Whenever drug is criticised, big pharma comes to the rescue to salvage profits. What else would you expect when the reason big pharma exists is to make profits for their shareholders. Last year (2013) the British Medical Journal printed an article that criticized a previous article published in the same journal that suggested extending treatment with statins for people with a low risk for cardiovasculars disease.
Needless to say, this caused a hullabaloo for those people who published the previous study, the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaboration, with the contention that their data that showed an 18-20% incidence of adverse drug reactions was incorrect. Of course, it depends on what you consider an ADE! Most of the data identifying the side effects comes from the website of the manufacturer of the drug in question. Do you think this information is likely to include the full extent of side effects when the goal is to sell drug to make profit?
For example, we reported a study showing that 40% of people on statins had muscle fatigue, and in 10% it was severe. It is necessary to add up the percentages from each side effect to see the incidence of side effects. Have a look at this URL: http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/statins-cause-fatigue
