NEJM Links Vytorin to Cancer
HealthNews Alert, October, 2008
About the Author: Byron J. Richards, Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist, nationally-renowned nutrition expert, and the founder of Wellness Resources, is a leader in advocating the value of dietary supplements as a vital tool in maintaining health. He is an outspoken critic of government and Bif Pharma's efforts to deny access to natural health products, and has written extensively on the life-shortening and health-damaging failures of the sickness industry.
In a heretofore unheard of change of posture, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has reversed itself on the issue of whether Vytorin causes cancer.
Vytorin is the controversial cholesterol-lowering drug that is the center of a major advertising fraud that netter Merk and Schereing-Plough over TEN BILLION dollars in sales in the past two years. Both are facing congressional investigation, various state Attorney General investigations, and plaintiff class action lawsuits. All the negative publicity has caused Vytorin sales to fall off, yet the questionable drug is still a top seller in 2008.
In the initial release of data back in July, NEJM stood by Merk and Schering-Plough, who hired an Oxford consultant to rule that a 50% statistically significant increased risk of cancer was by chance. I pointed out in an earlier posting that sucj statistical manipulation, based primarily on the opinion of the Oxford Review, was ridiculous. NEJM has had a sudden change of heart, and now agrees with me.
On September 2, 2008, NEJM published the full story in question, along with the Oxford report, and its own editorial, now stating "Whether the increased mortality risk is due solely to the play of chance is uncertain. Ezetimbe (the Zetia portion of Vytorin) interferes with the gastrointestinal absorption not only of cholesterol, but also of other entities (fat soluble antioxidants and isoprenoids) that could conceivably affect the growth of cancer cells... Physicians and patients are unfortunately left for now with uncertainty about the efficacy and safety of the drug." This rare reversal of opinion has sent a shock wave through Big Pharma's world, like having your stamp of approval withdrawn at the last minute.
Underneath the advertising fraud is a far more damaging prospect from the Big Pharma point of view, that the theory of lowering LDL cholesterol with drugs to prevent heart disease is itself a major fraud that has been perpetrated on the American public for the past decade. Indeed, while Vytorin is the most effective drug combination of all time in terms of lowering LDL, doing so does not produce cardiovascular health or reduce cardiovascular mortality.
Adding more alsrm to the statin industry's safety is another article published in the NEJM just last week. It reported on a detailed analyisis of the human genome in those with statin-induced muscle damage. Scientists have uncovered an alteration in a gene that causes statin drugs to be more readily absorbed by the liver, thereby making the drugs very toxic. Fourteen percent of the American population has the risk-related gene varient. At this time, no screening is done to see who is at potential risk, meaning that 1 in 6 patients taking statin drugs are likely to be damaged to a greater or lesser degree, based on this one variable, alone. Whatever happened to "first do no harm?"
Adding fuel to the low cholesterol and cancer link was another study recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) that found a 33% increased risk of cancer and mortality in type II diabetic patients when their LDL cholesterol reached 107, and a 50% increase when their LDL reached 87. This is particularily alarming because type II diabetic patients (like the late Tim Russert) are aggressively treated with statins to lower their cholesterol to the very numbers that are now associated with increased cancer risk and death from any cause.
Statin drugs do not produce cardiovascular health. The lower your cholesterol goes, the more likely you are to develop cancer and/or die from any cause. This is massive public fraud on a grand scale.
Note from Lyle: We believe that there is always a safe, side-effect-free, natural alternative to the dangerous, often deadly drugs dispensed by doctors. Over the past twenty five year years, many compounds from garlic have been isolated, characterized and experimented upon. An enormous amount of research has been published on the properties of the "breakdown components" that are formed when fresh garlic is cut, crushed, chopped or processed. All of them seem to suggest a positive benefit in reducing cholesterol and blood pressure. Of these well-known and catagorized components, it's allicin that stands heads and shoulders above the rest, exhibiting the most exciting, the most interesting, and the most beneficial properties.
In 1998, exciting new technology made it possible to isolate, stabilize and produce allicin on a commercial scale. Now, all of the wonderful benefits of garlic are concentrated, but without the negative effects of odor and taste. This has led to additional research confirming the most incredible spectrum of microbial activity against today's most pressing problem's -- multiple drug resistant bacterial, viral and fungal infections, and microorganisms and numerous other conditions that have long been the scourge of modern man.
It can now be stated, confidently, that allicin is likely to reduce cholesterol by significant amounts, lower blood pressure, and reduce the saturated fat absorbed into our bodies, in many people, and KILL over 135 strains of MRSA! Allicin has now been combined with ginger, another antimicrobial, with studies going back into the 1500's to form a powerful, health-giving, health-protecting supplement, called Alligin. Please visit the Nutritional Supplement section of this website and read the article, Allicin: Beyond Immunity, and also visit the Recorded Interviews section of this website, and listen to recorded conversations with the formulator of Alligin, Peter Josling, Director of the Garlic Center, East Sussex, U.K. We don't leave home without having taken it!
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