Getting It

Earlier this week, and even the week before, there was news about the cholesterol-lowering drug, rosuvastatin, aka Crestor, due to a study presented at the American Heart Association meeting.

An excerpt from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0553747520081105)

"The so-called Jupiter trial tested use of the statin Crestor in patients with no heart problems and low to normal cholesterol, but who had elevated levels of C-reactive protein -- an indicator of arterial inflammation that has been linked to heart disease risk.

The study was halted in March -- years ahead of schedule -- after independent safety monitors found unequivocal evidence of a reduction in illness and death among patients who received Crestor compared to those who took a placebo."

An excerpt from NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97007885)

"...But the early halt to the study means there are no long-term data on the safety and effectiveness of this approach.

Sidney Wolfe, with Public Citizen's Health Research Group, is concerned about studies showing an increase in the incidence of diabetes in people on statins. He's worried about the current study as well, which shows that diabetes increased from 2.4 percent in the placebo group to 3.0 percent in those taking Crestor.

In an editorial in the Journal, Mark Hlatky, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, also points out that the incidence of cardiovascular problems in people with normal cholesterol is low enough to begin with. Cutting that risk in half, he says, isn't as dramatic as it sounds.

There were 157 cardiac events among the 8,901 people in the placebo group, and 83 events in those who got Crestor, he observes."

A friend of mine at Scientific American, Ivan Oransky, blogged about this by commenting on comedian Stephen Colbert's commentary.

Colbert’s analysis cut right to the chase: “This is a great breakthrough in the battle to find things to prescribe to people who don’t need them.”
“True, the drug costs $100 a month,” he later added. “But that is a small price to pay to not have the heart attack that there’s no way of knowing that you would have had.”

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=stephen-colbert-for-fda-commissione-2008-11-13

Colbert loved the post, and called Ivan an "it-getter."

http://www.nofactzone.net/?p=7605#comments

IT doesn't GET any better than that.