The polypill in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes: Overcoming barriers to implementation.

This commentary, linked to our paper in the same issue of the Journal of Medical Screening , discusses the reluctance to consider and adopt the polypill in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes, access to the polypill as a public health service, the formulation of the polypill in current use, its prescription as an unlicensed medicine, and what can be done to facilitate the adoption of the polypill approach as a routine public health service.