Another belated disclosure from the pharmaceutical industry. Cholesterol-lowering drug linked to increased risk of heart attack

The revelation is the latest in a series of scandals in the pharmaceutical industry and yet another demonstration of the federal Food and Drug Administration’s failure to protect the American people by ensuring the safety and efficacy of aggressively marketed medicines.

The so-called Enhance study was intended to demonstrate that Merck and Schering-Plough’s Vytorin, a combination of Zetia and another cholesterol-lowering drug, Zocor, reduced the build-up of fatty plaque in the arteries in addition to lowering so-called bad cholesterol levels. Instead, data suggested the opposite: plaque built up in the arteries of patients on Vytorin at double the rate of those taking Zocor alone.

Zocor, along with Crestor, Lipitor, and other common cholesterol-lowering medicines, are known as statins. Statins work in the liver by blocking the formation of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), or ‘bad’ cholesterol. Some research also suggests that statins can also reduce inflammation that may cause plaque to block or rupture heart arteries.