It drives me mad when I hear a guy complain that he eats and eats but can’t gain weight, and that he resorts to drinking protein shakes to “bulk up.” [Insert world’s smallest violin playing here.] Excuse me? Did I hear him right? He gorges himself when I’ve sworn off pasta, meat, birthday cake--my only nutritional intake: a bottle of water and a carrot stick between classes, all so I can decrease my bulk?

Argh. But really, Pfizer (and those men) take the cake even when it comes to Lipitor.

Lipitor, atorvastatin calcium tablets, is the top-selling drug used to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk for heart disease. The drug is prescribed to both men and women and, according to Lipitor’s website, is clinically proven to lower bad cholesterol 76 to 115 points.

However, a recent study published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies reported that it could find no high quality clinical evidence to suggest that women taking Lipitor were at a reduced risk for heart attack in a primary prevention context.

It doesn’t say that on the bottle though.

Theodore Eisenberg of Cornell Law School and Martin T. Wells of Cornell University assembled studies for a meta-analysis of Lipitor’s effects on cardiovascular risk, taking into account all relevant studies reporting risks for both men and women. Not one of their studies that included women provided statistically significant support for prescribing Lipitor, or other statins (lipid lowering drugs that reduce serum cholesterol levels by inhibiting a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of cholesterol) to protect against cardiovascular problems.

Both Eisenberg and Wells conclude that “reasonably healthy women spend billions of dollars on drugs in the hope of preventing heart attacks but that scientific evidence supporting their hope does not exist.”

Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company, rakes in over $12 billion dollars annually in sales for Lipitor. In 2006 alone, Pfizer spent $7.65 billion in research and development, but this new study might have clinicians scratching their heads and wondering if they should have spent eight. While Pfizer claims clinical proof of Lipitor’s ability to reduce the risk of heart attack in patients with multiple risk factors for heart disease, there does not appear to be scientifically supported proof for large segments of the female population.

Lipitor’s advertising fails to report that clinical trials were statistically significant in men, but not women. Moreover, Pfizer’s does not disclose critical portions of the Lipitor FDA-approved label, which acknowledges the absence of evidence with respect to women.