I saw the article below and it made me so disgusted. People are more willing to stuff a pill down their kid’s throat than make them exercise and eat healthy food?!? This kiddie version of lipitor has been approved for children as young as 10 years old. Isn’t it tragic that kids that young have high cholesterol? Shouldn’t we think about what is really wrong here?
I also have a hard time buying the whole “it’s nobody’s fault the kid is fat, it’s just bad genetics” argument. Are the overweight families feeding their children fresh produce and taking them to the park? Or are the kids eating the same high-calorie meals that they are eating and sitting in front of the tv?
Advertising has taken away all the personal responsibility. If you want to lose weight, just drink a diet soda or eat a diet chocolate bar. God forbid you actually examine what lifestyle choices got you there in the first place! It’s not your fault you are heavy. Blame your family tree and buy our products. Gah!
By LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer – Tue Jul 6, 12:32 pm ET
TRENTON, N.J. – The European Union has approved a new chewable form of cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor for children 10 and up with high levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides, a type of blood fat, Pfizer said Tuesday.
The approval includes children whose high blood fats are due to an inherited disease that causes extremelyhigh cholesterol levels, familial hypercholesterolemia.
New York-based Pfizer Inc. won U.S. approval for Lipitor use in children 10 to 17 with that condition in 2002.
Lipitor is the world’s top-selling drug, with 2009 sales of about $13 billion, but its U.S. patent expires at the end of November 2011. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, will quickly lose most Lipitor revenue once generic competition hits, so the company has been trying to boost sales where possible before then.
Pfizer said last fall that it plans to apply for a six-month extension of its patent in European countries, after doing studies of Lipitor in youngsters.
As in the United States, the European Union allows drug makers to seek an additional six months of patent protection for medications if they test them in children, who generally are excluded from the drug studies performed to win approval for a new medication.
Pfizer already won such an extension for its crucial U.S. patent on Lipitor.
For blockbuster drugs, those extensions can easily bring hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue. Normally, they are for drugs that are widely used by different age groups.
Until recently, cholesterol drugs have been primarily taken by adults with heart disease, but their use has expanded to younger patients as more obese, sedentaryteenagers and adolescents develop heart disease and diabetes.
Lipitor is approved to lower risk of heart attack and stroke, but can cause dangerous muscle pain or weakness, and it cannot be taken by patients with liver problems or by nursing or pregnant women.
