Could All the Experts Be Wrong About Statins?

Study Breaks Headlines on Statins00:00

Are you ready? I'm about to take you inside a study that broke media headlines: "Millions more people should be taking life-saving statins. Most feared statin side effects are unfounded. Landmark study finds." Every time a study like this drops and sounds rigorous, headlines and influencers run rampant, but without first digesting the data. As an MDPhD researcher obsessed with the nuances of heart health science, I find this so frustrating. The more I looked into this paper, the more I got obsessed that all of these reporters and doctors and so-called expert bodies are getting it totally wrong. The headlines scream safety with certainty, but the data hint at new risks. Could statins actually make you fat?

Rewiring Certainty in Science01:02

Trust me, you're going to want to sit through for this one because I'm not only going to rewrite what you know about statins, but rewire how you think about certainty in science. It is a communication failure, the p value propaganda that erects brick walls in front of informed consent. People have questioned whether the display is meant to be intentionally confusing, a statistical lie, incompetence, intent to mislead, or maybe just laziness. People still died. Human people still died.

Preamble Challenge and Promise01:30

Before we begin, hang in there for just a little bit longer than usual for a really important preamble. The challenge is this: Listen really listen to what I am saying and more importantly to what I am not saying because there's going to be a theme that will run through this video. Science and medicine don't operate in binaries, blacks and whites, ones and zeros. To say that we are not certain of something is not to say we are certain of the opposite. That sounds vague right now, but it'll make a lot more sense as we go through this paper together.