Do You Really Understand Your Medication?

Do you know the effects of your medication and why you are taking it? Many people don't and they are not explained the risks or benefits of the medication from their doctor. Better yet does the doctor understand the medication he/she is prescribing to you. Has your doctor done extensive research on the medication or is he/she only going by what the pharmaceutical companies are telling him/her? Are the pharmaceutical companies being truthful in what they are telling a doctor? Do the pharmaceutical companies care about you getting better or keeping you sick? They are in a business and that business is making money. Americans are a very small portion of the world population but we take fifty percent of the drugs, why?

In this day and age it is very important to understand how big pharm has ushered their evil head into main street. Big pharm has been caught red handed, bribing doctor, withholding evidence, withhold risk, and misleading the public in what their drugs do and don't do. The pharmaceutical companies have been fined billions of dollars for misrepresenting drugs and hiding risk and outcome. They have literally been fined billions of dollars in just one lawsuit and they chalk this up to the cost of doing business. Thousands of people of have died because of pharmaceutical companies are not telling the truth. People dying and countless lawsuits is just the cost of doing business to them. They are a business they do not care if you live, die, get better or stay sick, as long as you are buying their drug and they are making money off you.

This example caught my eye and I felt like I needed to share it, while of course drugs are very important I am against the way drugs are used in this county, all to the benefit of a company and at the expense of the general public. Merck recently paid a law suit in the amount of $688 million dollars for withholding evidence about one of their cholesterol drugs named Vytorin. They did a study called the Enhanced study which was a double blind randomized control trail in which they were testing if Vytorin decreased the risk of atherosclerosis by decreasing thickness of the carotid artery. It was found in 2006, that indeed Vytorin did not reduce the risk of atherosclerosis but actually worsen the carotid artery thus increase the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease. So in essence the drug was actually making patients more likely to have a heart attack. The drug did lower cholesterol but did not stop atherosclerosis which is why you want your cholesterol to be low in the first place.

So with Merck knowing that their drug was an epic failure and did harm to a certain extend, do you know who they told? Nobody! This was keep quiet while Merck made over 5 billion dollars from 2006-2008 off this drug. Once the release of this information in 2008 that their drug was a failure and did not work doctors continued to prescribe it, either not caring or not knowing (which is worst), making Merck in 2012 4.4 billion dollars from Vytorin. It needs to be noted that statin drugs (cholesterol lowering drugs) which include Vytorin and other drugs have never been shown to decrease atherosclerosis, or decrease the risk of stoke and heart attacks. Cholesterol-lowering medications have never been shown to prevent a heart attack.  The only benefit these drugs have shown to do is to lower the risk of mortality by about 1% in patients who have already had a cardiovascular event. So why are we taking these drugs. Lowering your cholesterol does not equal lower risk of cardiovascular events.

Please be leery of what you are prescribed and question who has your best interest in mind. Remember the best medicine on earth is eating right, exercising and talking care of your body. Your Plano Chiropractors at Twisted Spine and Joint Center want to help you achieve your health and wellness goals whatever they may be. Yours in great health!