Lawyer blames cholesterol drug for paralysis

From: outrider (outrider_at_despammed.com)
Date: 12/01/04 

Date: 1 Dec 2004 14:05:32 -0800

Did Lipitor cause this?

http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2004/12/01/baddrug0.htm

December 01, 2004

Did Lipitor cause this?

Local lawyer blames cholesterol drug for paralysis
By Ben Montgomery
Times Herald-Record
bmontgomery@th-record.com

Newburgh - Michael Mazzariello's wife rolled him over on his hospital
bed up in room 403 at St. Luke's. The white sheets bunched around his
waist.

"I can't get up," he said, sobbing. "Can't hold my kids. I can't pick
up little Mario. You know what that's like? I can't lift my baby, man."

You know the 45-year-old Mazzariello because he's an aggressive defense
attorney in Orange County and he's in these pages a lot. But the
loudmouth lawyer, who appears on Court TV and hosts an AM radio show,
has been in the hospital for the past 10 days.

He can't walk unless he's loaded with painkillers. He can't turn over
in his hospital bed without help. He feels like his flesh is burning.

"Tuesday night I thought I was gonna die," he said. "If it wasn't for
the wife and kids, I would've just killed myself."

Worse, the doctors aren't sure exactly what's wrong with him.

They know this: Mazzariello has, for three months, been taking the
Pfizer drug Lipitor, the world's best-selling medicine, to lower his
cholesterol. And one of the listed side effects of the "statin" drug is
rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition in which serious muscle damage results
in the release of muscle cell contents into the bloodstream. Sometimes
it's fatal.

It was because of a dangerous rate of rhabdomyolysis that another
"statin" drug called Baycol was pulled off the market in August 2001 by
its maker, Bayer.

Mazzariello's cholesterol dropped from 303 to 147, but weakness in his
legs and arms have left him nearly paralyzed.

Dr. Mahavir Singh has tested Mazzariello for a number of illnesses,
including gout, rheumatoid arthritis and Lyme disease. All have come
back negative.

Though he can't be certain, Singh said yesterday he's 70 percent sure
Lipitor is to blame.

"We are basing it on the presumption that it must be the Lipitor
because all the other causes have been excluded," Singh said.
"It's the only factor that's different," said Mazzariello.
Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor, didn't respond to calls in time for this
story.

Doctors removed tissue from Mazzariello's muscles to determine the
cause of the symptoms. But those test results won't be in for several
weeks.

Singh said about 10 percent of his patients who take Lipitor to reduce
their cholesterol complain of muscle stiffness, soreness and pain. But
after several weeks off the medication, he says, they fully recover.

Pfizer's Lipitor Web site says adverse reactions are usually "mild and
transient." It says controlled clinical studies of 2,052 patients found
that less than 2 percent "were discontinued due to adverse experiences
attributable to [Lipitor]." The most frequent effects, it notes, are
constipation, gas, dyspepsia and abdominal pain.

But there are a number of people who say they've never fully recovered
from the drug's harsher effects.

Dana Finch of West Warwick, R.I., says after two weeks on Lipitor, he
developed sore, weak muscles in his legs and, at times, couldn't even
lift his heels off the ground. He blames Lipitor, but no doctor has
linked the symptoms to the drug. Finch says he still has trouble
walking.

Although scientists say Lipitor is safer than some "statins" like the
Bayer drug Baycol, which was pulled off the market, the watchdog group
Public Citizen has asked the federal Food and Drug Administration to
require a black-box warning on the "statin" drugs to alert patients to
the sometimes deadly side effects.

But "it's never been done," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen.

Wolfe said statins work wonders in lowering cholesterol, thereby
preventing heart attacks, strokes and major heart operations, so the
positive effects have to be weighed against the negatives. "It's sad
that it happens to anybody," he said of the side effects. "But these
drugs make a big difference."

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Inc., all rights reserved.

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