Oh dear, every few months the same old posters start up about statins. Raised from their hibernation by some dodgy newspaper article or obscure laboratory work, they inform us of a friend or relative that falls into the 1% of severe symptoms and had the misfortune to be under the care of the 0.1% of doctors that underperform.
The fact is that doctors do not over prescribe, patients over demand. In the UK the government has just had a tiz about the massive over prescription of antibiotics for sore throats. The result? GPs all agree but patients demand them and they are handed out.
I am dismayed that thalidomide has now been brought into the argument. It was because of the unpredicted side effects of this drug that most countries around the world set up the regulatory framework that require new drugs to go through animal and then human studies and this is why we have not had a recurrence.
We all want a cure, but the reality is that cures are rare. My practicing lifetime has seen the greatest lengthening of life expectancy not because of medical advances but because of improved diets, less smoking and improved lifestyles/jobs/air quality. Those cures we are expecting (HIV, macular degeneration etc) will be so labour intensive or costly that only the ones that seriously improve quality of life will be affordable, and even then only in a handful of first world countries.
To those of you who slander doctors and the drug industry (I havent met a sales rep in 20 years) think what life would be like without antibiotics. Think what the second and third world would consist of without drugs and vaccinations.
Statins save far more lives than they harm. As the 'opposition' have posted, side effects are reversible. Heart attacks and strokes kill, and death is not reversible.
Can we please remember nobody is forced to take statins. Those who believe the science is wrong can go without. But lets not keep going round this argument again and again.