Changes in the Sun’s Surface to Bring Next Climate Change
January 2, 2008
Today, the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), in Orlando, Florida announces that it has confirmed the recent web announcement of NASA solar physicists that there are substantial changes occurring in the sun’s surface. The SSRC has further researched these changes and has concluded they will bring about the next climate change to one of a long lasting cold era.
Today, Director of the SSRC, John Casey has reaffirmed earlier research he led that independently discovered the sun’s changes are the result of a family of cycles that bring about climate shifts from cold climate to warm and back again.
“We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the sun’s surface. They will have only one outcome – a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. This is not however a unique event for the planet although it is critically important news to this and the next generations. It is but the normal sequence of alternating climate changes that has been going on for thousands of years. Further, according to our research, this series of solar cycles are so predictable that they can be used to roughly forecast the next series of climate changes many decades in advance. I have verified the accuracy of these cycles’ behavior over the last 1,000 years relative to temperatures on Earth, to well over 90%.
As to what these changes are Casey says, “The sun’s surface flows have slowed dramatically as NASA has indicated. This process of surface movement, what NASA calls the “conveyor belt” essentially sweeps up old sunspots and deposits new ones. NASA studies have found that when the surface movement slows down, sunspot counts drop significantly. All records of sunspot counts and other proxies of solar activity going back 6,000 years clearly validate our own findings that when we have sunspot counts lower than 50 it means only one thing – an intense cold climate, globally. NASA says the solar cycle 25, the one after the next that starts this spring will be at 50 or lower. The general opinion of the SSRC scientists is that it could begin even sooner within 3 years with the next solar cycle 24. What we are saying today is that my own research and that of other scientists at the SSRC verifies that NASA is right about one thing – a solar cycle of 50 or lower is headed our way. With this next solar minimum predicted by NASA, what I call a “solar hibernation,” the SSRC forecasts a much colder Earth just as it has transpired before for thousands of years. If NASA is the more accurate on the schedule, then we may see even warmer temperatures before the bottom falls out. If the SSRC and other scientists around the world are correct then we have only a few years to prepare for before 20-30 years of lasting and possibly dangerous cold arrives.”
When asked about what this will mean to the average person on the street, Casey was firm,” The last time this particular cycle regenerated was over 200 years ago. I call it the “Bi-Centennial Cycle.” It took place between 1793 and 1830, a period of extreme cold that resulted in what historian John D. Post called the ‘last great subsistence crisis.’ With that cold came massive crop losses, food riots, famine and disease. I believe this next climate change will be much stronger and has the potential to once more cause widespread crop losses globally with the resultant ill effects. The key difference for this next Bi-Centennial Cycle’s impact versus the last is that we will have over 8 billion mouths to feed in the next coldest years where as we had only 1 billion the last time. Among other effects like social and economic disruption, we are facing the real prospect of the ‘perfect storm of global food shortages’ in the next climate change. In answer to the question, everyone on the street will be affected.”
Given the importance of the next climate change Casey was asked whether the government has been notified. “Yes, as soon as my research revealed these solar cycles and the prediction of the coming cold era with the next climate change, I notified all the key offices in the Bush administration including both parties in the Senate and House science committees as well as most of the nation’s media outlets. Unfortunately, because of the intensity of coverage of the UN IPCC and man made global warming during 2007, the full story about climate change is very slow in getting told. That is now changing. These changes in the sun have begun. They are unstoppable. With the word finally starting to get out about the next climate change, hopefully we will have time to prepare. Right now, the newly organized SSRC is the leading independent research center in the US and possibly worldwide, that is focused on the next climate change. Some of the world’s brightest scientists, also experts in solar physics and the next climate change have joined with me. In the meantime we will do our best to spread the word along with NASA and others who can see what is about to take place for the Earth’s climate. Soon, I believe this will be recognized as the most important climate story of this century.”
More information on the Space and Science Research center is available at:
www.spaceandscience.net
The previous NASA announcement was made at:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Letter to Obama: GLOBAL WARMING IS OVER
Space and Science Research Center
4700 Millenia Blvd. Ste.175
Orlando, FL 32839
Tel: 407-835-3635 Fax: 407-210-3901
www.spaceandscience.net
President-Elect Barack Obama
Presidential Transition Headquarters
1800 G Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20270
December 11, 2008
SUBJECT: Preparation of the United States of America for the Next Climate Change.
Dear President-Elect Obama,
Congratulations on your historic election victory! Doubtless, the vast majority of Americans regardless of party affiliation, hope your administration will take action for the benefit of all on the problems we face. You certainly have my own best wishes toward that goal.
On the matter of climate change however, we now face a totally different future from what you have been told, what we all have been told, over the last twenty years. Although I have been asked to provide space program and science advice to the White House and Congress in the past, what I am writing in this letter far outweighs the importance of any advice I have given before.
In essence, there is now substantial and convincing evidence that global warming has ended. In fact, many scientists world wide along with me are now saying that the next climate change has already begun and that it will take the planet’s temperatures steadily downwards over the next three decades. The past warming phase of the Earth’s climate peaked during the last ten years and by the time the new cold era reaches bottom around 2031 we will all be facing the worst cold the world has seen in over 200 years! The cold will likely be intense enough to cause catastrophic losses in the world’s grain crops with the unfortunate prospect of a major global subsistence crisis.
This is all the result of a repeating 206 year cycle of the Sun. This cycle has completed its warm phase and has now entered its cold phase. In addition to the recently confirmed significantly lower global temperatures that are now in place on Earth, the Sun has begun what I call a “solar hibernation.” Such a period of dramatically reduced solar activity has always brought long, deep cold to the planet. These are facts and not speculation or just another climate change theory. The Earth has already begun to cool rapidly. The ongoing drop in the Sun’s output bringing decades of increasingly cold weather is unstoppable!
These facts above are easily verified by those private, US government and other international agencies that monitor both the Sun’s behavior and the Earth’s climate. The attached detailed letter also provides much additional information surrounding the next climate change.
I respectfully request as soon as you take office, that you quickly end support to the now discredited theory of man made global warming, and acknowledge what many of the world’s meteorologists and climatologists, the current administration, and most major media outlets already privately know; that global warming is over. We now need you to lead the people of the United States if not the planet, in preparation for the difficult, cold, climatic period ahead.
Best Regards,
John L. Casey
Director
Attachment: Letter from the Space and Science Research Center, dated September 22, 2008; SUBJECT: Warning about the Next Climate Change.
4700 Millenia Blvd. Ste.175
Orlando, FL 32839
Tel: 407-835-3635 Fax: 407-210-3901
www.spaceandscience.net
President-Elect Barack Obama
Presidential Transition Headquarters
1800 G Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20270
December 11, 2008
SUBJECT: Preparation of the United States of America for the Next Climate Change.
Dear President-Elect Obama,
Congratulations on your historic election victory! Doubtless, the vast majority of Americans regardless of party affiliation, hope your administration will take action for the benefit of all on the problems we face. You certainly have my own best wishes toward that goal.
On the matter of climate change however, we now face a totally different future from what you have been told, what we all have been told, over the last twenty years. Although I have been asked to provide space program and science advice to the White House and Congress in the past, what I am writing in this letter far outweighs the importance of any advice I have given before.
In essence, there is now substantial and convincing evidence that global warming has ended. In fact, many scientists world wide along with me are now saying that the next climate change has already begun and that it will take the planet’s temperatures steadily downwards over the next three decades. The past warming phase of the Earth’s climate peaked during the last ten years and by the time the new cold era reaches bottom around 2031 we will all be facing the worst cold the world has seen in over 200 years! The cold will likely be intense enough to cause catastrophic losses in the world’s grain crops with the unfortunate prospect of a major global subsistence crisis.
This is all the result of a repeating 206 year cycle of the Sun. This cycle has completed its warm phase and has now entered its cold phase. In addition to the recently confirmed significantly lower global temperatures that are now in place on Earth, the Sun has begun what I call a “solar hibernation.” Such a period of dramatically reduced solar activity has always brought long, deep cold to the planet. These are facts and not speculation or just another climate change theory. The Earth has already begun to cool rapidly. The ongoing drop in the Sun’s output bringing decades of increasingly cold weather is unstoppable!
These facts above are easily verified by those private, US government and other international agencies that monitor both the Sun’s behavior and the Earth’s climate. The attached detailed letter also provides much additional information surrounding the next climate change.
I respectfully request as soon as you take office, that you quickly end support to the now discredited theory of man made global warming, and acknowledge what many of the world’s meteorologists and climatologists, the current administration, and most major media outlets already privately know; that global warming is over. We now need you to lead the people of the United States if not the planet, in preparation for the difficult, cold, climatic period ahead.
Best Regards,
John L. Casey
Director
Attachment: Letter from the Space and Science Research Center, dated September 22, 2008; SUBJECT: Warning about the Next Climate Change.
We're going to FREEZE to death during global warming
Space and Science Research Center
4700 Millenia Blvd. Ste. 175
Orlando, FL 32839
Tel: 407-835-3635 Fax: 407-210-3901
www.spaceandscience.net
PRESS RELEASE http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html
Monday, December 15, 2008
9:00 AM
Obama Administration Policies to Cause
Worst Case Scenario in the Next Climate Change
In its most concerned and strongly worded press release to date, the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) today issued the following grim assessment of the impact of the planned Obama administration climate change policies on the citizens of the US and the world. From the Center Director, John L. Casey:
“Based upon the statements of President–elect Barack Obama in support of the concept of man made global warming, the personnel he has nominated to head up agencies and offices involved in climate change, and the prominent role both the United Nations and former Vice-President Al Gore will play in climate change policy during the Obama administration, I must regrettably predict that such policies will result in the worst case scenario for Americans and many of the world’s citizens as the next climate change to a long and deep cold era advances toward us.
It is now clear that the already forecast ill-effects of the next climate change will be magnified by the next US President’s administration resulting in the next extreme cold weather period becoming the most destructive possible. These effects will be manifested in terms of much greater suffering, loss of life, economic, social, and political turmoil, than would otherwise have to happen both in the United States and around the world.
There is overwhelming evidence that Sun-caused warming of the Earth, notably over the past twenty years has now ended, that the Earth’s global temperature average is on a steep long term downward trend, and that the Sun has entered a phase of dramatically reduced activity, a “solar hibernation.” Unfortunately, it is also now apparent that the Obama administration that will take office late January 2009, will ignore the reality of our new climate and will instead quickly and easily pass its climate legislation through a Democrat party dominated Congress. New laws and regulations will mandate allegiance throughout the entire US government structure to an array of programs spawned to support the seriously flawed, and now discredited theory of man made global warming.
We can reasonably expect significant problems to arise, a direct outcome of the Obama administration’s blind pursuit of extremist-led global warming policies both in the US and internationally, which will be supported eagerly by a cabal of global warming zealots at the United Nations and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We should expect to see the following dire circumstances start to transpire:
1. There will be a painful loss of precious time to prepare our country, its industries, our agricultural systems, our power systems and our people for the coming cold era. We will as a nation lose our few available years of preparation because of the Obama administration’s ill-fated diversion of the next four years and critical resources to combat something that no longer exists – global warming.
In an effort to once again try to alert President-elect Obama to the situation, the SSRC sent another letter to him on December 11, 2008 with copies sent to his cabinet nominees. The same letter is being sent this week to US governors, leaders in Congress and members of the outgoing Bush administration. This letter is also posted for all to see at the SSRC web site.
2. The Obama administration in cooperation with a supportive main stream media, will reinforce and expand the already present persecution and ridicule of scientists and researchers who have opposed man made global warming concepts. An Obama government will begin a campaign to eliminate any debate and free speech on alternative theories to global warming and climate change in the course of which, restricting government grants to only those that will confirm mankind as the cause behind climate shifts. Punishment of dissenters will soon become institutionalized within the US government, causing removal from government service if not criminal classification for those who do not ‘sign on’ as believers in anthropogenic global warming as has already been recommended by United Nations climate officials. We should expect the Obama administration to follow what the UN recommends.
As a direct result of this anticipated new government supported punitive environment, and its restrictions on freedom of speech, the SSRC today also announces it has released all its consulting scientists and researchers whose names have been previously published and will in the future not publicly disclose any who are on the staff of or otherwise associated with the SSRC.
3. The US will receive several hard to grasp agricultural shocks as the next climate change injects the first in a series of Spring post-planting time freezes and Autumn pre-harvest time ice and snow events. These events along with longer and colder record setting winters will start to occur now and well before the bottom of the next cold period expected around the year 2031.
4. Global warming advocates will try to explain away these anomalous weather disturbances as random events or other mankind caused occurrences. For example we should not be surprised to see any cold weather extremes to be reported as the result of reduced CO2 emissions from a lower industrial gas output caused by a recession.
5. The obvious unwillingness of the future President Barack Obama administration to discard the obsolete man made global warming theory and accept the reality of the next climate change will insure that as a nation, we will be unable to cope with the next climate change and its expected massive crop losses. These crop failures will doubtless cause the world’s worst subsistence crisis in recorded human history beginning after 2020 if not sooner, as well as collateral international economic and social disruption. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated. Many people globally will certainly suffer or die unnecessarily as a direct result of the long term effects of the recently announced Obama Administration climate change initiatives.
For the past two years, the SSRC and I have been leading the effort here in the US to help our government and our people become aware of and begin preparations for the record cold weather that is heading our way. Courageous scientists in other countries are trying to do the same. The Earth’s climate will soon be the coldest that it has been in over 200 years. However, it now appears the stage is set for a worst case scenario to develop in the next climate period as far as the safety and well being of our citizens is concerned. I believe historians will one day record that the Obama presidency will have been a major reason why the difficult cold era of the first half of the 21st century was made much worse."
4700 Millenia Blvd. Ste. 175
Orlando, FL 32839
Tel: 407-835-3635 Fax: 407-210-3901
www.spaceandscience.net
PRESS RELEASE http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html
Monday, December 15, 2008
9:00 AM
Obama Administration Policies to Cause
Worst Case Scenario in the Next Climate Change
In its most concerned and strongly worded press release to date, the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) today issued the following grim assessment of the impact of the planned Obama administration climate change policies on the citizens of the US and the world. From the Center Director, John L. Casey:
“Based upon the statements of President–elect Barack Obama in support of the concept of man made global warming, the personnel he has nominated to head up agencies and offices involved in climate change, and the prominent role both the United Nations and former Vice-President Al Gore will play in climate change policy during the Obama administration, I must regrettably predict that such policies will result in the worst case scenario for Americans and many of the world’s citizens as the next climate change to a long and deep cold era advances toward us.
It is now clear that the already forecast ill-effects of the next climate change will be magnified by the next US President’s administration resulting in the next extreme cold weather period becoming the most destructive possible. These effects will be manifested in terms of much greater suffering, loss of life, economic, social, and political turmoil, than would otherwise have to happen both in the United States and around the world.
There is overwhelming evidence that Sun-caused warming of the Earth, notably over the past twenty years has now ended, that the Earth’s global temperature average is on a steep long term downward trend, and that the Sun has entered a phase of dramatically reduced activity, a “solar hibernation.” Unfortunately, it is also now apparent that the Obama administration that will take office late January 2009, will ignore the reality of our new climate and will instead quickly and easily pass its climate legislation through a Democrat party dominated Congress. New laws and regulations will mandate allegiance throughout the entire US government structure to an array of programs spawned to support the seriously flawed, and now discredited theory of man made global warming.
We can reasonably expect significant problems to arise, a direct outcome of the Obama administration’s blind pursuit of extremist-led global warming policies both in the US and internationally, which will be supported eagerly by a cabal of global warming zealots at the United Nations and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We should expect to see the following dire circumstances start to transpire:
1. There will be a painful loss of precious time to prepare our country, its industries, our agricultural systems, our power systems and our people for the coming cold era. We will as a nation lose our few available years of preparation because of the Obama administration’s ill-fated diversion of the next four years and critical resources to combat something that no longer exists – global warming.
In an effort to once again try to alert President-elect Obama to the situation, the SSRC sent another letter to him on December 11, 2008 with copies sent to his cabinet nominees. The same letter is being sent this week to US governors, leaders in Congress and members of the outgoing Bush administration. This letter is also posted for all to see at the SSRC web site.
2. The Obama administration in cooperation with a supportive main stream media, will reinforce and expand the already present persecution and ridicule of scientists and researchers who have opposed man made global warming concepts. An Obama government will begin a campaign to eliminate any debate and free speech on alternative theories to global warming and climate change in the course of which, restricting government grants to only those that will confirm mankind as the cause behind climate shifts. Punishment of dissenters will soon become institutionalized within the US government, causing removal from government service if not criminal classification for those who do not ‘sign on’ as believers in anthropogenic global warming as has already been recommended by United Nations climate officials. We should expect the Obama administration to follow what the UN recommends.
As a direct result of this anticipated new government supported punitive environment, and its restrictions on freedom of speech, the SSRC today also announces it has released all its consulting scientists and researchers whose names have been previously published and will in the future not publicly disclose any who are on the staff of or otherwise associated with the SSRC.
3. The US will receive several hard to grasp agricultural shocks as the next climate change injects the first in a series of Spring post-planting time freezes and Autumn pre-harvest time ice and snow events. These events along with longer and colder record setting winters will start to occur now and well before the bottom of the next cold period expected around the year 2031.
4. Global warming advocates will try to explain away these anomalous weather disturbances as random events or other mankind caused occurrences. For example we should not be surprised to see any cold weather extremes to be reported as the result of reduced CO2 emissions from a lower industrial gas output caused by a recession.
5. The obvious unwillingness of the future President Barack Obama administration to discard the obsolete man made global warming theory and accept the reality of the next climate change will insure that as a nation, we will be unable to cope with the next climate change and its expected massive crop losses. These crop failures will doubtless cause the world’s worst subsistence crisis in recorded human history beginning after 2020 if not sooner, as well as collateral international economic and social disruption. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated. Many people globally will certainly suffer or die unnecessarily as a direct result of the long term effects of the recently announced Obama Administration climate change initiatives.
For the past two years, the SSRC and I have been leading the effort here in the US to help our government and our people become aware of and begin preparations for the record cold weather that is heading our way. Courageous scientists in other countries are trying to do the same. The Earth’s climate will soon be the coldest that it has been in over 200 years. However, it now appears the stage is set for a worst case scenario to develop in the next climate period as far as the safety and well being of our citizens is concerned. I believe historians will one day record that the Obama presidency will have been a major reason why the difficult cold era of the first half of the 21st century was made much worse."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sun Warms and Cools the Earth
In an op-ed in a Polish weekly I commented recently on a remarkable decrease of global temperature in 2008, and over the past decade. Not surprisingly the op-ed evoked a strong reaction from Polish co-workers of IPCC, denying the existence of cooling. Surprising, however, was that the criticism dwelled upon a “global climatic conspiracy”, and “colossal international plot”. I did not use these words nor even hinted at such an idea. The idea was probably apparent from the data and facts I presented, showing weaknesses of the man-made global warming hypothesis. Without irrational political or ideological factors, it is really difficult to understand why so many people believe in human causation of the Modern Warm Period, which was never plausibly proved by scientific evidence. Some of these factors I will discuss here.
See also Dr Jaworowski's full NZCPR Research Report >>> http://www.nzcpr.com/Research%20papers%20(4).pdf
Suicidal conspiracy
A conspiracy stratagem was openly presented by Maurice Strong, a godfather of the global environmental movement, and a former senior advisor to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General. In 1972 Strong was a Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and he has played a critical role in its globalization. In 1992 Strong was the Secretary-General of the “World Summit” conference in Rio de Janeiro, where on his instigation the foundations for the Kyoto Protocol were laid.
In an interview Strong disclosed his mindset: "What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is "no." The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about? This group of world leaders form a secret society to bring about an economic collapse." (Wood,1990) .
The climatic issue became now perhaps the most important agenda of the United Nations and politicians, at least they say so[1]. It became also a moral issue. In 2007 addressing the UN General Assembly Gro Harlem Brundtland, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, pointing at climatic skeptics stated: “It is irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the seriousness of the real danger of climate change”. But earlier “scare them to deaths!” morality of “climatists”[2] was explained by Stephen Schneider, one of their top gurus: "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but … On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well … we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have …Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest” (Schneider, 1989) .
The same moral standard is offered by Al Gore: “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are” (Gore, 2006) . In similar vein Rajendra K. Pauchari, the chairman of IPCC, commented in the last Fourth PCCC Report: “I hope this will shock people and governments into taking more serious action” (Crook, 2007) . Thus IPCC does not have ambition to present an objective climatic situation, but rather “to shock” the people to take actions which would bring no climatic effects (NIPCC, 2008) , but rather disastrous global economic and societal consequences. Implementation of these actions would dismantle the global energy system, the primary driving force of our civilization. This is what Maurice Strong and other leaders of Green Movement apparently have in mind.
The political and business scale of the problem is reflected by sums planned or already spent to counter the blessed natural Modern Warm Period, one of several similar periods enjoyed by the biosphere over the current interglacial [3]. According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, during the past 10 years funds for the promoters of the man-made global warming hypothesis received in the United States alone more than $50 billion.
The International Energy Agency announced in June that cutting by half the CO2 emission will cost the world $45 trillion up to 2050, i.e. 1.1% of the global GNP each year (Kanter, 2008) . For this expenditure one may expect a trifle climatic effect. Even if a substantial part of global warming were due to CO2 – and it is not – any control efforts currently contemplated, including the punctiliously observed Kyoto protocol, would decrease future temperatures by only 0.02oC, an undetectable amount (NIPCC, 2008) .
Recent and Future Cooling
Both surface and troposphere observations suggest that we are entering a cool phase of climate. These observations are in a total disagreement with IPCC climatic model projections, based on an assumption that the current Modern Warm Period is due to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 (IPCC-AR4, 2007) . The annual increment of global industrial CO2 emission increased from 1.1% in 1990-1999 to more than 3% in 2000- 2004 (Raupach et al., 2007) , and is still increasing. Thus, according to IPCC projections the global temperature should be increasing now more rapidly than before, but instead we see a cold spell. It is clear that cooling is not related to the rapidly increasing CO2 emission. Its cause is rather the Sun’s activity, which recently dropped precipitously from its 60 year long record in the second half of the 20th century, the highest in the past 11 centuries (Usoskin et al., 2003) , to an extremely low current level.
Sun activity is reflected in the number of sunspots, which normally shows an 11-year periodicity (or 131 month plus or minus 14 month). The current sunspot cycle no. 23 had a maximum in 2001 (150 sunspots in September). NASA officially declared it over in March 2006, with a forecast that the next cycle no. 24 will be 20 to 50 % stronger than the old. But until now the Sun remained quiet, with only few sunspots sighted both from the old cycle, and from the new one declared again by NASA to start on December 11, 2007. However, the Sun’s activity was still low in the first part of 2008 (NOAA, 2008) , and August 2008 was (probably) the first month without sunspots since 1913 (some observations noticed not a “spot” but a tiny short-lived “pore” on 21-22 August). It seems that we still remain in the cycle 23.
The unusually long low activity of Sun suggests that we may be entering a next Maunder Minimum, a period from 1645 to 1715, when almost no sunspots were visible. This was the coldest part of the Little Ice Age (1250—1900), when rivers in Europe and America were often frozen, and the Baltic Sea was crossed on ice by armies and travelers. Other authors suggest that the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015, reaching a deep freeze around 2050-2060, similar to cooling that took place in 1645-1715, when temperature decreased by 1 to 2oC (Abdussamatov, 2004; Abdussamatov, 2005; Abdussamatov, 2006) . Another analysis of sunspot cycles for the period 1882-2000, projected that the cooling will start in the solar cycle 25, resulting in minimum temperature around 2021-2026 (Bashkirtsev and Mashnich, 2003) . A long-term cooling, related to Sun’s activity, was also projected for the period around 2100 and 2200 (Landscheidt, 1995; Landscheidt, 2003).
The current Modern Warm Period is one of innumerous former natural warm climatic phases. Its temperature is lower than in the 4 former warm periods over the past 1500 years (Grudd, 2008) . Unfortunately it seems that it comes to an end, and the recent climatic fluctuations suggest that perhaps a new, full scale ice age is imminent. It may come in the next 50 to 400 years (Broecker, 1995; Bryson, 1993) , with ice caps covering northern parts of America and Eurasia.
Reliability of IPCC
Each of four IPCC reports became a holy book for the UN, Brussels and national bureaucracies. These credulously accepted reports are now a basis of long-term political and economic decisions. If implemented, the decisions will bring a global scale disaster. The credulity is astonishing, as many impartial perusals of the IPCC work demonstrated that its assessments and foundations, not withstanding an impressive numerical and graphic façade, are clearly biased, and should be rejected as not providing adequate climatic information for policymakers.
The name of IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, tacitly suggests that only now the climate changes. This notion, in various forms for example “climate change is now upon us” (CCSP-USP, 2008) is repeated ad nauseam in the names of institutions, programs, scientific papers and media. This, however, is not true. Without human intervention and without influence of CO2, climate was changing constantly over the past several billion years, sometimes much more and much faster than now. The rapidity with which the Modern Warm Period appeared is often invoked as a proof of its human cause. However, the Dansgaard-Oeschger events (D-Os), with their extremely rapid changes of climate, occurred without human intervention about 20 times during the past 100,000 years. The last of them, the so called “Younger Dryas”, happened 12,800 years ago, when the warm climate switched rapidly to a cold one, and then after 1300 years, almost immediately returned back into warm phase. Both times the switching took just a few years, much less than the recovery from the Little Ice Age after 1900 AD, which “is now upon us”.
Proofs of human causation of the Modern Warm Period
The most important argument of IPCC report (IPCC-AR4, 2007) for man-made climate warming is based on climatic models combined with observations of temperature in the period 1906 – 2005 over the five continents and the whole globe. The IPCC use the “fingerprint argument” that the Modern Warm Period is caused by human activities, particularly by the burning of fossil fuels. The argument is that computer models using only natural climatic factors, “such as volcanic activity and variations in solar [radiative] output”, are unable to simulate the past temperature trends, but “When the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases are included in the models, as well as (natural) climatic factors, the models produce good simulations of the warming that occurred over the past century” (IPCC-AR4, 2007) .
This is, however not true. Using all the anthropogenic and natural factors, the models are unable to correctly match the real warming trends with altitude.
Greenhouse models predicted about two times higher temperature at 10km than at the surface, while the balloon measurements gave the opposite result: no increasing of warming, but rather cooling with altitude in the tropical zone.
There are two errors in the IPCC “fingerprint argument”: (1) limiting natural factors only to solar irradiance, and ignoring other cosmic factors; and (2) incorrectly assuming, on the basis of unreliable ice core studies, and after rejecting a large body of direct measurements of CO2 in the 19th and most of the 20th century atmosphere, that during the past 650,000 years the natural concentration of atmospheric CO2 never exceeded the concentration of 180 to 300ppm (parts per million), that the pre-industrial value was about 280ppm, and that human activity increased it to about 380ppm, i.e. by about 36%.
To fit these data into a global carbon cycle IPCC assumed a speculative lifetime for man-made CO2 in the atmosphere as 50 to 200 years, ignoring observational evidence from 37 studies (based on natural and nuclear bomb carbon-14, Suess effect, radon-222, solubility data and carbon-13/carbon-12 mass balance) documenting that the real lifetime is about 5 years [4]. With CO2 atmospheric lifetime of about 5 years the maximum amount of man-made CO2 remaining now in the atmosphere is only 4%, and not 36% (see review in (Segalstad, 1998) .
Ignoring cosmic rays
IPCC-AR4 limited the natural “radiation forcing” [5] to only one factor (solar irradiance), and based its estimates on ten anthropogenic factors, listed in the Summary for Policymakers in Figure SPM.2. The IPCC regards the anthropogenic CO2 emission as the most important factor, and assumed it to be 13.8 times more powerful than the solar irradiance. But the glaciological studies clearly demonstrated that it is climate that influences the atmospheric CO2 level, and not vice versa. Over the past several hundred thousand years increases of temperature always preceded the CO2 concentration increases; also climatic cooling always preceded decreases of CO2 (Caillon et al., 2003; Fischer et al., 1999; Idso, 1988; Indermuhle et al., 1999; Monnin et al., 2001; Mudelsee, 2001) . This suggests that changes of temperature of the atmosphere are the causative factor for CO2 changes, probably by influencing the rate of land erosion, and the solubility of gas in oceanic waters (lower in warm than in cold water). In its almost monothematic concentration on greenhouse gases, especially on CO2, the IPCC underestimated water vapor - the main greenhouse gas contributing about 95% to the global greenhouse effect (Ellingson et al., 1991; Lindzen, 1991) . About 95% of the total annual emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is natural and comes from the land and sea, and only 5% from human sources. Thus the anthropogenic CO2 contributes only a tiny fraction to the total greenhouse effect, probably less than 0.15%.
The IPCC ignores a dominating climatic effect of incoming cosmic rays governed by solar activity, well known for 17 years (Friis-Christensen and Lassen, 1991) . Recent studies demonstrate that the climate of the Earth is completely determined by the Sun, via insolation and the action of galactic cosmic rays, and that the so-called anthropogenic “CO2 doubling” problem is practically absent (Rusov et al., 2008) . In opposition to the IPCC message, the natural forces that are driving the climate are 4 to 5 orders of magnitude greater than the corresponding anthropogenic impact, and humans may be responsible for less than 0.01oC of warming during the last century (Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2006) . The cosmoclimatologic studies demonstrate a powerful influence on climate of fluctuations of muon fraction of cosmic rays, caused by short-term variations of the Sun’s activity (Svensmark, 2007; Svensmark and Calder, 2008) , and in geological time scale by migration of the Solar System trough spiral arms of the Milky Way, with different concentration of dust and activity of novas (Shaviv and Veizer, 2003) . In the 20th century the reduction of cosmic rays was such that the maximal fluxes towards the end of the century were similar to the minima seen around 1900 (Figure 10). Decreasing cosmic-ray flux, caused a decrease of low cloud cover, and resulted in warming the Earth.
Low-level clouds cover more than 25% of the Earth surface and exert a strong cooling at the surface. The change in radiative forcing by 3% change in low cloud cover over one solar cycle will vary the input of heat to the Earth surface by about 2 Wm-2. It can be compared with 1.4 Wm-2 estimated by IPCC for the greenhouse effect of all human-made CO2 added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution (Svensmark, 2007) . The low cloud formation depending on fluctuations of cosmic rays, ignored by IPCC, is a much more plausible cause of the Modern Warming Period than CO2 concentration changes. As was always in the past, also now CO2 change lags the temperature. Not a single publication on cosmoclimatologic effects was cited in the IPCC reports. This disqualifies them as impartial and a reliable source of information for policymakers and scientific community.
Proxy ice data instead of atmospheric CO2
The foundation of the hypothesis that the Modern Warm Period is induced by humans is an assumption that the pre-industrial level of CO2 was 280ppm, i.e. about 100ppm lower than now. British engineer, G.S Callendar may be truly regarded as the father of this hypothesis, and of this assumption (Callendar, 1938; Callendar, 1940; Callendar, 1949; Callendar, 1958) . This assumption was made possible by the arbitrary rejection of more than 90,000 technically excellent, direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere, carried out in America, Asia and Europe, during 149 years between 1812 and 1961. Some of these direct measurements were carried out by Nobel Prize winners. Callendar rejected more than 69% from a set of 19th century CO2 measurements ranging from 250 to 550ppm.
This shows a bias in the selection method. Without such selection the 19th century data compiled by Callendar averaged 335ppm (Slocum, 1955) . Similar biased selections were later applied in ice core studies of greenhouse gases (Jaworowski, 1994) .
The low, flat CO2 ice-core concentrations, never reaching above 300ppm during the past 650,000 years and six interglacials (Siegenthaler et al., 2005) , even in periods when the global temperature was much warmer than now, suggest that either atmospheric CO2 has no discernible influence on the climate, or that the proxy ice core reconstructions of the chemical composition of the ancient atmosphere are false – both propositions are probably true. The very long-term ice core data combined with more recent 19th century ones, and with direct atmospheric measurements (since 1958), are widely used for propagating the idea of man-made global warming.
Ice core foundation of greenhouse warming
The proxy estimates of the past CO2 atmospheric concentrations, based on analysis of air bubbles recovered from ice deposited in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries at the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctic, are regarded as a strongest proof that humans increased CO2 content in the atmosphere, causing the Modern Warm Period. However, polar ice is an improper matrix for reconstruction of the chemical composition of the pre-industrial and ancient atmosphere. No efforts to improve the analytic excellence of CO2 determinations can change this situation.
Ice and the ice cores do not fulfill the essential closed-system criteria, indispensable for reliable estimate of the past CO2 levels. One of them is a lack of liquid water in ice. This criterion is not met, as there is ample evidence that even the coldest Antarctic ice contains liquid water, in which the solubility of CO2 is about 73 times, and 26 times higher than that of N2 and O2, respectively. This dramatically changes the chemical composition of the gas inclusions in polar ice in comparison to atmospheric air. More than 20 physical and chemical processes, mostly related to the presence of liquid water, contribute to the alteration of the original air in gas inclusions - see review in (Jaworowski et al., 1992) . One of these processes is the formation of clathrates (gas hydrates), solid crystals formed at high pressure by interaction of gas with water molecules. In the ice sheets, CO2, O2, and N2 start to form clathrates at about 5 bars, 75 bars, and 100 bars, respectively. Due to this process, CO2 starts to leave air bubbles at a depth of about 200meters, and the air bubbles themselves disappear completely at a depth of about 1000meters.
Drilling, which is an extremely brutal procedure, decompresses the ice cores, in which the solid clathrates decompose back into gas form, exploding in the process as if they were microscopic grenades. In the decompressed bubble-free ice the explosions form new gas cavities and mini-cracks. The ice cores, however, are earlier exposed to a coarser cracking by vibration in drilling barrel, and by the sheeting phenomenon at the bottom of the borehole, induced by pressure difference between the drilling fluid and the ice. The cracks open the gate to extreme pollution of the inside of ice cores with heavy metals from drilling fluid, thousands of times higher than their levels in surface snow (Boutron et al., 1990; Boutron et al., 1987) , and for the escape of gas inclusions.
Glaciological CO2 records are strongly influenced by natural processes in the ice sheets and man-made artifacts in the ice cores, which lead to the depletion of CO2 by 30% to 50%, probably mostly in the upper layers of the ice sheets. These records are also beset with arbitrary selection of data, experimentally unfounded assumptions on gas age, one-sided interpretations ascribing the observed trends to human factors, and ignoring other explanations. A classic example of such manipulation of ice core data is the famous Siple curve, the mother of many other “CO2 hockey curves”.
The problem with the Siple data is that the CO2 concentration found in this locality in pre-industrial ice from a depth of 68meters (i.e. above the depth of clathrate formation) was “too high” to fit the man-made warming hypothesis. In this ice deposited in 1890 AD, the CO2 concentration was 328ppm, not about 290ppm, as needed by the hypothesis. The CO2 atmospheric concentration of about 328ppm was measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii in 1973 (Boden et al., 1990) , i.e. 83 years after the ice was deposited at Siple. Instead of rejecting the assumption on low pre-industrial concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the glaciologists found a “solution”.
An ad hoc speculative assumption, not supported by any factual evidence solved the problem: the average age of air was arbitrary decreed to be exactly 83 years younger than the ice in which it was trapped (Jaworowski, 1994a; Jaworowski et al., 1992) . The “corrected” ice data were made to smoothly overlay the recent Mauna Loa record and then were reproduced in countless publications as a famous “Siple curve”. Eight years after first publication of the Siple curve, and a year after its criticism (Jaworowski et al., 1992) , glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the “age assumption” (Schwander et al., 1993) , but they failed (Jaworowski, 1994a) . Similar manipulation of data was applied also to ice cores from other polar sites, to make the “CO2 hockey curves” covering the past 1000 and even 400,000 years (IPCC, 2001; Wolff, 2003) . For some of these curves much longer air/ice age difference was arbitrarily assumed, without any experimental support, reaching up to 5,500 years. The apparent aim of these manipulations, and of ignoring other proxy CO2 determinations and of some 90,000 direct determinations in the pre-industrial and 20th century atmosphere, was to induce in the public a false conviction that the 20th century level of CO2 was unprecedented over the past hundreds thousand years.
The “CO2 hockey curves” were used as an “indicator of human i” (IPCC, 2001) (IPCC-AR4, 2007). Also in the report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research these curves are used as an evidence of “human influences” and “fingerprint” and to argue that the “observed (current) warming could not have been caused by natural forces alone” (CCSP-USP, 2008) . In fact this is the only proof of human causation of the Modern Warm Period presented in the Report. This proof is false.
Final Thoughts
The Siple case demonstrates an unacceptable distortion of science. During the past 16 years I presented it in many publications, together with data demonstrating that polar ice does not fulfill the close-system criteria, essential for reconstruction of chemical composition of the ancient atmosphere. This had practically no effect on a worldwide acceptance of the false, ice core based, dogma on human causation of the Modern Warm Period. The recent climatic cooling might perhaps open the ears of the public and decision makers to what the astronomers have been saying: our Sun enters a long period of slumber, cooling the Earth and its fellow planets. We cannot enhance it with Kyoto or stop it otherwise. But we can adjust.
See also Dr Jaworowski's full NZCPR Research Report >>> http://www.nzcpr.com/Research%20papers%20(4).pdf
Suicidal conspiracy
A conspiracy stratagem was openly presented by Maurice Strong, a godfather of the global environmental movement, and a former senior advisor to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General. In 1972 Strong was a Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and he has played a critical role in its globalization. In 1992 Strong was the Secretary-General of the “World Summit” conference in Rio de Janeiro, where on his instigation the foundations for the Kyoto Protocol were laid.
In an interview Strong disclosed his mindset: "What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is "no." The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about? This group of world leaders form a secret society to bring about an economic collapse." (Wood,1990) .
The climatic issue became now perhaps the most important agenda of the United Nations and politicians, at least they say so[1]. It became also a moral issue. In 2007 addressing the UN General Assembly Gro Harlem Brundtland, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, pointing at climatic skeptics stated: “It is irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the seriousness of the real danger of climate change”. But earlier “scare them to deaths!” morality of “climatists”[2] was explained by Stephen Schneider, one of their top gurus: "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but … On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well … we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have …Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest” (Schneider, 1989) .
The same moral standard is offered by Al Gore: “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are” (Gore, 2006) . In similar vein Rajendra K. Pauchari, the chairman of IPCC, commented in the last Fourth PCCC Report: “I hope this will shock people and governments into taking more serious action” (Crook, 2007) . Thus IPCC does not have ambition to present an objective climatic situation, but rather “to shock” the people to take actions which would bring no climatic effects (NIPCC, 2008) , but rather disastrous global economic and societal consequences. Implementation of these actions would dismantle the global energy system, the primary driving force of our civilization. This is what Maurice Strong and other leaders of Green Movement apparently have in mind.
The political and business scale of the problem is reflected by sums planned or already spent to counter the blessed natural Modern Warm Period, one of several similar periods enjoyed by the biosphere over the current interglacial [3]. According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, during the past 10 years funds for the promoters of the man-made global warming hypothesis received in the United States alone more than $50 billion.
The International Energy Agency announced in June that cutting by half the CO2 emission will cost the world $45 trillion up to 2050, i.e. 1.1% of the global GNP each year (Kanter, 2008) . For this expenditure one may expect a trifle climatic effect. Even if a substantial part of global warming were due to CO2 – and it is not – any control efforts currently contemplated, including the punctiliously observed Kyoto protocol, would decrease future temperatures by only 0.02oC, an undetectable amount (NIPCC, 2008) .
Recent and Future Cooling
Both surface and troposphere observations suggest that we are entering a cool phase of climate. These observations are in a total disagreement with IPCC climatic model projections, based on an assumption that the current Modern Warm Period is due to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 (IPCC-AR4, 2007) . The annual increment of global industrial CO2 emission increased from 1.1% in 1990-1999 to more than 3% in 2000- 2004 (Raupach et al., 2007) , and is still increasing. Thus, according to IPCC projections the global temperature should be increasing now more rapidly than before, but instead we see a cold spell. It is clear that cooling is not related to the rapidly increasing CO2 emission. Its cause is rather the Sun’s activity, which recently dropped precipitously from its 60 year long record in the second half of the 20th century, the highest in the past 11 centuries (Usoskin et al., 2003) , to an extremely low current level.
Sun activity is reflected in the number of sunspots, which normally shows an 11-year periodicity (or 131 month plus or minus 14 month). The current sunspot cycle no. 23 had a maximum in 2001 (150 sunspots in September). NASA officially declared it over in March 2006, with a forecast that the next cycle no. 24 will be 20 to 50 % stronger than the old. But until now the Sun remained quiet, with only few sunspots sighted both from the old cycle, and from the new one declared again by NASA to start on December 11, 2007. However, the Sun’s activity was still low in the first part of 2008 (NOAA, 2008) , and August 2008 was (probably) the first month without sunspots since 1913 (some observations noticed not a “spot” but a tiny short-lived “pore” on 21-22 August). It seems that we still remain in the cycle 23.
The unusually long low activity of Sun suggests that we may be entering a next Maunder Minimum, a period from 1645 to 1715, when almost no sunspots were visible. This was the coldest part of the Little Ice Age (1250—1900), when rivers in Europe and America were often frozen, and the Baltic Sea was crossed on ice by armies and travelers. Other authors suggest that the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015, reaching a deep freeze around 2050-2060, similar to cooling that took place in 1645-1715, when temperature decreased by 1 to 2oC (Abdussamatov, 2004; Abdussamatov, 2005; Abdussamatov, 2006) . Another analysis of sunspot cycles for the period 1882-2000, projected that the cooling will start in the solar cycle 25, resulting in minimum temperature around 2021-2026 (Bashkirtsev and Mashnich, 2003) . A long-term cooling, related to Sun’s activity, was also projected for the period around 2100 and 2200 (Landscheidt, 1995; Landscheidt, 2003).
The current Modern Warm Period is one of innumerous former natural warm climatic phases. Its temperature is lower than in the 4 former warm periods over the past 1500 years (Grudd, 2008) . Unfortunately it seems that it comes to an end, and the recent climatic fluctuations suggest that perhaps a new, full scale ice age is imminent. It may come in the next 50 to 400 years (Broecker, 1995; Bryson, 1993) , with ice caps covering northern parts of America and Eurasia.
Reliability of IPCC
Each of four IPCC reports became a holy book for the UN, Brussels and national bureaucracies. These credulously accepted reports are now a basis of long-term political and economic decisions. If implemented, the decisions will bring a global scale disaster. The credulity is astonishing, as many impartial perusals of the IPCC work demonstrated that its assessments and foundations, not withstanding an impressive numerical and graphic façade, are clearly biased, and should be rejected as not providing adequate climatic information for policymakers.
The name of IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, tacitly suggests that only now the climate changes. This notion, in various forms for example “climate change is now upon us” (CCSP-USP, 2008) is repeated ad nauseam in the names of institutions, programs, scientific papers and media. This, however, is not true. Without human intervention and without influence of CO2, climate was changing constantly over the past several billion years, sometimes much more and much faster than now. The rapidity with which the Modern Warm Period appeared is often invoked as a proof of its human cause. However, the Dansgaard-Oeschger events (D-Os), with their extremely rapid changes of climate, occurred without human intervention about 20 times during the past 100,000 years. The last of them, the so called “Younger Dryas”, happened 12,800 years ago, when the warm climate switched rapidly to a cold one, and then after 1300 years, almost immediately returned back into warm phase. Both times the switching took just a few years, much less than the recovery from the Little Ice Age after 1900 AD, which “is now upon us”.
Proofs of human causation of the Modern Warm Period
The most important argument of IPCC report (IPCC-AR4, 2007) for man-made climate warming is based on climatic models combined with observations of temperature in the period 1906 – 2005 over the five continents and the whole globe. The IPCC use the “fingerprint argument” that the Modern Warm Period is caused by human activities, particularly by the burning of fossil fuels. The argument is that computer models using only natural climatic factors, “such as volcanic activity and variations in solar [radiative] output”, are unable to simulate the past temperature trends, but “When the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases are included in the models, as well as (natural) climatic factors, the models produce good simulations of the warming that occurred over the past century” (IPCC-AR4, 2007) .
This is, however not true. Using all the anthropogenic and natural factors, the models are unable to correctly match the real warming trends with altitude.
Greenhouse models predicted about two times higher temperature at 10km than at the surface, while the balloon measurements gave the opposite result: no increasing of warming, but rather cooling with altitude in the tropical zone.
There are two errors in the IPCC “fingerprint argument”: (1) limiting natural factors only to solar irradiance, and ignoring other cosmic factors; and (2) incorrectly assuming, on the basis of unreliable ice core studies, and after rejecting a large body of direct measurements of CO2 in the 19th and most of the 20th century atmosphere, that during the past 650,000 years the natural concentration of atmospheric CO2 never exceeded the concentration of 180 to 300ppm (parts per million), that the pre-industrial value was about 280ppm, and that human activity increased it to about 380ppm, i.e. by about 36%.
To fit these data into a global carbon cycle IPCC assumed a speculative lifetime for man-made CO2 in the atmosphere as 50 to 200 years, ignoring observational evidence from 37 studies (based on natural and nuclear bomb carbon-14, Suess effect, radon-222, solubility data and carbon-13/carbon-12 mass balance) documenting that the real lifetime is about 5 years [4]. With CO2 atmospheric lifetime of about 5 years the maximum amount of man-made CO2 remaining now in the atmosphere is only 4%, and not 36% (see review in (Segalstad, 1998) .
Ignoring cosmic rays
IPCC-AR4 limited the natural “radiation forcing” [5] to only one factor (solar irradiance), and based its estimates on ten anthropogenic factors, listed in the Summary for Policymakers in Figure SPM.2. The IPCC regards the anthropogenic CO2 emission as the most important factor, and assumed it to be 13.8 times more powerful than the solar irradiance. But the glaciological studies clearly demonstrated that it is climate that influences the atmospheric CO2 level, and not vice versa. Over the past several hundred thousand years increases of temperature always preceded the CO2 concentration increases; also climatic cooling always preceded decreases of CO2 (Caillon et al., 2003; Fischer et al., 1999; Idso, 1988; Indermuhle et al., 1999; Monnin et al., 2001; Mudelsee, 2001) . This suggests that changes of temperature of the atmosphere are the causative factor for CO2 changes, probably by influencing the rate of land erosion, and the solubility of gas in oceanic waters (lower in warm than in cold water). In its almost monothematic concentration on greenhouse gases, especially on CO2, the IPCC underestimated water vapor - the main greenhouse gas contributing about 95% to the global greenhouse effect (Ellingson et al., 1991; Lindzen, 1991) . About 95% of the total annual emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is natural and comes from the land and sea, and only 5% from human sources. Thus the anthropogenic CO2 contributes only a tiny fraction to the total greenhouse effect, probably less than 0.15%.
The IPCC ignores a dominating climatic effect of incoming cosmic rays governed by solar activity, well known for 17 years (Friis-Christensen and Lassen, 1991) . Recent studies demonstrate that the climate of the Earth is completely determined by the Sun, via insolation and the action of galactic cosmic rays, and that the so-called anthropogenic “CO2 doubling” problem is practically absent (Rusov et al., 2008) . In opposition to the IPCC message, the natural forces that are driving the climate are 4 to 5 orders of magnitude greater than the corresponding anthropogenic impact, and humans may be responsible for less than 0.01oC of warming during the last century (Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2006) . The cosmoclimatologic studies demonstrate a powerful influence on climate of fluctuations of muon fraction of cosmic rays, caused by short-term variations of the Sun’s activity (Svensmark, 2007; Svensmark and Calder, 2008) , and in geological time scale by migration of the Solar System trough spiral arms of the Milky Way, with different concentration of dust and activity of novas (Shaviv and Veizer, 2003) . In the 20th century the reduction of cosmic rays was such that the maximal fluxes towards the end of the century were similar to the minima seen around 1900 (Figure 10). Decreasing cosmic-ray flux, caused a decrease of low cloud cover, and resulted in warming the Earth.
Low-level clouds cover more than 25% of the Earth surface and exert a strong cooling at the surface. The change in radiative forcing by 3% change in low cloud cover over one solar cycle will vary the input of heat to the Earth surface by about 2 Wm-2. It can be compared with 1.4 Wm-2 estimated by IPCC for the greenhouse effect of all human-made CO2 added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution (Svensmark, 2007) . The low cloud formation depending on fluctuations of cosmic rays, ignored by IPCC, is a much more plausible cause of the Modern Warming Period than CO2 concentration changes. As was always in the past, also now CO2 change lags the temperature. Not a single publication on cosmoclimatologic effects was cited in the IPCC reports. This disqualifies them as impartial and a reliable source of information for policymakers and scientific community.
Proxy ice data instead of atmospheric CO2
The foundation of the hypothesis that the Modern Warm Period is induced by humans is an assumption that the pre-industrial level of CO2 was 280ppm, i.e. about 100ppm lower than now. British engineer, G.S Callendar may be truly regarded as the father of this hypothesis, and of this assumption (Callendar, 1938; Callendar, 1940; Callendar, 1949; Callendar, 1958) . This assumption was made possible by the arbitrary rejection of more than 90,000 technically excellent, direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere, carried out in America, Asia and Europe, during 149 years between 1812 and 1961. Some of these direct measurements were carried out by Nobel Prize winners. Callendar rejected more than 69% from a set of 19th century CO2 measurements ranging from 250 to 550ppm.
This shows a bias in the selection method. Without such selection the 19th century data compiled by Callendar averaged 335ppm (Slocum, 1955) . Similar biased selections were later applied in ice core studies of greenhouse gases (Jaworowski, 1994) .
The low, flat CO2 ice-core concentrations, never reaching above 300ppm during the past 650,000 years and six interglacials (Siegenthaler et al., 2005) , even in periods when the global temperature was much warmer than now, suggest that either atmospheric CO2 has no discernible influence on the climate, or that the proxy ice core reconstructions of the chemical composition of the ancient atmosphere are false – both propositions are probably true. The very long-term ice core data combined with more recent 19th century ones, and with direct atmospheric measurements (since 1958), are widely used for propagating the idea of man-made global warming.
Ice core foundation of greenhouse warming
The proxy estimates of the past CO2 atmospheric concentrations, based on analysis of air bubbles recovered from ice deposited in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries at the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctic, are regarded as a strongest proof that humans increased CO2 content in the atmosphere, causing the Modern Warm Period. However, polar ice is an improper matrix for reconstruction of the chemical composition of the pre-industrial and ancient atmosphere. No efforts to improve the analytic excellence of CO2 determinations can change this situation.
Ice and the ice cores do not fulfill the essential closed-system criteria, indispensable for reliable estimate of the past CO2 levels. One of them is a lack of liquid water in ice. This criterion is not met, as there is ample evidence that even the coldest Antarctic ice contains liquid water, in which the solubility of CO2 is about 73 times, and 26 times higher than that of N2 and O2, respectively. This dramatically changes the chemical composition of the gas inclusions in polar ice in comparison to atmospheric air. More than 20 physical and chemical processes, mostly related to the presence of liquid water, contribute to the alteration of the original air in gas inclusions - see review in (Jaworowski et al., 1992) . One of these processes is the formation of clathrates (gas hydrates), solid crystals formed at high pressure by interaction of gas with water molecules. In the ice sheets, CO2, O2, and N2 start to form clathrates at about 5 bars, 75 bars, and 100 bars, respectively. Due to this process, CO2 starts to leave air bubbles at a depth of about 200meters, and the air bubbles themselves disappear completely at a depth of about 1000meters.
Drilling, which is an extremely brutal procedure, decompresses the ice cores, in which the solid clathrates decompose back into gas form, exploding in the process as if they were microscopic grenades. In the decompressed bubble-free ice the explosions form new gas cavities and mini-cracks. The ice cores, however, are earlier exposed to a coarser cracking by vibration in drilling barrel, and by the sheeting phenomenon at the bottom of the borehole, induced by pressure difference between the drilling fluid and the ice. The cracks open the gate to extreme pollution of the inside of ice cores with heavy metals from drilling fluid, thousands of times higher than their levels in surface snow (Boutron et al., 1990; Boutron et al., 1987) , and for the escape of gas inclusions.
Glaciological CO2 records are strongly influenced by natural processes in the ice sheets and man-made artifacts in the ice cores, which lead to the depletion of CO2 by 30% to 50%, probably mostly in the upper layers of the ice sheets. These records are also beset with arbitrary selection of data, experimentally unfounded assumptions on gas age, one-sided interpretations ascribing the observed trends to human factors, and ignoring other explanations. A classic example of such manipulation of ice core data is the famous Siple curve, the mother of many other “CO2 hockey curves”.
The problem with the Siple data is that the CO2 concentration found in this locality in pre-industrial ice from a depth of 68meters (i.e. above the depth of clathrate formation) was “too high” to fit the man-made warming hypothesis. In this ice deposited in 1890 AD, the CO2 concentration was 328ppm, not about 290ppm, as needed by the hypothesis. The CO2 atmospheric concentration of about 328ppm was measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii in 1973 (Boden et al., 1990) , i.e. 83 years after the ice was deposited at Siple. Instead of rejecting the assumption on low pre-industrial concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the glaciologists found a “solution”.
An ad hoc speculative assumption, not supported by any factual evidence solved the problem: the average age of air was arbitrary decreed to be exactly 83 years younger than the ice in which it was trapped (Jaworowski, 1994a; Jaworowski et al., 1992) . The “corrected” ice data were made to smoothly overlay the recent Mauna Loa record and then were reproduced in countless publications as a famous “Siple curve”. Eight years after first publication of the Siple curve, and a year after its criticism (Jaworowski et al., 1992) , glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the “age assumption” (Schwander et al., 1993) , but they failed (Jaworowski, 1994a) . Similar manipulation of data was applied also to ice cores from other polar sites, to make the “CO2 hockey curves” covering the past 1000 and even 400,000 years (IPCC, 2001; Wolff, 2003) . For some of these curves much longer air/ice age difference was arbitrarily assumed, without any experimental support, reaching up to 5,500 years. The apparent aim of these manipulations, and of ignoring other proxy CO2 determinations and of some 90,000 direct determinations in the pre-industrial and 20th century atmosphere, was to induce in the public a false conviction that the 20th century level of CO2 was unprecedented over the past hundreds thousand years.
The “CO2 hockey curves” were used as an “indicator of human i” (IPCC, 2001) (IPCC-AR4, 2007). Also in the report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research these curves are used as an evidence of “human influences” and “fingerprint” and to argue that the “observed (current) warming could not have been caused by natural forces alone” (CCSP-USP, 2008) . In fact this is the only proof of human causation of the Modern Warm Period presented in the Report. This proof is false.
Final Thoughts
The Siple case demonstrates an unacceptable distortion of science. During the past 16 years I presented it in many publications, together with data demonstrating that polar ice does not fulfill the close-system criteria, essential for reconstruction of chemical composition of the ancient atmosphere. This had practically no effect on a worldwide acceptance of the false, ice core based, dogma on human causation of the Modern Warm Period. The recent climatic cooling might perhaps open the ears of the public and decision makers to what the astronomers have been saying: our Sun enters a long period of slumber, cooling the Earth and its fellow planets. We cannot enhance it with Kyoto or stop it otherwise. But we can adjust.
Monday, December 15, 2008
A Brief History of Lyndon LaRouche's Strategic Defense Initiative
Nobody quite understands the reason for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. I believe here in this history you will see reasons for it. It went against the city of London, "The Crown's" plan. Bush, Baker, Kissinger amongst others are agents of British Imperialism. The real villains are at the heart of our economic and cultural life. They are the dynastic families who own the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and associated cartels. They also control the World Bank and IMF and most of the world's Intelligence agencies.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
The "Jewish" Conspiracy is British Imperialism
Henry Makow Ph.D.
Conspiracy theorists like myself believe modern history reflects a long-term conspiracy by an international financial elite to enslave humanity.
Like blind men examining an elephant, we attribute this conspiracy to Jews, Illuminati, Vatican, Jesuits, Freemasons, Black Nobility, and Bildersbergs etc.
The real villains are at the heart of our economic and cultural life. They are the dynastic families who own the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and associated cartels. They also control the World Bank and IMF and most of the world's Intelligence agencies. Their identity is secret but Rothschild is certainly one of them. The Bank of England was "nationalized" in 1946 but the power to create money remained in the same hands.
England is in fact a financial oligarchy run by the "Crown" which refers to the "City of London" not the Queen. The City of London is run by the Bank of England, a private corporation. The square-mile-large City is a sovereign state located in the heart of greater London. As the "Vatican of the financial world," the City is not subject to British law.
On the contrary, the bankers dictate to the British Parliament. In 1886, Andrew Carnegie wrote that, "six or seven men can plunge the nation into war without consulting Parliament at all." Vincent Vickers, a director of the Bank of England from 1910-1919 blamed the City for the wars of the world. ("Economic Tribulation" (1940) cited in Knuth, The Empire of the City, 1943, p 60)
The British Empire was an extension of bankers' financial interests. Indeed, all the non-white colonies (India, Hong Kong, Gibraltar) were "Crown Colonies." They belonged to the City and were not subject to British law although Englishmen were expected to conquer and pay for them.
The Bank of England assumed control of the U.S. during the T.R. Roosevelt administration (1901-1909) when its agent J.P. Morgan took over 25% of American business. (Anton Chaitkin, Treason in America, 1964)
According to the "American Almanac," the bankers are part of a network called the "Club of the Isles" which is an informal association of predominantly European-based royal households including the Queen. The Club of the Isles commands an estimated $10 trillion in assets. It lords over such corporate giants as Royal Dutch Shell, Imperial Chemical Industries, Lloyds of London, Unilever, Lonrho, Rio Tinto Zinc, and Anglo American DeBeers. It dominates the world supply of petroleum, gold, diamonds, and many other vital raw materials; and deploys these assets at the disposal of its geopolitical agenda.
Its goal: to reduce the human population from its current level of over 5 billion people to below 1 billion people within the next two to three generations; to literally ``cull the human herd'' in the interest of retaining their own global power and the feudal system upon which that power is based.
Historian Jeffrey Steinberg could be referring to the US, Canada and Australia when he writes, "England, Scotland, Wales, and, especially, Northern Ireland, are today little more than slave plantations and social engineering laboratories, serving the needs of ...the City of London...
These families constitute a financier oligarchy; they are the power behind the Windsor throne. They view themselves as the heirs to the Venetian oligarchy, which infiltrated and subverted England from the period 1509-1715, and established a new, more virulent, Anglo-Dutch-Swiss strain of the oligarchic system of imperial Babylon, Persia, Rome, and Byzantium....
The City of London dominates the world's speculative markets. A tightly interlocking group of corporations, involved in raw materials extraction, finance, insurance, transportation, and food production, controls the lion's share of the world market, and exerts virtual ``choke point'' control over world industry."
Steinberg belongs to a group of historians associated with economist Lyndon Larouche. They have traced this scourge to the migration of the Venetian mercantile oligarchy to England more than 300 years ago.
Although the Larouche historians do not say so, it appears that many members of this oligarchy were Jews. Cecil Roth writes: "The trade of Venice was overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the Jews, the wealthiest of the mercantile class." (The History of the Jews in Venice, 1930)
As William Guy Carr points out in Pawns in the Game, both Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange were funded by Jewish bankers. The English Revolution (1649) was the first in a series of revolutions designed to give them world hegemony. The establishment of the Bank of England by William in 1694 was the next crucial step. Behind the facade, England has been a "Jewish" state for over 300 years. (pp.20-24)
The Jewish banking families made it a practice to marry their female offspring to spendthrift European aristocrats. In Jewish law, the mixed offspring of a Jewish mother is Jewish. (The male heirs marry Jews although the Victor and Jacob Rothschild are exceptions .) For example, in 1878 Hannah Rothschild married Lord Rosebery. who later became Prime Minister. In 1922 Louis Mountbatten, the uncle of Prince Philip and cousin of the Queen married the granddaughter of Jewish banker Ernest Cassel, one of the wealthiest men in the world. Winston Churchill's mother, Jenny (Jacobson) Jerome, was Jewish. By the beginning of the 1900s, there were very few English aristocrat families left that hadn't intermarried with Jews. It was said that, when they visited the Continent, Europeans were surprised to see Jewish looking persons with English titles and accents.
According to L.G. Pine, the Editor of Burke's Peerage , Jews "have made themselves so closely connected with the British peerage that the two classes are unlikely to suffer loss which is not mutual. So closely linked are the Jews and the lords that a blow against the Jews in this country would not be possible without injuring the aristocracy also." (Tales of the British Aristocracy1957, p.219.)
If they aren't Jewish by intermarriage, many European aristocrats consider themselves descendents of Biblical Hebrews. The Hapsburgs are related by marriage to the Merovingians who claim to be descendents of the Tribe of Benjamin.
In addition, many aristocrats belong to the "British Israel" Movement that believes the British soveriegn is the head of the Anglo Saxon "Lost Tribes" of Israel and that the Apocalyse will see the full reconstitution of the British Empire.
According to Barbara Aho, Rosicrucians and Freemasons, who believe in British Israelism, have a plan to place one of their bloodline on the throne of the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. This positioning of a false messiah whom the world will worship as Christ has been carefully planned and executed over many centuries.
According to Barry Chamish, "there would be no modern state of Israel without British Freemasonry. In the 1860s, the British-Israelite movement was initiated from within Freemasonry. Its goal was to establish a Jewish-Masonic state in the Turkish province of Palestine...Initially, British Jewish Masonic families like the Rothschilds and Montefiores provided the capital to build the infrastructure for the anticipated wave of immigration. However, luring the Jews to Israel was proving difficult. They, simply, liked European life too much to abandon it. So Europe was to be turned into a nightmare for the Jews."
CONCLUSION
I wasted much of my life getting a conventional education, so I feel I am beginning my education anew.
It appears that a vampire-like clique directs the world. This secretive cabal is represented by our dominant political, economic and cultural institutions. Western society has been subverted and western culture is bankrupt. Democracy is a form of social control and the mass media/ education are systems for indoctrination.
Essentially the problem boils down to whether we believe man was made in God's image and has an obligation to lift himself to a higher level of truth, beauty and justice. Naturally monopolists have no use for this and want to define reality to suit their own interests. They have taught us that God is dead and man is just a fancy animal without a divine soul. Culture today tends to deny standards, ideals and goals of any kind. Instead, we are fed an endless diet of trivia and degradation.
Certain elite Jews are an integral part of this elite neo feudal conspiracy. Throughout history they have had a symbiotic relationship with the aristocracy. But ordinary Jews like the serfs were manipulated and persecuted by their elites.
True Judaism like Islam and Christianity affirms the supremacy of God as a moral force. A real Jew, like a true Christian or Muslim cannot perform an immoral act. It's time to reaffirm our belief in God.
Conspiracy theorists like myself believe modern history reflects a long-term conspiracy by an international financial elite to enslave humanity.
Like blind men examining an elephant, we attribute this conspiracy to Jews, Illuminati, Vatican, Jesuits, Freemasons, Black Nobility, and Bildersbergs etc.
The real villains are at the heart of our economic and cultural life. They are the dynastic families who own the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and associated cartels. They also control the World Bank and IMF and most of the world's Intelligence agencies. Their identity is secret but Rothschild is certainly one of them. The Bank of England was "nationalized" in 1946 but the power to create money remained in the same hands.
England is in fact a financial oligarchy run by the "Crown" which refers to the "City of London" not the Queen. The City of London is run by the Bank of England, a private corporation. The square-mile-large City is a sovereign state located in the heart of greater London. As the "Vatican of the financial world," the City is not subject to British law.
On the contrary, the bankers dictate to the British Parliament. In 1886, Andrew Carnegie wrote that, "six or seven men can plunge the nation into war without consulting Parliament at all." Vincent Vickers, a director of the Bank of England from 1910-1919 blamed the City for the wars of the world. ("Economic Tribulation" (1940) cited in Knuth, The Empire of the City, 1943, p 60)
The British Empire was an extension of bankers' financial interests. Indeed, all the non-white colonies (India, Hong Kong, Gibraltar) were "Crown Colonies." They belonged to the City and were not subject to British law although Englishmen were expected to conquer and pay for them.
The Bank of England assumed control of the U.S. during the T.R. Roosevelt administration (1901-1909) when its agent J.P. Morgan took over 25% of American business. (Anton Chaitkin, Treason in America, 1964)
According to the "American Almanac," the bankers are part of a network called the "Club of the Isles" which is an informal association of predominantly European-based royal households including the Queen. The Club of the Isles commands an estimated $10 trillion in assets. It lords over such corporate giants as Royal Dutch Shell, Imperial Chemical Industries, Lloyds of London, Unilever, Lonrho, Rio Tinto Zinc, and Anglo American DeBeers. It dominates the world supply of petroleum, gold, diamonds, and many other vital raw materials; and deploys these assets at the disposal of its geopolitical agenda.
Its goal: to reduce the human population from its current level of over 5 billion people to below 1 billion people within the next two to three generations; to literally ``cull the human herd'' in the interest of retaining their own global power and the feudal system upon which that power is based.
Historian Jeffrey Steinberg could be referring to the US, Canada and Australia when he writes, "England, Scotland, Wales, and, especially, Northern Ireland, are today little more than slave plantations and social engineering laboratories, serving the needs of ...the City of London...
These families constitute a financier oligarchy; they are the power behind the Windsor throne. They view themselves as the heirs to the Venetian oligarchy, which infiltrated and subverted England from the period 1509-1715, and established a new, more virulent, Anglo-Dutch-Swiss strain of the oligarchic system of imperial Babylon, Persia, Rome, and Byzantium....
The City of London dominates the world's speculative markets. A tightly interlocking group of corporations, involved in raw materials extraction, finance, insurance, transportation, and food production, controls the lion's share of the world market, and exerts virtual ``choke point'' control over world industry."
Steinberg belongs to a group of historians associated with economist Lyndon Larouche. They have traced this scourge to the migration of the Venetian mercantile oligarchy to England more than 300 years ago.
Although the Larouche historians do not say so, it appears that many members of this oligarchy were Jews. Cecil Roth writes: "The trade of Venice was overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the Jews, the wealthiest of the mercantile class." (The History of the Jews in Venice, 1930)
As William Guy Carr points out in Pawns in the Game, both Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange were funded by Jewish bankers. The English Revolution (1649) was the first in a series of revolutions designed to give them world hegemony. The establishment of the Bank of England by William in 1694 was the next crucial step. Behind the facade, England has been a "Jewish" state for over 300 years. (pp.20-24)
The Jewish banking families made it a practice to marry their female offspring to spendthrift European aristocrats. In Jewish law, the mixed offspring of a Jewish mother is Jewish. (The male heirs marry Jews although the Victor and Jacob Rothschild are exceptions .) For example, in 1878 Hannah Rothschild married Lord Rosebery. who later became Prime Minister. In 1922 Louis Mountbatten, the uncle of Prince Philip and cousin of the Queen married the granddaughter of Jewish banker Ernest Cassel, one of the wealthiest men in the world. Winston Churchill's mother, Jenny (Jacobson) Jerome, was Jewish. By the beginning of the 1900s, there were very few English aristocrat families left that hadn't intermarried with Jews. It was said that, when they visited the Continent, Europeans were surprised to see Jewish looking persons with English titles and accents.
According to L.G. Pine, the Editor of Burke's Peerage , Jews "have made themselves so closely connected with the British peerage that the two classes are unlikely to suffer loss which is not mutual. So closely linked are the Jews and the lords that a blow against the Jews in this country would not be possible without injuring the aristocracy also." (Tales of the British Aristocracy1957, p.219.)
If they aren't Jewish by intermarriage, many European aristocrats consider themselves descendents of Biblical Hebrews. The Hapsburgs are related by marriage to the Merovingians who claim to be descendents of the Tribe of Benjamin.
In addition, many aristocrats belong to the "British Israel" Movement that believes the British soveriegn is the head of the Anglo Saxon "Lost Tribes" of Israel and that the Apocalyse will see the full reconstitution of the British Empire.
According to Barbara Aho, Rosicrucians and Freemasons, who believe in British Israelism, have a plan to place one of their bloodline on the throne of the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. This positioning of a false messiah whom the world will worship as Christ has been carefully planned and executed over many centuries.
According to Barry Chamish, "there would be no modern state of Israel without British Freemasonry. In the 1860s, the British-Israelite movement was initiated from within Freemasonry. Its goal was to establish a Jewish-Masonic state in the Turkish province of Palestine...Initially, British Jewish Masonic families like the Rothschilds and Montefiores provided the capital to build the infrastructure for the anticipated wave of immigration. However, luring the Jews to Israel was proving difficult. They, simply, liked European life too much to abandon it. So Europe was to be turned into a nightmare for the Jews."
CONCLUSION
I wasted much of my life getting a conventional education, so I feel I am beginning my education anew.
It appears that a vampire-like clique directs the world. This secretive cabal is represented by our dominant political, economic and cultural institutions. Western society has been subverted and western culture is bankrupt. Democracy is a form of social control and the mass media/ education are systems for indoctrination.
Essentially the problem boils down to whether we believe man was made in God's image and has an obligation to lift himself to a higher level of truth, beauty and justice. Naturally monopolists have no use for this and want to define reality to suit their own interests. They have taught us that God is dead and man is just a fancy animal without a divine soul. Culture today tends to deny standards, ideals and goals of any kind. Instead, we are fed an endless diet of trivia and degradation.
Certain elite Jews are an integral part of this elite neo feudal conspiracy. Throughout history they have had a symbiotic relationship with the aristocracy. But ordinary Jews like the serfs were manipulated and persecuted by their elites.
True Judaism like Islam and Christianity affirms the supremacy of God as a moral force. A real Jew, like a true Christian or Muslim cannot perform an immoral act. It's time to reaffirm our belief in God.
Generated False Flag on 1-20-09
If this and other events happen on or around this time period, these two traitors need to be waterboarded until we know where they got their information.
Friday, December 12, 2008
The British Hand in the Mumbai Massacre
The British Crown is losing their foothold on the world and will bring the world to nuclear war to hold onto it.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The 9-11 Pentagon "2nd Explotion"
This is how they got the damage to seem large enough for a passenger plane instead of a cruise missile.
Monday, November 10, 2008
False flag to communism
In reality, Communism is a tyranny planned by power seekers whose most effective
weapon is the big lie. And if one takes all the lies of Communism and boils them
down, you will find they distill into two major lies out of which all others spring.
They are: (1) Communism is inevitable, and (2) Communism is a movement of the
downtrodden masses rising up against exploiting bosses.
How effectively can you oppose anything if you feel your
opposition is futile? Giving your opponent the idea that defending himself is futile is
as old as warfare itself. In about 500 B. C. the Chinese war lord-philosopher Sun Tsu
stated, "Supreme excellence in warfare lies in the destruction of your enemy's will to
resist in advance of perceptible hostilities." We call it "psy war" or psychological
warfare today. In poker, it is called "running a good bluff." The principle is the same.
Thus we have the American people: anti-Communist, but unable to define it and antisocialist,
but thinking it is inevitable. How did Marx view Communism? How
important is "the inevitability of Communism" to the Communists? What do the
Communists want you to believe is inevitable-Communism or socialism? If you study
Marx' Communist Manifesto you will find that in essence Marx said the proletarian
revolution would establish the SOCIALIST dictatorship of the proletariat. To achieve
the SOCIALIST dictatorship of the proletariat, three things would have to be
accomplished: (1) The elimination of all right to private property; (2) The dissolution
of the family unit; and (3) Destruction of what Marx referred to as the "opiate of the
people," religion.
Biden told the top Democratic donors that a “generated crisis” will develop within six months and Barak Obama will need the help of community leaders to control the population as unpopular decisions are made and Americans resist.
These politicians are on the inside of our future attacks. When one happens, we need to grab the politicians and waterboard them. Work our way up the chain. They don't represent us anyway. Any when they suggest nullifying our Constitution, we need to kill them as traitors. You are either with the Constitution or against it. If you are against it you will be eliminated. How dare our politicians take our money and try to scare us into Communism.
Biden speaking at the fundraiser, “I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate, And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
Biden’s ominous language at the Seattle Sheraton are followed with statements by long time establishment insiders Colin Powell and Madeline Albright both say there is a massive crisis on the horizon and Biden was simply making a “statement in fact.”
“The problems will always be there and there’s going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.” Powell told Meet the Press.
Lord West, adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on national security says, “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring. It dipped slightly and is now rising again within the context of severe. The threat is huge. We have done all the things that we need to do, but the threat is building - the complex plots are building,”
Across the channel from England you have the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warning the press that he believes Israel will strike Iran before they can develope nuclear weapons completley ignoring the fact that the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBradei, said that Iran lacks the key components to produce an atomic weapon.
“The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else [in] to the category of the insignificant,” Rudd said.
Why are there so many high level politicians around the world in a seemingly coordinated effort warning of huge threats and developing crisis’ that may include a nuclear device? Are they preparing the masses for an event or series of events that have been in the making for some time? Is the public being prepared for new and forming enemies with a potential to plunge the entire world into war?
----end quote---
A number of notable public figures, to be sure; Biden, Rudd, Colin Powell, Matelaine Albright, Lord West and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
weapon is the big lie. And if one takes all the lies of Communism and boils them
down, you will find they distill into two major lies out of which all others spring.
They are: (1) Communism is inevitable, and (2) Communism is a movement of the
downtrodden masses rising up against exploiting bosses.
How effectively can you oppose anything if you feel your
opposition is futile? Giving your opponent the idea that defending himself is futile is
as old as warfare itself. In about 500 B. C. the Chinese war lord-philosopher Sun Tsu
stated, "Supreme excellence in warfare lies in the destruction of your enemy's will to
resist in advance of perceptible hostilities." We call it "psy war" or psychological
warfare today. In poker, it is called "running a good bluff." The principle is the same.
Thus we have the American people: anti-Communist, but unable to define it and antisocialist,
but thinking it is inevitable. How did Marx view Communism? How
important is "the inevitability of Communism" to the Communists? What do the
Communists want you to believe is inevitable-Communism or socialism? If you study
Marx' Communist Manifesto you will find that in essence Marx said the proletarian
revolution would establish the SOCIALIST dictatorship of the proletariat. To achieve
the SOCIALIST dictatorship of the proletariat, three things would have to be
accomplished: (1) The elimination of all right to private property; (2) The dissolution
of the family unit; and (3) Destruction of what Marx referred to as the "opiate of the
people," religion.
Biden told the top Democratic donors that a “generated crisis” will develop within six months and Barak Obama will need the help of community leaders to control the population as unpopular decisions are made and Americans resist.
These politicians are on the inside of our future attacks. When one happens, we need to grab the politicians and waterboard them. Work our way up the chain. They don't represent us anyway. Any when they suggest nullifying our Constitution, we need to kill them as traitors. You are either with the Constitution or against it. If you are against it you will be eliminated. How dare our politicians take our money and try to scare us into Communism.
Biden speaking at the fundraiser, “I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate, And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
Biden’s ominous language at the Seattle Sheraton are followed with statements by long time establishment insiders Colin Powell and Madeline Albright both say there is a massive crisis on the horizon and Biden was simply making a “statement in fact.”
“The problems will always be there and there’s going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.” Powell told Meet the Press.
Lord West, adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on national security says, “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring. It dipped slightly and is now rising again within the context of severe. The threat is huge. We have done all the things that we need to do, but the threat is building - the complex plots are building,”
Across the channel from England you have the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warning the press that he believes Israel will strike Iran before they can develope nuclear weapons completley ignoring the fact that the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBradei, said that Iran lacks the key components to produce an atomic weapon.
“The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else [in] to the category of the insignificant,” Rudd said.
Why are there so many high level politicians around the world in a seemingly coordinated effort warning of huge threats and developing crisis’ that may include a nuclear device? Are they preparing the masses for an event or series of events that have been in the making for some time? Is the public being prepared for new and forming enemies with a potential to plunge the entire world into war?
----end quote---
A number of notable public figures, to be sure; Biden, Rudd, Colin Powell, Matelaine Albright, Lord West and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines
This idiot wants to put statins in our water supply. After listening to his propaganda, read about its dangers.
Hypercholesterolemia is the health issue of the 21st century. It is actually an invented disease, a "problem" that emerged when health professionals learned how to measure cholesterol levels in the blood. High cholesterol exhibits no outward signs--unlike other conditions of the blood, such as diabetes or anemia, diseases that manifest telltale symptoms like thirst or weakness--hypercholesterolemia requires the services of a physician to detect its presence. Many people who feel perfectly healthy suffer from high cholesterol--in fact, feeling good is actually a symptom of high cholesterol!
Doctors who treat this new disease must first convince their patients that they are sick and need to take one or more expensive drugs for the rest of their lives, drugs that require regular checkups and blood tests. But such doctors do not work in a vacuum--their efforts to convert healthy people into patients are bolstered by the full weight of the US government, the media and the medical establishment, agencies that have worked in concert to disseminate the cholesterol dogma and convince the population that high cholesterol is the forerunner of heart disease and possibly other diseases as well.
Who suffers from hypercholesterolemia? Peruse the medical literature of 25 or 30 years ago and you’ll get the following answer: any middle-aged man whose cholesterol is over 240 with other risk factors, such as smoking or overweight. After the Cholesterol Consensus Conference in 1984, the parameters changed; anyone (male or female) with cholesterol over 200 could receive the dreaded diagnosis and a prescription for pills. Recently that number has been moved down to 180. If you have had a heart attack, you get to take cholesterol-lowering medicines even if your cholesterol is already very low--after all, you have committed the sin of having a heart attack so your cholesterol must therefore be too high. The penance is a lifetime of cholesterol-lowering medications along with a boring lowfat diet. But why wait until you have a heart attack? Since we all labor under the stigma of original sin, we are all candidates for treatment. Current edicts stipulate cholesterol testing and treatment for young adults and even children.
The drugs that doctors use to treat the new disease are called statins--sold under a variety of names including Lipitor (atorvastatin), Zocor (simvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin).
How Statins Work
The diagram below illustrates the pathways involved in cholesterol production. The process begins with acetyl-CoA, a two-carbon molecule sometimes referred to as the "building block of life." Three acetyl-CoA molecules combine to form six-carbon hydroxymethyl glutaric acid (HMG). The step from HMG to mevalonate requires an enzyme, HMG-CoA reductase. Statin drugs work by inhibiting this enzyme--hence the formal name of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. Herein lies the potential for numerous side effects, because statin drugs inhibit not just the production of cholesterol, but a whole family of intermediary substances, many if not all of which have important biochemical functions in their own right.
Consider the findings of pediatricians at the University of California, San Diego who published a description of a child with an hereditary defect of mevalonic kinase, the enzyme that facilitates the next step beyond HMG-CoA reductase.1 The child was mentally retarded, microcephalic (very small head), small for his age, profoundly anemic, acidotic and febrile. He also had cataracts. Predictably, his cholesterol was consistently low--70-79 mg/dl. He died at the age of 24 months. The child represents an extreme example of cholesterol inhibition, but his case illuminates the possible consequences of taking statins in strong doses or for a lengthy period of time--depression of mental acuity, anemia, acidosis, frequent fevers and cataracts.
Cholesterol is one of three end products in the mevalonate chain. The two others are ubiquinone and dilochol. Ubiquinone or Co-Enzyme Q10 is a critical cellular nutrient biosynthesized in the mitochondria. It plays a role in ATP production in the cells and functions as an electron carrier to cytochrome oxidase, our main respiratory enzyme. The heart requires high levels of Co-Q10. A form of Co-Q10 called ubiquinone is found in all cell membranes where it plays a role in maintaining membrane integrity so critical to nerve conduction and muscle integrity. Co-Q10 is also vital to the formation of elastin and collagen. Side effects of Co-Q10 deficiency include muscle wasting leading to weakness and severe back pain, heart failure (the heart is a muscle!), neuropathy and inflammation of the tendons and ligaments, often leading to rupture.
Dolichols also play a role of immense importance. In the cells they direct various proteins manufactured in response to DNA directives to their proper targets, ensuring that the cells respond correctly to genetically programmed instruction. Thus statin drugs can lead to unpredictable chaos on the cellular level, much like a computer virus that wipes out certain pathways or files.
Squalene, the immediate precursor to cholesterol, has anti-cancer effects, according to research.
The fact that some studies have shown that statins can prevent heart disease, at least in the short term, is most likely explained not by the inhibition of cholesterol production but because they block the creation of mevalonate. Reduced amounts of mevalonate seem to make smooth muscle cells less active, and platelets less able to produce thromboxane. Atherosclerosis begins with the growth of smooth muscle cells in side artery walls and thromboxane is necessary for blood clotting.
Cholesterol Synthesis
Cholesterol Synthesis Diagram
Cholesterol
Of course, statins inhibit the production of cholesterol--they do this very well. Nowhere is the failing of our medical system more evident than in the wholesale acceptance of cholesterol reduction as a way to prevent disease--have all these doctors forgotten what they learned in biochemistry 101 about the many roles of cholesterol in the human biochemistry? Every cell membrane in our body contains cholesterol because cholesterol is what makes our cells waterproof--without cholesterol we could not have a different biochemistry on the inside and the outside of the cell. When cholesterol levels are not adequate, the cell membrane becomes leaky or porous, a situation the body interprets as an emergency, releasing a flood of corticoid hormones that work by sequestering cholesterol from one part of the body and transporting it to areas where it is lacking. Cholesterol is the body’s repair substance: scar tissue contains high levels of cholesterol, including scar tissue in the arteries.
Cholesterol is the precursor to vitamin D, necessary for numerous biochemical processes including mineral metabolism. The bile salts, required for the digestion of fat, are made of cholesterol. Those who suffer from low cholesterol often have trouble digesting fats. Cholesterol also functions as a powerful antioxidant, thus protecting us against cancer and aging.
Cholesterol is vital to proper neurological function. It plays a key role in the formation of memory and the uptake of hormones in the brain, including serotonin, the body’s feel-good chemical. When cholesterol levels drop too low, the serotonin receptors cannot work. Cholesterol is the main organic molecule in the brain, constituting over half the dry weight of the cerebral cortex.
Finally, cholesterol is the precursor to all the hormones produced in the adrenal cortex including glucocorticoids, which regulate blood sugar levels, and mineralocorticoids, which regulate mineral balance. Corticoids are the cholesterol-based adrenal hormones that the body uses in response to stress of various types; it promotes healing and balances the tendency to inflammation. The adrenal cortex also produces sex hormones, including testosterone, estrogen and progesterone, out of cholesterol. Thus, low cholesterol--whether due to an innate error of metabolism or induced by cholesterol-lowering diets and drugs--can be expected to disrupt the production of adrenal hormones and lead to blood sugar problems, edema, mineral deficiencies, chronic inflammation, difficulty in healing, allergies, asthma, reduced libido, infertility and various reproductive problems.
Enter the Statins
Statin drugs entered the market with great promise. They replaced a class of pharmaceuticals that lowered cholesterol by preventing its absorption from the gut. These drugs often had immediate and unpleasant side effects, including nausea, indigestion and constipation, and in the typical patient they lowered cholesterol levels only slightly. Patient compliance was low: the benefit did not seem worth the side effects and the potential for use very limited. By contrast, statin drugs had no immediate side effects: they did not cause nausea or indigestion and they were consistently effective, often lowering cholesterol levels by 50 points or more. During the last 20 years, the industry has mounted an incredible promotional campaign--enlisting scientists, advertising agencies, the media and the medical profession in a blitz that turned the statins into one of the bestselling pharmaceuticals of all time. Sixteen million Americans now take Lipitor, the most popular statin, and drug company officials claim that 36 million Americans are candidates for statin drug therapy. What bedevils the industry is growing reports of side effects that manifest many months after the commencement of therapy; the November 2003 issue of Smart Money magazine reports on a 1999 study at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London (apparently unpublished), which found that 36 percent of patients on Lipitor’s highest dose reported side effects; even at the lowest dose, 10 percent reported side effects.2
Muscle Pain and Weakness
The most common side effect is muscle pain and weakness, a condition called rhabdomyolysis, most likely due to the depletion of Co-Q10, a nutrient that supports muscle function. Dr. Beatrice Golomb of San Diego, California is currently conducting a series of studies on statin side effects. The industry insists that only 2-3 percent of patients get muscle aches and cramps but in one study, Golomb found that 98 percent of patients taking Lipitor and one-third of the patients taking Mevachor (a lower-dose statin) suffered from muscle problems.3 A message board devoted to Lipitor at forum.ditonline.com (update 09 JUL 2007: reader alerted us the forum is now defunct) contained more than 800 posts, many detailing severe side effects. The Lipitor board at www.rxlist.com contains more than 2,600 posts (click on Message Boards at upper left and then choose Lipitor; also note that as of 09 JUL 2007 there are 3,857 messages).
The test for muscle wasting or rhabdomyolysis is elevated levels of a chemical called creatine kinase (CK). But many people experience pain and fatigue even though they have normal CK levels.4
Tahoe City resident Doug Peterson developed slurred speech, balance problems and severe fatigue after three years on Lipitor--for two and a half years, he had no side effects at all.5 It began with restless sleep patterns--twitching and flailing his arms. Loss of balance followed and the beginning of what Doug calls the "statin shuffle"--a slow, wobbly walk across the room. Fine motor skills suffered next. It took him five minutes to write four words, much of which was illegible. Cognitive function also declined. It was hard to convince his doctors that Lipitor could be the culprit, but when he finally stopped taking it, his coordination and memory improved.
John Altrocchi took Mevacor for three years without side effects; then he developed calf pain so severe he could hardly walk. He also experienced episodes of temporary memory loss.
For some, however, muscle problems show up shortly after treatment begins. Ed Ontiveros began having muscle problems within 30 days of taking Lipitor. He fell in the bathroom and had trouble getting up. The weakness subsided when he went off Lipitor. In another case, reported in the medical journal Heart, a patient developed rhabdomyolysis after a single dose of a statin.6 Heel pain from plantar fascitis (heel spurs) is another common complaint among those taking statin drugs. One correspondent reported the onset of pain in the feet shortly after beginning statin treatment. She had visited an evangelist, requesting that he pray for her sore feet. He enquired whether she was taking Lipitor. When she said yes, he told her that his feet had also hurt when he took Lipitor.7
Active people are much more likely to develop problems from statin use than those who are sedentary. In a study carried out in Austria, only six out of 22 athletes with familial hypercholesterolemia were able to endure statin treatment.8 The others discontinued treatment because of muscle pain.
By the way, other cholesterol-lowering agents besides statin drugs can cause joint pain and muscle weakness. A report in Southern Medical Journal described muscle pains and weakness in a man who took Chinese red rice, an herbal preparation that lowers cholesterol.9 Anyone suffering from myopathy, fibromyalgia, coordination problems and fatigue needs to look at low cholesterol plus Co-Q10 deficiency as a possible cause.
Neuropathy
Polyneuropathy, also known as peripheral neuropathy, is characterized by weakness, tingling and pain in the hands and feet as well as difficulty walking. Researchers who studied 500,000 residents of Denmark, about 9 percent of that country’s population, found that people who took statins were more likely to develop polyneuropathy.10 Taking statins for one year raised the risk of nerve damage by about 15 percent--about one case for every 2,200 patients. For those who took statins for two or more years, the additional risk rose to 26 percent.
According to the research of Dr. Golomb, nerve problems are a common side effect from statin use; patients who use statins for two or more years are at a four to 14-fold increased risk of developing idiopathic polyneuropathy compared to controls.11 She reports that in many cases, patients told her they had complained to their doctors about neurological problems, only to be assured that their symptoms could not be related to cholesterol-lowering medications.
The damage is often irreversible. People who take large doses for a long time may be left with permanent nerve damage, even after they stop taking the drug.
The question is, does widespread statin-induced neuropathy make our elderly drivers (and even not-so-elderly drivers) more accident prone? In July of 2003, an 86-year-old driver with an excellent driving record plowed into a farmers’ market in Santa Monica, California, killing 10 people. Several days later, a most interesting letter from a Lake Oswego, Oregon woman appeared in the Washington Post:12
"My husband, at age 68, backed into the garage and stepped on the gas, wrecking a lot of stuff. He said his foot slipped off the brake. He had health problems and is on medication, including a cholesterol drug, which is now known to cause problems with feeling in one’s legs.
"In my little community, older drivers have missed a turn and taken out the end of a music store, the double doors of the post office and the front of a bakery. In Portland, a bank had to do without its drive-up window for some time.
"It is easy to say that one’s foot slipped, but the problem could be lack of sensation. My husband’s sister-in-law thought her car was malfunctioning when it refused to go when a light turned green, until she looked down and saw that her food was on the brake. I have another friend who mentioned having no feeling in her lower extremities. She thought about having her car retrofitted with hand controls but opted for the handicapped bus instead."
Heart Failure
We are currently in the midst of a congestive heart failure epidemic in the United States--while the incidence of heart attack has declined slightly, an increase in the number heart failure cases has outpaced these gains. Deaths attributed to heart failure more than doubled from 1989 to 1997.13 (Statins were first given pre-market approval in 1987.) Interference with production of Co-Q10 by statin drugs is the most likely explanation. The heart is a muscle and it cannot work when deprived of Co-Q10.
Cardiologist Peter Langsjoen studied 20 patients with completely normal heart function. After six months on a low dose of 20 mg of Lipitor a day, two-thirds of the patients had abnormalities in the heart’s filling phase, when the muscle fills with blood. According to Langsjoen, this malfunction is due to Co-Q10 depletion. Without Co-Q10, the cell’s mitochondria are inhibited from producing energy, leading to muscle pain and weakness. The heart is especially susceptible because it uses so much energy.14
Co-Q10 depletion becomes more and more of a problem as the pharmaceutical industry encourages doctors to lower cholesterol levels in their patients by greater and greater amounts. Fifteen animal studies in six different animal species have documented statin-induced Co-Q10 depletion leading to decreased ATP production, increased injury from heart failure, skeletal muscle injury and increased mortality. Of the nine controlled trials on statin-induced Co-Q10 depletion in humans, eight showed significant Co-Q10 depletion leading to decline in left ventricular function and biochemical imbalances.15
Yet virtually all patients with heart failure are put on statin drugs, even if their cholesterol is already low. Of interest is a recent study indicating that patients with chronic heart failure benefit from having high levels of cholesterol rather than low. Researchers in Hull, UK followed 114 heart failure patients for at least 12 months.16 Survival was 78 percent at 12 months and 56 percent at 36 months. They found that for every point of decrease in serum cholesterol, there was a 36 percent increase in the risk of death within 3 years.
Dizziness
Dizziness is commonly associated with statin use, possibly due to pressure-lowering effects. One woman reported dizziness one half hour after taking Pravachol.17 When she stopped taking it, the dizziness cleared up. Blood pressure lowering has been reported with several statins in published studies. According to Dr. Golumb, who notes that dizziness is a common adverse effect, the elderly may be particularly sensitive to drops in blood pressure.18
Cognitive Impairment
The November 2003 issue of Smart Money19 describes the case of Mike Hope, owner of a successful ophthalmologic supply company: "There’s an awkward silence when you ask Mike Hope his age. He doesn’t change the subject or stammer, or make a silly joke about how he stopped counting at 21. He simply doesn’t remember. Ten seconds pass. Then 20. Finally an answer comes to him. ‘I’m 56,’ he says. Close, but not quite. ‘I will be 56 this year.’ Later, if you happen to ask him about the book he’s reading, you’ll hit another roadblock. He can’t recall the title, the author or the plot." Statin use since 1998 has caused his speech and memory to fade. He was forced to close his business and went on Social Security 10 years early. Things improved when he discontinued Lipitor in 2002, but he is far from complete recovery--he still cannot sustain a conversation. What Lipitor did was turn Mike Hope into an old man when he was in the prime of life.
Cases like Mike’s have shown up in the medical literature as well. An article in Pharmacotherapy, December 2003, for example, reports two cases of cognitive impairment associated with Lipitor and Zocor.20 Both patients suffered progressive cognitive decline that reversed completely within a month after discontinuation of the statins. A study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh showed that patients treated with statins for six months compared poorly with patients on a placebo in solving complex mazes, psychomotor skills and memory tests.21
Dr. Golomb has found that 15 percent of statin patients develop some cognitive side effects.22 The most harrowing involve global transient amnesia--complete memory loss for a brief or lengthy period--described by former astronaut Duane Graveline in his book Lipitor: Thief of Memory.23 Sufferers report baffling incidents involving complete loss of memory--arriving at a store and not remembering why they are there, unable to remember their name or the names of their loved ones, unable to find their way home in the car. These episodes occur suddenly and disappear just as suddenly. Graveline points out that we are all at risk when the general public is taking statins--do you want to be in an airplane when your pilot develops statin-induced amnesia?
While the pharmaceutical industry denies that statins can cause amnesia, memory loss has shown up in several statin trials. In a trial involving 2502 subjects, amnesia occurred in 7 receiving Lipitor; amnesia also occurred in 2 of 742 subjects during comparative trials with other statins. In addition, "abnormal thinking" was reported in 4 of the 2502 clinical trial subjects.24 The total recorded side effects was therefore 0.5 percent; a figure that likely under-represents the true frequency since memory loss was not specifically studied in these trials.
Cancer
In every study with rodents to date, statins have caused cancer.25 Why have we not seen such a dramatic correlation in human studies? Because cancer takes a long time to develop and most of the statin trials do not go on longer than two or three years. Still, in one trial, the CARE trial, breast cancer rates of those taking a statin went up 1500 percent.26 In the Heart Protection Study, non-melanoma skin cancer occurred in 243 patients treated with simvastatin compared with 202 cases in the control group.27
Manufacturers of statin drugs have recognized the fact that statins depress the immune system, an effect that can lead to cancer and infectious disease, recommending statin use for inflammatory arthritis and as an immune suppressor for transplant patients.28
Pancreatic Rot
The medical literature contains several reports of pancreatitis in patients taking statins. One paper describes the case of a 49-year-old woman who was admitted to the hospital with diarrhea and septic shock one month after beginning treatment with lovastatin.29 She died after prolonged hospitalization; the cause of death was necrotizing pancreatitis. Her doctors noted that the patient had no evidence of common risk factors for acute pancreatitis, such as biliary tract disease or alcohol use. "Prescribers of statins (particularly simvastatin and lovastatin) should take into account the possibility of acute pancreatitis in patients who develop abdominal pain within the first weeks of treatment with these drugs," they warned.
Depression
Numerous studies have linked low cholesterol with depression. One of the most recent found that women with low cholesterol are twice as likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Researchers from Duke University Medical Center carried out personality trait measurements on 121 young women aged 18 to 27.30 They found that 39 percent of the women with low cholesterol levels scored high on personality traits that signalled proneness to depression, compared to 19 percent of women with normal or high levels of cholesterol. In addition, one in three of the women with low cholesterol levels scored high on anxiety indicators, compared to 21 percent with normal levels. Yet the author of the study, Dr. Edward Suarez, cautioned women with low cholesterol against eating "foods such as cream cakes" to raise cholesterol, warning that these types of food "can cause heart disease." In previous studies on men, Dr. Suarez found that men who lower their cholesterol levels with medication have increased rates of suicide and violent death, leading the researchers to theorize "that low cholesterol levels were causing mood disturbances."
How many elderly statin-takers eke through their golden years feeling miserable and depressed, when they should be enjoying their grandchildren and looking back with pride on their accomplishments? But that is the new dogma--you may have a long life as long as it is experienced as a vale of tears.
Any Benefits?
Most doctors are convinced--and seek to convince their patients--that the benefits of statin drugs far outweigh the side effects. They can cite a number of studies in which statin use has lowered the number of coronary deaths compared to controls. But as Dr. Ravnskov has pointed out in his book The Cholesterol Myths,31 the results of the major studies up to the year 2000--the 4S, WOSCOPS, CARE, AFCAPS and LIPID studies--generally showed only small differences and these differences were often statistically insignificant and independent of the amount of cholesterol lowering achieved. In two studies, EXCEL, and FACAPT/TexCAPS, more deaths occurred in the treatment group compared to controls. Dr. Ravnskov’s 1992 meta-analysis of 26 controlled cholesterol-lowering trials found an equal number of cardiovascular deaths in the treatment and control groups and a greater number of total deaths in the treatment groups.32 An analysis of all the big controlled trials reported before 2000 found that long-term use of statins for primary prevention of heart disase produced a 1 percent greater risk of death over 10 years compared to a placebo.33
Recently published studies do not provide any more justification for the current campaign to put as many people as possible on statin drugs.
Honolulu Heart Program (2001)
This report, part of an ongoing study, looked at cholesterol lowering in the elderly. Researchers compared changes in cholesterol concentrations over 20 years with all-cause mortality.34 To quote: "Our data accords with previous findings of increased mortality in elderly people with low serum cholesterol, and show that long-term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases risk of death. Thus, the earlier that patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death. . . The most striking findings were related to changes in cholesterol between examination three (1971-74) and examination four (1991-93). There are few studies that have cholesterol concentrations from the same patients at both middle age and old age. Although our results lend support to previous findings that low serum cholesterol imparts a poor outlook when compared with higher concentrations of cholesterol in elderly people, our data also suggest that those individuals with a low serum cholesterol maintained over a 20-year period will have the worst outlook for all-cause mortality [emphasis ours]."
MIRACL (2001)
The MIRACL study looked at the effects of a high dose of Lipitor on 3086 patients in the hospital after angina or nonfatal MI and followed them for 16 weeks.35 According to the abstract: "For patients with acute coronary syndrome, lipid-lowering therapy with atorvastatin, 80 mg/day, reduced recurrent ischemic events in the first 16 weeks, mostly recurrent symptomatic ischemia requiring rehospitalization." What the abstract did not mention was that there was no change in death rate compared to controls and no significant change in re-infarction rate or need for resuscitation from cardiac arrest. The only change was a significant drop in chest pain requiring rehospitalization.
ALLHAT (2002)
ALLHAT (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial), the largest North American cholesterol-lowering trial ever and the largest trial in the world using Lipitor, showed mortality of the treatment group and controls after 3 or 6 years was identical.36 Researchers used data from more than 10,000 participants and followed them over a period of four years, comparing the use of a statin drug to "usual care," namely maintaining proper body weight, no smoking, regular exercise, etc., in treating subjects with moderately high levels of LDL cholesterol. Of the 5170 subjects in the group that received statin drugs, 28 percent lowered their LDL cholesterol significantly. And of the 5185 usual-care subjects, about 11 percent had a similar drop in LDL. But both groups showed the same rates of death, heart attack and heart disease.
Heart Protection Study (2002)
Carried out at Oxford University,37 this study received widespread press coverage; researchers claimed "massive benefits" from cholesterol-lowering,38 leading one commentator to predict that statin drugs were "the new aspirin."39 But as Dr. Ravnskov points out,40 the benefits were far from massive. Those who took simvastatin had an 87.1 percent survival rate after five years compared to an 85.4 percent survival rate for the controls and these results were independent of the amount of cholesterol lowering. The authors of the Heart Protection Study never published cumulative mortality data, even though they received many requests to do so and even though they received funding and carried out a study to look at cumulative data. According to the authors, providing year-by-year mortality data would be an "inappropriate" way of publishing their study results.41
PROSPER (2002)
PROSPER (Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk) studied the effect of pravastatin compared to placebo in two older populations of patients of which 56 percent were primary prevention cases (no past or symptomatic cardiovascular disease) and 44 percent were secondary prevention cases (past or symptomatic cardiovascular disease).42 Pravastatin did not reduce total myocardial infarction or total stroke in the primary prevention population but did so in the secondary. However, measures of overall health impact in the combined populations, total mortality and total serious adverse events were unchanged by pravastatin as compared to the placebo and those in the treatment group had increased cancer. In other words: not one life saved.
J-LIT (2002)
Japanese Lipid Intervention Trial was a 6-year study of 47,294 patients treated with the same dose of simvastatin.43 Patients were grouped by the amount of cholesterol lowering. Some patient had no reduction in LDL levels, some had a moderate fall in LDL and some had very large LDL reductions. The results: no correlation between the amount of LDL lowering and death rate at five years. Those with LDL cholesterol lower than 80 had a death rate of just over 3.5 at five years; those whose LDL was over 200 had a death rate of just over 3.5 at five years.
Meta-Analysis (2003)
In a meta-analysis of 44 trials involving almost 10,000 patients, the death rate was identical at 1 percent of patients in each of the three groups--those taking atorvastatin (Lipitor), those taking other statins and those taking nothing.44 Furthermore, 65 percent of those on treatment versus 45 percent of the controls experienced an adverse event. Researchers claimed that the incidence of adverse effects was the same in all three groups, but 3 percent of the atorvastatin-treated patients and 4 percent of those receiving other statins withdrew due to treatment-associated adverse events, compared with 1 percent of patients on the placebo.
Statins and Plaque (2003)
A study published in the American Journal of Cardiology casts serious doubts on the commonly held belief that lowering your LDL-cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol, is the most effective way to reduced arterial plaque.45 Researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City examined the coronary plaque buildup in 182 subjects who took statin drugs to lower cholesterol levels. One group of subjects used the drug aggressively (more than 80 mg per day) while the balance of the subjects took less than 80 mg per day. Using electron beam tomography, the researchers measured plaque in all of the subjects before and after a study period of more than one year. The subjects were generally successful in lowering their cholesterol, but in the end there was no statistical difference in the two groups in the progression of arterial calcified plaque. On average, subjects in both groups showed a 9.2 percent increase in plaque buildup.
Statins and Women (2003)
No study has shown a significant reduction in mortality in women treated with statins. The University of British Columbia Therapeutics Initiative came to the same conclusion, with the finding that statins offer no benefit to women for prevention of heart disease.46 Yet in February of 2004, Circulation published an article in which more than 20 organizations endorsed cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines for women with several mentions of "preferably a statin."47
ASCOT-LLA (2003)
ASCOT-LLA (Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial--Lipid Lowering Arm) was designed to assess the benefits of atorvastatin (Lipitor) versus a placebo in patients who had high blood pressure with average or lower-than-average cholesterol concentrations and at least three other cardiovascular risk factors.48 The trial was originally planned for five years but was stopped after a median follow-up of 3.3 years because of a significant reduction in cardiac events. Lipitor did reduce total myocardial infarction and total stroke; however, total mortality was not significantly reduced. In fact, women were worse off with treatment. The trial report stated that total serious adverse events "did not differ between patients assigned atorvastatin or placebo," but did not supply the actual numbers of serious events.
Cholesterol Levels in
Dialysis Patients (2004)
In a study of dialysis patients, those with higher cholesterol levels had lower mortality than those with low cholesterol.49 Yet the authors claimed that the "inverse association of total cholesterol level with mortality in dialysis patients is likely due to the cholesterol-lowering effect of systemic inflammation and malnutrition, not to a protective effect of high cholesterol concentrations." Keeping an eye on further funding opportunities, the authors concluded: "These findings support treatment of hypercholesterolemia in this population."
PROVE-IT (2004)
PROVE-IT (PRavastatin Or AtorVastatin Evaluation and Infection Study),50 led by researchers at Harvard University Medical School, attracted immense media attention. "Study of Two Cholesterol Drugs Finds One Halts Heart Disease," was the headline in the New York Times.51 In an editorial entitled "Extra-Low Cholesterol," the paper predicted that "The findings could certainly presage a significant change in the way heart disease patients are treated. It should also start a careful evaluation of whether normally healthy people could benefit from a sharp drug-induced reduction in their cholesterol levels."52
The Washington Post was even more effusive, with a headline "Striking Benefits Found in Ultra-Low Cholesterol."53 "Heart patients who achieved ultra-low cholesterol levels in one study were 16 percent less likely to get sicker or to die than those who hit what are usually considered optimal levels. The findings should prompt doctors to give much higher doses of drugs known as statins to hundreds of thousands of patients who already have severe heart problems, experts said. In addition, it will probably encourage physicians to start giving the medications to millions of healthy people who are not yet on them, and to boost dosages for some of those already taking them to lower their cholesterol even more, they said."
The study compared two statin drugs, Lipitor and Pravachol. Although Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS), makers of Pravachol, sponsored the study, Lipitor (made by Pfizer) outperformed its rival Pravachol in lowering LDL. The "striking benefit" was a 22 percent rate of death or further adverse coronary events in the Lipitor patients compared to 26 percent in the Pravachol patients.
PROVE-IT investigators took 4162 patient who had been in the hospital following an MI or unstable angina. Half got Pravachol and half got Lipitor. Those taking Lipitor had the greatest reduction of LDL-cholesterol--LDL in the Pravachol group was 95, in the Lipitor group it was 62--a 32 percent greater reduction in LDL levels and a 16 percent reduction in all-cause mortality. But that 16 percent was a reduction in relative risk. As pointed out by Red Flags Daily columnist Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, the absolute reduction in the rate of the death rate of those taking Lipitor rather than Pravachol, was one percent, a decrease from 3.2 percent to 2.2 percent over 2 years.54 Or, to put it another way, a 0.5 percent absolute risk reduction per year--these were the figures that launched the massive campaign for cholesterol-lowering in people with no risk factors for heart disease, not even high cholesterol.
And the study was seriously flawed with what Kendrick calls "the two-variables conundrum." "It is true that those with the greatest LDL lowering were protected against death. However, . . . those who were protected not only had a greater degree of LDL lowering, they were also on a different drug! which is rather important, yet seems to have been swept aside on a wave of hype. If you really want to prove that the more you lower the LDL level, the greater the protection, then you must use the same drug. This achieves the absolutely critical requirement of any scientific experiment, which is to remove all possible uncontrolled variables. . . As this study presently stands, because they used different drugs, anyone can make the case that the benefits seen in the patients on atorvastatin [Lipitor] had nothing to do with greater LDL lowering; they were purely due to the direct drug effects of atorvastatin." Kendrick notes that the carefully constructed J-LIT study, published 2 years earlier, found no correlation whatsoever between the amount of LDL lowering and death rate. This study had ten times as many patients, lasted almost three times as long and used the same drug at the same dose in all patients. Not surprisingly, J-LIT attracted virtually no media attention.
PROVE-IT did not look at side effects but Dr. Andrew G. Bodnar, senior vice president for strategy and medical and external affairs at Bristol Meyer Squibb, makers of the losing statin, indicated that liver enzymes were elevated in 3.3 percent of the Lipitor group but only in 1.1 percent of the Pravachol group, noting that when liver enzyme levels rise, patients must be advised to stop taking the drug or reduce the dose.55 And withdrawal rates were very high: thirty-three percent of patients discontinued Pravachol and 30 percent discontinued Lipitor after two years due to adverse events or other reasons.56
REVERSAL (2004)
In a similar study, carried out at the Cleveland Clinic, patients were given either Lipitor or Pravachol. Those receiving Lipitor achieved much lower LDL-cholesterol levels and a reversal in "the progression of coronary plaque aggregation."57 Those who took Lipitor had plaque reduced by 0.4 percent over 18 months, based on intravascular ultrasound (not the more accurate tool of electron beam tomography); Dr. Eric Topol of the Cleveland Clinic claimed these decidedly unspectacular results "Herald a shake-up in the field of cardiovascular prevention.. . . the implications of this turning point--that is, of the new era of intensive statin therapy--are profound. Even today, only a fraction of the patients who should be treated with a statin are actually receiving such therapy. . . More than 200 million people worldwide meet the criteria for treatment, but fewer than 25 million take statins."58 Not surprisingly, an article in The Wall Street Journal noted "Lipitor Prescriptions Surge in Wake of Big Study."59
But as Dr. Ravnskov points out, the investigators looked at change in atheroma volume, not the change in lumen area, "a more important parameter because it determines the amount of blood that can be delivered to the myocardium. Change of atheroma volume cannot be translated to clinical events because adaptive mechansims try to maintain a normal lumen area during early atherogenesis."60
Other Uses
With such paltry evidence of benefit, statin drugs hardly merit the hyperbole heaped upon them. Yet the industry maintains a full court press, urging their use for greater and greater numbers of people, not only for cholesterol lowering but also as treatment for other diseases--cancer, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, stroke, macular degeneration, arthritis and even mental disorders such as memory and learning problems, Alzheimers and dementia.61 New guidelines published by the American College of Physicians call for statin use by all people with diabetes older than 55 and for younger diabetes patients who have any other risk factor for heart disease, such as high blood pressure or a history of smoking.62 David A. Drachman, professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School calls statins "Viagra for the brain."63 Other medical writers have heralded the polypill, composed of a statin drug mixed with a blood pressure medication, aspirin and niacin, as a prevent-all that everyone can take. The industry is also seeking the right to sell statins over the counter.
Can honest assessment find any possible use for these dangerous drugs? Dr. Peter Langsjoen of Tyler, Texas, suggests that statin drugs are appropriate only as a treatment for cases of advanced Cholesterol Neurosis, created by the industry’s anti-cholesterol propaganda. If you are concerned about your cholesterol, a statin drug will relieve you of your worries.
Creative Advertising
The best advertising for statin drugs is free front-page coverage following gushy press releases. But not everyone reads the paper or goes in for regular medical exams, so statin manufacturers pay big money for creative ways to create new users. For example, a new health awareness group called the Boomer Coalition supported ABC’s Academy Awards telecast in March of 2004 with a 30-second spot flashing nostalgic images of celebrities lost to cardiovascular disease--actor James Coburn, baseball star Don Drysdale and comedian Redd Foxx. While the Boomer Coalition sounds like a grass roots group of health activists, it is actually a creation of Pfizer, manufacturers of Lipitor. "We’re always looking for creative ways to break through what we’ve found to be a lack of awareness and action," says Michal Fishman, a Pfizer spokeswoman. "We’re always looking for what people really think and what’s going to make people take action," adding that there is a stigma about seeking treatment and many people "wrongly assume that if they are physically fit, they aren’t at risk for heart disease."64 The Boomer Coalition website allows visitors to "sign up and take responsibility for your heart health," by providing a user name, age, email address and blood pressure and cholesterol level.
A television ad in Canada admonished viewers to "Ask your doctor about the Heart Protection Study from Oxford University." The ad did not urge viewers to ask their doctors about EXCEL, ALLHAT, ASCOT, MIRACL or PROSPER, studies that showed no benefit--and the potential for great harm--from taking statin drugs.
The Costs
Statin drugs are very expensive--a course of statins for a year costs between $900 and $1400. They constitute the mostly widely sold pharmaceutical drug, accounting for 6.5 percent of market share and 12.5 billion dollars in revenue for the industry. Your insurance company may pay most of that cost, but consumers always ultimately pay with higher insurance premiums. Payment for statin drugs poses a huge burden for Medicare, so much so that funds may not be available for truly lifesaving medical measures.
In the UK, according to the National Health Service, doctors wrote 31 million prescriptions for statins in 2003, up from 1 million in 1995 at a cost of 7 billion pounds--and that’s just in one tiny island.65 In the US, statins currently bring in $12.5 billion annually for the pharmaceutical industry. Sales of Lipitor, the number-one-selling statin, are projected to hit $10 billion in 2005.
Even if statin drugs do provide some benefit, the cost is very high. In the WOSCOP clinical trial where healthy people with high cholesterol were treated with statins, the five-year death rate for treated subjects was reduced by a mere 0.6 percent. As Dr. Ravnskov points out,66 to achieve that slight reduction about 165 healthy people had to be treated for five years to extend one life by five years. The cost for that one life comes to $1.2 million dollars. In the most optimistic calculations, the costs to save one year of life in patients with CHD is estimated at $10,000, and much more for healthy individuals. "This may not sound unreasonable," says Dr. Ravnskov. "Isn’t a human life worth $10,000 or more?"
"The implication of such reasoning is that to add as many years as possible, more than half of mankind should take statin drugs every day from an early age to the end of life. It is easy to calculate that the costs for such treatment would consume most of any government’s health budget. And if money is spent to give statin treatment to all healthy people, what will remain for the care of those who really need it? Shouldn’t health care be given primarily to the sick and the crippled?"
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11. Statins and the Risk of Polyneuropathy. http://coloradohealthsite.org/CHNReports/statins_polyneuropathy.html
12. The Struggles of Older Drivers, letter by Elizabeth Scherdt. Washington Post, June 21, 2003.
13. Langsjoen PH. The clinical use of HMG Co-A reductase inhibitors (statins) and the associated depletion of the essential co-factor coenzyme Q10: a review of pertinent human and animal data. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/02/May02/052902/02p-0244-cp00001-02-Exhibit_A-vol1.pdf
14. Eleanor Laise. The Lipitor Dilemma, Smart Money: The Wall Street Journal Magazine of Personal Business, November 2003.
15. Langsjoen PH. The clinical use of HMG Co-A reductase inhibitors (statins) and the associated depletion of the essential co-factor coenzyme Q10: a review of pertinent human and animal data. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/02/May02/052902/02p-0244-cp00001-02-Exhibit_A-vol1.pdf
16. Clark AL and others. J Am Coll Cardiol 2003;42:1933-1943.
17. Personal communication, Jason DuPont, MD, July 7, 2003
18. Sandra G Boodman. Statins’ Nerve Problems. Washington Post, September 3, 2002.
19. Eleanor Laise. The Lipitor Dilemma, Smart Money: The Wall Street Journal Magazine of Personal Business, November 2003,
20. King, DS. Pharmacotherapy 25(12):1663-7, Dec, 2003.
21. Muldoon MF and others. Am J Med 2000 May;108(7):538-46.
22. Email communication, Beatrice Golomb, July 10, 2003.
23. Duane Graveline, MD. Lipitor: Thief of Memory, 2004, www.buybooksontheweb.com.
24. Lopena OF. Pharm D, Pfizer, Inc., written communication, 2002. Quoted in an email communication from Duane Graveline, spacedoc@webtv.net
25. Newman TB, Hulley SB. JAMA 1996;27:55-60
26. Sacks FM and others. N Eng J Med 1996;385;1001-1009.
27. Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group. Lancet 2002;360:7-22.
28. Leung BP and others. J Immunol. Feb 2003 170(3);1524-30; Palinski W. Nature Medicine Dec 2000 6;1311-1312.
29. J Pharm Technol 2003;19:283-286.
30. Low Cholesterol Linked to Depression. BBC Online Network, May 25,1999.
31. Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD. The Cholesterol Myths. NewTrends Publishing, 2000.
32. Ravnskov U. BMJ. 1992;305:15-19.
33. Jackson PR. Br J Clin Pharmacol 2001;52:439-46.
34. Schatz IJ and others. Lancet 2001 Aug 4;358:351-355.
35. Schwartz GG and others. J Am Med Assoc. 2001;285:1711-8.
36. The ALLHAT Officers and Coordinators for the ALLHAT Collaborative Research Group. JAMA 2002;288:2998-3007.
37. Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group. Lancet 2002;360:7-22.
38. Medical Research Council/British Heart Foundation Heart Protection Study.Press release. Life-saver: World’s largest cholesterol-lowering trial reveals massive benefits for high-risk patients. Available at www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~hps/pr.shtml.
39. Kmietowicz A. BMJ 2001;323:1145
40. Ravnskov U. BMJ 2002;324:789
41. Email communication, Eddie Vos, February 13, 2004 and posted at www.health-heart.org/comments.htm#PetoCollins.
42. Shepherd J and others. Lancet 2002;360:1623-1630.
43. Matsuzaki M and others. Circ J. 2002 Dec;66(12):1087-95.
44. Hecht HS, Harmon SM. Am J Cardiol 2003; 92:670-676
45. Hecht HS and others. Am J Cardiol 2003;92:334-336
46. Jenkins AJ. BMJ 2003 Oct 18;327(7420):933.
47. Circulation, 2004 Feb 17;109(6):714-21.
48. Sever PS and others. Lancet 2003;361:1149-1158.
49. Liu Y and others. JAMA 2004;291:451-459.
50. Cannon CP and others. N Engl J Med 2004 Apr 8;350(15):1495-504. Epub 2004 Mar 08.
51. Gina Kolata. Study of Two Cholesterol Drugs Finds One Halts Heart Disease. The New York Times, November 13, 2003.
52. Extra-Low Cholesterol, The New York Times, March 10, 2003
53. Rob Stein. Striking Benefits Found in Ultra-Low Cholesterol, The Washington Post, March 9, 2004
54. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. PROVE IT- PROVE WHAT? http://www.redflagsweekly.com/applications/ui/login.php?Next=/kendrick/2004_mar10.php&e=4
55. Health Sciences Institute e-alert, www.hsibaltimore.com, March 11, 2004
56. Email communication, Joel Kauffman, April 15, 2004.
57. Nissen SE and others. JAMA 2004 Mar 3;291(9):1071-80.
58. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. PROVE IT- PROVE WHAT? http://www.redflagsweekly.com/applications/ui/login.php?Next=/kendrick/2004_mar10.php&e=4
59. Scott Hensley. The Statin Dilemma: How Sluggish Sales Hurt Merck, Pfizer. The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2003.
60. Ravnskov, U. Unpublished letter. ravnskov@tele2.se .
61. Cholesterol--And Beyond: Statin Drugs Have Cut Heart Disease. Now They Show Promise Against Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis & Osteoporosis. Newsweek, July 14. 2003.
62. John O’Neil. Treatments: Statins and Diabetes: New Advice. New York Times, April 20, 2004.
63. Peter Jaret. Statins’ Burst of Benefits. Los Angeles Times, July 2. 2003.
64. Behind the ‘Boomer Coalition,’ A Heart Message from Pfizer, Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2004
65. Paul J. Fallon, personal communication, March, 2004.
66. Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD. The Cholesterol Myths. NewTrends Publishing, 2000, pp 208-210.
Hypercholesterolemia is the health issue of the 21st century. It is actually an invented disease, a "problem" that emerged when health professionals learned how to measure cholesterol levels in the blood. High cholesterol exhibits no outward signs--unlike other conditions of the blood, such as diabetes or anemia, diseases that manifest telltale symptoms like thirst or weakness--hypercholesterolemia requires the services of a physician to detect its presence. Many people who feel perfectly healthy suffer from high cholesterol--in fact, feeling good is actually a symptom of high cholesterol!
Doctors who treat this new disease must first convince their patients that they are sick and need to take one or more expensive drugs for the rest of their lives, drugs that require regular checkups and blood tests. But such doctors do not work in a vacuum--their efforts to convert healthy people into patients are bolstered by the full weight of the US government, the media and the medical establishment, agencies that have worked in concert to disseminate the cholesterol dogma and convince the population that high cholesterol is the forerunner of heart disease and possibly other diseases as well.
Who suffers from hypercholesterolemia? Peruse the medical literature of 25 or 30 years ago and you’ll get the following answer: any middle-aged man whose cholesterol is over 240 with other risk factors, such as smoking or overweight. After the Cholesterol Consensus Conference in 1984, the parameters changed; anyone (male or female) with cholesterol over 200 could receive the dreaded diagnosis and a prescription for pills. Recently that number has been moved down to 180. If you have had a heart attack, you get to take cholesterol-lowering medicines even if your cholesterol is already very low--after all, you have committed the sin of having a heart attack so your cholesterol must therefore be too high. The penance is a lifetime of cholesterol-lowering medications along with a boring lowfat diet. But why wait until you have a heart attack? Since we all labor under the stigma of original sin, we are all candidates for treatment. Current edicts stipulate cholesterol testing and treatment for young adults and even children.
The drugs that doctors use to treat the new disease are called statins--sold under a variety of names including Lipitor (atorvastatin), Zocor (simvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin).
How Statins Work
The diagram below illustrates the pathways involved in cholesterol production. The process begins with acetyl-CoA, a two-carbon molecule sometimes referred to as the "building block of life." Three acetyl-CoA molecules combine to form six-carbon hydroxymethyl glutaric acid (HMG). The step from HMG to mevalonate requires an enzyme, HMG-CoA reductase. Statin drugs work by inhibiting this enzyme--hence the formal name of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. Herein lies the potential for numerous side effects, because statin drugs inhibit not just the production of cholesterol, but a whole family of intermediary substances, many if not all of which have important biochemical functions in their own right.
Consider the findings of pediatricians at the University of California, San Diego who published a description of a child with an hereditary defect of mevalonic kinase, the enzyme that facilitates the next step beyond HMG-CoA reductase.1 The child was mentally retarded, microcephalic (very small head), small for his age, profoundly anemic, acidotic and febrile. He also had cataracts. Predictably, his cholesterol was consistently low--70-79 mg/dl. He died at the age of 24 months. The child represents an extreme example of cholesterol inhibition, but his case illuminates the possible consequences of taking statins in strong doses or for a lengthy period of time--depression of mental acuity, anemia, acidosis, frequent fevers and cataracts.
Cholesterol is one of three end products in the mevalonate chain. The two others are ubiquinone and dilochol. Ubiquinone or Co-Enzyme Q10 is a critical cellular nutrient biosynthesized in the mitochondria. It plays a role in ATP production in the cells and functions as an electron carrier to cytochrome oxidase, our main respiratory enzyme. The heart requires high levels of Co-Q10. A form of Co-Q10 called ubiquinone is found in all cell membranes where it plays a role in maintaining membrane integrity so critical to nerve conduction and muscle integrity. Co-Q10 is also vital to the formation of elastin and collagen. Side effects of Co-Q10 deficiency include muscle wasting leading to weakness and severe back pain, heart failure (the heart is a muscle!), neuropathy and inflammation of the tendons and ligaments, often leading to rupture.
Dolichols also play a role of immense importance. In the cells they direct various proteins manufactured in response to DNA directives to their proper targets, ensuring that the cells respond correctly to genetically programmed instruction. Thus statin drugs can lead to unpredictable chaos on the cellular level, much like a computer virus that wipes out certain pathways or files.
Squalene, the immediate precursor to cholesterol, has anti-cancer effects, according to research.
The fact that some studies have shown that statins can prevent heart disease, at least in the short term, is most likely explained not by the inhibition of cholesterol production but because they block the creation of mevalonate. Reduced amounts of mevalonate seem to make smooth muscle cells less active, and platelets less able to produce thromboxane. Atherosclerosis begins with the growth of smooth muscle cells in side artery walls and thromboxane is necessary for blood clotting.
Cholesterol Synthesis
Cholesterol Synthesis Diagram
Cholesterol
Of course, statins inhibit the production of cholesterol--they do this very well. Nowhere is the failing of our medical system more evident than in the wholesale acceptance of cholesterol reduction as a way to prevent disease--have all these doctors forgotten what they learned in biochemistry 101 about the many roles of cholesterol in the human biochemistry? Every cell membrane in our body contains cholesterol because cholesterol is what makes our cells waterproof--without cholesterol we could not have a different biochemistry on the inside and the outside of the cell. When cholesterol levels are not adequate, the cell membrane becomes leaky or porous, a situation the body interprets as an emergency, releasing a flood of corticoid hormones that work by sequestering cholesterol from one part of the body and transporting it to areas where it is lacking. Cholesterol is the body’s repair substance: scar tissue contains high levels of cholesterol, including scar tissue in the arteries.
Cholesterol is the precursor to vitamin D, necessary for numerous biochemical processes including mineral metabolism. The bile salts, required for the digestion of fat, are made of cholesterol. Those who suffer from low cholesterol often have trouble digesting fats. Cholesterol also functions as a powerful antioxidant, thus protecting us against cancer and aging.
Cholesterol is vital to proper neurological function. It plays a key role in the formation of memory and the uptake of hormones in the brain, including serotonin, the body’s feel-good chemical. When cholesterol levels drop too low, the serotonin receptors cannot work. Cholesterol is the main organic molecule in the brain, constituting over half the dry weight of the cerebral cortex.
Finally, cholesterol is the precursor to all the hormones produced in the adrenal cortex including glucocorticoids, which regulate blood sugar levels, and mineralocorticoids, which regulate mineral balance. Corticoids are the cholesterol-based adrenal hormones that the body uses in response to stress of various types; it promotes healing and balances the tendency to inflammation. The adrenal cortex also produces sex hormones, including testosterone, estrogen and progesterone, out of cholesterol. Thus, low cholesterol--whether due to an innate error of metabolism or induced by cholesterol-lowering diets and drugs--can be expected to disrupt the production of adrenal hormones and lead to blood sugar problems, edema, mineral deficiencies, chronic inflammation, difficulty in healing, allergies, asthma, reduced libido, infertility and various reproductive problems.
Enter the Statins
Statin drugs entered the market with great promise. They replaced a class of pharmaceuticals that lowered cholesterol by preventing its absorption from the gut. These drugs often had immediate and unpleasant side effects, including nausea, indigestion and constipation, and in the typical patient they lowered cholesterol levels only slightly. Patient compliance was low: the benefit did not seem worth the side effects and the potential for use very limited. By contrast, statin drugs had no immediate side effects: they did not cause nausea or indigestion and they were consistently effective, often lowering cholesterol levels by 50 points or more. During the last 20 years, the industry has mounted an incredible promotional campaign--enlisting scientists, advertising agencies, the media and the medical profession in a blitz that turned the statins into one of the bestselling pharmaceuticals of all time. Sixteen million Americans now take Lipitor, the most popular statin, and drug company officials claim that 36 million Americans are candidates for statin drug therapy. What bedevils the industry is growing reports of side effects that manifest many months after the commencement of therapy; the November 2003 issue of Smart Money magazine reports on a 1999 study at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London (apparently unpublished), which found that 36 percent of patients on Lipitor’s highest dose reported side effects; even at the lowest dose, 10 percent reported side effects.2
Muscle Pain and Weakness
The most common side effect is muscle pain and weakness, a condition called rhabdomyolysis, most likely due to the depletion of Co-Q10, a nutrient that supports muscle function. Dr. Beatrice Golomb of San Diego, California is currently conducting a series of studies on statin side effects. The industry insists that only 2-3 percent of patients get muscle aches and cramps but in one study, Golomb found that 98 percent of patients taking Lipitor and one-third of the patients taking Mevachor (a lower-dose statin) suffered from muscle problems.3 A message board devoted to Lipitor at forum.ditonline.com (update 09 JUL 2007: reader alerted us the forum is now defunct) contained more than 800 posts, many detailing severe side effects. The Lipitor board at www.rxlist.com contains more than 2,600 posts (click on Message Boards at upper left and then choose Lipitor; also note that as of 09 JUL 2007 there are 3,857 messages).
The test for muscle wasting or rhabdomyolysis is elevated levels of a chemical called creatine kinase (CK). But many people experience pain and fatigue even though they have normal CK levels.4
Tahoe City resident Doug Peterson developed slurred speech, balance problems and severe fatigue after three years on Lipitor--for two and a half years, he had no side effects at all.5 It began with restless sleep patterns--twitching and flailing his arms. Loss of balance followed and the beginning of what Doug calls the "statin shuffle"--a slow, wobbly walk across the room. Fine motor skills suffered next. It took him five minutes to write four words, much of which was illegible. Cognitive function also declined. It was hard to convince his doctors that Lipitor could be the culprit, but when he finally stopped taking it, his coordination and memory improved.
John Altrocchi took Mevacor for three years without side effects; then he developed calf pain so severe he could hardly walk. He also experienced episodes of temporary memory loss.
For some, however, muscle problems show up shortly after treatment begins. Ed Ontiveros began having muscle problems within 30 days of taking Lipitor. He fell in the bathroom and had trouble getting up. The weakness subsided when he went off Lipitor. In another case, reported in the medical journal Heart, a patient developed rhabdomyolysis after a single dose of a statin.6 Heel pain from plantar fascitis (heel spurs) is another common complaint among those taking statin drugs. One correspondent reported the onset of pain in the feet shortly after beginning statin treatment. She had visited an evangelist, requesting that he pray for her sore feet. He enquired whether she was taking Lipitor. When she said yes, he told her that his feet had also hurt when he took Lipitor.7
Active people are much more likely to develop problems from statin use than those who are sedentary. In a study carried out in Austria, only six out of 22 athletes with familial hypercholesterolemia were able to endure statin treatment.8 The others discontinued treatment because of muscle pain.
By the way, other cholesterol-lowering agents besides statin drugs can cause joint pain and muscle weakness. A report in Southern Medical Journal described muscle pains and weakness in a man who took Chinese red rice, an herbal preparation that lowers cholesterol.9 Anyone suffering from myopathy, fibromyalgia, coordination problems and fatigue needs to look at low cholesterol plus Co-Q10 deficiency as a possible cause.
Neuropathy
Polyneuropathy, also known as peripheral neuropathy, is characterized by weakness, tingling and pain in the hands and feet as well as difficulty walking. Researchers who studied 500,000 residents of Denmark, about 9 percent of that country’s population, found that people who took statins were more likely to develop polyneuropathy.10 Taking statins for one year raised the risk of nerve damage by about 15 percent--about one case for every 2,200 patients. For those who took statins for two or more years, the additional risk rose to 26 percent.
According to the research of Dr. Golomb, nerve problems are a common side effect from statin use; patients who use statins for two or more years are at a four to 14-fold increased risk of developing idiopathic polyneuropathy compared to controls.11 She reports that in many cases, patients told her they had complained to their doctors about neurological problems, only to be assured that their symptoms could not be related to cholesterol-lowering medications.
The damage is often irreversible. People who take large doses for a long time may be left with permanent nerve damage, even after they stop taking the drug.
The question is, does widespread statin-induced neuropathy make our elderly drivers (and even not-so-elderly drivers) more accident prone? In July of 2003, an 86-year-old driver with an excellent driving record plowed into a farmers’ market in Santa Monica, California, killing 10 people. Several days later, a most interesting letter from a Lake Oswego, Oregon woman appeared in the Washington Post:12
"My husband, at age 68, backed into the garage and stepped on the gas, wrecking a lot of stuff. He said his foot slipped off the brake. He had health problems and is on medication, including a cholesterol drug, which is now known to cause problems with feeling in one’s legs.
"In my little community, older drivers have missed a turn and taken out the end of a music store, the double doors of the post office and the front of a bakery. In Portland, a bank had to do without its drive-up window for some time.
"It is easy to say that one’s foot slipped, but the problem could be lack of sensation. My husband’s sister-in-law thought her car was malfunctioning when it refused to go when a light turned green, until she looked down and saw that her food was on the brake. I have another friend who mentioned having no feeling in her lower extremities. She thought about having her car retrofitted with hand controls but opted for the handicapped bus instead."
Heart Failure
We are currently in the midst of a congestive heart failure epidemic in the United States--while the incidence of heart attack has declined slightly, an increase in the number heart failure cases has outpaced these gains. Deaths attributed to heart failure more than doubled from 1989 to 1997.13 (Statins were first given pre-market approval in 1987.) Interference with production of Co-Q10 by statin drugs is the most likely explanation. The heart is a muscle and it cannot work when deprived of Co-Q10.
Cardiologist Peter Langsjoen studied 20 patients with completely normal heart function. After six months on a low dose of 20 mg of Lipitor a day, two-thirds of the patients had abnormalities in the heart’s filling phase, when the muscle fills with blood. According to Langsjoen, this malfunction is due to Co-Q10 depletion. Without Co-Q10, the cell’s mitochondria are inhibited from producing energy, leading to muscle pain and weakness. The heart is especially susceptible because it uses so much energy.14
Co-Q10 depletion becomes more and more of a problem as the pharmaceutical industry encourages doctors to lower cholesterol levels in their patients by greater and greater amounts. Fifteen animal studies in six different animal species have documented statin-induced Co-Q10 depletion leading to decreased ATP production, increased injury from heart failure, skeletal muscle injury and increased mortality. Of the nine controlled trials on statin-induced Co-Q10 depletion in humans, eight showed significant Co-Q10 depletion leading to decline in left ventricular function and biochemical imbalances.15
Yet virtually all patients with heart failure are put on statin drugs, even if their cholesterol is already low. Of interest is a recent study indicating that patients with chronic heart failure benefit from having high levels of cholesterol rather than low. Researchers in Hull, UK followed 114 heart failure patients for at least 12 months.16 Survival was 78 percent at 12 months and 56 percent at 36 months. They found that for every point of decrease in serum cholesterol, there was a 36 percent increase in the risk of death within 3 years.
Dizziness
Dizziness is commonly associated with statin use, possibly due to pressure-lowering effects. One woman reported dizziness one half hour after taking Pravachol.17 When she stopped taking it, the dizziness cleared up. Blood pressure lowering has been reported with several statins in published studies. According to Dr. Golumb, who notes that dizziness is a common adverse effect, the elderly may be particularly sensitive to drops in blood pressure.18
Cognitive Impairment
The November 2003 issue of Smart Money19 describes the case of Mike Hope, owner of a successful ophthalmologic supply company: "There’s an awkward silence when you ask Mike Hope his age. He doesn’t change the subject or stammer, or make a silly joke about how he stopped counting at 21. He simply doesn’t remember. Ten seconds pass. Then 20. Finally an answer comes to him. ‘I’m 56,’ he says. Close, but not quite. ‘I will be 56 this year.’ Later, if you happen to ask him about the book he’s reading, you’ll hit another roadblock. He can’t recall the title, the author or the plot." Statin use since 1998 has caused his speech and memory to fade. He was forced to close his business and went on Social Security 10 years early. Things improved when he discontinued Lipitor in 2002, but he is far from complete recovery--he still cannot sustain a conversation. What Lipitor did was turn Mike Hope into an old man when he was in the prime of life.
Cases like Mike’s have shown up in the medical literature as well. An article in Pharmacotherapy, December 2003, for example, reports two cases of cognitive impairment associated with Lipitor and Zocor.20 Both patients suffered progressive cognitive decline that reversed completely within a month after discontinuation of the statins. A study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh showed that patients treated with statins for six months compared poorly with patients on a placebo in solving complex mazes, psychomotor skills and memory tests.21
Dr. Golomb has found that 15 percent of statin patients develop some cognitive side effects.22 The most harrowing involve global transient amnesia--complete memory loss for a brief or lengthy period--described by former astronaut Duane Graveline in his book Lipitor: Thief of Memory.23 Sufferers report baffling incidents involving complete loss of memory--arriving at a store and not remembering why they are there, unable to remember their name or the names of their loved ones, unable to find their way home in the car. These episodes occur suddenly and disappear just as suddenly. Graveline points out that we are all at risk when the general public is taking statins--do you want to be in an airplane when your pilot develops statin-induced amnesia?
While the pharmaceutical industry denies that statins can cause amnesia, memory loss has shown up in several statin trials. In a trial involving 2502 subjects, amnesia occurred in 7 receiving Lipitor; amnesia also occurred in 2 of 742 subjects during comparative trials with other statins. In addition, "abnormal thinking" was reported in 4 of the 2502 clinical trial subjects.24 The total recorded side effects was therefore 0.5 percent; a figure that likely under-represents the true frequency since memory loss was not specifically studied in these trials.
Cancer
In every study with rodents to date, statins have caused cancer.25 Why have we not seen such a dramatic correlation in human studies? Because cancer takes a long time to develop and most of the statin trials do not go on longer than two or three years. Still, in one trial, the CARE trial, breast cancer rates of those taking a statin went up 1500 percent.26 In the Heart Protection Study, non-melanoma skin cancer occurred in 243 patients treated with simvastatin compared with 202 cases in the control group.27
Manufacturers of statin drugs have recognized the fact that statins depress the immune system, an effect that can lead to cancer and infectious disease, recommending statin use for inflammatory arthritis and as an immune suppressor for transplant patients.28
Pancreatic Rot
The medical literature contains several reports of pancreatitis in patients taking statins. One paper describes the case of a 49-year-old woman who was admitted to the hospital with diarrhea and septic shock one month after beginning treatment with lovastatin.29 She died after prolonged hospitalization; the cause of death was necrotizing pancreatitis. Her doctors noted that the patient had no evidence of common risk factors for acute pancreatitis, such as biliary tract disease or alcohol use. "Prescribers of statins (particularly simvastatin and lovastatin) should take into account the possibility of acute pancreatitis in patients who develop abdominal pain within the first weeks of treatment with these drugs," they warned.
Depression
Numerous studies have linked low cholesterol with depression. One of the most recent found that women with low cholesterol are twice as likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Researchers from Duke University Medical Center carried out personality trait measurements on 121 young women aged 18 to 27.30 They found that 39 percent of the women with low cholesterol levels scored high on personality traits that signalled proneness to depression, compared to 19 percent of women with normal or high levels of cholesterol. In addition, one in three of the women with low cholesterol levels scored high on anxiety indicators, compared to 21 percent with normal levels. Yet the author of the study, Dr. Edward Suarez, cautioned women with low cholesterol against eating "foods such as cream cakes" to raise cholesterol, warning that these types of food "can cause heart disease." In previous studies on men, Dr. Suarez found that men who lower their cholesterol levels with medication have increased rates of suicide and violent death, leading the researchers to theorize "that low cholesterol levels were causing mood disturbances."
How many elderly statin-takers eke through their golden years feeling miserable and depressed, when they should be enjoying their grandchildren and looking back with pride on their accomplishments? But that is the new dogma--you may have a long life as long as it is experienced as a vale of tears.
Any Benefits?
Most doctors are convinced--and seek to convince their patients--that the benefits of statin drugs far outweigh the side effects. They can cite a number of studies in which statin use has lowered the number of coronary deaths compared to controls. But as Dr. Ravnskov has pointed out in his book The Cholesterol Myths,31 the results of the major studies up to the year 2000--the 4S, WOSCOPS, CARE, AFCAPS and LIPID studies--generally showed only small differences and these differences were often statistically insignificant and independent of the amount of cholesterol lowering achieved. In two studies, EXCEL, and FACAPT/TexCAPS, more deaths occurred in the treatment group compared to controls. Dr. Ravnskov’s 1992 meta-analysis of 26 controlled cholesterol-lowering trials found an equal number of cardiovascular deaths in the treatment and control groups and a greater number of total deaths in the treatment groups.32 An analysis of all the big controlled trials reported before 2000 found that long-term use of statins for primary prevention of heart disase produced a 1 percent greater risk of death over 10 years compared to a placebo.33
Recently published studies do not provide any more justification for the current campaign to put as many people as possible on statin drugs.
Honolulu Heart Program (2001)
This report, part of an ongoing study, looked at cholesterol lowering in the elderly. Researchers compared changes in cholesterol concentrations over 20 years with all-cause mortality.34 To quote: "Our data accords with previous findings of increased mortality in elderly people with low serum cholesterol, and show that long-term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases risk of death. Thus, the earlier that patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death. . . The most striking findings were related to changes in cholesterol between examination three (1971-74) and examination four (1991-93). There are few studies that have cholesterol concentrations from the same patients at both middle age and old age. Although our results lend support to previous findings that low serum cholesterol imparts a poor outlook when compared with higher concentrations of cholesterol in elderly people, our data also suggest that those individuals with a low serum cholesterol maintained over a 20-year period will have the worst outlook for all-cause mortality [emphasis ours]."
MIRACL (2001)
The MIRACL study looked at the effects of a high dose of Lipitor on 3086 patients in the hospital after angina or nonfatal MI and followed them for 16 weeks.35 According to the abstract: "For patients with acute coronary syndrome, lipid-lowering therapy with atorvastatin, 80 mg/day, reduced recurrent ischemic events in the first 16 weeks, mostly recurrent symptomatic ischemia requiring rehospitalization." What the abstract did not mention was that there was no change in death rate compared to controls and no significant change in re-infarction rate or need for resuscitation from cardiac arrest. The only change was a significant drop in chest pain requiring rehospitalization.
ALLHAT (2002)
ALLHAT (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial), the largest North American cholesterol-lowering trial ever and the largest trial in the world using Lipitor, showed mortality of the treatment group and controls after 3 or 6 years was identical.36 Researchers used data from more than 10,000 participants and followed them over a period of four years, comparing the use of a statin drug to "usual care," namely maintaining proper body weight, no smoking, regular exercise, etc., in treating subjects with moderately high levels of LDL cholesterol. Of the 5170 subjects in the group that received statin drugs, 28 percent lowered their LDL cholesterol significantly. And of the 5185 usual-care subjects, about 11 percent had a similar drop in LDL. But both groups showed the same rates of death, heart attack and heart disease.
Heart Protection Study (2002)
Carried out at Oxford University,37 this study received widespread press coverage; researchers claimed "massive benefits" from cholesterol-lowering,38 leading one commentator to predict that statin drugs were "the new aspirin."39 But as Dr. Ravnskov points out,40 the benefits were far from massive. Those who took simvastatin had an 87.1 percent survival rate after five years compared to an 85.4 percent survival rate for the controls and these results were independent of the amount of cholesterol lowering. The authors of the Heart Protection Study never published cumulative mortality data, even though they received many requests to do so and even though they received funding and carried out a study to look at cumulative data. According to the authors, providing year-by-year mortality data would be an "inappropriate" way of publishing their study results.41
PROSPER (2002)
PROSPER (Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk) studied the effect of pravastatin compared to placebo in two older populations of patients of which 56 percent were primary prevention cases (no past or symptomatic cardiovascular disease) and 44 percent were secondary prevention cases (past or symptomatic cardiovascular disease).42 Pravastatin did not reduce total myocardial infarction or total stroke in the primary prevention population but did so in the secondary. However, measures of overall health impact in the combined populations, total mortality and total serious adverse events were unchanged by pravastatin as compared to the placebo and those in the treatment group had increased cancer. In other words: not one life saved.
J-LIT (2002)
Japanese Lipid Intervention Trial was a 6-year study of 47,294 patients treated with the same dose of simvastatin.43 Patients were grouped by the amount of cholesterol lowering. Some patient had no reduction in LDL levels, some had a moderate fall in LDL and some had very large LDL reductions. The results: no correlation between the amount of LDL lowering and death rate at five years. Those with LDL cholesterol lower than 80 had a death rate of just over 3.5 at five years; those whose LDL was over 200 had a death rate of just over 3.5 at five years.
Meta-Analysis (2003)
In a meta-analysis of 44 trials involving almost 10,000 patients, the death rate was identical at 1 percent of patients in each of the three groups--those taking atorvastatin (Lipitor), those taking other statins and those taking nothing.44 Furthermore, 65 percent of those on treatment versus 45 percent of the controls experienced an adverse event. Researchers claimed that the incidence of adverse effects was the same in all three groups, but 3 percent of the atorvastatin-treated patients and 4 percent of those receiving other statins withdrew due to treatment-associated adverse events, compared with 1 percent of patients on the placebo.
Statins and Plaque (2003)
A study published in the American Journal of Cardiology casts serious doubts on the commonly held belief that lowering your LDL-cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol, is the most effective way to reduced arterial plaque.45 Researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City examined the coronary plaque buildup in 182 subjects who took statin drugs to lower cholesterol levels. One group of subjects used the drug aggressively (more than 80 mg per day) while the balance of the subjects took less than 80 mg per day. Using electron beam tomography, the researchers measured plaque in all of the subjects before and after a study period of more than one year. The subjects were generally successful in lowering their cholesterol, but in the end there was no statistical difference in the two groups in the progression of arterial calcified plaque. On average, subjects in both groups showed a 9.2 percent increase in plaque buildup.
Statins and Women (2003)
No study has shown a significant reduction in mortality in women treated with statins. The University of British Columbia Therapeutics Initiative came to the same conclusion, with the finding that statins offer no benefit to women for prevention of heart disease.46 Yet in February of 2004, Circulation published an article in which more than 20 organizations endorsed cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines for women with several mentions of "preferably a statin."47
ASCOT-LLA (2003)
ASCOT-LLA (Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial--Lipid Lowering Arm) was designed to assess the benefits of atorvastatin (Lipitor) versus a placebo in patients who had high blood pressure with average or lower-than-average cholesterol concentrations and at least three other cardiovascular risk factors.48 The trial was originally planned for five years but was stopped after a median follow-up of 3.3 years because of a significant reduction in cardiac events. Lipitor did reduce total myocardial infarction and total stroke; however, total mortality was not significantly reduced. In fact, women were worse off with treatment. The trial report stated that total serious adverse events "did not differ between patients assigned atorvastatin or placebo," but did not supply the actual numbers of serious events.
Cholesterol Levels in
Dialysis Patients (2004)
In a study of dialysis patients, those with higher cholesterol levels had lower mortality than those with low cholesterol.49 Yet the authors claimed that the "inverse association of total cholesterol level with mortality in dialysis patients is likely due to the cholesterol-lowering effect of systemic inflammation and malnutrition, not to a protective effect of high cholesterol concentrations." Keeping an eye on further funding opportunities, the authors concluded: "These findings support treatment of hypercholesterolemia in this population."
PROVE-IT (2004)
PROVE-IT (PRavastatin Or AtorVastatin Evaluation and Infection Study),50 led by researchers at Harvard University Medical School, attracted immense media attention. "Study of Two Cholesterol Drugs Finds One Halts Heart Disease," was the headline in the New York Times.51 In an editorial entitled "Extra-Low Cholesterol," the paper predicted that "The findings could certainly presage a significant change in the way heart disease patients are treated. It should also start a careful evaluation of whether normally healthy people could benefit from a sharp drug-induced reduction in their cholesterol levels."52
The Washington Post was even more effusive, with a headline "Striking Benefits Found in Ultra-Low Cholesterol."53 "Heart patients who achieved ultra-low cholesterol levels in one study were 16 percent less likely to get sicker or to die than those who hit what are usually considered optimal levels. The findings should prompt doctors to give much higher doses of drugs known as statins to hundreds of thousands of patients who already have severe heart problems, experts said. In addition, it will probably encourage physicians to start giving the medications to millions of healthy people who are not yet on them, and to boost dosages for some of those already taking them to lower their cholesterol even more, they said."
The study compared two statin drugs, Lipitor and Pravachol. Although Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS), makers of Pravachol, sponsored the study, Lipitor (made by Pfizer) outperformed its rival Pravachol in lowering LDL. The "striking benefit" was a 22 percent rate of death or further adverse coronary events in the Lipitor patients compared to 26 percent in the Pravachol patients.
PROVE-IT investigators took 4162 patient who had been in the hospital following an MI or unstable angina. Half got Pravachol and half got Lipitor. Those taking Lipitor had the greatest reduction of LDL-cholesterol--LDL in the Pravachol group was 95, in the Lipitor group it was 62--a 32 percent greater reduction in LDL levels and a 16 percent reduction in all-cause mortality. But that 16 percent was a reduction in relative risk. As pointed out by Red Flags Daily columnist Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, the absolute reduction in the rate of the death rate of those taking Lipitor rather than Pravachol, was one percent, a decrease from 3.2 percent to 2.2 percent over 2 years.54 Or, to put it another way, a 0.5 percent absolute risk reduction per year--these were the figures that launched the massive campaign for cholesterol-lowering in people with no risk factors for heart disease, not even high cholesterol.
And the study was seriously flawed with what Kendrick calls "the two-variables conundrum." "It is true that those with the greatest LDL lowering were protected against death. However, . . . those who were protected not only had a greater degree of LDL lowering, they were also on a different drug! which is rather important, yet seems to have been swept aside on a wave of hype. If you really want to prove that the more you lower the LDL level, the greater the protection, then you must use the same drug. This achieves the absolutely critical requirement of any scientific experiment, which is to remove all possible uncontrolled variables. . . As this study presently stands, because they used different drugs, anyone can make the case that the benefits seen in the patients on atorvastatin [Lipitor] had nothing to do with greater LDL lowering; they were purely due to the direct drug effects of atorvastatin." Kendrick notes that the carefully constructed J-LIT study, published 2 years earlier, found no correlation whatsoever between the amount of LDL lowering and death rate. This study had ten times as many patients, lasted almost three times as long and used the same drug at the same dose in all patients. Not surprisingly, J-LIT attracted virtually no media attention.
PROVE-IT did not look at side effects but Dr. Andrew G. Bodnar, senior vice president for strategy and medical and external affairs at Bristol Meyer Squibb, makers of the losing statin, indicated that liver enzymes were elevated in 3.3 percent of the Lipitor group but only in 1.1 percent of the Pravachol group, noting that when liver enzyme levels rise, patients must be advised to stop taking the drug or reduce the dose.55 And withdrawal rates were very high: thirty-three percent of patients discontinued Pravachol and 30 percent discontinued Lipitor after two years due to adverse events or other reasons.56
REVERSAL (2004)
In a similar study, carried out at the Cleveland Clinic, patients were given either Lipitor or Pravachol. Those receiving Lipitor achieved much lower LDL-cholesterol levels and a reversal in "the progression of coronary plaque aggregation."57 Those who took Lipitor had plaque reduced by 0.4 percent over 18 months, based on intravascular ultrasound (not the more accurate tool of electron beam tomography); Dr. Eric Topol of the Cleveland Clinic claimed these decidedly unspectacular results "Herald a shake-up in the field of cardiovascular prevention.. . . the implications of this turning point--that is, of the new era of intensive statin therapy--are profound. Even today, only a fraction of the patients who should be treated with a statin are actually receiving such therapy. . . More than 200 million people worldwide meet the criteria for treatment, but fewer than 25 million take statins."58 Not surprisingly, an article in The Wall Street Journal noted "Lipitor Prescriptions Surge in Wake of Big Study."59
But as Dr. Ravnskov points out, the investigators looked at change in atheroma volume, not the change in lumen area, "a more important parameter because it determines the amount of blood that can be delivered to the myocardium. Change of atheroma volume cannot be translated to clinical events because adaptive mechansims try to maintain a normal lumen area during early atherogenesis."60
Other Uses
With such paltry evidence of benefit, statin drugs hardly merit the hyperbole heaped upon them. Yet the industry maintains a full court press, urging their use for greater and greater numbers of people, not only for cholesterol lowering but also as treatment for other diseases--cancer, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, stroke, macular degeneration, arthritis and even mental disorders such as memory and learning problems, Alzheimers and dementia.61 New guidelines published by the American College of Physicians call for statin use by all people with diabetes older than 55 and for younger diabetes patients who have any other risk factor for heart disease, such as high blood pressure or a history of smoking.62 David A. Drachman, professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School calls statins "Viagra for the brain."63 Other medical writers have heralded the polypill, composed of a statin drug mixed with a blood pressure medication, aspirin and niacin, as a prevent-all that everyone can take. The industry is also seeking the right to sell statins over the counter.
Can honest assessment find any possible use for these dangerous drugs? Dr. Peter Langsjoen of Tyler, Texas, suggests that statin drugs are appropriate only as a treatment for cases of advanced Cholesterol Neurosis, created by the industry’s anti-cholesterol propaganda. If you are concerned about your cholesterol, a statin drug will relieve you of your worries.
Creative Advertising
The best advertising for statin drugs is free front-page coverage following gushy press releases. But not everyone reads the paper or goes in for regular medical exams, so statin manufacturers pay big money for creative ways to create new users. For example, a new health awareness group called the Boomer Coalition supported ABC’s Academy Awards telecast in March of 2004 with a 30-second spot flashing nostalgic images of celebrities lost to cardiovascular disease--actor James Coburn, baseball star Don Drysdale and comedian Redd Foxx. While the Boomer Coalition sounds like a grass roots group of health activists, it is actually a creation of Pfizer, manufacturers of Lipitor. "We’re always looking for creative ways to break through what we’ve found to be a lack of awareness and action," says Michal Fishman, a Pfizer spokeswoman. "We’re always looking for what people really think and what’s going to make people take action," adding that there is a stigma about seeking treatment and many people "wrongly assume that if they are physically fit, they aren’t at risk for heart disease."64 The Boomer Coalition website allows visitors to "sign up and take responsibility for your heart health," by providing a user name, age, email address and blood pressure and cholesterol level.
A television ad in Canada admonished viewers to "Ask your doctor about the Heart Protection Study from Oxford University." The ad did not urge viewers to ask their doctors about EXCEL, ALLHAT, ASCOT, MIRACL or PROSPER, studies that showed no benefit--and the potential for great harm--from taking statin drugs.
The Costs
Statin drugs are very expensive--a course of statins for a year costs between $900 and $1400. They constitute the mostly widely sold pharmaceutical drug, accounting for 6.5 percent of market share and 12.5 billion dollars in revenue for the industry. Your insurance company may pay most of that cost, but consumers always ultimately pay with higher insurance premiums. Payment for statin drugs poses a huge burden for Medicare, so much so that funds may not be available for truly lifesaving medical measures.
In the UK, according to the National Health Service, doctors wrote 31 million prescriptions for statins in 2003, up from 1 million in 1995 at a cost of 7 billion pounds--and that’s just in one tiny island.65 In the US, statins currently bring in $12.5 billion annually for the pharmaceutical industry. Sales of Lipitor, the number-one-selling statin, are projected to hit $10 billion in 2005.
Even if statin drugs do provide some benefit, the cost is very high. In the WOSCOP clinical trial where healthy people with high cholesterol were treated with statins, the five-year death rate for treated subjects was reduced by a mere 0.6 percent. As Dr. Ravnskov points out,66 to achieve that slight reduction about 165 healthy people had to be treated for five years to extend one life by five years. The cost for that one life comes to $1.2 million dollars. In the most optimistic calculations, the costs to save one year of life in patients with CHD is estimated at $10,000, and much more for healthy individuals. "This may not sound unreasonable," says Dr. Ravnskov. "Isn’t a human life worth $10,000 or more?"
"The implication of such reasoning is that to add as many years as possible, more than half of mankind should take statin drugs every day from an early age to the end of life. It is easy to calculate that the costs for such treatment would consume most of any government’s health budget. And if money is spent to give statin treatment to all healthy people, what will remain for the care of those who really need it? Shouldn’t health care be given primarily to the sick and the crippled?"
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