NICE lowers threshold for statin use amid controversy

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have lowered the threshold for people being offered statins to a 10% risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next decade from 20% amid controversy. It is said that new guidelines lowering the threshold for statin use mean “forty per cent of adults,” or roughly “17.5 million people” will now be eligible for the drug in the UK.
Although NIC says the decision will “save lives,” critics have charged that those “drawing up the guidance” were “influenced by the pharmaceutical industry,” amid “wider arguments about ‘medicalising’ a nation and encouraging patients to take pills rather than change their unhealthy lifestyle.”