Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Who brewed the coffee on JUPITER: it was Dr Knock!

2009; Wiley; Volume: 63; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1742-1241.2009.02069.x

1742-1241

Markus Schneemann, Esther Baechli, A. Perumpanani,

Health and Medical Research Impacts

To the Editor: We enjoyed reading the recent editorial in the journal by Jackson and Citrome (1). They criticise the JUPITER study’s strategy of exaggerating the potential benefit of statins in primary prevention and conclude: ‘Care in interpretation is essential – when you wake up and smell the coffee make sure you know the reason it is brewing’. We agree and feel the need to point to Dr Knock, a fictional doctor from the 1920s, who already practiced the same way as the doctors in the JUPITER study (2). The JUPITER trial is a very clever example of creating a new group of patients out of asymptomatic people. The authors of JUPITER (i) introduce a new test to tell ‘apparently healthy’ people that they are not so healthy, (ii) offer a prophylactic treatment to make them less sick again and (iii) get reimbursed for their new test, the visits and the treatment. Only the more sceptical among us such as Richard Smith, Ray Moynihan or Lynn Payer may call this strategy ‘disease mongering’ (3–5). We would like to see the JUPITER trial group receive this year’s Dr Knock medal, a prize we must admit has still to be inaugurated to celebrate the most clever ways of creating new groups of customers. Clearly, Dr Knock has re-emerged brewing his seductive coffee! None.