From the article: "They were given 12 bottles - four contained a month's worth of statins, four a month's worth of dummy pills and four were empty. Every day

From the article: "They were given 12 bottles - four contained a month's worth of statins, four a month's worth of dummy pills and four were empty. Every day for a year they would score, from zero to 100, how bad their symptoms were. The study showed an average score of: 8 in those taking no tablets 15.4 while taking dummy pills 16.3 while taking statins" One could draw the conclusion that statins perform as well as placebos, or are at least their effectiveness is within the margin of error.