Zetia is a popular drug (close to $5 billion in sales for 2007) prescribed for people with elevated cholesterol.  It is often prescribed along with other cholesterol-lowering medications, and is an ingredient, along with Zocor, in Vytorin, another best-selling cholesterol-lowering drug.  

According to a recent article in the New York Times, Merck and Schering Plough have conducted studies on Zetia that found increased risks of liver damage, but the companies never reported the results of those studies.   The studies were conducted between 2000 and 2003, and are not currently listed on industry websites where companies are supposed to register the results of all drug trials that were ongoing after October 2002.  

According to Schering, the FDA has reviewed the findings of the unpublished studies and continues to approve Zetia for use along with other statin drugs.  However, the governments of both Australia and Canada have issued warnings about links between Zetia and hepatitis, pacreatitis, and depression since 2005.  The FDA has done nothing about the fact that the studies were not registered as required.

Merck and Schering continue to refer to published studies of Zetia in which no safety issues were identified.  However, these studies covered periods of only 12 weeks, while liver damage and other side effects take significantly longer to develop.  Even so, those trials showed that 11 times as many people who took Zetia along with other cholesterol lowering medications developed serious health problems as compared with those who only took a statin drug.  

Overall, cholesterol-lowering drugs are some of the most widely prescribed drugs by doctors, who rarely talk to their patients about lowering cholesterol through diet and lifestyle.  Most medical professionals continue to hold onto the false beliefs that elevated cholesterol is hereditary, that diet and lifestyle are not sufficient to lower it, and that people will not make the changes necessary to lower their cholesterol through diet and lifestyle.  I think more of them would if they knew that the risks of taking statin drugs are quite serious.