Study That Showed No Crestor Link To Heart Disease Now Accused of Being Subjective

Crestor has come under hot water as of late, due to issues concerning its effectiveness in treating cholesterol and its connection to kidney disease and Crestor congestive heart failure. The latest claims come as the drug industry struggles to clean up its image after a string of safety controversies that have sent its reputation to record lows. Public Citizen has been among the industry's most persistent critics, and recently turned its fire on Crestor, a cholesterol medicine from the UK's AstraZeneca which it claimed was unsafe. Now, on top of this, a study that claimed to show the reported benefits of Crestor’s ability to stave off heart disease, has been called into question.
The study has found that cholesterol medicines known as "statins", and Crestor in particular, may reduce the risk of strokes heart attacks and death by almost half when studied in patients with normal levels of cholesterol. Dr. Michel de Lergeril, however, of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, alleges that the JUPITER study “data set appears biased”. According to Dr. Lergeril, the JUPITER study had several inconsistencies in its research methods that, some have claimed, could be linked to fact that over half of the researchers involved had financial ties to AstraZeneca.
Statins are undeniably good at lowering cholesterol, and studies published early this year showed that they were also effective in reducing levels of a protein involved in inflammation, a separate risk factor in heart disease. This issue has arisen, however, of possible side effects that can be just as deadly as high cholesterol. In a research study conducted by the independent watchdog group, Public Citizen, prescription data for Crestor was compared to that of other statin drugs. This research study showed that Crestor caused rhabdomyolysis almost 22 times more than its lowest dose competitor and 3 times more than its highest dose competitor. If this happens the potential problems of higher cholesterol are then replaced with a very real and long lasting disease that may be worse than the original cholesterol problem.