Excessively lowering cholesterol has been the mantra of Big Pharma gone wild. Congressional investigation into a fraudulent cover-up of Vytorin study results led Merck and Schering-Plough to reveal what everyone had been suspecting, the main ingredient in their 5-billion-a-year scam failed miserably to do anything useful. “This drug doesn't work. Period. It just doesn't work,” said Steven Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. Merck and Schering-Plough have raked in 10 billion in sales since knowing their drug was near worthless and their promotion for its sale completely false. They should be forced to refund all the money to patients.

Those on the drugs lowered their cholesterol by 40% more, but this had no improvement to their health and was no better than far cheaper generic drugs. This complete failure to produce positive results was in patients with serious heart disease risk. Dr. Nissen points out, “If a group of patients with LDL levels this high don't benefit from Vytorin who's going to benefit?” He also advised that “physicians should now stop using [Zetia] or Vytorin as a primary therapy for patients with high cholesterol.”

This latest fraud in the Big Pharma world, hitting the media at the same exact time of the bone drug fraud, actually throws the entire notion of lowering cholesterol to physiologically abnormal levels with drugs into question. Lower cholesterol is good when it occurs naturally as a result of diet and exercise, but not when it is accomplished by poisoning the body with statins. I explain this fully in my article “The Statin Scam Marches On.”