It’s a Newsweak/DailyBeast article, automatically assumed to be untrue, though perhaps containing a truthful statement here or there, but the parts I checked out were definitely out and out lies.
This article should have been titled: “Everything About Medicine in This Article is Wrong”.
Statins are bad news all around, but I read the abstract of the Cochrane Collaboration article that was mentioned, and I quote its conclusion:
“Although reductions in all-cause mortality, composite endpoints and revascularisations were found with no excess of adverse events, there was evidence of selective reporting of outcomes, failure to report adverse events and inclusion of people with cardiovascular disease. Only limited evidence showed that primary prevention with statins may be cost effective and improve patient quality of life. Caution should be taken in prescribing statins for primary prevention among people at low cardiovascular risk.”
This is not even close to Begley’s claim that the report states that “there’s no good evidence that statins (drugs like Lipitor and Crestor) help people with no history of heart disease.”
Likewise, I read the IOM’s “Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D”. There’s not one mention in the report as Begley claims that the “Institute of Medicine concluded that having a blood test for vitamin D is pointless: almost everyone has enough D for bone health”
The report actually concludes:
“Scientific evidence indicates that calcium and vitamin
D play key roles in bone health. The current evidence, however, does not support other benefits for vitamin D or calcium intake. More targeted research should continue. Higher levels have not been shown to confer greater benefits, and in fact, they have been linked to other health problems, challenging the concept that “more is better.”
I suppose Newsweak/DailyBeast is simply spewing forth false medical propaganda to help the neo-Marxists start denying people health care under the guise that “Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong”, and therefore what the neo-Marxists will be saying must be right.
Your critical eye seems to have missed that Begley didn't make any of the claims in the article except perhaps the following.
Of course, not all conventional health wisdom is wrong. Smoking kills, being morbidly obese or severely underweight makes you more likely to die before your time, processed meat raises the risk of some cancers, and controlling blood pressure reduces the risk of stroke.
Those claims are rather specious.