DUANE GRAVELINE, MD, MPH

Duane Edgar Graveline, MD, MPH (1931-2016) was family physician, US Air Force Flight Surgeon, and NASA astronaut. He authored 10 professional publications on biological deconditioning and weightlessness countermeasures. He retired at age 60 from 32 years of family practice, and wrote medical and science fiction, with 15 novels to his credit.

While on Lipitor, Graveline developed transient global amnesia and could not recognize his family. He slowly recovered after stopping the medication. NASA physicians then prescribed half the dose, but the amnesia returned. Following his experience with cholesterol drug side effects, Graveline became a critic of the use of statins to treat high cholesterol levels.

Graveline wrote four books on his statin research: Lipitor, Thief of Memory (2010), Statin Drugs Side Effects (2006), Statin Damage Crisis (2014), and The Dark Side of Statins (2016). His criticisms include the important role of cholesterol in the metabolic pathways in the brain and its proper functioning, including mediating synaptogenesis.

Dr Graveline’s CMP presentation is entitled Statin Drugs and the Misguided War on Cholesterol.