I am amazed at how many people seem to believe that the drug somehow worked on a quarter of the patient so well, that it does not matter what the other 3/4th of the patient group did (placebo half plus another quarter of Lipitor).

Data on Nov 16 should validate my expectation that both Lipitor and Crestor groups worked just fine.

As for all this brouhaha re Lipitor/Crestor, I remain bemused by it.  In my notes, I have a simple explanation of Phase 2 results (courtesy of Don McCaffrey from many months ago)...it is that the patient groups on Crestor was more diabetic than the Lipitor group.  Or something like that.

And you should ask yourself a simple question.  If Don McCaffrey's various statements on Forest plots being so compelling...and that we seem to have missed by a statistical whisker...are to be believed (and I accept Tada's explanation that the standard of care knocked the placebo rate down hard as the best and easiest explanation of all this), then you would be hard pressed to have the Lipitor group not do as well as the Crestor group.  

Anyway, all of us are entitled to their opinion.  If mine is clearly in a minority, so be it.  And you can always read the Riot Act from Bear on my opinion of course!