Doctors have long faced a conundrum in prescribing statins to lower cholesterol and heart attack risk: The drugs are cheap and effective for most people, and large, rigorous clinical trials have found minimal side effects. But as many as 25 percent of those who try them complain of muscle pain. Others stop taking the drugs because, they say, they cause a hazy memory or sleep problems, among other side effects not documented in studies.
Now, with the approval on Thursday of the second in a powerful — and very expensive — new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, the dilemma confronting doctors just got trickier. Should the people who need to lower their cholesterol, but say they cannot tolerate statins, be prescribed new drugs that cost more than $14,000 a year, potentially adding billions of dollars to the nation's medical bill?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/health/new-alternatives-to-statins-add-to-a-quandary-on-cholesterol.html?
