I understand posting this question on a forum and not to doctors. IMHO the medical profession has gone away from the Hippocratic oath. Something about common sense tells me that prescribing drugs (NOT APIRIN) such as Lipitor for millions and millions of people for the rest of their lives is NOT RIGHT. Please do not put aspirin in the same category of safety as statins. Do you really think it is in the business minds of the drug companies to do ANY longitudinal studies on the effects of their drugs? The public is the ultimate experiment on any new drug or medication.
My father, who was in perfect health most of his life except for a hernia, got pancreatic cancer in the head of the pancreas, diagnosed 26 months ago. He also had been taking statins for some years. Now, after chemo and the Whipple surgery 16 months ago, he is healthy again, after how many hundreds of thousands of dollars went into the insurance companies, hospitals, drug companies, chemo center and doctors' pockets.