Who is Cat Girl?

I pay attention to Substack subscribers and followers who say they like my posts as well as those who are not so kind in expressing views they disagree with. But an unusual name that pops up frequently as one who likes my posts is Cat9257Girl aka Maryanne Demasi, PHD. Originally, I thought Cat Girl must be a long-time friend and bio scientist who I have known for years. But when I recently asked her, she said “no that’s not me. But it’s a good name. I wished I had thought of it.”

So, I wondered. Is this some younger female that is looking for an elderly sugar daddy with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peeling? Wondering what’s up with Cat Girl, I availed myself to information about her on Substack. I was relieved to know she is apparently a serious medical scientist and not some silly cat woman seeking a sugar daddy. She has researched the statins and based on her work provides some evidence that the effectiveness of this much prescribed drug may not be all that its cracked up to be. On her Substack page she explained some statistical concepts and results of a study published by the Journal of Medical Analysis that totaled the results from 21 statin trials involving 143,532 participants.

Statins are a topic of interest to me because in the summer of 2023 a well-known New York City cardiologist Dr. Tara Narula Congello discovered I have coronary artery disease. As a result, I had a stent placed in a major artery after which she prescribed one of the statin drugs along with blood thinners commonly given to people with my condition.

As it turns out, the pharmaceutical industry highlight the relative advantage of taking statins while ignoring the much less significant absolute or actual advantage the drug provides. For example, if your baseline risk of having a heart attack is 2% and taking a drug reduces that risk to 1%, then in relative terms you halved your risk. A 50% risk reduction sounds impressive. A 1% reduction not so much.

The following chart based on the above noted study reveals the much less actual risk reduction that the much promoted relative risk reduction.

Still if your risk of suffering a heart attack is lowered by 1% that’s at least something even if it is far less impressive than the hyped 50% risk reduction. After about 16 months of taking statins I have not suffered any noticeable side effects. But I am not much aware of the longer term side effects that are known to be related to statins.

I believe this study outlined by Dr. Demasi is an example a lack of transparency that is all to common in the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry as it seeks to maximize profits to keep its stockholders happy. Truths hidden by the pharmaceutical industry regarding Covid vaccine side effects have been very substantial and are now being increasingly revealed.

A lack of truth in advertising from the pharmaceutical industry is very much what RFK Jr. is hoping to help restore as a member of the next Trump administration. He has expressed his desire to get the total risk/reward picture to patients in a form they can understand so they can make informed decisions whether or not to take various medications.

The U.S. is reportedly only one of two countries in the world that permit pharmaceutical companies to advertise their drugs. I remember decades ago when I was very young and an advocate of free markets (as I still am) a medical doctor friend of mine in New York City had a fit over the idea that advertising on TV was soon to be permitted. He felt doctors would be distracted from the best interests of patients as they would be induced to prescribe drugs by pharmaceutical salesmen and that patients would be more assertive in demanding prescriptions in response to ads the would see on TV. The pharmaceutical industry along with the insurance industry have revealed my friend to be a prophet.

I applaud Dr. Demasi for highlighting this study and I hope the Trump Administration can reverse the practice of censorship for profit as well as political gain not only in the field of medicine but in every area of our lives. A strong First Amendment is the only way we can have transparency in health and every other area of our lives in an honest pursuit of truth.

Jay Taylor