http://pmid.us/25655639

One day statin makers will have their pants sued off.

Maybe so, but in the meantime, this was published by Informa. They publish journals. Lots of them. They say right on their site "Publish With Us". So these guys are paying to get published. I'd keep that in mind.

There's lots of books out now, by and with doctors, which carefully delineate the monstrous harm statins cause the body.

At this point, it's a superstition as much as it is a drug.

It's not the paying to get published thing that gets me. I see hypothesis, mechanism of action--but it's impossible to see from the abstract alone whether they're explaining an increase in calcification actually shown in people taking statins.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22875226

Okay, there's at least an association. But the study needs to be picked apart, when you get rid of confounders, what happens? Warfarin blocks some actions of vitamin k, how many people on statins are also on warfarin? My bias is against statins, and pro-vitamin k2, but I don't really know what to make of this yet.

I think you're not quite right about that. It was (or will be) published in Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol. 2015 Feb 6:1-11. [Epub ahead of print]. Informa Healthcare will sell you the article if you don't get that journal. Maybe they also publish that journal, they do seem to be a big publishing house. But I suspect most publications, peer reviewed or not, don't come from someone's basement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert...al_Pharmacology


BTW, being suspicious is the right thing. Apparently there are a lot of unscrupulous places publishing bad crap nowadays. No idea if the above is an example of that. I'd hope it wouldn't make it to PubMed.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...ience-for-a-fee

Don't watch John Oliver with liquids in your mouth. As always painfully funny. And painfully truthful.

I looked up my doctor on that open access payment site mentioned. He took $91 worth of meals in 2013... probably not a whole lot compared to many others. He never struck me as a pill pusher.

My doc was Not Found.

Too bad. I was curious, not about him in particular but about this site.

Here is the full text for those interested.

It amazes me that people damaged aren't putting bullets in the people who are leading the damage against millions of people. We have official political enemies who have done our people less damage than some of these individuals of our own have done FULLY KNOWINGLY with zero motive but money and unconcern.

Why is that people who wipe out retirement money for zillions of old people, or profoundly pollute rivers, get a fine, but the guy who only steals your car radio goes to jail?

There is no amount of money a decade or three down the road that could possibly, ever, even a little, "compensate" for the agony and grief and lives destroyed and children without parents and personal angst and despair that profound health problems cause. There is no fine that can touch it, ever.

Because it isn't by accident. It isn't like "Oh whoops, a flaw and a leak caused us to pollute that river," it's like, "Hey, we realized if we injured, mutilated and murdered millions of people, we could make TONS of money! And the fine, someday, would still leave us SO much profit we'll all still be business heroes and personally insanely rich and safe behind a corporate shield! Bwahahahaha!"

It is a good thing I have no godlike powers.

PJ

Do drug companies pay to get the word out about their products? Is there anything evil or sinister about paying to have your information get exposure?

Here is a humorous look at the reality of marketing drugs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZ...eature=youtu.be

I think that if there is anything sinister involving payments to get information out, the onus falls much more heavily on the established monopoly like prescription drug industry.

Among other inducements, drug companies provide speaking fees to doctors, provide them the "research" to talk about, and as these drug favorable papers become the basis for "standard of care" we not only end up with very dangerous drugs like statins, but many alternatives are excluded; doctors who don't go with the program run a high risk of being struck off. And even within medical practices, physicians are financially rewarded based on compliance with standard of care which includes how many statin drugs they prescribe.

To quote you, "I'd keep that in mind."

I think Gonwtwindo wasn't quite right in her analysis of how the paper was published.

That John Oliver show is brilliant, especially the parody ad at the end.

I need to go back and catch up on recent shows. They always do some amazing in-depth research to back up the comedy.