Wonder drug aimed at creating wonderful profits for Big Pharma It's no secret that Big Pharma companies allow their marketing departments to have an undue amount of influence on their research and development departments. There's one new drug in the works that has "marketing gimmick" written all over it. The drug in question is known as the "Polypill" - it's a 5-in-1 pill that's designed to fight heart disease. The pill would contain cholesterol medicines (statins), blood pressure drugs, and even low-dose aspirin. This is nothing new. The last time I wrote to you about the Polypill, there were claims that it had a 34 percent rate of prevention for heart attacks (a claim based on some statistical chicanery). The Polypill is back in the news because of a new study that claims it can reduce the risk of heart disease or stroke by as much as 50 percent. The Polypill is still in the research stages and is years away from FDA approval. But Big Pharma puts its marketing departments into motion early to build momentum. Unfortunately, this would-be wonder drug is nothing more than a marketing ploy. Allow me to point out some of the "reasons" that some doctors support the creation of this new pill. Dr. James Stein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison lauded the potential "psychological advantages" of the Polypill. "If you take any medicines, you know that every pill you see in your hand makes you feel five years older," Stein says. "Patients really object to pill burden." Really? That's why we need this new drug? Because patients "feel" too old when they take more than one pill? Seems like a stretch to me. Thankfully, there are some doctors who are as skeptical of the drug as I am. Harvard cardiologist Dr. Christopher Cannon says this one pill won't work for everyone. "Some people would be over-treated by getting medicines for conditions they don't yet have, such as high cholesterol," Cannon said. "Others may be under-treated by too-low doses in the combo pill." The bottom line is this: the Polypill is nothing more than a marketing ploy aimed at creating another drug like statins that patients will be expected to take for years on end - maybe even the rest of their lives. Which means big bucks for Big Pharma. Prostate cancer treatments can be brutal and life changing - in all the wrong ways. For many men, having their prostate cancers treated can often be the worst part of the disease. Finally, a new study suggests that patients with early stage prostate tumors can opt for what's being called "watchful waiting" rather than surgery. This process of "active surveillance" method is now coming into favor for men who have cancers that have a low risk of their spreading to other parts of the body. According to Dr. Bertrand Guillonneau of the renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, prostate cancer can be a rough diagnosis in spite of the fact that it has a high survival rate. "There is still a large number of patients who are over-treated and who will suffer from prolonged side effects that impair quality of life," Guillonneau said. Guillonneau and his colleagues studied over 250 men under the age of 75 with prostate cancer who chose the "watchful waiting" method over other forms of treatment. The study found that the cancers of 75 percent of these patients exhibited no change in their cancers for five years, and they could continue to merely monitor their cancers. Ironically, this study of non-treatment could be the biggest advance in the treatment of prostate cancer yet. | 
