For what it's worth, early statins were originally cleared based only on the evidence that they lower cholesterol without longer term studies showing a reduction in mortality. Of course there is now plenty of evidence showing statins improve overall endpoints.

That doesn't sound like the same thing at all.

That’s true.

Similarly, there were other drugs that lowered cholesterol that didn’t show a significant reduction in coronary events. As we later learned, it’s not nearly as simple as “cholesterol bad.”