SHT - Are you taking cholesterol-lowering drugs?

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I was reading the Graedons earlier and they were talking about a report on how many people taking Baycor were monitored for liver problems. (Baycor was recently taken off the market because an unacceptably high number of people died from liver complications.)

That report said ONLY FIVE PERCENT of patients had been monitored. Not five percent of doctors had monitored them; five percent of patients. That could mean, e.g., that three percent of the doctors had monitored five percent of the patients. Sweetie and I are on Lipitor and the doc had us take blood tests six weeks after starting, then three months, six months, now once a year. We are also warned to watch out for muscle problems and other symptoms.

So, even though the Baycor reports were all over the news, sound and print, in medical literature and IN WARNING LETTERS SENT TO ALL DOCTORS, it can be assumed that only a frighteningly minuscule percentage of doctors are properly monitoring their patients on ANY drug having serious side effects.

Caveat emptor.

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2001


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