Todd Heimowitz

[Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD @houmanhemmati]

🚨🫀Big news out of cardiology today.

Novartis just announced that pelacarsen — the monthly shot built to lower lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a) — FAILED its Phase 3 outcomes trial.

8,323 patients with established heart disease and high Lp(a). Monthly injections for years. A roughly seven-year study. Novartis paid $150 million to license it in 2019 on top of the earlier collaboration money. Ionis has booked well over $275 million from the partnership. Novartis then funded the global outcomes trial itself — the kind of study that costs hundreds of millions to run. Wall Street treated this as a multi-billion-dollar franchise. Many cardiologists talked about it as the next statin.

The drug lowered Lp(a).

It did not reduce heart attacks, strokes, cardiovascular deaths, or urgent procedures to open blocked arteries versus placebo.

They hit the blood test. They missed the only thing that matters. That’s why we have clinical trials.

Lp(a) has been sold as the “hidden killer,” the reason people who do everything right still have events. This was the first large outcomes trial built to test whether lowering it actually protects patients already on modern therapy. It failed. High Lp(a) can still mark higher risk. Lowering it with this drug did not. Flatten a lab value, get no clinical benefit, and you are left with the risks of a new injectable and no payoff. Full data at AHA in November. Until then, the topline is the topline.

What actually prevents heart attacks and strokes? Lowering LDL cholesterol. Statins. Ezetimibe. PCSK9 inhibitors. When LDL falls, events fall. That has been reproduced in tens of thousands of patients. Diet, movement, sleep, not smoking, and blood-pressure control still matter. If you want a lipid drug with proven outcome benefit, LDL lowering is it. Lp(a) lowering, as of today, is not.

I know many of you worry statins cause memory loss or dementia. Those concerns deserve a real answer. Heart Protection Study: 20,000+ people, simvastatin vs placebo, ~5 years: no cognitive difference. PROSPER: nearly 6,000 people aged 70–82, formal cognitive testing year after year: same decline on drug and placebo. CTT: ~124,000 patients across 19 placebo-controlled statin trials — cognitive/memory reports 0.2% per year on statin and 0.2% on placebo. Add hundreds of millions of patient-years of real-world use. If these drugs were destroying brains at a meaningful rate, it would have shown up. It has not.

No medicine is perfectly safe. Muscle symptoms are real for some people. You individualize therapy. You do not throw out the one lipid intervention proven to stop heart attacks because of a side-effect story the randomized data do not support.

I’ve spent my career in medicine and biotech watching a biomarker move, a narrative get built, and patients get sold the new thing… until the outcomes trial reads out. That is today.

If someone is pushing an Lp(a)-lowering shot on the promise it will prevent your next heart attack, ask them what Lp(a)HORIZON just showed in 8,323 patients.

Lower the LDL. Control blood pressure. Don’t smoke. Move. Eat like an adult. Everything else has to earn its place in an outcomes trial.

[Carolina Baseball @DiamondHeels]

Happy Manager (and bullpen catcher) Appreciation Week to these hustlers who work incredibly hard everyday to make Bosh Magic possible! 👏👏

Ever grateful for you all!

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Football just means more when you wake up early in the cold weather for it @stoolpresidente @BNKonFOX

[Carolina Baseball @DiamondHeels]

Have to show some love to our crew during Student Manager Appreciation Week! Couldn't do all we do without your hard work and dedication 👏👏

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@JKeller5 Breathe

[AG @AGHamilton29]

I know most of the people responsible or who are covering for it don't care, but let me explain how American Jews are feeling right now:

The overwhelming majority of Jews only live in a few countries in the world. Our families were driven out of much of Europe by pogroms and The Holocaust, and then we were ethnically cleansed from most of the Middle East.. something that rarely gets discussed.

As a result of that history, there is only a feeling of safety in societies that protect pluralism and in the world's only Jewish country. The existence of Jews in Israel is central to the Jewish religion, no matter how much some people would like to pretend otherwise.

The point is that for most Jews, Zionism is part of their identity. It's not about support for the Israeli government or any particular policy, but simply the right for the existence of the Jewish state.

Now we get to America and these protests. American Jews are Americans. We support the right of a Jewish state to exist, but that doesn't mean we want to be Israelis. Just like a French American can support the existence of France, or an Iranian American can support the existence of Iran (and can care about what happens there..). Yet I want people to understand how concerning it is to see what we are seeing now, especially given the history of the Jewish people. More upsetting is that much of this is just being ignored or downplayed by those in a position to speak up.

We are seeing videos of Jewish kids being restricted from entering school libraries. Jewish kids are being assaulted. Jewish kids face mobs attacking and harassing them simply for maintaining a belief that is central to their identity. And they are told that it's not an issue because all they have to do is denounce that part of their identity and then they can be counted as good Jews and accepted.

Then we are also seeing these mobs now openly chant for violence against "zionists," demand that "zionists" be banned from public spaces, chant for "Zionists" not to be allowed on the streets. Chant for violence against an overwhelming majority of Jews. And often also the ethnic cleansing of our relatives in Israel.

When most Jews hear that, it means us and our families. No amount of spin will change that. The goal is to try to make us feel unwelcome in these spaces and it is explicit.

You have no idea the feelings that video of a group of idiots at UCLA not letting a Jewish kid go to the library because he was a "zionist" brought out for Jewish Americans...

And before people start to argue about what things like "there is only one solution, intifada revolution" and "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Arab", we know what they mean. More importantly, we've made it clear how we perceive these things and that has made the mobs want to chant them even louder because they view it as effective intimidation. Not one of these chants has ever helped a Palestinian. Not one of them has ever changed a single Israeli policy. They are specifically aimed at intimidating people in America.

But it has gotten worse...

Businesses owned by Jews in Los Angeles are getting threatening calls telling them they either need to openly oppose Israel or they risk harassment/attacks. Jewish Synagogues facing bomb threats. Jewish-owned property is being vandalized. Jewish organizations are being explicitly targeted. Jews who support Israel are being actively targeted. And the demand is that we just accept it.

And again, the sickest part of it is not only the relative silence, but those who are supposed to inform the public on what is happening are pretending like it isn't happening because it would undermine a "mostly peaceful" narrative they prefer.

They are actively covering for the mobs doing these very things. And by the time this escalates, it will be too late. We can see where this is headed. And not just for Jews, because while we may be at the top of the target list, the people behind this also hate so many other aspects of American society and are open about saying so. They think they are revolutionaries and the society that Americans sacrificed so much to help build is their ultimate target.

The education system is failing as an institution to teach these wannabe Red Guards why this behavior is wrong. The media is failing as an institution to tell people the truth about what is happening. The government, mostly in deep blue areas, is failing as an institution to live up to its part of the social contract in protecting people from these criminal mobs. That's a lot of failures that are driving us into dangerous territory. American Jews aren't going to accept this path and being bullied out of public spaces without fighting back. I hope non-Jewish Americans wake up to it and also stand up against it because the more these mobs get away with, the further they will go. It may start with Jews (or "zionists"), but it won't end there.

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

The fighting has been going on for almost 7 months. One side started the fighting on Oct 7th. But for 7 months, the world has been protesting & demanding that only one side stop the fighting. Only one side. They’ve been demonstrating around the world against only one side in this war. When they angrily shout “ceasefire” they direct their anger only to that one side. Never the other side. Never the side that started the fighting 7 months ago by targeting, shooting, raping, stabbing, butchering, terrorizing, slaughtering, blowing up, killing, and kidnapping civilian men, women & children. For the past 7 months, there have been no angry protests around the world against the side that started all of this. No organized marches calling for them to lay down their arms and free the hostages. No. The anger around the world the past 7 months has been directed only at the one side.

Not curious at all. Pretty much as expected.

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@JKeller5 Fantastic!!! Wow!!!

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@jeremytache Horrible. Disagree with governmental policy. Sure. Okay. But “refute jewishness”. Terrible.

[The Daily Beast @thedailybeast]

OPINION: Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo seems confused about the differences between DNA and mRNA vaccines. https://t.co/IcRH5nzQ70

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@JKeller5

[Yasmine Mohammed 🦋 ياسمين محمد @YasMohammedxx]

I don’t even understand antisemitism, tbh. It was easy to understand it growing up because it was clearly a religious demand. But I can’t figure out why secular ppl have this much hate. Like if you’re going to be so bigoted that you’re gonna hate a ppl for their religion, you skipped past the ones that actually engaged in holy wars across the planet and you decided you’d hate on the only ones that DON’T proselytize and conquer and invade and colonize? What’s your problem with 0.2% of the planet? Too many Nobel prizes? Too many successful doctors, lawyers, artists, and scientists? What exactly is it that you hate about Jewish ppl? I don’t want to hear the lies that this has anything to do w Israel when you are out there screaming gas the Jews and Khaybar Khaybar etc. This is hate for Jewish ppl and we all know it. We just don’t know why.

[NBC 6 South Florida @nbc6]

‘Real heroism': South Florida doctor's nephew joins 5 others in Israel fight days before wedding. https://t.co/8eqFSmV8sc

[Ben Dreyfuss @bendreyfuss]

At least 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians were killed deliberately in Hamas’s terrorist attack last week.

That is more than the number of people who have been killed in every single mass shooting in the United States combined since 1982.

https://t.co/DrEHUlm2c4

[Gal Gadot @GalGadot]

At this moment there are hundreds of missing innocent Israelis, their families broken and begging for any piece of information, any lead to help bring them home.

I am using my platform to share their names. their faces, to tell the world what is happening.

Please share their photos, share the stories
together let's #BringThemBack

if you have any information or if your loved one is missing please contact us

https://t.co/82PiL5CV1n

[Noah Pollak @NoahPollak]

This statement by University of Florida president (and former senator) @BenSasse is such a wonderful ray of clarity, principle, and genuine warmth -- in contrast to the cold, committee-written word salad from the Ivy League presidents.

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@JKeller5 @ringer @theStevenRuiz You mean after Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur services, right?

[American Heart News @HeartNews]

Chronic exposure to lead, cadmium and arsenic increases risk of cardiovascular disease
https://t.co/glzqyjoPyT

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@JKeller5 @5ReasonsSports You’re literally in the Final Four. Enjoy it.

And the cats are hanging in there!
🐀

[Todd Heimowitz @theimowitz]

@JKeller5 Why would you do that??