MY OWN EXPERIENCE ARGUES OTHERWISE: Statins unlikely to cause muscle pain, new study indicates. “For the new study, the researchers said their findings suggest that if a patient on statins reports muscle pain, the first assumption should be that the symptoms are not due to the statin and most likely arise from other causes.”

Several years ago I switched from Zocor to Lipitor and got dramatic muscle pain, which went away when switching to Crestor. I very much doubt that was a placebo effect, since I didn’t expect anything to happen.