This is so upsetting, I’m not even going to attempt to make wisecracks about it. Pfizer has received approval in Europe to sell chewable Lipitor tablets to kids older than 10. I’ve pasted the AP article below.
I generally think of personal-injury lawyers as the blood-sucking scum of the earth, but when the kids who take this liver poison end up with permanent muscle damage 15 years from now, I will cheer if Pfizer is successfully sued for billions of dollars. Let the greedy scum punish the greedy scum.
Pfizer gets EU approval for kids’ cholesterol drug
TRENTON, N.J. — The European Union has approved a new chewable form of cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor for children 10 and up with high levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides, a type of blood fat, Pfizer said Tuesday.
The approval includes children whose high blood fats are due to an inherited disease that causes extremely high cholesterol levels, familial hypercholesterolemia.
New York-based Pfizer Inc. won U.S. approval for Lipitor use in children 10 to 17 with that condition in 2002.
Lipitor is the world’s top-selling drug, with 2009 sales of about $13 billion, but its U.S. patent expires at the end of November 2011. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, will quickly lose most Lipitor revenue once generic competition hits, so the company has been trying to boost sales where possible before then.
Pfizer said last fall that it plans to apply for a six-month extension of its patent in European countries, after doing studies of Lipitor in youngsters.
As in the United States, the European Union allows drug makers to seek an additional six months of patent protection for medications if they test them in children, who generally are excluded from the drug studies performed to win approval for a new medication.
Pfizer already won such an extension for its crucial U.S. patent on Lipitor.
For blockbuster drugs, those extensions can easily bring hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue. Normally, they are for drugs that are widely used by different age groups.
Until recently, cholesterol drugs have been primarily taken by adults with heart disease, but their use has expanded to younger patients as more obese, sedentary teenagers and adolescents develop heart disease and diabetes.
Lipitor is approved to lower risk of heart attack and stroke, but can cause dangerous muscle pain or weakness, and it cannot be taken by patients with liver problems or by nursing or pregnant women.
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I don’t like this Planet Earth ride. Can I get off now?
You sound depressed. We have a drug for that …
“As in the United States, the European Union allows drug makers to seek an additional six months of patent protection for medications if they test them in children, who generally are excluded from the drug studies performed to win approval for a new medication.”
Okay, maybe I’m just a cynical b*** but I wouldn’t put it past them to test on kids just for the patent extension.
Neither would I. That’s the motivation behind all the combo drugs as well; a combination can produce a new patent.
You’d get more coverage if you started your own cult.
I don’t have the right mix of traits. Cult leaders use charisma to sell illogical nonsense. I’m logical and nearly devoid of charisma.
As Jan mentioned above, looks like the idea of testing all kids in the U.S. is making the rounds: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38203670/ns/health/ Apparently even when prescribing statins to kids with first-degree relatives who have high cholesterol, they are still missing a potential group of kids who also would test with high cholesterol. When will the madness end?! I think they even suggest that this tactic will save money in the long-run due to reduced incidences of heart disease?
Good lord. Anyone who tries to give one of my daughters a statin had better be armed.
“For blockbuster drugs, those extensions can easily bring hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue.”
Anything to make a buck. That crap is bad enough for adults and who knows what it will do to children. There is no scientific evidence on high cholesterol in children and later heart disease, but when did that ever stop the medical-pharmaceutical establishment????
What’s worse, it could come to the point where parents are charged with child neglect for refusing to give them statins, when giving them statins is the real child abuse.
I may have to join one of those no-doctors religions so I can legally refuse medical advice for my kids.
Oh, fuck me running. Sorry for going R rated here but my God.
It is shit like this that makes me defend trial lawyers, despite the slippery slope that puts me on.
(For the record, as a Michigander, the only time I voted Republican for governor was when the Democrats ran Jeffery Feiger, the most bizzaro, Sideshow Bob-ian trial lawyer of them all.)
I am not a litigious person, but in this case, the sooner somebody sues, the better.
Just saw Feiger on the Stossel show this week. He explained that he’s actually a warrior, fighting for the people. Of course, most warriors don’t make tens of millions of dollars in the course of their campaigns.
Last I heard, there were no good numbers on what “normal” cholesterol for kids is. Oh wait, Pfizer says it’s exactly the same for adults, so it MUST be true.
Well, clearly the health of the children is their only concern.
I don’t like this Planet Earth ride. Can I get off now?
You sound depressed. We have a drug for that …
do you think they’d add to the water next?
Crazy as that sounds, there was a doctor in the UK who suggested exactly that — we must make sure everyone takes statins, so let’s put them in the water.
do you think they’d add to the water next?
Crazy as that sounds, there was a doctor in the UK who suggested exactly that — we must make sure everyone takes statins, so let’s put them in the water.
I hate to suggest the morbid view, but perhaps when thousands of children take statins and start hurting, the harmful nature of the drug will be too much for the media to ignore?
Then it would be a scandal, and they’d be all over it.
I hate to suggest the morbid view, but perhaps when thousands of children take statins and start hurting, the harmful nature of the drug will be too much for the media to ignore?
Then it would be a scandal, and they’d be all over it.
As I keep telling people I work with, why would your body make a substance that is incredibly harmful to your health? Perhaps, because cholesterol has a FUNCTION? Like being a portion of the membranes in all your cells? Being involved in brain function? Immune system function? And that maybe children have higher levels of cholesterol because they are making more cells than adults, and are still forming new connections in their brains? And that maybe stopping that is a REALLY STINKING BAD IDEA? I am a scientist, I work with other scientists, we are all skeptics, we conduct research, we know how we do it, we consider ourselves ethical and still know how to make the data come out the way it ‘should’. This terrified me when I saw the article.
It terrified me as well. Those kids will end up with muscle damage, depression, cognitive disfunction, cancer … it’s just a question of which side effect shows up first.
As I keep telling people I work with, why would your body make a substance that is incredibly harmful to your health? Perhaps, because cholesterol has a FUNCTION? Like being a portion of the membranes in all your cells? Being involved in brain function? Immune system function? And that maybe children have higher levels of cholesterol because they are making more cells than adults, and are still forming new connections in their brains? And that maybe stopping that is a REALLY STINKING BAD IDEA? I am a scientist, I work with other scientists, we are all skeptics, we conduct research, we know how we do it, we consider ourselves ethical and still know how to make the data come out the way it ‘should’. This terrified me when I saw the article.
It terrified me as well. Those kids will end up with muscle damage, depression, cognitive disfunction, cancer … it’s just a question of which side effect shows up first.
Feed them a high-carb diet so they go crazy and are overweight. Then feed them Ritalin and Lipitor to counter the affects of a high-carb diet. Crazy, you say? Crazy like a fox!
It does keep business coming in.
Feed them a high-carb diet so they go crazy and are overweight. Then feed them Ritalin and Lipitor to counter the affects of a high-carb diet. Crazy, you say? Crazy like a fox!
It does keep business coming in.
I am so depressed after reading this article. I’m pregnant with my first child and i am so worried about the world i am bringing him/her into. It’s going to be hard enough explaining to the kid why they can’t eat all the same things their friends are eating, but now i’ll have to fight off the doctors, too?
By the way, (and sorry to digress a bit), i just started reading your posts because i am one of those noobs who saw your video on Netflix. It’s probably the best thing i’ve watched on Netflix so far. Now all i need is some reading materials for REAL nutrution during pregnancy. Who knows… maybe soon they’ll start pushing these statins and other stupid drugs on pregnant women. It’s sure working with carbs.
Your child will be fine. You control the diet, not the doctors. You may find this Jimmy Moore podcast interesting. He interviewed Dr. Michael Fox, a fertility doc and ob/gyn:
http://tinyurl.com/6xevvtt
I am so depressed after reading this article. I’m pregnant with my first child and i am so worried about the world i am bringing him/her into. It’s going to be hard enough explaining to the kid why they can’t eat all the same things their friends are eating, but now i’ll have to fight off the doctors, too?
By the way, (and sorry to digress a bit), i just started reading your posts because i am one of those noobs who saw your video on Netflix. It’s probably the best thing i’ve watched on Netflix so far. Now all i need is some reading materials for REAL nutrution during pregnancy. Who knows… maybe soon they’ll start pushing these statins and other stupid drugs on pregnant women. It’s sure working with carbs.
Your child will be fine. You control the diet, not the doctors. You may find this Jimmy Moore podcast interesting. He interviewed Dr. Michael Fox, a fertility doc and ob/gyn:
http://tinyurl.com/6xevvtt
Eureka Alert: Statins may shield unborn babies from mother’s stress, study suggests
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-05/uoe-sms051616.php
“In this study the researchers have discovered that a drug called Pravastatin may counteract the consequences of increased levels of the stress hormone corticosterone within the placentas of mice. How Pravastatin counteracts the stress hormone is not yet understood, therefore more research is needed to see whether the drug will have the same effect in humans.”
Older Brother’s thalidomide metaphor is no longer a metaphor.
Indeed.
Eureka Alert: Statins may shield unborn babies from mother’s stress, study suggests
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-05/uoe-sms051616.php
“In this study the researchers have discovered that a drug called Pravastatin may counteract the consequences of increased levels of the stress hormone corticosterone within the placentas of mice. How Pravastatin counteracts the stress hormone is not yet understood, therefore more research is needed to see whether the drug will have the same effect in humans.”
Older Brother’s thalidomide metaphor is no longer a metaphor.
Indeed.