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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (130465)	2/8/2010 9:14:06 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542004

>>Think about this: discovering high cholesterol in a person who is feeling well, is really just discovering a risk factor and not a disease; it predicts that you have a greater chance of having a heart attack than someone with a normal cholesterol. Now you can reduce the probability of a heart attack by swallowing a statin, and it will make good sense for you personally, especially if you have other risk factors (male sex, smoking etc).. But if you are treating a population, keep in mind that you may have to treat several hundred people to prevent one heart attack. Using a statin costs about $150,000 for every year of life it saves in men, and even more in women (since their heart-attack risk is lower)—I don’t see the savings there.<< First of all, not every person who has high cholesterol needs to be put on a statin. Secondly, does it not seem a bit screwed up that using a statin costs so much? We're back to that pharmaceutical issue again.