Quest for Health in Drugs Finds 'Unintended' Side Effects That Kill

by Heidi Stevenson

29 May 2010

Let's say that strong recommendations are being given by the medical system to drug most people on reaching a certain age. Then, let's say your company produces software to analyze the risk of developing medical conditions. Since you want to make buckets of money from your product, what could be better than doing a study to show that it can predict who is most likely to suffer from the side effects of the drug being pushed? That's exactly what a recent study hyped by Reuters and BBC is about.

The Reuters headline reads: Cholesterol drug side effects need watching: study

BBC's headline says: 'Unintended' statin side-effect risks uncovered

Both are misleading.

There's No Such Thing As a Side Effect

The term side effect is utterly misleading. It implies that a pharmaceutical drug has, primarily, one single and beneficial effect, and that others are relatively minor. That's far from reality. A drug is a chemical with a range of effects. It's used in the hope that one of those effects will be positive and the rest will be ignored or can be swept under the rug long enough to make big profits off the positive effect.

There are, of course, exceptions. Sometimes more than one effect can be sold as beneficial. Consider cold medications that dry out mucus membranes, but have the unwanted effect of causing drowsiness. That resulted in warnings on labels not to use them when operating machinery. However, some smart marketers realized that the "side effect" could be sold as a benefit. So, the same drugs are sold as sleep aids, with the "side effect" of drying mucus membranes.

Obviously, a side effect is merely a matter of perception. If we like an effect, then a drug is sold for it. If we don't, then we call it a side effect. The reality, though, is that every drug is simply a chemical with a range of effects. The ones we like are used to make profits, and the dangerous ones are minimized by calling them side effects.

The Study in Question

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) plans to massively increase the use of statins, probably by as much as 30% per year. The goal is to have at least 1 in 4 adults over the age of 40 on them. However, statins are known to have serious adverse effects.

Two researchers from ClinRisk Ltd. did a study on identifying those at risk of developing liver problems, acute kidney failure, muscle weakness and cataracts. ClinRisk currently sells a computer program, which purports to calculate cardiovascular risk, for £36 plus 17.5% tax (£42.30) for a single person.

In a patient database of about 2 million, they found that a significant number of people are seriously harmed by taking statins. In five years, about 443 out of 10,000 women, and 401 out of 10,000 men, will develop one of these life-threatening illnesses. They estimated that approximately 271 women and 301 men prevent cardiovascular disease by taking statins.

It must be noted, though, that the numbers estimated as preventing cardiovascular diseaes by taking statins are little more than guesses. The fact is that no one has shown any cardiovascular benefit for taking statins before heart disease has developed. (See Statins Do Not Extend Life, Not Even By A Day for more information about statins' lack of effectiveness.) Even with these guesses, it's obvious that statins cause significantly more harm than any potential good.

This study has shown that 443 out of 10,000 women taking statins develop severe and life-threating illnesses within five years, and that the estimates—not documented cases, but guesses based on pie-in-the-sky desire for results—of cardiovascular disease prevention is lower, at 271. In men, 401 out of 10,000 were shown to develop life-threatening diseases, as opposed to 301 who are presumed—that is, guessed—to have evaded cardiovascular disease.

The negative effects of statins were not extensively investigated. They are also known to cause memory loss, as documented in Statins Send Minds Down the Memory Hole. Medscape lists other serious adverse effects, including pancreatitis, rhabdomyolysis, hepatitis, angioedema, urticaria, shortness of breath, edema, pruritis, blood in the urine, and others

Study's Mission Accomplished

In spite of these flaws, the authors of the study were able to accomplish their goal. They minimized an already-minimizing term, side effects, by adding the word "unintended" in front. So now, the concept of side effects, which is already misleading, is further eroded by calling them unintended side effects.

It's as if the fact that more people are known to be seriously injured than possibly helped is a minor issue that can now be ignored in light of the software that the authors want to sell, which might be able to identify those people who are at greater risk for developing life-threatening diseases from taking statins.

Of course, let's not forget that this entire bit of insanity has come into existence because of another inane concept—the crazy idea that taking poisonous chemicals to prevent disease in healthy people is somehow beneficial.

The medical profession redefines healthy people as sick so they can push a chemical cocktail at them. Then they stand back and wait for the fallout of disease caused by the poisonous soup. So the doctors and Big Pharma make money by redefining healthy people as sick, and then make even more as the formerly healthy people return with new diseases caused by the drugs they've been given. Of course, they'll then be given yet more drugs, which will produce even more illness.

And, of course, a few self-styled researchers will find ways to get their cut of the medical pie, too.

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