Heath Ledger and Dr. Robert Jarvik: The Thread That Connects

Heath Ledger was an actor who died on January 22, 2008 at the age of 28. Dr. Robert Jarvik is a physician best known as the inventor of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, and has recently been starring in a series of commercials for the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor.

Although Heath Ledger and Dr. Robert Jarvik would seem to occupy different universes, there is a thread that connects them, a thread that should be examined for the unfortunate way it plays itself out in everyday life.

The Australian-born Heath Ledger had been in 18 movies, many of them critical and box-office successes. He received an Academy Award nomination in 2005 for his role as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain.

His last completed role (he was acting in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus when he died, and filming has been suspended) was for the film The Dark Knight, in which he plays Batman’s nemesis, The Joker.

In a November 2007 New York Times interview, Ledger had stated that his recently-completed role in The Dark Knight had taken a toll on his ability to sleep: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. ... I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." At that time, he said that he had taken two sleeping pills, after taking just one had not sufficed, and those left him in a stupor, and gave him an hour of sleep at best. In January 2008 he also came down with an upper respiratory illness.

When he was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on January 22, sleeping pills were found by his bedside, but an autopsy was inconclusive as to whether sleeping pills played a role in his death. Ten days later, on February 6, toxicology reports allowed the New York City medical examiner to state that Heath Ledger died accidentally from being overmedicated. It was found that he was taking six different medications—two pain medications, three anti-anxiety medications, and a cold medication.

Dr. Robert Jarvik, born in 1946, resides in New York City. Best known for the artificial heart he pioneered, he has since been working on several other heart-related inventions. He most recently is working on the Jarvik 2000 FlowMaker.

Dr. Jarvik, who received his medical degree from the University of Utah, is not a cardiologist and has never been licensed to practice medicine. In 2006, he returned to the spotlight when he began to appear in television and magazine ads for the Pfizer cholesterol drug Lipitor. In the ads, Jarvik is shown doing a number of physical activities while stating, “When diet and exercise aren’t enough, adding Lipitor significantly lowers cholesterol.”

But as it turns out, the ads contain false advertising. In the ads, he is depicted rowing a one-man racing shell across a lake. Yet, Dr. Jarvik does not know how to row, and a stunt double played Dr. Jarvik in the scene. One colleague of Dr. Jarvik said, “He’s about as much an outdoorsman as Woody Allen.” Dr. Jarvik is not a cardiologist, nor a practicing physician, yet here he is dispensing advice, and supporting his claim with some fancy sleight-of-hand.

Lipitor, which is a statin drug, is known to have serious side effects. Two of the most troubling potential side effects of Lipitor include extreme muscle pain and muscle disease (statin induced myopathy), and serious liver problems. In addition to serious muscle and liver problems much research has shown that side effects of Lipitor could include sexual dysfunction and performance problems, as well as memory loss, personality changes and irritability.

Another FDA approved statin called Baycol was recently pulled off the market due to serious side effects and even deaths.

Because of the false advertising, the United States Congress is now investigating Dr. Jarvik, Lipitor and Pfizer. For Pfizer, there is much at stake. Lipitor is the world’s bestselling drug, with 2007 sales of $12.7 billion. To help drive business for the drug, Pfizer spent $258 million from January 2006 to September 2007 on the marketing of Lipitor, with much of that going into the Jarvik campaign.

Too many people in the U. S. are extremely over-medicated. It is not uncommon for people to be taking four, six, ten or more drugs at any one time. The interaction of various drugs in the body is always a cause for concern—there can be volatile and unpredictable reactions in the body from the many drugs, and it is one that can have potentially lethal complications, as we tragically saw with Heath Ledger.

Yet drug companies continue to market away, spending tons of money to make you believe that you need to take medications, and that there is nothing else that can help you better your health.

Sadly, if only Heath Ledger knew better.

My advice: empower and educate yourself. Your greatest doctor is yourself. We have great reservoirs of healing capability within. There may be a time when you need to take a medication—but see it as a bridge to help you get over the hump, as opposed to relying on it to help you get healthier. Because it won’t.