NIH stops study of niacin to prevent heart attacks

More than 300 outlets, including the Associated Press, covered the announcement yesterday by the National Institutes of Health that the AIM-HIGH clinical trial was being stopped 18 months earlier than planned because it found that adding high-dose, extended-release niacin to statin treatment in people with heart and vascular disease did not reduce the risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attack and stroke. Many of the stories quoted William E. Boden, professor of medicine and preventive medicine, who was co-principal investigator of the AIM-HIGH clinical trial. "We were stunned, to say the least," said Boden in The New York Times of learning that the trial would be stopped. Boden was quoted in numerous stories and blogs, including Forbes Magazine (blog) and a Time magazine article, in which he stated that the study didn't address people at higher risk or who take niacin as a preventive; he noted "We can't generalize these findings…to patients that we didn't study." In a Wall Street Journal story, he stated that it's possible that benefit from raising HDL levels wasn't shown because patients in the study already had "optimal" LDL levels. He also was quoted in articles distributed by Dow Jones Newswire and The Canadian Press, and on NPR.