I was just reading about the PROSPER trial on Medscape. In elderly people taking pravastatin, there was in fact a 25% higher incidence of new cases of cancer. Incredibly, the investigators were not particularly concerned about the increased incidence of cancer. In fact, they even went so far as to say that the cancer must have started to develop in these patients prior to the study. Yeah, right. And what about all the animal studies which clearly demonstrated the cancer-causing effects of these drugs? I suppose the animals all started to develop cancer prior to the studies as well. I wonder what their conclusions would have been if there was instead a 25% lower incidence of new cases of cancer. In that case, it would probably become front page news.

Well, I didn't just make this stuff up. I got this information about the PROSPER trial from Medscape. So, I'm simply stating factual information. There was, in fact, a 25% increase in cancer cases among those who were receiving pravastatin. I don't think that number can be considered statistically insignificant. If the pravastatin did not in any way trigger the higher incidence of cancer cases, then the statistical difference between the control group versus the pravastatin group should not have been that far apart. But I'll bet that if it were the other way around, and there were 25% less cases of cancer among the pravastatin group, then they no doubt would have made a big deal about it.

As far as overall mortality, in the long running Coronary Drug Project, an extensive evaluation of cholesterol-lowering drugs demonstrated that niacin was the only cholesterol-lowering agent to actually reduce overall mortality.