Various independent studies in prestigious, peer-reviewed journals have shown that statin use in primary prevention - that is, to save lives - has minimal or no value in reducing mortality and certainly nothing that is considered anywhere near clinically significant to warrant their widespread use. It does not matter how one manipulates the statistics, the results just aren't there.
The problem really comes down to vested interests and the abuse of statistics. To overcome the limitations of small studies, vested parties combine many studies into a meta-analysis. The researchers themselves select the studies used in the meta-analysis. A fundamental problem is that researchers with direct links to drug companies have the authority to select the most positive studies and ignore the rest - including independent studies not funded by pharmaceutical companies. Despite this, they have still not been able to show any clinically significant findings.
As readers of the scientific journals, we should not be confused between statistical significance and clinical significance. For an outcome to be "statistically significant" means that the outcome was likely a result of the treatment - whether the result was 100% effective or less than 0.1% effective. That is, if you treat 1,000 people to save one life (0.1%) it may be statistically significant but it is not clinically significant. "Clinical significance" means 20% to 30% or more. The drug companies' most positive studies on statins for prevention of CVD report statistical significance, mostly 1% or less, and none have found any clinical significance.
Busy medical professionals don't have time to review the statistics; few of them may be aware of the different ways the statistics are manipulated. So if the experienced professionals don't understand the results of these studies, how do we expect the media or public to understand?...read more>>>...
