NIH Urged to Rethink Guidelines

A panel of individuals, consisting of health advocates and scientists, urged the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to reconsider the recently changed guidelines concerning the medical treatment of patients who have either have heart disease or are at high risk of getting heart disease. The current treatment consists of administering statin drugs to patients who either have modestly levels of low density lipoproteins (the “bad” cholesterol”) or who are at risk for heart disease (the elderly, post-menopausal women, or diabetics). Many are now questioning these guidelines, stating that there was not sufficient evidence to change the guidelines in the first place and that some members of the panel had a vested interest in the companies that made the statin drugs. Read more about it.