ABSTRACT
The interest of some readers of this book will have been kindled by the current competition between manufacturers of statins for shares of a big market. Several interesting scientific issues are discussed in this context in other chapters but they are trivial compared with the central question answered by the statin trials. That question was whether coronary heart disease (CHD) could be effectively and safely prevented by lowering plasma cholesterol. It had not been satisfactorily answered in the mid-1980s and, unanswered, it kept most physicians from doing anything about hypercholesterolaemia.
