Poll: Should consumers be allowed to take statins on their own?
Please participate in our poll:
Background:
Last year, the FDA wrestled with a proposal that they should give certain statin drugs over-the-counter status, so that patients could take them on their own, without a doctor's prescription. But physicians on the FDA advisory panel convinced regulators that patients were not sophisticated enough to a) know whether statins were appropriate for them, and b) take them safely. The proposal was scrapped.
Statins (drugs that are generally well-tolerated and very effectively reduce LDL cholesterol levels), have been shown to significantly reduce mortality in patients with elevated LDL cholesterol levels, especially if coronary artery disease is present. Many have argued that allowing patients to take statins on their own would significantly increase the numbers of individuals with high cholesterol receiving these life-prolonging drugs. This is the argument that brought the proposal before the FDA in the first place.
Arguments against allowing consumers to take statins on their own:
- patients might take the drugs even if their cholesterol levels are normal, and lowering normal cholesterol levels has never been shown to be beneficial
- if the rare case of liver toxicity were to occur, patients would not know they should stop taking the drugs
In the end, the FDA found these objections to over-the-counter statins to be compelling.
However, a recent study shows that doctors themselves are grossly misusing statins: overusing them in patients who don't need them, under-using them in patients who do need them, and failing to follow recommended guidelines for monitoring liver blood tests. In this study, approximately 50% of patients on statins were judged to be receiving the drugs inappropriately, while 88% of patients who needed statins were not receiving them at all.
The question begs to be asked: can patients do any worse? If doctors are performing this badly, why not let patients make their own decisions?
The Poll:
What do you think? Enter the Heart Disease Forum:
