text_1: More People Should Get Statins, Report Says
text_2: We always cheer when we see a story take the rare step of spelling out the costs of a treatment as clearly as this one did. We also love the use of hard numbers in talking about the potential benefits of wider statin use and the space devoted to risks, especially in a short story. The NBC coverage was focused on a cost-effectiveness study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A competing story in the New York Times brought in another study, also focused on the new statin guidelines, and used the occasion to do something that this story didn’t quite accomplish: provide a detailed explanation of the quality of the evidence supporting wider statin use. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the USA. The percentage of adults who might be recommended for statins is quite high, and so the costs and effectiveness of these drugs are vitally important to understand both at an individual level and across the population.