ACCORD Trial Highlights the Failure of Western Medicine

The ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) Trial is proving to be a complete flop. Its purpose was to aggressively use drugs to lower blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol in type II diabetic patients so as to prevent heart disease. One day it may sink in to the multibillion-dollar-per-year fraud of Big Pharma and Western Medicine that there is a huge difference in drugging people so numbers look better compared to having good numbers because you are healthy. Even TIME magazine is featuring the story of the failure of drugs to cure type II diabetes.

Two years ago the blood sugar arm of the study had to be halted because it increased the risk of death by 20%. Now we find that aggressively lowering lipids using a combination of a statin (simvastatin) plus a fenofibrate (a drug called TriCor) is no better than a statin alone (which is of questionable value in the first place). TriCor is made by Abbott Laboratories. It raked in 1.3 billion in sales in 2009. Abbott does not expect this round of bad news to have any affect on TriCor sales. In other words, Abbott isn’t concerned that in many cases doctors are using a drug that produces no benefit. Americans should be concerned by the lack of results and the cost.

Likewise, aggressively lowering blood pressure didn’t do any good either.

It is time to rethink the subject of health care starting with Big Pharma and medical doctors who drive up costs prescribing useless medication. It is time their education was changed so that they start dealing with the person instead of numbers that drive drug sales. Western medicine has been on a big push in the last decade to give super high doses of drugs for many conditions. The ACCORD Trial is clear proof that the theory is fatally flawed.

The FDA, which has approved fenofibrate drugs for use in situations that do not help people, once again has mud on its face. The FDA trying to cover its Big Pharma-friendly image has cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent drug sales. Yes, the FDA will take months to study the data before it figures out how to cover its rear end.

The take-home message of the ACCORD Trial is rather plain: drugs do not produce health. Managing numbers aggressively with drugs is pointless, highly risky, and all too often increases the risk of early death. Until this con game is forced to stop health care costs cannot possibly be controlled.