“It will be 2012 _ ten years after the drug was introduced _ before we know the answer”

Full results of a failed trial on Vytorin, a medicine taken by millions of Americans to lower cholesterol, left doctors stunned that the drug did not improve heart disease even though it worked as intended to lower three key risk factors.

Use of Vytorin and a related drug, Zetia, seemed sure to continue to fall after the findings reported Sunday and fresh questions about why drugmakers took nearly two years after the study ended to give results.

‘A lot of us thought that there would be some glimmer of benefit,’ said Dr. Roger Blumenthal, a Johns Hopkins University cardiologist and spokesman for the American Heart Association. Read more


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