Vytorin Parody Advertisement and Scientific Fraud at Merck (video)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: Vytorin, drug trials, Merck

This is a parody advertisement of Vytorin, the cholesterol drug manufactured and marketed by Merck and Schering-Plough that turns out to have been promoted with scientific fraud. Even though the drug received FDA approval several years ago, no one was really sure if it worked, so Merck conducted a clinical trial to find out.

The results of the trial were ready in April, 2006, but Merck wasn't happy with the results, so it simply refused to release them to either the FDA or the public. Instead, it decided to try to manipulate the data by altering the design of the study after the fact. This is called "cherry picking the science" to get the results you want.

The medical community was outraged at Merck's obvious attempt to distort science to get the results they want, so Merck eventually backed off its plan to alter the goal of the study and, instead, decided to just sit on the data a little longer.

Finally, nearly two years after the study results were completed (and billions of dollars worth of Vytorin had already been prescribed to patients), Merck released the study data. The result? Vytorin actually increased plaque in arteries and did nothing to reduce plaque!

Steven Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, said, "This drug doesn't work. Period. It just doesn't work."

In this video, a parody narration track is placed on top of an existing Vytorin drug ad to create a new ad "mix" that dares to tell the truth about Merck, Vytorin and blatant scientific fraud.