Early generations of statins had harsher side effect profiles compared to current ones, and while effective at lowering LDL cholesterol, they are not considered benign drugs.

“now the first second and third generation Statin of that era are no longer in use today because their side effect profile was very harsh relative to what we can do today so there are currently seven statins in in existence and each of them you know offers some strengths and advantages over others and they're not a benign class of drugs so to be clear they're an effective class of drug they're very effective at lowering uh LDL cholesterol they work by inhibiting the first committed step of cholesterol synthesis”