Wednesday 28 May 2008

Wonder Drug - More Please

This story might seem familiar - perhaps because it's the same story as this from 2005 (and, no doubt, 2006 and 2007). Why do NICE and the medical profession love statins so much, despite strong evidence that they are already being overprescribed and have alarming side-effects? I suspect it's another case of GPs falling for the latest 'wonder drug' that will solve a major problem for them with minimal efffort - so they dole it out like sweeties, until a few years down the line the chickens come home to roost, and things turn out not to have been so simple after all. It's a familiar pattern. As for NICE, the appeal of statins is obvious - you can get the appearance of big benefits from blanket prescription, and when you're prescribing preventively, standards of proof are pretty relaxed (how do you establish what might have been if you hadn't been doling out the statins?). Statins, then, are aptly named - the statistician's dream drug, and the pharmaceutical weapon of choice of statist medicine.

2 comments:

  1. "People aged 40 to 75 are likely to be high risk, as are those who smoke, have high blood pressure or high cholesterol."
    Well bugger I down dead, seduce my ancient footwear, who would have thought that, the NICE wallies are issuing guidelines to the NHS wallies about this. These people actually draw wages, taken from the pot partially made up with our stolen pensions. And then go on to a very comfortable old age, funded by us.
    Musn't grumble.

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  2. Musn't grumble, zweiter aufzug, my n........ is a senior NHS manager, sits on committees to decide on issues like (horror of horrors) cost saving, he suggested that the cost of over ordered and over prescribed drugs in their area was in excess of five million pounds, why not start there, he was told , well basically, shut up.
    Musn't grumble

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