Concerns about the latest NICE draft guidance on statins

Recommending that five million more people take statins lifelong for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease without knowing enough about the side effects is foolhardy.1 The data on side effects need to be public and scrutinised by qualified independent assessors.

My epidemiological experience of commercial bias comes from studying the safety of third generation oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). In both cases there was strong evidence for bias in published …