Re: "Statins caused my kidney failure"

From: Zee (zwalanga_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/10/04 

Date: 10 Jul 2004 14:01:08 -0700

"George Conklin" <nilknoc@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<wDQHc.14328$yy1.9412@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>...
> "Chris Malcolm" <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:ccob90$1ns$1@scotsman.ed.ac.uk...
> > "George Conklin" <nilknoc@earthlink.net> writes:
> >
> > >We even have physicians now
> > >suggesting that everyone should be on statins, regardless of health.
> >
> > There are two kinds of drugs I'm recommended to take. The first kind
> > I'm recommended to take because I get diagnosed with some problem and
> > get prescribed a drug. I start feeling better, but I develop some
> > symptoms I think may be side effects. I try stopping the drug. I start
> > feeling worse, but the side effects go. I take it again. I start
> > feeling better, and the side effects come back. I discuss these side
> > effects with my doc, look them up on the web, etc., and decide that
> > the side effects are less dangerous than the problem I face without
> > the drug. I become reasonably convinced it's doing me some good.
> >
> > The second kind of drug I'm recommended to take is when the doctor
> > does a test and finds out that I'm at risk of something, such as a 3%
> > risk of heart attack in the next ten years. He prescribes me a drug
> > which he tells me will reduce my risk to 2%.
> >
> > I didn't feel ill in the first place. I don't feel any better when I
> > take the drug. In fact I suspect it may be causing some unpleasant
> > side effects. I stop it. They go away. I start it. They come back. I
> > discuss this with my doctor. He tells me I need to balance these minor
> > side effects against an extra 1% risk of dying.
> >
> > But these percentages are averages. How do I know if, in this case,
> > I'm average? How do I know I'm not one of those whose risk is not
> > improved? How do I know I'm not one of the .01% who suffer damage from
> > this drug?
> >
> > In this case my doctor is not treating me as an individual. He's
> > treating a population to improve the population statistics. I might be
> > a winner, and I might be a loser. I have no way of finding out. What
> > is more, my doctor is not a statistical specialist, nor are many of
> > the medical researchers who supply the statistics on which he bases
> > his prescriptions, and the data collection process on which the
> > process is based has huge commercial interests defending huge profits
> > interfering with the data.
> >
> The problem with treating populations is that as a member of the
> population which in theory might be helped you are NOT included in the
> so-called evaluation. Only a small sample was. And with HRT, for example,
> there was horrible self-selection, so the so-called population was atypical.
> That is the problem with population studies today. They are not random
> populations. The drug which was supposed to have helped was actually
> doubling the cancer rates for women. No one noticed.

George

What you've said is very true George, and bears repeating, even in
this very thread. Until we all know more and understand more about how
drugs are researched and marketed, and use our voices to change and
improve the system, health care will be about stockholers share. In
fact in the case you mention, it was the Women's Health Initiative
which blew the whistle on HRT. No one else cared. Often that's all it
takes to make change; someone affected, who cared.
Zee

"...when researchers recruit participants for statin clinical
trials, they carefully screen for--and exclude--a wide range of
individuals, including women of childbearing age, those with a history
of drug or alcohol abuse, poor mental function, heart failure,
arrhythmia, and other cardiac conditions, liver and kidney disorders,
cancer, "other serious diseases", and "hypersensitivity" to statins.

Thus, the disparity between the widespread "real-world" prevalence of
side effects from statin use and the low prevalence of side effects in
clinical trials is hardly surprising. These trials exclude groups that
comprise a significant proportion of the real world population, and
can hardly be taken as a realistic barometer for the expected
incidence of side effects in the general population.

This sort of careful screening is par for the course with clinical
trials, so it's no wonder that 51% percent of prescription drugs are
subsequently found to have serious adverse effects not detected prior
to regulatory approval!(4)
And even with these strict exclusion criteria, there is evidence to
show that the clinical experience with statins has been far from
trouble-free. Data for the largest statin trial, the Heart Protection
Study (HPS), suggest that the daily 40mg dose of simvastatin used was
nowhere near as well tolerated as the authors would have us believe.

A substantial number of patients did not enter the trial after a six
week run-in before randomization; of the 63,603 potential trial
participants who entered the original screening, only 32,145 proceeded
to the run-in phase. Of these, 11,609 patients - over one third -
dropped out before the official start of the trial.

Of the 11,609 patients who did not proceed to the trial, 65% "chose
not to continue" for reasons that were not specified, 17% "did not
seem likely to be compliant long-term", 13% "were considered by their
own doctor to have a clear indication for (or contraindication to)
statin therapy after review of the screening lipid results provided",
10% "had abnormal screening blood results", 9% "reported problems
associated with the run-in treatment" (which comprised 40mg
simvastatin, and vitamins E, C, and beta-carotene), and 1% had "other
reasons for not continuing".(5)

Relevant Pages

  • "Statins caused my kidney failure"
    ... Auckland resident Brian Barker was a healthy and physically ... suitable candidate for powerful cholesterol-lowering drug therapy. ... However, despite his highly positive test results, Brian's doctor ... Modern medicine's irrational statin fetish--and how it can kill you. ...
    (sci.med.cardiology)
  • "Statins caused my kidney failure"
    ... Auckland resident Brian Barker was a healthy and physically ... suitable candidate for powerful cholesterol-lowering drug therapy. ... However, despite his highly positive test results, Brian's doctor ... Modern medicine's irrational statin fetish--and how it can kill you. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Re: Statin Adverse Effects FAQ: MEMORY LOSS, AMNESIA
    ... > similar problems a_ssociated with statin drugs. ... I am respectfully requesting that you file an adverse effects report ... > adverse effects for that drug. ... > and cognition improved completely.15 Memory impairment in a patient ...
    (sci.med)
  • Re: Statin Adverse Effects FAQ: MEMORY LOSS, AMNESIA
    ... > similar problems a_ssociated with statin drugs. ... I am respectfully requesting that you file an adverse effects report ... > adverse effects for that drug. ... > and cognition improved completely.15 Memory impairment in a patient ...
    (sci.med.cardiology)
  • Statin Adverse Effects FAQ: MEMORY LOSS, AMNESIA
    ... Statin Adverse Effects FAQ: MEMORY LOSS & STATINS, ... Australian Adverse Drug Reactions Bulletin (Australia's equivalent to the ...
    (sci.med)
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