Brain Stents Double Risk of Stroke: Proof Evidence-Based Medicine Is a Fraud

When there's no excuse for not knowing and when patients do worse—including death and permanent disability—what should we call it? How can it be considered anything but negligent homicide?

by Heidi Stevenson

12 September 2011

Brain stents have been hyped as a miracle in treating stroke patients. The FDA has been approving—even fast-track approving—them since 2005. There's just one problem: They were never seriously tested. So now, six years since their use became common in stroke treatment, a study has finally been done to actually see if they're effective and safe. The results are dramatic. Not only are they useless, stents double the number of strokes patients subsequently suffer.

Brain stents were hailed as a near-perfect treatment in stroke cases. In January, MedicineNet reported that stenting "appears nearly full-proof in unblocking brain arteries".⁽¹⁾ Not only were they being promoted for use in severe strokes, but as this article demonstrates, they were pushed for mild ones, too. In fact, Dr. Italo Linfante, lead author of the study cited, was even promoting use for people at risk for stroke, not only those who had already suffered strokes.

Moving the Goal Posts

How did Linfante claim such great success? He used one of the standard techniques used to mislead. Instead of considering the ultimate effect on patients' health, he looked at something else. He reported on the stents' ability to open arterial passages. That, of course, sounds convincing. But that's the wrong goal. It should be how brain stents affect patients' lives. However, when there's money to be made by selling medical devices and implanting them, goal posts can be moved.

If you can't show that treatment actually benefits patients, then move the goal posts to what you can show.

This month, the New England Journal of Medicine came out with a study, "Stenting versus Aggressive Medical Therapy for Intracranial Arterial Stenosis"⁽²⁾ designed to find out how brain stents actually perform in terms that matter. 451 patients were enrolled. Approximately half were treated with stents, and the other half with antiplatelet therapy. The results after 30 days were dramatic:

	Stented Patients	Non-Stented Patients
Total percent of events:	20.5%	11.5%
Percent of strokes at 30 days:	14.8%	5.3%
Any stroke or death:	23.2%	16.3%
Disabling or fatal stroke:	8.5%	5.7%
Myocardial infarction:       (heart attack)	3.3%	2.2%
Major non-stroke hemorrhage:	4.5%	1.8%
Any major hemorrhage:	9.8%	2.2%

After 30 days, the rate of stroke is about the same for both groups. All the extra risk from using stents could be seen within 30 days. In fact, the truth is even worse than that. Within the first 30 days, stent-treated patients suffered 33 strokes. 25 of the 33 strokes occurred within a day of the procedure, and 8 (the rest of them) occurred just 2-6 days after it!

It's obvious that researchers had to make a point of not finding the truth about using brain stents for stroke treatment and prevention. Is it any wonder that they moved the goal posts? It sounded good that they could keep blood vessels open—but that isn't the point. The only salient question is whether patients do better. In the case of brain stents, not only do patients not do better, they do worse at twice the rate of patients treated normally.

Corruption

When there's no excuse for not knowing, as in the case of brain stents, and when patients do worse—including death and permanent disability—what should we call it? How can it be considered anything but negligent homicide?

That's exactly what seems to be happening in the hallowed halls of our hospitals. Blatantly inadequate research, funded by those who profit from it, intentionally uses the wrong goals. Instead of examining whether patients get better, they find an impressive-sounding goal that they can meet. And then they hype it.

Of course, the agencies that are supposed to protect us from such shenanigans have also been corrupted. So, instead of stopping such ploys, they go along with them. The FDA has not only approved brain stents, it has even fast-tracked their approval. At least one was pushed through under the Humanitarian Device Exemption Program!⁽³⁾

And, by the way, there's no indication that the FDA is looking at brain stents now. One might have thought they'd issue an emergency order to stop their use. So far though, there's been nothing but silence.

Protect Yourself

Of course, the best protection is good health. Don't ever forget that. But, should you find yourself suffering from a serious health problem, keep in mind that there are alternatives, and that they are often superior—even far superior—to mainstream medicine.

If you do feel that you must utilize mainstream medicine—and Gaia Health does believe that there are situations in which it is the best option—be sure to ask your doctor if a treatment is well established. If it isn't, you might consider refusing it, or at least asking what other options exist.

Don't pay any attention to the hype directed at either you, the patient, or your doctor. That hype is virtually always ginned up by those who profit from it. Old reliable approaches are usually your best bet. (Though there are exceptions even to this, as documented in Routine Treatment for Shock Kills 3 Out of 100 Children.)

Sad to say, if you enter the modern medical system, you must protect yourself, not only from outright malpractice, but also from many of the treatments that are accepted as routine, or even the best. Brain stents are only one of many examples of untested treatments pushed on unwitting patients.

Finally, when you're told that modern medicine is evidence-based, just laugh. Obviously, it isn't.

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