• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Are All the Heart Attacks Really Due to a Lack of Statins?

by Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
6 January 2023 9:00 AM

On December 1st, the U.K. Government published a technical report on the Covid pandemic.

We commented on it in our post and its late pick-up by the mainstream media and their lack of critical approach to its ‘independent’ content. 

One of the paragraphs that interested us is the one in which the Chief Medical Officer explained the non-Covid related excess mortality most European nations are experiencing: 

There is little doubt that delays in presentation, reductions in secondary prevention (such as statins and antihypertensives) and postponement of elective and semi-elective care and screening will have led to later and more severe presentation of non-Covid illness both during and after the first three waves. The combined effect of this will likely lead to a prolonged period of non-Covid excess mortality and morbidity after the worst period of the pandemic is over.

There can be little doubt that blocking access to, say, cancer screening and treatment will have disastrous consequences – one of the many legacies of lockdowns. But how did Professor Whitty and his team conclude that excess cardiovascular mortality was due to a lack of statins and antihypertensives?

Primary care is where the bulk of statins and antihypertensives are prescribed, but did the prescriptions of such drugs change during the pandemic?

Not according to Open Prescribing, which is based on monthly NHS prescribing data.

Another aspect that needs to be considered when looking at whether a lack of statins could have caused a sudden increase in cardiovascular deaths is the length of time of exposure to the drugs.

A large meta-analysis of the effects of statin use in primary prevention compared to placebo reported a number-needed-to-treat (NNT) of 138 people with statins for five years to prevent one death, 49 to prevent one cardiovascular disease (CVD) event, and 155 to prevent one stroke.

The figures for secondary prevention (in those who have known heart disease or a history of stroke) are better, as you would expect: NNT of 83 for one death after five years of exposure to a statin.

The five years do not fit the introduction of restrictions in March 2020, nor is there any evidence that lipid regulating and antihypertensive drugs were prescribed less in the last three years based on the NHS’s data.

There is evidence of a fundamental change in working practice and primary care delivery during the three periods of restrictions. Six measures recovered to pre-pandemic levels within a year, asthma and COPD (pulmonary disease) reviews recovered by August 2021, and blood pressure monitoring and cardiovascular disease risk assessment had a sustained drop in activity up to December 2021.

However, a sustained drop in monitoring is unlikely to be the reason for the increase in excess deaths. In 2017 we did a systematic review of the effect of global cardiovascular risk assessment in adults. We found its use did not translate into reductions in CVD morbidity or mortality. 

So what might be the cause? The British Heart Foundation considers “severe ambulance delays, inaccessible care and ever-growing waiting lists are contributing to heart patients dying needlessly”. 

While the data from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities report an excess of cardiovascular disease mortality, the ‘independent’ report produced by the U.K. Government does not attempt to understand what is causing the excess mortality from CVD.

In the last year, there has been an excess of 21,841 deaths with CVD mentioned on the death certificate. Our analysis suggests it isn’t a fall in drug treatment, and the drop in CVD risk monitoring can’t account for it, given the lack of evidence of an effect. 

Given all its resources, the Government could and should do better to get to the bottom of what is driving the excess in cardiovascular deaths. We’ll keep digging.

Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack blog, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.

Tags: Chris WhittyExcess deathsHeart failureNHS CrisisNon-Covid

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Boris Johnson Was Secretly ‘Nudged’ into Wearing a Mask by SAGE Scientists

Next Post

National Census: Only 0.2% of the Population Define Themselves as ‘Trans’

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

31 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

Episode 36 of the Sceptic: Karl Williams on Starmer’s Phoney Immigration Crackdown, Dan Hitchens on the Assisted Suicide Bill and Tom Jones on Reform’s Local Council Challenge

by Richard Eldred
16 May 2025
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

15 May 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

16 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

16 May 2025
by Eugyppius

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

16 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Trans Ban in Women’s Lavatories

16 May 2025
by Will Jones

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

29

Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Trans Ban in Women’s Lavatories

25

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

19

News Round-Up

18

Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

27

Trump’s Lesson in Remedial Education

16 May 2025
by Dr James Allan

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

16 May 2025
by Eugyppius

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

16 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Renaud Camus on the Destruction of Western Education

15 May 2025
by Dr Nicholas Tate

‘Why Can’t We Talk About This?’

15 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

POSTS BY DATE

January 2023
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Dec   Feb »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences