, I was eating red meat three or four times a week and enjoying butter, full-fat milk and plenty of eggs. You would have thought that after three months on a diet so high in saturated fat, my cholesterol would have shot back up to pre-statin levels — but no, it came down and has stayed down seven months on. Not only that, but my levels of LDL (so-called bad cholesterol) were also lower than when I’d been on statins, and my ratio of HDL (so-called good cholesterol) to LDL was under four for the first time, an excellent sign, according to medical wisdom.

Not that I cared about any of this.

Yes, it was the statins that originally reduced my cholesterol levels so dramatically. But so what? I believe that high cholesterol has been a scapegoat for too long. Yes, it may, in some circumstances, be an indicator of heart disease but there is no evidence of a causal link. In my view, high total blood cholesterol or high LDL levels no more cause heart attacks than paramedics cause car crashes, even though they are present at the scene.

Just lowering cholesterol with drugs without sorting out the dietary and lifestyle factors that actually cause heart disease is nonsensical. Besides, there are plenty of other, more reliable indicators of heart-disease risk. What further astonished my GP was that on these indicators I was now apparently better off in other ways than when I’d been on statins. My blood pressure was down. For the first time in years, I was slimmer, especially around the belly. My triglycerides — a type of blood fat with a causal link to heart disease — were lower than at any time in the preceding eight years. My fasting blood glucose was at the optimum level, whereas a year earlier it had been too high. My total white blood count — a marker of inflammation — was lower.

My blood test for a marker called glycated haemoglobin (A1c), high levels of which are associated with heart disease and overall mortality, were bang on normal. Finally, my level of c-reactive protein (CRP) — a protein that rises in response to inflammation — was extremely low. So, biochemically, I was in excellent shape, better than when I’d been on the statins. “Have you taken up running?” asked my bemused GP.

No, I’d always run. For years, I’d exercised three times a week, eaten plenty of fish, refrained from smoking and tried to keep my stress levels low. The only thing I’d changed was my intake of sugar and animal fat.

That check-up was seven months ago and now, at 58, I’m not on a single tablet. My GP is happy. I feel better than I have in years and, at the same time, deeply concerned about proposals advising even wider use of statins.

Until 2005, statins were prescribed only to those with at least a 30 per cent or greater risk of having a heart attack within 10 years. This was then reduced to a 20 per cent risk. Now, draft NHS guidelines would have them dished out to those with just a 10 per cent risk — in other words, most men over the age of 50 and most women over the age of 60.

I am a vascular surgeon. Before founding a private clinic in Dorset 11 years ago, specialising in varicose veins, I worked in the NHS for 13 years. Back then, I didn’t question medical guidance on cholesterol, and thought statins were a wonder drug. And so they probably are, for men who have heart disease — not necessarily because they lower cholesterol, but because they may cut other risks such as the inflammation-marker CRP. Exercise, weight loss and omega 3 supplements also lower CRP.

But what about other groups — women, the elderly and people like me who have not been diagnosed with heart disease? The evidence that we will benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs is ambiguous at best. The 2011 Hunt 2 study, one of the most recent and largest, followed 52,000 men and women in Norway aged 20-74 with no pre-existing heart disease, for 10 years.

The results for women were crystal clear. The lower a woman’s total cholesterol, the greater her risk of dying, either of heart disease or anything else, including cancer. This reflects findings in previous studies.

For men, high cholesterol was associated with heart disease and death from other causes. But so, too, was low cholesterol — below 5mmol/l. Again, this is only an association, not a causal link. A range of between 5mmol/l and 7mmol/l was the optimum level. Guess what? This is already the national average. In addition, numerous studies have linked high cholesterol levels with increased longevity in the elderly.

As for me, I have not been diagnosed with heart disease, and nobody in my family has had a heart attack. However, all four of my paternal uncles and my sister have diabetes. Research from Canada, published last year in the BMJ, has shown that statins raise the risk of diabetes, so that gives me little faith. The controversy over these drugs was reignited last week when Prof Sir Rory Collins from Oxford University warned that doctors’ hesitancy about prescribing them to those at risk could cost lives.

GPs are, by definition, generalists. They don’t have time to read and analyse data from every paper on every medical condition. Even so, in a recent survey by Pulse magazine, six in 10 GPs opposed the draft proposal to lower the risk level at which patients are prescribed statins. And 55 per cent said they would not take statins themselves or recommend them to a relative, based on the proposed new guidelines.

If that doesn’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does.

 

Link:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10717431/Why-Ive-ditched-statins-for-good.html.