government declares yet another war on ill health: welcome to the war on heart attacks

THE CDC’S BRAND NEW WAR AGAINST HEART ATTACKS

 Various organizations within our government (CDC, FDA, and even though it’s not “our” government, the WHO, etc, etc) are always declaring war on some health issue or another.  There’s been the ongoing WAR ON CANCER, including Joe Biden’s imprudent “MOONSHOT“.  There’s the never-ending war against acute childhood illnesses, fought mostly with VACCINES and ANTIBIOTICS.  There’s the misguided war against pain that ultimately led to the Opioid Epidemic (HERE).  The truth is, we don’t have time to talk about all of the non-military wars our government is fighting right now.  Except for the newest one.  Drum roll please….. 

We now officially have a war on heart attacks.  That’s right folks, this week’s issue of Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Reports published a paper titled State-Level Variation in Nonfatal and Fatal Cardiovascular Events Targeted for Prevention by Million Hearts 2022 that declared war and showed off their battle plans.

According to the CDC, heart attacks and strokes are hospitalizing 2.2 million Americans a year, causing between 400,000 and half a million deaths, and are costing in excess of 33 billion dollars annually.  The study went on to say that the rate of heart attacks and associated medical costs continues to climb, with  almost no end in sight.  Honestly, it’s another proof of the completely UNSUSTAINABLE TRAJECTORY of our nation’s healthcare, public and private.   The CDC’s lofty goal?  To diminish the number of heart attacks by almost half (1,000,000) over the next four years.

In early 1942, General Friedrich Paulus surrendered Germany’s 6th Army (90,000 of the original 400,000) to the Russians just outside of the obliterated city of Stalingrad.  This was not only the tipping point in the European war, but the point where Hitler’s already questionable sanity began a rapid slide south.  As the war progressed and Hitler was being pinched by Russia’s maniacal Generals, Zhukov and Konev, from the east, and Eisenhower’s allied forces from the west, Hitler spent his days and nights issuing orders.  “Hold this territory at all costs” or “Take such and such territory back from the allies”. 

The problem was, his troops were spread thin, fighting on two fronts, all the while, Germany’s military industrial complex being relentlessly pounded from the air.  So even though Hitler was issuing orders and directives right up until the bitter end — just prior to the Fuhrer Bunker being overrun by the Red Army — they carried absolutely zero weight or meaning.  Allow me to explain why what the CDC is doing with heart attacks is just as irrational.

The way that our government is going about this war on heart attacks is an exercise in futility, for many reasons, including its foundational premise.  What have I shown you over and over again, including the other day (HERE)?  I’ve shown you that our government’s and medical community’s ability to “prevent” disease is a pipe dream of epic proportions (HERE).  Mostly because the solutions are about what others are supposedly going to do for you instead of what you are going to have to knuckle down and do for yourself.  The vast majority of this program is based on — you guessed it —- “Prevention”.

While preventing disease before it starts sounds good on the surface, I’ve shown you time and time again via peer-review that it doesn’t ever work as planned, when it’s planned by the government and medical communities. Unfortunately, the CDC’s plan is based on just that — prevention, which contrary to everything you’ve ever been told, is both ineffective and cost-ineffective (HERE).    “Therefore, implementation of strategies that focus on the prevention, early diagnosis, and effective management of CVD risk factors is needed to prevent events in both the short- and long-term.”  How is this “preventative” program actually going to work? 

TARGET BLACKS:  Since statistics show that heart attacks are about a third higher in the black population, they are going after blacks.

TARGET THE YOUNG: Since approximately a third of the heart attacks occurred in the under-65 crowd, the 35-65 population are a target as well.

TARGET THE SOUTH AND MIDWEST:  The South and Midwest were both said to have worse healthcare delivery and quality than the rest of the country, so if you live in these locales, you’ll likewise be targeted for heart attack prevention.

TARGET THOSE W/ SUBSTANCE ABUSE ISSUES &  MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS:  Sounds great, but this population is extremely difficult to maintain on any sort of “WELLNESS” protocol, let alone take their meds or stay off the “substances”.  So far, nothing mentioned explains what this “targeting” really means or entails.  The specifics, however, are spelled out in an attachment (the Million Hearts 2022 diagram), which I’ve condensed for you below.

TARGET THE ENVIRONMENT:  By “improving the environments in which persons live, work, and play,” the CDC hopes to cut heart attacks from 2.2 million annually, to 1.2 million.  What specific methods are they going to use accomplish this? 

• Leveraging community resources (Huh?)
• Referral to nutritional and fitness counseling groups (I’ve shown you time and time again that this does not work)
• Provide effective outpatient care (a “team-based” approach) based on blood pressure meds, statins, PCSK9 drugs, and an 80% “improvement” in aspirin consumption (HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).
• Making sure everyone does cardiac rehab after a “cardiac event“
• Reduce sodium consumption by 20% (HERE — not effective either after looking at research)
• Reduce tobacco use by 20% (they specifically mentioned using e-cigarettes for this even though vaping and e-cigarettes are being shown to arguably be more dangerous than tobacco)
• Reduce physical inactivity by 20% (I’m not making this up; one of their ideas was to “Design communities and streets that support physical activity“)

I promise that the average physician is looking at this and laughing.  Especially considering it contained mumbo jumbo ideas for them to follow —-  “decision support, patient portals, default referrals, registries, algorithms, treatment protocols, daily huddles, ABCS scorecards, proactive outreach, patient and family supports, problem-solving, medication adherence….”  Etc, etc, etc… 

This is the kind of thing that doctors who are already burned out and overwhelmed by massive amounts of paper work (HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE) look at and roll their eyes, realizing full well that it’s just more of the same.  It’s not that the goals aren’t somehow noble or that doctors want their patients to have heart attacks and die.  It’s that what the CDC is asking is nothing new. 

It’s another program in a long line of programs meant to sound good to the public, to politicians, and to pencil-pushing bureaucrats, while doing next to nothing valuable.  The harsh reality is that the drugs mentioned don’t change physiology or homeostasis (HERE).  In fact, they barely budge morbidity and mortality numbers, even though they are hell-on-wheels when it comes to changing SURROGATE ENDPOINTS (HIGH CHOLESTEROL, BLOOD SUGAR, etc).  If people want to prevent heart attacks they’ll have to start with a healthy lifestyle. 

In other words, it’s not the kind of thing someone else can do for you.  It’s something you’ll have to do for yourself.  And it will never happen via another corny and contrived government program (HERE’S my all time favorite ridiculous government program).

LIMITATIONS:  Oh; I almost forgot to mention that, “the findings in this report are subject to at least six limitations,” chief of which was that that cost estimates were “likely conservative,” meaning that in the same way that every other government program experiences asinine cost over-runs that occur when government entities are given access to other people’s money (HERE is an example from this summer), expect this program, while accomplishing nothing that’s not already being accomplished, to cost a fortune above and beyond the fortune it was expected to cost in the first place. 

And all the while they are trying to sell us on that fact that it’s supposed to save us billions because it will cut the number of American heart attacks in half.  I’m not holding my breath.

If you are looking to get off the medical merry-go-round and start the process of taking your life back, you’re in luck.  I have a very cool post that contains a generic protocol to get you started (HERE).  You’ll probably have to add some points to it, and there will be some points that are unneeded or unwarranted (be sure and ask your cardiologist, who unfortunately is likely still swimming in the ocean of the FAT FREE / FOOD PYRAMID / 1980’s).  And if you like our site, be sure to like, share, or follow on FACEBOOK.