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Crestor, another statin drug, is already following in Baycol’s footsteps and seems doomed to a similar fate. After reports of kidney damage and muscle weakness, a precursor to rhabdo, AstraZeneca abruptly stopped ongoing clinical trials for Crestor involving patients taking 80 milligrams per day. Crestor has been listed by Public Citizen as a “DO NOT USE” drug because, like Lipitor and Lescor, it has not demonstrated a significant health benefit in terms of lowering cholesterol and minimizing the risk of heart attack or stroke. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, has gone on record as stating: “It becomes clearer by the day that this drug is uniquely toxic, but offers no unique benefit and must be removed from the market.”


AstraZeneca, however, has countered the medical and scientific evidence of the drug’s dangers with an expensive direct to consumer marketing campaign featuring actor Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation). Thus, Crestor, like all too many other dangerous drugs, remains a “cash cow” because of creative marketing and not because it is a safe and effective treatment for the medical condition it was designed to alleviate.


Crestor has been labeled particularly dangerous because of the threat of kidney toxicity in addition to rhabdo, a relatively common side effect connected to statin usage. Unlike other statins, however, Crestor causes abnormal elevations in urine protein and blood, both of which are indicators of severe kidney toxicity. While other statins have been responsible for sporadic cases of rhabdo, Crestor is the only statin that has revealed the potential for life-threatening rhabdo development prior to FDA approval. As reported in PharmaLive: “The FDA had evidence before approving the cholesterol drug Crestor that it caused an increased incidence of rhabdomyolysis (severe muscle deterioration), yet the agency approved it anyway, erroneously believing that this toxicity was limited to an 80 milligram dose that was not ultimately approved.”


The warning label for all statin drugs, including Crestor, indicates that liver function tests are recommended both before and 12 weeks after beginning treatment or changing dosage. Periodic tests are recommended for as long as treatment continues. Rhabdo is also mentioned as a rare side effect as is acute renal failure. Rare or not, however, these side effects need to be taken seriously as they are potentially fatal.


Public Citizen’s Health Research Group believes that the FDA should have required routine urine testing for Crestor patients taking both available dosages as this would reveal traces of protein, an indicator of kidney problems. In a letter to the FDA dated October 29, 2004, the organization has petitioned for the drug to be taken off the market. (Public Citizen made a similar petition in March, 2003).


As of now, regular urine testing is only required for people who have diabetes or are pregnant. Urine testing is just one way in which treatment should be continually and closely monitored. Ongoing monitoring by a physician is perhaps the only way to catch serious medical problems before they become fatal.


Cases of serious Crestor-related side effects began surfacing even before the drug was released on the global market. (As reported in PharmaLive: “The rate of reports of kidney failure or damage among patients taking the cholesterol drug Crestor is 75 times higher than in all patients taking all other statins, according to a Public Citizen analysis of government data.”) The reports of 65 Crestor-related cases of rhabdomyolysis in the United States is a rate approaching that of Baycol which was taken off the market for that very reason. As a result, two major U.S. insurance companies, WellPoint, and Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, have refused to reimburse for Crestor citing Baycol as a precursor.

If you or a loved one have been injured by Crestor, Contact Bagolie Friedman Injury Lawyers now for a confidential and free consultations.

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