Statin Drugs. Doctors conflicted about their safety?

The conventional medical establishment appears to be conflicted over Statin drugs. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which provides doctors in Britain with advice and guidelines about prescribing drugs recently advice an increase in Statin prescribing. Whereas previous advice was to prescribe them to any patient who had a 30% risk of a heart attack or stroke, they changed that advice to anyone who had a 10% chance.

This would have meant a considerable increase in the number of people taking Statins, particularly amongst older people. NICE said that it would prevent 28,000 heart attacks, and 16,000 strokes every year. So, something worth doing?

Well, unfortunately, doctors did not think so. A recent analysis by the GPs' magazine, Pulse, discovered that since the new NICE guidelines were given, prescriptions for statin drugs had shown only a 2% rise.

So why the discrepancy? Is there increasing conflict within the conventional medical establishment about Statins? And if so, what is the conflict about?

The problem concerns the safety of Statin drugs. Once, not many years ago, conventional medicine was telling us that these were miracle drugs, reducing heart attacks and strokes, but with little or no side effects. They were, we were told, entirely safe.

Indeed, it is that type of blue-sky thinking that underlay NICE's amended guidelines to doctors. The reason for this is not difficult to find. NICE, like most government sponsored health advisory bodies, is influenced, infiltrated and dominated by medics who have strong links with the powerful pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, most of NICE's advice is driven by the interests of these companies, whose major objective is to sell drugs to patients.

Yet the dangers of Statins is becoming increasingly obvious to an increasing number of people. There is growing numbers of people who are reluctant to take Statin drugs. Doctors meet with people every day. They are aware of this growing concern. And they cannot be unaware of the very serious evidence that is building against these harmful drugs.

In 2014, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) reported that it had received 730 adverse reports related to the five most prescribed Statins in Britain, namely Simvastatin, Atorvastatin, Rosuvastatin, Pravastatin and Fluvastatin. Yet it is well known that only about 10% of adverse reactions to drugs are reported - this, in itself, probably an underestimate. What this means is that in one year, in Britain, over 7,000 patients has been damaged by Statin drugs.

What damage is it causing? The side effects of Statins are now known to include:

• Muscle pain, weakness (myopathy).
• Fatigue.
• Cataracts.
• Weight gain.
• Diabetes
• Kidney failure.
• Liver dysfunction.
• Memory loss, confusion and dementia.
• Parkinson's disease