REALLY?? A New Problem With Zetia!

[Johnwen]

Maybe the truth is finally starting to come to the surface.

http://www.wftv.com/health/21622992/detail.html

[ofonorow]

Thanks for posting. This is a crime; no longer news. This drug is still on the market, yet as I published in my book, (how long ago was it published now? 2 years? ) the drug companies involved had already kept bad Zetia results from the public for years! So this "failure" (niacin was shown to work better) has been known for several years, but not acted upon by anyone, other than a Democratic congressman in Michigan. The drug companies are still allowed to recoup their investments from an unsuspecting public!

Where is the FDA in this case?? Answer: The Feds are doing the vital work of telling Proctor and Gamble not to add vitamin C to cold medicines!

For the record, here is an excerpt from Chapter 9, The Truth About Cholesterol, from Practicing Medicine Without a License (2008)

The Zetia and Vytorin Debacle

January 15, 2008 - In a press release, Merck and Schering said that not only did Zetia fail to slow the accumulation of fatty plaque in the arteries, it actually seemed to contribute to plaque formation, although by such a small amount that the finding could have been a result of chance. Dr. Steven E. Nissen, the chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, said the results were "shocking."

Cardiologists at the Cleveland Clinic said that a clinical trial of a widely used cholesterol drug is raising questions both about the medicine’s effectiveness and about the negative behavior of the pharmaceutical companies that conducted the study. The popular cholesterol drug Zetia was studied, and two years after the study ended, Merck and Schering-Plough, the makers of the drug, finally released the results under pressure from Congress. Not only did the drug fail to benefit patients in the two-year clinical trial, but the same drug which many patients take in a pill that contains it, Vytorin, the drug seemed to increase the buildup of harmful plaque in arteries.

The drug companies blamed the complexity of the data for the almost two-year delay. Merck and Schering repeatedly missed their own deadlines for reporting the results, leading cardiologists around the world to wonder what the study would show. At the same time, millions of patients kept taking Zetia and Vytorin. In January 2008, barely a month after news articles noted the delay and Congress pressured the companies to disclose the study’s findings, the results finally came out.

"This drug doesn't work. Period. It just does not work," said Steven Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. Michigan congressman Bart Stupak, leading a congressional investigation of the study, said, "It is easy to conclude that Merck and Schering-Plough intentionally sought to delay the release of this data."

Zetia and Vytorin (a combination pill of Zetia and Zocor) are prescribed 100,000 times a day and together generate annual sales for the pharmaceutical industry of $5 billion. Merck and Schering split the profits from the medicines equally, and the drugs have been growth engines, with sales up 25 percent in the most recent quarter over the same period last year.

[Ralph Lotz]

Dr. Abram Hoffer is the doctor who discovered that niacin lowers cholesterol.

Arising from this research are the following discoveries: (1) That adrenochrome is an hallucinogen, (2) that it could be made in the body. It is now known to be present and easily measured. (3) That megadoses of vitamin B-3 and ascorbic acid were therapeutic for schizophrenia. This was one of the roots of orthomolecular psychiatry and medicine as it is known today. (4) That niacin lowers cholesterol levels.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/life_hoffer.html

Dosages up to 6 grams daily are sometimes used for cholesterol. These doses were routinely prescribed for schizophrenia and other maladies by Hoffer for over 50 years. Side effects include flushing and nausea, which usually subside as the body becomes accustomed to the niacin. Those taking megadoses of niacin should do so under the supervision of a physician to monitor liver function.
More info here:
http://www.medicinenet.com/niacin/article.htm

Niacinamide does not work to lower cholesterol.

[jknosplr]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... 7_ST_N.htm

So where did you say the FDA was?

[pamojja]

For the record, here is an excerpt from Chapter 9, The Truth About Cholesterol, from Practicing Medicine Without a License (2008)

The Zetia and Vytorin Debacle

January 15, 2008 - In a press release, Merck and Schering said that not only did Zetia fail to slow the accumulation of fatty plaque in the arteries, it actually seemed to contribute to plaque formation, although by such a small amount that the finding could have been a result of chance. Dr. Steven E. Nissen, the chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, said the results were "shocking."

Owen, would you have a link to this press release?

Thanks..

[ofonorow]

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/03 ... 36522.html

This is a month or 2 later - in 2008. (I used google to search in the year 2008)