Youll have seen a lot of fuss about statins in the news recently, - TopicsExpress



          

Youll have seen a lot of fuss about statins in the news recently, because NICE have recommended that we give them to people even if theyre at very low risk of a heart attack. Some people have said thats murderous, some have said its magnificent. In reality its neither: its a fairly close call, so patients should be given good quality information so they can make their own decision. Unfortunately, as I explain in this editorial for the British Medical Journal today, that just doesnt happen. There are some interesting reasons for this. Detecting small benefits is hard: you need really big numbers of patients in your trial, and that sends costs up, so the trials arent done. This is why I argue in chapter 5 of Bad Pharma for bigger cheaper trials using NHS data. amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-How-Medicine-Broken/dp/000749808X/?tag=bs0b-21 And in this paper here: bmj/content/344/bmj.e55 Theres all that, and more, in the BMJ piece. Its an academic article, but youre a smart crowd, you can handle it. bmj/content/349/bmj.g4745
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 13:20:05 +0000

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