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> I'd say that generally it's advisable to take both into consideration given that in most cases the author of a paper likely has more domain expertise than you in that specific area. Not always, obviously, and not to the exclusion of an outside objective analysis of their data and results, but it's certainly more informative than referring someone to a page from a study with no additional context.

I do not agree. I do not have the time to elaborate further.

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> I get where you're coming from here, but it's kind of silly. And the question becomes where do you draw the line? Is a meta-analysis of a large group of studies each of which has been supported at least in part by funding from a pharmaceutical company guilty by association? That aside, the structure of research funding with regards to pharmaceuticals (at least in the US so far as I'm aware) makes the likelihood of conducting any long term, large scale study without receiving any funding from a pharmaceutical company vanishingly small. There have certainly been issues with studies funded and conducted by those companies, but that doesn't mean that all studies funded by them are instantly invalid. Nor does it mean that it's impossible to conduct a study that has received their funding without compromising its integrity. It is entirely possible to take sufficient measures to isolate those companies from the actual process and analysis of the research.

Again, I do not agree. These are matters of values, and no arguments can be made for what we innately value. I draw a nuanced line based on my values, that I have tried to express here; but making it finer and finer will serve no purpose but as fuel for disagreement — because it is wholly subjective.

Possibility is not actuality. Most researchers are not a Platonic ideal: perfectly noble and virtuous and vigilant. They are real people: lazy, prone to error, requiring money to survive, self-interest at the very forefront.

I will not call your viewpoint naive, but it’s something that can only be formed when one’s exposure to this field is limited to papers and doctor’s visits.

> Why that number? And why that number in two very different contexts? Regardless, statins have been show in numerous studies to be highly effective.

Because 2% ARR is the highest change I’ve seen in any statin experiment — in either context. I do not consider one out of every fifty people being saved by a statin significant, or my definition of “highly effective.”

> It appears that the evidence in support of the use of statins is quite overwhelming.

My patience for reiterating this point is gone: relative changes are not absolute changes.

A starting risk profile of 2.25%, reduced to 1.25%, will have been reduced an absolute 1%, but a relative 44%.

This is why you read the methodology, and not the authors’ interpretation of their own data.