Aim-High…and fail Part III
Who killed Kennedy? Did we fake the moon landings? Is that really President Obama’s birth certificate? Is Fox News really true and accurate? Some ideas just won’t go away no matter how many...
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3 strikes, you're out? (Part I)
Is it really possible that statins as a class of drugs are so powerful that no new drug can fill an acknowledged need? Why is it that drugs such as niacin, Zetia, Lopid, etc. alter the amounts of the...
View Article3 strikes, you're out? (Part II)
Let's talk about torcetrapib. Like Madonna, Dunkirk and other things that are known by one name, torcetrapib has taken on more than just the name of a failed drug. As I wrote in my last blog, this...
View Article3 strikes, you're out? (Part III)
Now for the second strike. After the debacle of torcetrapib, I for one felt that the class, if not the concept, was in deep trouble. Not only did the drug not benefit, it seemed to harm people. It...
View ArticleMaybe we are just wrong (Part I)
As I have stated before, one of the benefits of the long view of things is to assess how "facts" change over time. What perhaps surprises me most is medicine's reluctance to sometimes acknowledge just...
View ArticleMaybe we are just wrong (Part II)
One of the main reasons that we are able to map the human genome is that the technology improved so rapidly. Scientists and physicians now have the ability to identify SNP or single nucleotide...
View ArticleAnd now for LDL (Part I)
I have spent the last several blog posts discussing HDL and the apparent failure of the class of drugs known as CETP inhibitors. Also, much to my dismay, the possibility that the hypothesis of raising...
View ArticleThrow away your niacin (Part II)
This part of the story surprises even me. The HPS-2 THRIVE study was stopped by Merck this past week. This was a huge study run by Oxford University in England. It utilized 14,741 patients from the...
View ArticleLosing Weight to win at Life
In my last blog I wrote about the Metabolic Syndrome. This syndrome figures very prominently in the day to day practice of medicine. The syndrome increases the risk of death and can be treated....
View ArticleNiacin: A beneficial drug
Recently we received a question on the blog regarding cholesterol treatment and the use of a test called Lp-PLA2. I thought I might dedicate a blog to the test and the rationale for it.
View ArticleGood and Bad News on New Cholesterol Medications
We have a good news bad news situation. The bad news is that Pfizer once a powerhouse in the development of new cardiovascular compounds (remember Lipitor?) has all but removed itself from the field....
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Maybe Brooke Shields had it right (Part 3)
As we were discussing, “nothing comes between me and my jeans." Now it seems that Ms. Shields might be correct. Published in Circulation in the subset concerning cardiovascular genetics is just such...
View ArticleAim-High…and Fail. The failure of a system Part I
What a mess. We as physicians are faced with negative news about a beloved idea and everyone has an opinion. The content of this blog is often similar not because there is little to blog about but...
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Aim-High…and fail. The failure of a system Part II
AccessMedicine © 1978-Present McGraw-Hill and/or its respective owners.Aim-High was a study to determine if patients who had cardiovascular disease but persistently low HDL levels and high...
View ArticleAim-High…and fail Part III
Who killed Kennedy? Did we fake the moon landings? Is that really President Obama’s birth certificate? Is Fox News really true and accurate? Some ideas just won’t go away no matter how many...
View Article3 strikes, you're out? (Part I)
Is it really possible that statins as a class of drugs are so powerful that no new drug can fill an acknowledged need? Why is it that drugs such as niacin, Zetia, Lopid, etc. alter the amounts of the...
View Article3 strikes, you're out? (Part II)
Let's talk about torcetrapib. Like Madonna, Dunkirk and other things that are known by one name, torcetrapib has taken on more than just the name of a failed drug.
View Article3 strikes, you're out? (Part III)
Now for the second strike. After the debacle of torcetrapib, I for one felt that the class, if not the concept, was in deep trouble. Not only did the drug not benefit, it seemed to harm people. It...
View ArticleMaybe we are just wrong (Part I)
As I have stated before, one of the benefits of the long view of things is to assess how "facts" change over time. What perhaps surprises me most is medicine's reluctance to sometimes acknowledge just...
View ArticleMaybe we are just wrong (Part II)
One of the main reasons that we are able to map the human genome is that the technology improved so rapidly. Scientists and physicians now have the ability to identify SNP or single nucleotide...
View Article