All cholesterol drugs are FAKE. Neither safe nor effective. I highly recommend anything written by Malcolm Kendrick on the subject. Statin Nation is recommended.
His new book - The Clot Thickens - is also brilliant - and funny. In light of what we've learned (or not) about covid, vaccines, and clotting, it's even more interesting . . .and relevant. Worth checking out his blog too.
Nov 19, 2022·edited Nov 19, 2022Liked by Robert Yoho, MD
In complete agreement.
The original statin, Mevacor (lovastatin) has been the only one I did not see numerous and serious reactions with. All the rest are "mee too" drugs are of questionable safety profile.
Thank you for digging & speaking truth. I appreciate your 10 hour days working on this. I learned first hand that most pharmaceuticals are crap/dangerous. I’ve taken none for 15 years now. There are alternative therapies for whatever ails you. I’ve found them to be effective but take longer to work. But speed isn’t more important than safety.
Eliminate tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, chemicals, seed oils, & processed foods to start. That will get you pointed in the right direction.
I'll contribute my anecdotes: Metaprolol, generic for Toprol XL 100. After I'd been taking the generic for 6-8 months I was experiencing severe symptoms that I could not explain. Erratic heartbeat, elevated BP; joints in my knees, hips, elbows, and shoulders were so painful I couldn't sleep and had trouble with normal activities. I could barely stand up long enough to get a shower, and I could not lift my arms to shampoo my hair. Shortness of breath, too. On a whim I did a search for metoprolol poison toxicity. To my amazement, I read hundreds of self-reports on drug side-effect forums describing my exact symptoms. I spoke to my cardiologist about my concerns and when I mentioned that I was experiencing high BP he scoffed and said that was impossible, as this drug was designed to reduce high BP! On my insistence he prescribed name-brand only and within a month all of my symptoms disappeared. I have been on the name brand now for several years with none of the previous problems.
Same doc, prescribing statins. Over an 8 month period he tried me on each and every one, generic only (as mandated by insurance). Same sorts of side effects as the metoprolol. He finally prescribed the name brand and again the symptoms disappeared. (Note: I also researched statins and have since decided I will not have statins in my body.)
Since completely losing my life-long faith in doctors and allopathic medicine in general, I take only Toprol for an SVT condition. Even the occasional Tylenol I will not take except for name brand. I learned the hard way that generics are dangerous. (Of course, so are many other supposedly "safe" drugs, like statins. No thanks.)
What dosage Toprol do you take? I've been taking 12.5 mg for about 7 months (generic, but supplied through my dr. ). Thankfully no side effects at that dose and with the generic she supplied.
Had another ER visit Wed. Turned out to be a UTI, not Diverticulitis again. But these younger people don't know Brand names, only the chemical or generic. She rattled off some long name I'd never heard of, 'It is not a mycian', she got that part right, it was the weird name for MICROBID, which is on my reaction list. "I don't know the Brand Name, too lazy to google it!" IT was on the print out which stated it was Macrobid. She didn't even read that paperwork. NO Prymidium, take Ezo, which doesn't work. BTW you have a hernia, 'which has been there for years. Showed up on the 1st colon screen.
Thank-you very, very much for this piece. At this point, I wasn't surprised, but I have something to print out and give to my doctor now....AND it disses statins. 🤗
Absolute truth. My wife went through 10 years of crohns medication. The meds made her condition worse,culminating in major surgery after her ilium was destroyed.
The doctor was definitely a psychopath. Prescribing 7 years of prednisone, and a cocktail of injections and pills.The comments "you have great health insurance".
We have been in remission for over 5 years. Families share the pain of any serious disease slowly killing any semblance of normalcy.
I would love to see how much he made with this Frankenstein clinic. If God gives me the chance, our paths will cross.
The cure is diet. Simple whole food plant based. Very little dairy meat or eggs. She has lost 3 feet of her bowel, her gall bladder and 10 years of her life. Plus two serious hernia surgeries. Cutting into one's stomach is never good.
Find your path to health. Accept your weaknesses and get up every day vowing to stay away from these people.
We attempted Carnivore. My wife no longer has a gall bladder. Thank you health care system. So fatty meat is an issue for her. I felt really weird but it was only two weeks.
Thanks for this column - it's so true and we take way too many drugs. For further information and a wild story, check out Katherine Eban's book Bottle of Lies - you'll probably never take a generic drug again. For more natural remedies (some of which work and some that seem rather dicey to me) check out the Earth Clinic website.. They have some pretty interesting stories, and at least apple cider vinegar won't kill you!
Here in the UK, patients are gaslit by the doctors, when they notice a change to a generic drug is making them worse, they are just told it is all in their head and there can't possibly be a difference because the active ingredients are the same. It can be the additives, bulking materials, and what the capsules are made from and the inks they are coloured with too which may cause allergic or sensitivities in some people.
"Although the brand-name drugmakers are guilty of many sins, they are rarely accused of poor manufacturing standards." until the covid shots came along. By all accounts the manufacturing standards are abysmal and the regulatory oversight almost non-existent,
Thank you for this! I knew from experience that some generics were ineffective, but I hadn’t realized how widespread the problem is. Of course, insurance insists on generics when available, but I have also always chosen generic over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen without a thought about them not being as effective as the original. I’ll be choosing name brands and paying a little extra from now on.
Wow, you should see some of the analysis of foreign generics I have been exposed to.
Generic Feldene (pyroxicam) which was 40mg prednisolone (from Canada). The patient ended up with hip replacement surgery!
Then there was generic Dyazide caps which contained furosemide 12.5mg (Mexico).
Some Indian digoxin .125mg tabs that contained nothing! Zero, zip medicine.
Chinese Cephalexin 500mg which was chloramphenicol 250mg!!! Aplastic anemia anyone?
Even those tetracycline 250mg caps at WalMart for your fish tank were so far out of date to actually be poisonous!
And these weren't yesterday, but in the 1997 to 2009 date ranges!
In my 38 years as a communist pharmacist, I saw lots of variables among the available US supplied generics, but nothing as suspicious as this foreign made stuff till the last dozen years or so, keep in mind I retired in early 2017.
These, except for the piroxicam, and more were relayed to me by a group of independent pharmacists in the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama region who had combined to have analysis of suspected imported medication gathered from various patients. I actually mailed samples of Ms Charlene's questionable piroxicam to one of them who had an analysis done on their dime. The results were, in a word, stunning, especially since this was sourced from the patients own mail order service. Obviously they were very interested in this at the time, as insurance companies replacing local services with mail order was a big issue at the time, especially for independents.
They had quite a lot of documentation, sources, and stuff I was not privy too.
I'm not trying to say this was common, but definitely occurred in every case, I have no idea how many tests they had run that showed no abnormalities.
Right I understand. There are stories about this in Bottle of Lies. Cleveland Clinic does this for questionable cases. Are you the chemist? How much do the assays cost? Is there any access to testing like this by the general public? Thanks.
No, I was just a community pharmacist licensed in three states for 38 years.
One who made innumerable contacts mostly via Rx transfers from other pharmacists all over the country. However I did regularly travel all over South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. I have no current information on cost or availability of assays of prescription drugs, but I would think such services would be available at some cost via internet search.
Many thanks for hi lighting this significant issue.
We rapidly became aware of supply chain compromises in Mexico and Canada, no reason not to suspect similar here in the US. Especially with the dual Hospital (cheap) Retail (expensive) distribution systems.
I was always amazed that it didn't seem to be a big deal when someone who owned a hospital supply company always had super high profit retail pharmacies!
Nope, wouldn't worry about it. I know several people that ordered it from India and had no complaints, including a couple of Docs.
See, this other stuff we really don't have any chain of custody but it does indicate a lot of these sources presented to the American people were probably fraudulent from the word go, or in the case of the piroxicam (I personally knew the patient), there was fraud in her insurance company supplied foreign source. I recommended she sue her insurance company (Humana).
If you have read The SPARS Pandemic, consider that the shortage is in the liquid formulation that is easy for kids to take, connect that to the recent spike in RSV cases in kids, then I do think we are going for a rough ride with this.
80% come from China and are bottled up in ports on ships. Most shortages are done to CONTROL YOU, just as the useless masks were. Or the forced Jabs. As Big Pharma gobbles up smaller makers, many drugs are eliminated, Pfizer bought Mylan made my Diazide generic, and phased it out. I can only take one type. And Tricare Life forces us to use Express Scripts. It is a combo fluid pill for Enlarged Hearts, with fluid buildup.
I have always wondered about the efficacy of generic drugs. You paint a much darker than my suspicions envisioned.
This is straight out of Butchered by "Healthcare." You can listen to the first half of the audio at robertyohoauthor.com. Please remember to review it on Amazon. Here is the direct link: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=B08FVMK5GY
Thank you!
All cholesterol drugs are FAKE. Neither safe nor effective. I highly recommend anything written by Malcolm Kendrick on the subject. Statin Nation is recommended.
His new book - The Clot Thickens - is also brilliant - and funny. In light of what we've learned (or not) about covid, vaccines, and clotting, it's even more interesting . . .and relevant. Worth checking out his blog too.
In complete agreement.
The original statin, Mevacor (lovastatin) has been the only one I did not see numerous and serious reactions with. All the rest are "mee too" drugs are of questionable safety profile.
Thank you for digging & speaking truth. I appreciate your 10 hour days working on this. I learned first hand that most pharmaceuticals are crap/dangerous. I’ve taken none for 15 years now. There are alternative therapies for whatever ails you. I’ve found them to be effective but take longer to work. But speed isn’t more important than safety.
Eliminate tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, chemicals, seed oils, & processed foods to start. That will get you pointed in the right direction.
1/5 people in the USA dies from tobacco related illnesses. It's the biggest risk factor of all.
I'll contribute my anecdotes: Metaprolol, generic for Toprol XL 100. After I'd been taking the generic for 6-8 months I was experiencing severe symptoms that I could not explain. Erratic heartbeat, elevated BP; joints in my knees, hips, elbows, and shoulders were so painful I couldn't sleep and had trouble with normal activities. I could barely stand up long enough to get a shower, and I could not lift my arms to shampoo my hair. Shortness of breath, too. On a whim I did a search for metoprolol poison toxicity. To my amazement, I read hundreds of self-reports on drug side-effect forums describing my exact symptoms. I spoke to my cardiologist about my concerns and when I mentioned that I was experiencing high BP he scoffed and said that was impossible, as this drug was designed to reduce high BP! On my insistence he prescribed name-brand only and within a month all of my symptoms disappeared. I have been on the name brand now for several years with none of the previous problems.
Same doc, prescribing statins. Over an 8 month period he tried me on each and every one, generic only (as mandated by insurance). Same sorts of side effects as the metoprolol. He finally prescribed the name brand and again the symptoms disappeared. (Note: I also researched statins and have since decided I will not have statins in my body.)
Since completely losing my life-long faith in doctors and allopathic medicine in general, I take only Toprol for an SVT condition. Even the occasional Tylenol I will not take except for name brand. I learned the hard way that generics are dangerous. (Of course, so are many other supposedly "safe" drugs, like statins. No thanks.)
What dosage Toprol do you take? I've been taking 12.5 mg for about 7 months (generic, but supplied through my dr. ). Thankfully no side effects at that dose and with the generic she supplied.
XL 100's, for an SVT condition.
I'm glad you were able to solve that mystery and get the brand name!
Had another ER visit Wed. Turned out to be a UTI, not Diverticulitis again. But these younger people don't know Brand names, only the chemical or generic. She rattled off some long name I'd never heard of, 'It is not a mycian', she got that part right, it was the weird name for MICROBID, which is on my reaction list. "I don't know the Brand Name, too lazy to google it!" IT was on the print out which stated it was Macrobid. She didn't even read that paperwork. NO Prymidium, take Ezo, which doesn't work. BTW you have a hernia, 'which has been there for years. Showed up on the 1st colon screen.
RFK Jr has his podcast up, worth watching.
Thank-you very, very much for this piece. At this point, I wasn't surprised, but I have something to print out and give to my doctor now....AND it disses statins. 🤗
more about statins in the rest of Butchered
Absolute truth. My wife went through 10 years of crohns medication. The meds made her condition worse,culminating in major surgery after her ilium was destroyed.
The doctor was definitely a psychopath. Prescribing 7 years of prednisone, and a cocktail of injections and pills.The comments "you have great health insurance".
We have been in remission for over 5 years. Families share the pain of any serious disease slowly killing any semblance of normalcy.
I would love to see how much he made with this Frankenstein clinic. If God gives me the chance, our paths will cross.
The cure is diet. Simple whole food plant based. Very little dairy meat or eggs. She has lost 3 feet of her bowel, her gall bladder and 10 years of her life. Plus two serious hernia surgeries. Cutting into one's stomach is never good.
Find your path to health. Accept your weaknesses and get up every day vowing to stay away from these people.
Many paths to Rome. These are worth studying:
Peterson Mikhaila carnivore diet
https://youtu.be/0ka9WBEijhk
Carnivore
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMzAwNDI5LnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMDIzMjA5NQ?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwj4ws6jrsL2AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
Several other keto and carnivore videos are also on the same Fit Rx podcast (on buzzsprout)
Thank you
We attempted Carnivore. My wife no longer has a gall bladder. Thank you health care system. So fatty meat is an issue for her. I felt really weird but it was only two weeks.
Fasting has also been effective.
I will listen to the podcasts.
Thanks for this column - it's so true and we take way too many drugs. For further information and a wild story, check out Katherine Eban's book Bottle of Lies - you'll probably never take a generic drug again. For more natural remedies (some of which work and some that seem rather dicey to me) check out the Earth Clinic website.. They have some pretty interesting stories, and at least apple cider vinegar won't kill you!
this post was largely derivative of Eban's book and several others
V. Interesting!
Here in the UK, patients are gaslit by the doctors, when they notice a change to a generic drug is making them worse, they are just told it is all in their head and there can't possibly be a difference because the active ingredients are the same. It can be the additives, bulking materials, and what the capsules are made from and the inks they are coloured with too which may cause allergic or sensitivities in some people.
"Although the brand-name drugmakers are guilty of many sins, they are rarely accused of poor manufacturing standards." until the covid shots came along. By all accounts the manufacturing standards are abysmal and the regulatory oversight almost non-existent,
Thank you for this! I knew from experience that some generics were ineffective, but I hadn’t realized how widespread the problem is. Of course, insurance insists on generics when available, but I have also always chosen generic over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen without a thought about them not being as effective as the original. I’ll be choosing name brands and paying a little extra from now on.
Wow, you should see some of the analysis of foreign generics I have been exposed to.
Generic Feldene (pyroxicam) which was 40mg prednisolone (from Canada). The patient ended up with hip replacement surgery!
Then there was generic Dyazide caps which contained furosemide 12.5mg (Mexico).
Some Indian digoxin .125mg tabs that contained nothing! Zero, zip medicine.
Chinese Cephalexin 500mg which was chloramphenicol 250mg!!! Aplastic anemia anyone?
Even those tetracycline 250mg caps at WalMart for your fish tank were so far out of date to actually be poisonous!
And these weren't yesterday, but in the 1997 to 2009 date ranges!
In my 38 years as a communist pharmacist, I saw lots of variables among the available US supplied generics, but nothing as suspicious as this foreign made stuff till the last dozen years or so, keep in mind I retired in early 2017.
where did those analyses come from? please tell your story.
These, except for the piroxicam, and more were relayed to me by a group of independent pharmacists in the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama region who had combined to have analysis of suspected imported medication gathered from various patients. I actually mailed samples of Ms Charlene's questionable piroxicam to one of them who had an analysis done on their dime. The results were, in a word, stunning, especially since this was sourced from the patients own mail order service. Obviously they were very interested in this at the time, as insurance companies replacing local services with mail order was a big issue at the time, especially for independents.
They had quite a lot of documentation, sources, and stuff I was not privy too.
I'm not trying to say this was common, but definitely occurred in every case, I have no idea how many tests they had run that showed no abnormalities.
Right I understand. There are stories about this in Bottle of Lies. Cleveland Clinic does this for questionable cases. Are you the chemist? How much do the assays cost? Is there any access to testing like this by the general public? Thanks.
No, I was just a community pharmacist licensed in three states for 38 years.
One who made innumerable contacts mostly via Rx transfers from other pharmacists all over the country. However I did regularly travel all over South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. I have no current information on cost or availability of assays of prescription drugs, but I would think such services would be available at some cost via internet search.
Many thanks for hi lighting this significant issue.
😳 This doesn't bode well for the HCQ I ordered from India last week... Now I'm kind of afraid to take it...
I think those situations are relatively rare and you have the same chance of getting an adulterated version at WalMart
I agree Doc, and that is a problem!
We rapidly became aware of supply chain compromises in Mexico and Canada, no reason not to suspect similar here in the US. Especially with the dual Hospital (cheap) Retail (expensive) distribution systems.
I was always amazed that it didn't seem to be a big deal when someone who owned a hospital supply company always had super high profit retail pharmacies!
Nope, wouldn't worry about it. I know several people that ordered it from India and had no complaints, including a couple of Docs.
See, this other stuff we really don't have any chain of custody but it does indicate a lot of these sources presented to the American people were probably fraudulent from the word go, or in the case of the piroxicam (I personally knew the patient), there was fraud in her insurance company supplied foreign source. I recommended she sue her insurance company (Humana).
Thank you Edwin!
I'd like to chat. Please email me at yoho.robert@gmail.com
WHY THE SHORTAGES IN AMOXICILLIN?
OMG this was exactly predicted in "The SPARS pandemic"!
Simple answer to your question: Because it's in the script. The world is a stage.
THE SPARS PANDEMIC
2025 - 2028
A Futuristic Scenario for Public Health Risk Communicators
THE JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY
shortages have been on and off of all kinds of drugs for a decade
If you have read The SPARS Pandemic, consider that the shortage is in the liquid formulation that is easy for kids to take, connect that to the recent spike in RSV cases in kids, then I do think we are going for a rough ride with this.
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/what-is-causing-the-explosion-of
thanks
I thought RSV was a nothingburger but maybe I'm wrong.
80% come from China and are bottled up in ports on ships. Most shortages are done to CONTROL YOU, just as the useless masks were. Or the forced Jabs. As Big Pharma gobbles up smaller makers, many drugs are eliminated, Pfizer bought Mylan made my Diazide generic, and phased it out. I can only take one type. And Tricare Life forces us to use Express Scripts. It is a combo fluid pill for Enlarged Hearts, with fluid buildup.
This ticked me off. SOYLENT GREEN WAS A MOVIE I WATCHED AS A TEEN. LAB-GROWN MEAT? https://gailhonadle.substack.com/p/soylent-green-was-a-movie-i-watched
3 times I received generic versions of a blood pressure medication from the VA.
-one was made in China
-one was made in Israel
-one was made in India
Which one do I trust?