Cholesterol Drugs For Eight Year Olds?
I’m sure there are cases where young children who are genetically predisposed to having high cholesterol, need the intervention of a statin, a cholesterol lowering drug. My own mother, while not a child has had a big problem with high cholesterol despite both my parents efforts to only buying and preparing low cholesterol and cholesterol lowering foods. The point is that I know sometimes eating right does not solve the problem in all cases.
Having said all that we come to the recent debate about young children and teens who follow such poor eating habits and inactivity that they have cholesterol readings that are so high their doctors are prescribing pills to lower it. It’s to this segment of our population that I speak to now. Young children don’t have jobs so where are they getting the money to buy fast food and junk food? How are they getting there? I assume they are not driving themselves. I doubt very much that they are doing the cooking and grocery shopping in the home as well. So who is responsible for their poor nutrition and eating habits and their inactivity? Could it be their parents?
It seems a real shame that a child has to take the same kind of drugs some elderly people take because they have parents who not only cannot set a good example but that can’t say no to treats being regular meals.
Is the attitude of the American people really “just take another pill”? If so we have a lot of parents that need some parenting themselves, before their children grow up to pay the price with their lives.
Heparin Contamination Not Accidental
It has become clear that the contamination of the drug Heparin was deliberate. It is also clear that our friends in China where the contamination took place, are not going to allow us to get to the bottom of exactly who did it. China says that they want the right to inspect our drug factories if we expect to be able to inspect theirs. Huh? The Chinese are way out of line on this and as a country whose people are supposed to be so honorable, seem to throw out that honor when money is involved. You see while heparin costs $900 a pound, the contaminant costs only$9.00 a pound. You do the math.
The US is not the only country that was affected by this contamination so I am anxious to see what action other countries will take against this company in China. I also wonder how far the Chinese government will go to protect guilty parties.
B. Braun Recalls Batches of Heparin
Since January 19 people have died as a result of being given the contaminated blood thinner, heparin. My own mother was in the hospital being given this drug in her IV when they came into her room and removed the drug for testing. They said it was OK and gave it back to her.
The problem was, as I understand it was that it was contaminated with something that so closely resembled heparin it passed tests as uncontaminated. The drugs were made in China and distributed here. They were not sure where the contamination took place, nor were they sure if it was purposefully done or a natural reaction of some kind.