As promised.

Recap: Inspired by the original post (OP) to have a look at Lisa R’s article, I did, and felt the need to look at her first. Posted a few days ago, above.

Impression
She is affiliated in some way with a place that gets grants from drug makers. No evidence of money interest. But she sure does have a lot of outlets for her writings and manages the writing and her practice. Motive?


Reconnecting the Dots:
Reinterpreting Industry–Physician Relations

OP:
"It feels like a biased report to me, designed to bring me around to a more tolerant position, but it had the opposite effect – pushing me in the direction of zero tolerance.”

1
She takes exception to this:
 “...expanded statin use would...benefit the pharmaceutical industry more than anyone else"

And retorts:
“...guidelines are no boon to companies selling patent-protected drugs: statins are available in generics”

I say:
What makes her think Teva is a charity? A&E didn’t define "pharmaceutical industry” as excluding exclude generics. Their point stands.

2
She defends an irrelevant feature of the guidelines
"guidelines recommend against using (patent-protected) drugs that improve lipid levels but that hadn’t [sic] been proven to improve outcomes.”

Ain’t that a kindness. But was it altruistic, or is it that the super-statin reduce lipid levels to a point of harm to health? Who cares? Either way it doesn’t help her prove A&E wrong. They didn’t say the guidelines provide maximum possible benefit to pharma, they said pharma would gain the most. And, she’s slimy.

3
Bolstering her paean to statins with the ever-effective rhetorical device, faint praise?
"statins are, in many cases, the best drugs we have to prevent cardiovascular disease"

One could say the same thing about statins if they caused Ebola -- if they were also “the best drugs we have." As it stands, statins might be the the best drugs we have to prevent what ever high blood pressure causes, but they are not the only intervention available.

We are told we may choose among these atrocities:
lose weight
change your diet somewhat
be chased by a bear for a mile a day*
quit smoking**
drink less**

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/in-depth/reduce-cholesterol/art-20045935?pg=1

*Some of us need motivation to take exercise
**Spurious

4

She doesn’t like this kind of talk at all! Watch her unravel...

"The American people deserve to have important medical guidelines developed by doctors and scientists on whom they can confidently rely to make judgments free from influence, conscious or unconscious, by the industries that stand to gain or lose".

She admits this, wrongly thinking she can overcome it later.
"True, 7 of the 15 committee members had current or previous ties to industry, mostly in the form of research support or consulting fees.”

She thinks this makes 7/8 shill/non-shill ratio harmless

"First, the members with current industry ties were not allowed to vote on the quality of the evidence statements or the recommendations”

She doesn’t say how many of the seven had current ties, and doesn’t say why a committee would include non-voters. They wouldn’t have been there to GET information, or to ignore it, right? And I assume they were allowed to talk. Is it safe to say they were they to contribute information?