STATIN STATUS

New Zealand cardiologist Harvey White is quoted (“How low should we go?”, February 9) as being in favour of more aggressively treating raised cholesterol levels, but the serious questions being raised worldwide about the use of statin drugs are ignored.

Dr Maryanne Demasi, presenter of the ABC programme Catalyst (still available online) in 2013, interviewed world-renowned experts who accused the drug companies of distorting the evidence about the drugs’ side effects to

maintain the most profitable group of drugs in history, an industry with multi-billion dollar annual profits from an estimated 50 billion users.

Professor Rita Redberg, a world-renowned cardiologist from the University of California, San Francisco, says the marketing argues that the drugs can lower cholesterol, as if that was the end in itself. “Which it is not …” There is evidence that the majority won’t benefit, she says.

Dr John Abramson, of the Harvard Medical School, says the public are not being told the whole truth about the dangers of these drugs.

Professor Beatrice Golomb, statin researcher at the University of San Diego, California, says in its effect, it’s “scientific fraud” and “organised crime”.

Are we getting the real picture?

Len May (Whitianga)