“Statin Pushers And The Public”
The huge pharmaceutical companies (Big Pharma) are incredibly adept with their “campaigns of persuasion” and the marketing of their frequently dubious products. One cholesterol-lowering drug, Lipitor, became the best-selling drug in the history of pharmaceuticals, even though it barely made it to the patient testing phase. Lipitor went on sale in 1997 and joined three blockbuster cholesterol-lowering (statin) drugs, which were making over $1 billion annually. Lipitor gained a foot-hold and went on to sell more than $125 billion over 14 1/2 years. Its sales were so meteoric that it was nicknamed “turbostain” by industry insiders and provided about 25% of the annual revenue of Pfizer Inc. The aggressive Lipitor sales teams utilized new standards for a marketing campaign. Family physicians and cardiologists were repeatedly visited and the public was smothered with advertising claims of the wondrous abilities of Lipitor at lowering cholesterol levels.
