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  1. Alan Haycox,
  2. Stuart Barton,
  3. Tom Walley
  1. Senior research fellow Senior lecturer in primary care therapeutics Professor of clinical pharmacology Prescribing Research Group, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX

    EDITOR,—We welcome the approach taken by P D P Pharoah and W Hollingworth in using life tables to evaluate the cost effectiveness of reducing cholesterol concentration.1 This approach has been widely used elsewhere2 and is a valuable technique for evaluating health service interventions aimed at modifying the risk profiles of a population. Unfortunately, however, their analysis may be flawed as such analyses depend on obtaining an accurate assessment of the overall manner in which population death rates are influenced by the intervention …

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