Persons wlth high levels of cholesterol normally take medicinals called statins to lower their blood cholesterol, and thus lessen the chances of a heart attack.
While patients who need these drugs (like Lescol, Zocor, etc.) and are under 75 years old take them from the Out-Patients Pharmacy of St Luke's Hospital, those who are over 75 must buy them. This is very unjust and amounts to age discrimination.
For years doctors have shied away from prescribing statin drugs to the elderly, thinking that they may be too old to benefit from the cholesterol-lowering medications.
But a major study, funded by Bristol-Myers Squibb, suggests that people in their 70s and 80s may benefit from statins just like the millions of middle-aged people already on the drugs. The study involved 5,804 British men and women aged 70 to 82 who were put on a statin drug for an average 3.2 years.
All the people had risk factors for heart diseases. Not only did the drug lower LDL cholesterol - the bad kind - by an average of 34%, but it also reduced heart attacks by 19% and fatal heart attacks by 24%.
The study was published in The Lancet and presented at the American Heart Association scientific sessions 2002.
"There is clearly no justification for withholding statins from the elderly," said James Shepherd, a professor of pathology and biochemistry at the University of Glasgow and the study's lead investigator.
Professor Shepherd argued that while intervention to reduce cardiovascular disease would increase expenditure in the short term, the increase would be greater if treatments such as statins are withheld from elderly patients.
Recently, an MP asked Health Minister Louis Deguara to consider changing the present policy which is very unjust because elderly patients over 75 have to buy Lescol tablets.
When, in his reply, Dr Deguara mentioned the protocol of June 1998, did he try to blame others for the present situation?
We are living in 2005, not in 1998, and clinical evidence has now demonstrated that elderly patients benefit from statin therapy.