Giving Statins to Kids

If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If you have a drug, everyone looks like a user (including, it seems, our children). Check out this article just released this morning, which ponders whether cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins should be given to children.

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“What I’m afraid of is that someone will have a modest elevation in cholesterol at age 8 without a bad family history, and an overzealous doctor will say, ‘You need to be on a statin,'” said Dr. Simeon Margolis, professor of medicine and biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins University.

“That means this child will be taking a statin for 60 years or more.”

Statin use can damage your liver. But, no worries, because I’m certain that the makers of the statins will have another pill to cure the problem that they induced with the solution to the problem that was caused by eating poorly.

Maybe a better solution is a behavioral one. Just thinking out loud here ….

Am I being too harsh or unfair on the poor pharmaceutical industry? Not at all. In this article, they failed to mention that the docs questioned all have financial interests tied up with the pills they are recommending. Here are their conflicts of interest, below, from the Center For Science in the Public Interest.

Pediatrics Fails to Disclose Industry Ties in Lipid Guide for Kids

The American Academy of Pediatric’s new cholesterol guidelines for children did not reveal the industry ties of three of the six authors despite its policy requiring conflict of interest disclosure in its flagship journal. The recommendations, which appeared in the current issue of Pediatrics, caused a national uproar by recommending statin drugs for children as young as eight if suggested dietary interventions, including the use of foods fortified with fiber, stanols, and sterols, proved ineffective in lowering lipid levels in overweight children.

The lead author, Stephen R. Daniels, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, has served as a consultant to Abbott Labs and Merck. Abbott makes baby food, while Merck markets Mevacor, a statin. Co-author Nicolas Stettler, an assistant professor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, consults for numerous firms, including Wyeth Nutritional and the Dannon Institute, a non-profit wholly funded by Dannon Yogurt.

Co-author Jatinder Bhatia, a professor at the Medical College of Georgia, has commercial ties to Mead Johnson, Ross Labs, Forest Laboratories, Dey Labs, and Inhibitex. Mead Johnson, a unit of Bristol-Myers Squibb, produces fortified foods for infants and young children.