Lipitor - Vioxx: Discovering The Statin - Painkiller Chain Reaction

Categories

Health

Pharma

The recent withdrawal of Merck's blockbuster painkiller Vioxx may actually afford us a glimpse of a chain of events that is normally well hidden in research papers, at best selectively disclosed to the medical community. Vioxx and other new-generation painkillers such as Bextra and Celebrex have all come under fire for their tendency to cause an increase of heart attacks.

Statin Drugs, such as Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lesocol and Mevacor which are promoted as lowering the risk of heart disease, have their own side effect profile, which includes liver and kidney damage as well as muscle pains. One statin, Bayer's Baycol, was removed from the market over the prevalence of such side effects.

Cholesterol + Statins = Muscle Pain + Pain Killers = Heart Attacks

Is there an obvious but overlooked connection between statin drugs, their side effects and the new-generation painkillers of the Vioxx class? An intriguing question for anyone interested in drug safety, one would think - except the FDA does not seem overly concerned.

In a recent article published in RedflagsWeekly, insider Thomas A. Braun, a drug marketing executive, stirs the pot by linking Vioxx, which he calls a "300-pound Gorilla" that "has been let out of the cage", with statin drugs, which he calls the next over-sized gorilla ready to hit the streets. Braun also points out one of those interesting time coincidences: Niacin, a cheap and apparently effective way of lowering cholesterol, was "found to cause liver damage" just before the first statin, Merck's Mevacor, hit the market in the early 1980's. Today, Merck's Mevacor is still one of the most popular statin drugs along with Pfizer's Lipitor, while niacin, a vital nutrient, is thoroughly discredited with available dosages soon to be limited to a measly 35 mg. Statins as a class of drugs produce about 20 billion Dollars a year in profit for the pharma giants.

Merck discovered that statin drugs deplete the body of Coenzyme Q-10, a substance needed for proper muscle function, which is found in a particularly high concentration in the heart muscle. The company applied for and received two patents in connection with this discovery (Patent No. 4929437 and Patent No. 4933165) but in an inexplicable turnabout, it never did incorporate Coenzyme Q 10 into any of its statin drugs.

Here is where things get interesting.

Statin drugs cause muscle damage. Soreness and pain are extremely widespread. You can get an idea of just how how widespread this side effect apparently is by seeing the comments on this article and on this other article, previous posts on this site about Lipitor and its side effects. Also check out the comments on this page, which are replies posted to an article by Chris Gupta (Bad News About Statin Drugs). If statin consumption is continued, the consequent degradation of the muscle tissue, called rhabdomyolysis, may lead to kidney damage and eventually death by toxic overload of the kidneys.

Why has Merck not "put on the breaks" and at least added a decent quantity of Coenzyme Q 10 to its statin products to prevent the pain and muscle degeneration associated with the use of statins? Why has the FDA not required that patients be informed to add CoQ10 to their statin prescription? Some say, CoQ10 is expensive, and that may well have been a factor in Merck's decision to not follow up on these patents - but I rather like to explore the "unthinkable" and ask some questions:

Might there have been a calculated decision to leave statins "undisturbed" by any doubts about their safety? Certainly all statins would have suffered from a sudden admission of the muscle pains side effect and what is now a 20-billion-$-a-year market might never have grown to those gigantic proportions.

Might it just be that the calculation (to accept the painful side effect of statins) extended to include the addidional profits expected on the sale of other new and expensive dru