Ok. I guess my main problem is the "greedy pharmaceuticals" thing sounds exactly like the jabber I hear all the time from the loony left guy I carpool with. Could be that pure R&D can be full of crap.
Haha, well put.
Much R&D is noble, honestly, and the Evil Drug Companies have saved millions of lives. We look back on the "Titanic Era" and the Roaring Twenties, etc. as being glamorous, but forget that getting a splinter could be a death sentence, and Flu epidemics killied millions.
But the funding processes have built-in problems that some people exploit. Just recently, one of the pharmaceutical companies was publicly called on the carpet for suppressing adverse test results for a medication, and this was not the first time for such. Of course, the Trial Lawyers are circling like sharks, and when it settles, the Evil Drug Companies will be charging more for prescriptions.
My take on the Statin issue is that there are biological reasons as to why the liver has (Been Designed)(Evolved) to work the way it does. To suddenly decide to switch off some synthesis pathways on the basis of the Helsinki Study, and by so doing, create a multibillion Dollar industry, is something I think would set off alarm bells in any reasonable person.