Cholesterol Drugs Linked To Cancer

The world’s most widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs cause cancer in laboratory animals, University of California, San Francisco researchers say in a hotly disputed study warning the drugs also may cause cancer in human beings.

The analysis, in today’s issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, covered two broad classes of anti-cholesterol medications, the so-called statins and fibrates. Among them are the industry-leading lovastatin, or Mevacor, and gemfibrozil, or Lopid.

In an unusual move, the same AMA journal carries an editorial disputing the analysis.

It says laboratory rodents are more susceptible to cancer than people are, the drugs were tested at extremely high doses never encountered by people, and large clinical trials of the drugs have failed to turn up an excess of cancer.