Statement of Robert Jarvik, MD, President and CEO of Jarvik Heart, Inc. Regarding the Lipitor DTC Adve...( NEW YORK Feb. 26 /- The following...),Health

NEW YORK, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement being issued by Robert Jarvik, MD:

A lifetime career in heart disease

I remain deeply committed to alleviating suffering from heart disease, and I assure the public, from the bottom of my heart, that I have been sincere and honest in my role as Lipitor spokesman. The record needs to show that the ad campaign Pfizer tastefully presented to the public, using beautiful natural settings and high tech modern architecture, fairly represents me as a world recognized heart expert.

As spokesman for Lipitor, I have been an advocate of preventive medicine in addition to my work with the Jarvik 2000 Heart, which has rescued people from death and sustained a patient with a normal, mobile lifestyle for seven and a half years -- the longest in the world. The Jarvik 2000 Heart is in clinical trials at 18 medical centers in the U.S., is fully approved for use in Europe, and is also used in Australia and Japan.

Over 30 years ago, I invented an improvement to previous artificial hearts that extended the durability from weeks to years and enabled the first human application of any permanent total artificial heart -- the Jarvik 7. The more recent Jarvik 2000 is much less well known to the public than the Jarvik 7 was, but has been successfully miniaturized to the size of a c-cell battery with a belt-worn portable power system weighing only 2-1/2 lbs, compared to the four hundred pound console developed decades ago for the Jarvik 7. The improvement in patient quality of life is outstanding.

I am in fact a medical doctor; I am a world expert in mechanical heart technology; and I am an athletically fit man who takes care of his own health through diet and exercise, including frequent five mile runs.

Qualifications to endorse Lipitor

As a medical doctor who chose a career in artificial heart technology rather than clinical practice, I decided not to take an internship, whic
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