Wednesday, February 01, 2006

A new drug is available today - Part 2

Vytorin - a new drug for lowering cholesterol has been added to the PBS today (see media release below)

There are so many things wrong with this - where do I start?

Does anybody really care anymore about their health or has it become so easy to just go to the doctor and get a pill prescribed?

Firstly, I think someone got their sums wrong. The media release tells us that the Vytorin will cost the PBS $1689 per patient and they are expecting 130,000 people to be treated in the first full financial year. That equals $229,704,000 not the $100 million quoted in the media release.

That's close to $230 million the government will be paying to a pharmaceutical company so that people can take a pill rather than actually taking care of themselves through healthy eating and exercise. Imagine that - such a foreign concept - someone actually taking care of their health.

When did 130,000 people suddenly become deficient in Vytorin? Oh sorry, I forgot, our bodies don't make Vytorin nor is it essential to our molecular and genetic makeup.

What the body does need is vitamins and minerals, from real food - fruits and vegetables, meats and fish, real butter, virgin coconut oil and olive oil - preferably all organic (we definitely don't need extra pesticides and hormones found in regular food).

The body also needs exercise if for nothing else but to keep the heart muscle strong and healthy.

What about Cholesterol - is it really as bad as the doctors and pharmacuetical companies make it out to be?
I wonder how many people have actually looked into the reasons why the body produces cholesterol.
You might want to read the article at the following link to learn something new about cholesterol
http://www.mercola.com/2005/may/28/cholesterol_heart.htm

and then you might want to read about the side effects of this new drug directly from the Merck Pharmaceuticals' product sheet

http://www.vytorin.com/vytorin/shared/documents/vytorin_pi.pdf

because it's unlikely a doctor will tell you the whole story.

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