At last weekend’s European Society of Cardiology conference in Madrid, a quiet funeral bell tolled for aspirin. The drug has already been largely dropped as a painkiller, on the basis of having more side effects than paracetamol. Most often now it’s taken to prevent a heart attack. Now, a new study, published in the Lancet and presented in Spain, shows another drug, clopidogrel, does it better.

The difference is small, but medicine, like life, is often about finessing small differences. They sum together, and aspirin is part of why living a long, healthy life has become the norm when it used to be unusual good luck.

The history of aspirin teaches that small differences save lives

Reverend Edward Stone, walking near Chipping Norton in 1757, and for reasons still delightfully unclear, che

See Full Page