More fun... dispelling ignorance... the link may not last ;)

[xrn]

Hello all,
I was writing some helpful tips for people with statin related questions... on a site called Patient UK and the thread was renamed and moved to a place it would not be easily seen.

The link follows...

*http://experience.patient.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=14004#14004

As always, please remove the asterisk before pasting the URL into your web browser. Be aware that any site that moves and renames threads in an abitrary manner, may not leave unpleasant threads lying around so get 'em while they are fresh!

Just a little something to lighten your day, courtesy of xrn productions.

Kind regards,
xrn

[xrn]

Try the following link because I think this is now the correct one...

*http://experience.patient.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=13978&highlight=statin+debate#13978

You should find some of the argument interesting. ;)

Kind regards,
xrn

[xrn]

Brian:
xrn, I take my hat off to you Sir!! :D

xrn:
xrn bows low... waiting for applause, money, £1million contract deals and being kept in a lifestyle that he would like the opportunity to get used to. ;)

xrn: Yes, it does seem to be a strangely run site and it is quite frustrating to try and make sense out of it. I had to make several attempts before I could register succesfully. I am not too sure who runs or pays for the site but (my cycnical self) says that I am more than a little suspicious now. :)

Kind regards, Brian
xrn

[Brian C.]

[quote="xrn"]I am not too sure who runs or pays for the site but (my cycnical self) says that I am more than a little suspicious now. :)
[/quote]

I think we could hazard an intelligent guess :wink:

Brian.

[cjbrooksjc]

xrn: Fascinating exchange of views (I was rooting for the Spacedoc home team; of course) It's as though they think they can simply wear you down with a sort of exculpatory slight-of-hand... mannerly though; thouroughly proper ... abslolutely fascinating. BTW: I got linked in the first time I pasted the url; maybe they are only fending off UK viewers. Oh, Yes... I gave you the argument on points - 10 to zip.

Regards,


Brooks

[xrn]

Brooks:
Fascinating exchange of views (I was rooting for the Spacedoc home team; of course) It's as though they think they can simply wear you down with a sort of exculpatory slight-of-hand... mannerly though; thouroughly proper ... abslolutely fascinating. BTW: I got linked in the first time I pasted the url; maybe they are only fending off UK viewers. Oh, Yes... I gave you the argument on points - 10 to zip.

Regards,


Brooks

xrn:
Hi Brooks.
I am happy to see that you stopped by. I suspect that the person I am 'debating' is, in fact, the Patient UK webmaster and probably he is also an employee of a drug company. I had left some comments and information for about 4 of the people, who had written in to the web site forums, under the 'cholesterol levels' heading.

Cadwallon appeared not to like what I was saying and went to some lengths to tell all of the correspondents (in individual postings) that there was a wealth of eveidence supporting statin Rx and he then went on to indicate all of the standard gum flapping that Spacedoc denizens are, sadly, all too familiar with.

What is fascinating is that these few posts were my very first posts on that site (I was just spreading the light... so to speak) and Cadwallon felt the need to add something to every one of my posts. If he was just a webmaster, it is very doubtful that he would have done that. It is one of the reasons why I think he may be employed by a pharmaceutical company that has possibly sponsored the statin portion of the forums on Patient UK. I suspect that he may also be medically qualified, at the very least, and just possibly he may be an R&D researcher for a drug company.

Oh well... I'll sleep on it and call his bluff tomorrow evening. Watch this space. Madly, I was able to vote on his reply which had somehow gathered a rating of 10 stars. It must of been the only vote because after I had appended my vote, it went down to one star! Perhaps we should note any upturn in his ratings and have a mass downrating session.

Goodnight, Brooks. I have a very busy schedule tommorow so I must get some sleep right now.

Kind regards,
xrn

[cjbrooksjc]

BrianC: I got the same 'Cannot insert data' msg. I suspect its because I severely limit cookie insertion in my profile. Ah, well...

Regards,

Brooks

[Brian C.]

Brooks : I got the same 'Cannot insert data' msg. I suspect its because I severely limit cookie insertion in my profile. Ah, well...

I don't so I guess Codswallop has turned it into a sockpuppet-only forum after xrn trggered the alarm system.


Brian

[xrn]

Good evening to all. A new installment, hot off the presses, awaits the intrepid at...

(remember to remove the asterisk before pasting the address into your web browser)


*http://experience.patient.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=13978&highlight=statin+debate#13978

enjoy! ;)

Kind regards,
xrn

[cjbrooksjc]

xrn: You have him on the ropes. I'm sure he wasn't laughing - as I was. Kudos! You surely deserve the championship belt in your (informed) weight class. Oh, yes, what happened to the rating stars... seems that funktion is a little funky now.

Regards,

Brooks

[Brian C.]

Floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee! :D

I see "slacckk" was able to register yesterday so I guess I ought to keep on trying

Brian.

[xrn]

[quote="Brian C."]Floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee!

I see "slacckk" was able to register yesterday so I guess I ought to keep on trying

Brian.[/quote]



If he is alive in five, I'll silence his jive.

(with apologies to one of the best heavyweight fighters I have ever seen)

Kind regards,
xrn (aka the Bedfordshire lip)

[xrn]

Brooks:
You have him on the ropes. I'm sure he wasn't laughing - as I was. Kudos! You surely deserve the championship belt in your (informed) weight class. Oh, yes, what happened to the rating stars... seems that funktion is a little funky now.

Regards,

Brooks

xrn:
Hmmm... I am not so sure about that.

"I didn't touch him ref. Honest! He jus' fell over an musta slipped on the canvas or his lace or sumfink else when he got in the ring".

[this is a pained denial to the ref, who is no doubt thinking that I possibly hit him before the bell]

The star rating system is clearly open to abuse because I was able to give my own post a 10 star rating (:D) so I was not really surprised to see it go funky.

Kind regards,
xrn

[Brian C.]

There is a newcomer to the debate over at PatientUK :wink:

Brian.

[xrn]

Brian:
There is a newcomer to the debate over at PatientUK :wink:

xrn:
Hello, good evening and welcome... to Mr Impatient. ;)

Kind regards,
xrn

[Cadwallon]

Nice to meet you all.

xrn,

In a study I undertook years ago, I found a statistically significant relationship between people with psoriasis and ownership of dogs. I wondered what might explain this...
[list]* Could it be dog fur allergy exacerbates the psoriasis making sufferers seek treatment?
* Could it be that people with bad psoriasis feel the need for a dog?
* Could it be that the licking of the dog improves the psoriasis and people are sub-consciously persuaded to keep owning dogs.
* Could it be there is no relationship at all?[/list]
I don’t know.
I think it would have been foolish of me to arbitrarily claim that dogs cause psoriasis - because I didn’t have any evidence to support this.
In fact, I’d have been really out on a limb if I started advising patients not to own dogs.


So bearing this in mind, xrn, could you explain how go got from this:

[quote="xrn"]http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53106.x

The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society published the following in February 2005, under the title 'Relationship Between Plasma Lipids and All-Cause Mortality in Nondemented Elderly'.

The conclusion was unequivocal and stated... "Low cholesterol level is a robust predictor of mortality in the nondemented elderly and may be a surrogate of frailty or subclinical disease."[/quote]

To advising a patient ->
[quote="xrn"]“…Otherwise statins have been shown to be a robust predictor of mortality (death) in the non-demented elderly.â€

[xrn]

Cadwallon:
Nice to meet you all.

xrn:
Welcome to spacedoc.net, Cadwallon.

Cadwallon:
xrn,

In a study I undertook years ago, I found a statistically significant relationship between people with psoriasis and ownership of dogs. I wondered what might explain this...
[list]* Could it be dog fur allergy exacerbates the psoriasis making sufferers seek treatment?
* Could it be that people with bad psoriasis feel the need for a dog?
* Could it be that the licking of the dog improves the psoriasis and people are sub-consciously persuaded to keep owning dogs.
* Could it be there is no relationship at all?[/list]
I don’t know.
I think it would have been foolish of me to arbitrarily claim that dogs cause psoriasis - because I didn’t have any evidence to support this.
In fact, I’d have been really out on a limb if I started advising patients not to own dogs.

xrn:
I don't understand what you are saying, Cadwallon. If you had found a statistically significant relationship, then it must have manifested itself in a way that was measureable and repeatable. If all you had discovered was the bare fact that people with psoriasis tended to own a dog, then pure chance is just as likely to have been an accurate hypothesis, as any other.

This is no different to the assumption that 'soft' drug use such as smoking an occasional joint of cannabis, will lead the afflicted down a path of progression to the use of the so-called 'hard' drugs such as cocaine or heroin. My take on that viewpoint is that the researchers may well have been looking in the wrong place because, as far as I can tell, 100% of heroin addicts start on milk. I use this illustration to demonstrate to you how wrongheaded it can be to make clear statements about clinical significance, when all you have to go on are your own observations.

I would direct you to the views of the signatories who signed up to the global petition. Many of those people are denizens of these forums and the statins forum in particular. You can take a lofty stance and blame all of the terrible effects listed, on people (mistakenly) believing that the root cause of their woes was directly attributable to statin ingestion. I would expect nothing less of a good research worker, Cadwallon.

Where I get off that bus is that I simply do not think it makes any sense to dismiss every view expressed on the petion site as mistaken, based in poor knowledge, personal biological make-up and as many extraneous factors as you care to list. The tragedy is that 'real' research finds it all too easy to lable these effects as clinically insignificant and from that moment forward, uncomfortable phenomena (uncomfortable for the researchers) never has to be considered. I cannot believe that this either right or productive.

The acid test, if you are so sure of your ground... that statins are ostensiby harmless and that medicating relatively young people for life (in terms of their total life expectancy) is an acceptable form of treatment...

...is to discuss with the people on this site, their symptoms, their stories and the rationale for them staying with, rather than leaving, statins. I predict that you are not going to get much house room for those views, Cadwallon.

Cadwallon:
So bearing this in mind, xrn, could you explain how go got from this:

[quote="xrn"]http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53106.x

The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society published the following in February 2005, under the title 'Relationship Between Plasma Lipids and All-Cause Mortality in Nondemented Elderly'.

The conclusion was unequivocal and stated... "Low cholesterol level is a robust predictor of mortality in the nondemented elderly and may be a surrogate of frailty or subclinical disease."[/quote]

To advising a patient ->
[quote="xrn"]“…Otherwise statins have been shown to be a robust predictor of mortality (death) in the non-demented elderly.â€

[Ray Holder]

Cadwallon
From your other postings I gather that you have total faith in the veracity of research study reports and in the infallibility of professorial and NICE pronouncements. While this is commendable loyalty to the medical hierachy, who have always given the impression of having all the answers, I fear that there many things which are no longer to be relied upon.

The composition of NICE committees, which is apparently totally of those promoting new drugs and guidelines, should always include an opposition group, as Devil's advocate. This might have avoided the beatification of Saint Atin and revealed the previously known dark side of this "Wonder drug" , which is little more than a chinese herbal remedy dressed up, renamed, and given an unwarranted halo.

A drug licensing authority which was really on the ball would have picked up the Dr Karl Folkers' finding that depletion of CoQ10 occured with statin use, including worsening of heart failure problems, and would have found also the two Merck patents of 1990 which let the cat out of the bag and revealed the extent of muscle damage. Why do you think these two factors were suppressed and not revealed to the world. I only need one guess and have found several stories of those involved at the time which back up my suuspicions.

Then there is the knowledge that 70% of drug research in UK is funded and is under the virtual control of Big Pharma. I am sorry, but I have very little faith in the reliability of official pronouncements on such things as statins.

I always have had a good relationship with my doctor, but the first pack of Zocor which he gave me was a drug rep's sample. Who really directs which medication should be appropriate ? Is not doctor's education being left to the persuasive ability of manufacturers sales employees?

I have sent numerous letters to those who have authority and who should be concerned, but skins are very thick, and the usual official line sent back. What bothers me most is the lack of appreciation of the extent of statin problems and their permanence, so much reliance is placed solely on flawed study findings, even the MHRA Yellow Card system appears to evoke no action.

Welcome to the fold, but I cannot guarantee you a smooth ride!!

Ray

[Brian C.]

Cadwallon, may I refer you to Dr Graveline's recent posting at this thread

*http://www.spacedoc.net/board/viewtopic.php?p=4152#4152 (Remove asterisk)

That one paragraph summarises the alarming biochemical effects of interference with the mevalonate pathway which explains our symptoms and our utter rejection of statins.
I am utterly at a loss how any non-sociopath with medical training can feign ignorance and sleep soundly at night!

Brian.

[Brian C.]

All professions are conspiracies against the laity - G.B.Shaw
"The Doctor's Dilemma"