Transient global amnesia: a side effect of "statin" treatment

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, August-Sept, 2004 by Duane Graveline

Almighty: "Surely you do not mean this terrible allegation? Tell me you jest? I promise you that if anyone had reported cases of this type to our Shield program, we would have been the first to react. Our product is a boon to society. The only problem of substance I see is that we are not reaching all those unfortunates who are in dire need of statin therapy. Your quibbling about your rare, relatively minor and quite harmless cognitive side effects may seriously hamper our outreach efforts."

Candide: "Again I must direct your attention back to the point we already have made. Lack of physician and patient awareness of possible relationships between cognitive side effects and the use of statin drugs almost guarantees that no instances of accident and statin drug use will be reported to you. The medical examiner or police are very satisfied with a "touch of senility" or "senior moment" causation in this climate of complete statin "safety" you have established. Rare is the examiner who would look more closely.

"Let us redirect our attention again to the subject of harm and this time view harm from a different perspective--that of psychological harm. Here I am speaking of the reports we have received from guilt ridden and thoroughly angry sons and daughters who watched their parents rapidly descend into dementia shortly after having been started on statins by their doctors who were striving only for the very best preventive care. We now know that many of these cases were not coincidental senility or Alzheimer's disease but drug induced cognitive side effects. The harm here is to the guiltridden relatives who now suspect the statin drug and especially to the prescribing doctor who forever will be regarded by them as inadequate at best and possibly negligent. This well-intentioned doctor may be completely unable to accept the reality that he may have been contributing to this sad state of affairs. He has been using this drug for years and only now is the cognitive issue surfacing. His ignorance of a possible relationship between his statin prescriptions and the subsequent decline in mental faculties of his patients is because you have buried this information in your PDR rather than effectively presenting it. This doctor has been wounded just as critically as the bereaved children. In light of this reality please do not say to me how "harmless" is your statin."

Almighty: "Why will you not accept that theses infrequent cases you cite are simply co-incidental, nothing else? One of our very learned colleagues in the hallowed halls of Pfizer has recently stated that, 'There is a lot of evidence that statins improve memory function and no good evidence that it affects memory in a negative way.' What say you to this?"

Candide: "If this man be truly learned then I would say he is ignorant of the data which now exists and which I have seen. If, on the other hand, he has seen this data and can still make that statement then he is a fool, wearing the hat of medical advisor but not qualified for it."