“Everyone over the age of 55 should take drugs to lower their blood pressure – even if their reading is normal, a leading doctor has recommended. Professor Malcolm Law’s research found the medication cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes regardless of a person’s blood pressure.”

That wondrous comment above came from the Mail online, although it can be found in various and sundry places on the web. I had been meaning to write on this sooner, but it somehow got lost in my drafts.

But “studies” like these, and marvelous “recommendations” for “preventive” health like this nonsense is what makes people suspicious of doctors and the healthcare establishment in general. Malcolm Law sounds like a pharmaceutical salesman, out to make a huge commission by trying to persuade people to take drugs that they neither want nor need. This so-called heart specialist apparently thinks that it is okay to expose healthy persons to the side effects of these drugs, which can be quite profound, as well as the expense.

Basically, the man is either on someone’s payroll or is just profoundly unqualified to be practicing medicine. Perhaps Dr. Law would like to put me on anti-hypertensives. My resting blood pressure is about 90/65. How much lower does he think it should go?

My goodness, how do people manage to stay alive without taking anti-hypertensives? How has the human race survived this long without them?

These comments are priceless:

‘Our results indicate the importance of lowering blood pressure in everyone over a certain age, rather than measuring it in everyone and treating it in some,’ he said.

I love it–one size fits all medicine. Age should be the deciding factor, not any of the individual characteristics of the person. As I said, would Dr. Law think that I needed to lower my blood pressure? Does he realize that there are hundreds of millions of persons on this planet over the age of 55 who are healthy, fit, have a normal blood pressure and who will not die of heart disease. And in fact, if they take the advice of the wonderful Dr. Law, they may instead end up suffering from depression, fatigue, impotence–all known side effect of anti-hypertensive drugs.

He added that the pills were relatively cheap and the side effects could be minimised by combining low doses of three blood pressure lowering drugs into a single tablet.

So would he like to foot the bill for drugging the world’s over 55 population? And take responsibility for the side effects? I wonder how old Dr. Law is, and if he is following his own advice.

Now here is a great quote from the guy, which really shows his intelligence. Or perhaps, he really has nothing to say to support his views so he had to fear monger (nothing like adding swine flu to the mix).

Addressing concerns about ‘ medicalising’ the population, he said: ‘If, for example, swine flu was serious, we would want to vaccinate everybody. You wouldn’t want to try to assess who is at highest risk and only vaccinate them. We see this as analogous.’

So is he really saying that he sees no difference in offering a vaccine to everyone in the case of an outbreak of a very serious and lethal virus, and one that is airborne and highly infectious–and trying to force healthy people with normal blood pressure to take medication to correct a problem they don’t have? Or even if there blood pressure is a little on the high side, not to try to first correct it with lifestyle changes and diet?

On another website, it says that Law and his co-author Nicholas Wald hold patents (granted and pending) on the formulation of a combined pill to simultaneously reduce four cardiovascular risk factors, including blood pressure. So it does appear that Dr. Law and his co-conspirators are really out to make some money.

Thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll pass on the Law and Wald wonder pill and stick to the tried and true of staying healthy–you know, those old fashioned ideas of staying slim, exercising, eating healthy fresh food–obviously thinks that Dr. Law would prefer we all forget about.