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Jarvick ... Lipitor ... Something did not seem right...

By gregladen on February 26, 2008.

So a few weeks ago, we were over at Amy and Danny's for dinner, and somehow Lipitor came up (no, it had nothing to do with the dinner Amy was cooking!). Anyway, Amy said "Why is Jarvick a good person to promote a drug. I mean, that heart didn't work, right?"

Hmm.... Good point, I thought.

And now, today's news makes it all the more interesting...

WASHINGTON -- Pfizer Inc said on Monday it was voluntarily withdrawing advertising for its Lipitor cholesterol drug featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, because its ads led to "misimpressions."

The ads involving Jarvik had come under scrutiny following an msnbc.com column written by NBC's Robert Bazell in March 2007. The column recounted Jarvik's past failures and pointed out that while he earned a medical degree, he didn't take an internship or practice medicine.

Actually, it isn't all that bad, really. I mean. why should we trust a medical scientist less than we would trust a doctor? Generally speaking, you can't assume a doctor knows anything about a particular topic until you see some evidence. So this whole flap is probably nothing more than a member of congress getting his rocks off.

Of course, that mechanical heart didn't really work, did it...

[Source: Newsmax]

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"why should we trust a medical scientist less than we would trust a doctor?"

That may be a good point, but he didn't do research on statins. If it was an artificial heart ad... maybe.