TMJ 'dysfunction' - Health implications

ECTRIMS Highlights 2012
Posted: 15 Oct 2012 06:40 AM PDT

In response to a request by one of the readers the following is a list of my ECTRIMS highlights or insights for 2012:

1. Simvastatin 80mg per day reduced brain atrophy and delayed disease progression in MSers with SPMS.
Where to from here?
Dr Chataway will have to find a way of getting funding to do two large phase 3 clinical trials to get the drug licensed for progressive MS.

As Simvastatin is off-patent this will be almost impossible. The trials required will cost upward of $100M (one commentator said to me close to $500M).
This is why we need drugs that have a suitably long patent life so that industry can get involved. For those of you attacking Pharma please remember that at the present time they are the only ones with deep enough pockets and the willingness to take the risks of failing.

Big Pharma is simply the only show in town. When it comes to taking innovations from the bench to the bedside. If you disagree please let me know how; we have a list of at least 10 ideas that need translating.

Chataway, et al. The MS-STAT trial: high dose simvastatin demonstrates neuroprotection without immune-modulation in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) – a phase II trial.

Comment: I hope this is some kind of a joke!
The bluff and intrigue is incredible.

FDA warning on Statins (obviously omitted by the media)

Lipitor:What is the best-selling drug in the history of pharmaceuticals? What made $125 billion in 14 and a half years and as much as $11 billion in a single year? Lipitor, Pfizer's blockbuster statin drug, owed its success to two factors. It was launched in 1997 when direct-to-consumer drug advertising was just beginning and it harnessed the growing national fear of cholesterol-linked heart attacks.

Thanks to Lipitor's "Know Your Numbers" TV ads and Pfizer reps who saturated medical offices with free samples of the white pills and sometimes lunch, more than 29 million people were prescribed Lipitor.

But in 2012—the same year Lipitor's patent expired—those 29 million people (and millions taking other statins) got a surprise from the FDA. The agency made a label change warning that Lipitor and other statins could cause diabetes, liver injury, muscle damage and memory impairment. Who knew? The quartet of concerns "should not scare people off statins," said Amy G. Egan, deputy director for safety in the FDA’s Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products. Right.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health ... 1#bookmark
By Martha Rosenberg