As far as I can tell I should be on some statin. I exercise, eat a reasonably good diet, am slightly over weight, and have a family history of all bad heart, cardiovascular excitment. Strokes, heart attacks etc. I have increasingly bad LDL levels. I am meeting with my doc to discuss in a few days.

There appear to be two main classes, which act in significantly different ways. I cannot however find any references to one being more effect or safer than the other from my primary source Eureka Alerts (American Association for the Advancement of Science.) I know a few are less safe and some are over the counter in Great Britain.

Anyone here know? or can refer me to some place to find out.

You might find this information helpful:

"Statins fit into that class known as HMG CO-A inductase inhibitors. These drugs are the class most often used today for cholesterol reduction.

They are, by and large, safe and highly effective at lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. They also lower triglycerides and modestly raise HDL, the good cholesterol, in many patients. They have been used since the 1980s and have been shown to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and death in millions of people, based on numerous well-published studies. As a class, they are by and large very well tolerated, and have been associated with few, but very well publicized, side effects in a small minority of patients.

This class of drugs include Privation, Lipitor, Zocor, Lescol, Mevacor, and Crestor. There had been one other member of the class, known as Baycol, which was removed from the market in the year 2001 due to a higher than expected frequency of cases of muscle breakdown that had been noted with Baycol.

Crestor is a very powerful statin that has been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol better than any of the other statins currently available when compared milligram for milligram. However, at higher dosages, it has been shown to have a slightly higher than expected amount of muscle inflammation associated with it, and therefore patients at higher dosages, such as Crestor 40 milligrams per day, should be followed closely with regard to measurement of their CPK levels."
For entire transcript please refer to WebMD

Are there differences among statins?
"Statins differ in several ways. The most obvious difference is in their ability to reduce cholesterol. Currently, atorvastatin (Lipitor) is the most potent and fluvastatin (Lescol) is the least potent. A new statin, rosuvastatin (Crestor), which is under development, may be more potent than atorvastatin. The statins also differ in how strongly they interact with other drugs. For example, pravastatin levels in the body are less likely to be elevated by other drugs because the enzymes in the liver that eliminate pravastatin (unlike the enzymes that eliminate other statins) are not blocked by most other drugs. Another difference is that only three of the statins--pravastatin, simvastatin, and lovastatin--have been shown in large studies to actually reduce heart attacks. In addition, simvastatin and pravastatin have demonstrated the ability to reduce death. Pravastatin also reduces the occurrence of strokes. Interestingly, these three statins are derived from natural sources and have similar chemical structures. The other statins are completely synthetic and have chemical structures that differ greatly from the natural statins."
Entire transcript can be found at MedicineNet.com

It is always good to research medications so that you can have a list of questions to discuss with your doctor. And it has been my experience that some doctors are more liberal with their prescriptions of Statins than others. Since Statins have been known to cause liver failure (a rare side-effect) some doctors are becoming less lenient with this drug.