Auntie a hot bed of denialists
I am repeating this in full as it is so important to everyone's health from cut and paste in the OZ
THINGS aren't looking so sunny side up as Catalyst jumps out of the frying pan into the firing line.
From the Catalyst website, a description of the show's episode "The Cholesterol Myth: Dietary Villains and Cholesterol Drug War" that aired on ABC1 on Thursday:
IS the role of cholesterol in heart disease really one of the biggest myths in the history of medicine?
For the last four decades we've been told that saturated fat clogs our arteries and high cholesterol causes heart disease. It has spawned a multi-billion-dollar drug and food industry of "cholesterol-free" products promising to lower our cholesterol and decrease our risk of heart disease.
But what if it all isn't true? What if it's never been proven that saturated fat causes heart disease? And what if the majority of patients taking cholesterol lowering drugs won't benefit from taking these pills?
Fire from within. Sue Dunlevy on news.com.au yesterday:
THE ABC's health expert Dr Norman Swan has warned people will die as a result of a controversial program shown by his own network that questioned the role of cholesterol in heart disease.
It comes as doctors have told the medical press that they are under siege from patients who want to stop taking their cholesterol-lowering medications in the wake of the program. "People will die as a result of the Catalyst program unless people understand at heart what the issues are," Swan told ABC radio. He said what made him "really angry" was the effect it might have on indigenous Australians, who are especially likely to suffer from high cholesterol.
And Peter Martin in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:
THE program was attacked ahead of last Thursday's broadcast by health experts including the ANU's professor Emily Banks, who begged the ABC not to show it. The ABC denied news organisations including Fairfax Media the usual preview copies ... ABC management declined to comment on the Catalyst program. Calls to the Catalyst production office went unanswered.
Diner, step away from that bacon! Back to Swan:
LET'S be clear. When you reduce cholesterol, regardless of how you do it - whether it's by statins, by other drugs or by diet - if you reduce your cholesterol you reduce the rate of coronary heart disease, of heart attacks and strokes and death. The evidence is absolutely clear.
Back in the day. Introduction to Catalyst episode that aired on September 25, 2008:
IN Australia, 50,000 young people are at risk of a heart attack or stroke and they don't even know it. They have a disease that causes genetically high cholesterol. Dr Norman Swan rolls up his sleeve to reveal some alarming facts about cholesterol.
1 comments
1 comments
Continuing rumbles over Catalyst's cholesterol denialists at the Sceptical Nutritionist website yesterday:
THE cholesterol controversy featured on the ABC's Catalyst program had nothing to do with science; it appears to have been designed to sell palm oil. Was the Catalyst team naive or complicit? .
The ABC's own health reporter, Dr Norman Swan, was irate, declaring on Radio National that "People will die as a result of the Catalyst program" .
Catalyst used to be a respected, evidence-based science program. How did it come to this? . . .
The history of "The Cholesterol Wars" has been beautifully recorded in a series of five articles by leading authority Daniel Steinberg. Steinberg traces the gradual accumulation of different kinds of evidence supporting the lipid hypothesis until it was finally confirmed once and for all.
This is the definitive history but the war is well and truly over. Why would Catalyst even attempt to suggest that it's all a con?