Re: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Statin Therapy in Children With Familial Hypercholesterolemia

On Jun 25, 11:23 pm, David Rind <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A major problem with learning whether any medications (not just
lipid-lowering medications) work in children and pregnant women is that
drug companies see little upside in learning the answer and lots of
downside risk from litigation.

Yes. I don't know if you follow this kind of thing, but the number of
prescriptions for psychiatric medications for kids has been growing,
including atypical antipsychotics. So far as I know, none of the
atypicals have been approved for use in children, and evidence for
their safety and efficacy in children is not that strong.

Whether pregnant women should be prescribed antidepressants is another
big issue. I heard a rumor that some studies on this are about to
come out.

There are lots of people with an interest in positive study results
unconnected to drug companies, so this is not meant to suggest that
others (authors, societies, granting agencies) won't try to spin
surrogate endpoints as convincing proof of benefit in children.


Looking at this more broadly, I get the impression that there are
differences of opinion between people who think we should treat people
early on to prevent subclinical atherosclerosis and other people who
think the value of this approach has not been proven.

Marilyn

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