{"id":5480,"date":"2016-09-12T11:35:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T10:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zoeharcombe.com\/?p=5480"},"modified":"2016-09-19T11:46:30","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T10:46:30","slug":"the-lancet-statin-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoeharcombe.com\/2016\/09\/the-lancet-statin-study\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lancet Statin Study"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Friday 9th September 2016, an article was published in The Lancet with a quite extraordinary editorial. The full article can be seen here<\/a> and the editorial is here<\/a>. The editorial has been brilliantly dissected by Dr Malcolm Kendrick here<\/a>, so I won\u2019t cover that in this note.<\/p>\n

The newspaper headlines were glowing \u201cStatins prevent 80,000 heart attacks and strokes a year in UK, study finds<\/a><\/em>\u201c and \u201cA third of adults should take statins, new research suggests<\/a><\/em>\u201d. Taking out a full page advert, in every UK newspaper, could not have been more favourable.<\/p>\n

The group behind the study is the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists (CTT), which is co-ordinated by the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU). The first thing that you need to know about the CTSU is that the spat that the CTSU leader, Rory Collins, kicked off with the BMJ in 2014 led to him having to declare the previously well-hidden pharmaceutical funding enjoyed by the CTSU. This added up to \u00a3268m<\/a> \u2013 give or take a few hundred thousand \u2013 and the sum is no doubt higher two years on.<\/p>\n

A more discerning headline, therefore, could have been \u201cTeam paid c. \u00a3300m by statin makers finds statins are miracle drugs with miraculously negligible side-effects<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study<\/strong><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t be able to do my usual dissection of this article, just as I have never previously been able to do my usual dissection of any article that emanates from the CTSU. After their May 2012 article, entitled \u201cThe effects of lowering LDL cholesterol with statin therapy in people at low risk of vascular disease: meta-analysis of individual data from 27 randomised trials<\/a><\/em>\u201d, I asked CTT for their raw data:<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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