By education and by trade, I was a drug chemist. My passion for science motivated a successful career in drug design and synthesis - in both academia and industry. As a scientist, I witnessed first-hand the priorities of international pharmaceutical companies ("Big Pharma"), which ranked wealth first and health a distant second.

In the pharmaceutical industry, making money supercedes science. Science no longer prevails in medicine. Instead, modern medicine has been "democratized." Drug approval is a simple matter of 51% telling the other 49% that a prescription drug is safe and necessary.

The outcome is lethal: deadly drugs are approved for use among misinformed medical doctors and patients. Cholesterol-lowering drugs such as Lipitor, Crestor, Pravachol, Zocor and Mevacor serve as poignant examples.

No one would care to look twice - or even once - at the origin of statin drugs. Except, perhaps, if you needed one more reason not to use them or were an FDA-approved drug addict looking for an inexpensive alternative.

The origin of statin drugs is not a testament to the ingenuity and innovation of drug companies. Despite enjoying an unprecedented surge of momentum in popularity, statins are nothing more than an isolated poison derived from the fungus known as red yeast rice (Monascus purpurus). [1] In a natural response to the threat of a predator, red yeast produces the drug known as Lovastatin (as well as other chemicals). Utilizing fundamental laboratory research, the discovery and isolation of Lovastatin from red yeast rice was paid for by the U.S. government in the 1970s. [2] This secured a monopoly of knowledge, allowing for the censorship of the truth behind the wildly popular cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Commercially, Lovastatin is known as Mevacor. It was the first statin drug, released in 1987 by the U.S. government-influenced company named Merck. Using a technique known as combinatorial chemistry, other drug companies have since unleashed their own versions.

As a toxic agent, the consumption of Lovastatin via red yeast rice by its predators leads to sickness and in some cases, death. This is true for humans as well. Lovastatin's (and all other statin drugs) toxicity is attributed to its ability to block cholesterol and CoQ10 production.