Probably more than you ever wanted to know about rhabdo-myo-lysis:

To expand on Dr Bill's reply - these days one is most likely to have come across the term rhadomyolysisin the context of taking a pill to lower the cholesterol. The more common (read "most heavily advertised") are Lipitor and Zocor and Pravachol, and there are also Lescol and the just-about-to-be-eligible-for-a-generic-equivalent Mevacor. They are examples of the class of drug called "statins" because that suffix is common to all their generic names.

Formerly there was also Baycol but it caused big problems in a small number of patients whereas the others caused less trouble, and so Baycol was taken off the market with great fanfare and publicity and proclamation of self-righteousness.

The risk of rhabdomyolysis was quite low even with Baycol, the worst offender. The numbers were something like 77 fatalities among 700,000 patients, and maybe half of the 77 were also being given another drug (Lopid) which was specifically warned against: shouldn't be used at the same time as Baycol. (No such warning found necessary with the other statins, by the way, and they have looked into it very intently.)

When that side effect was brought to the public's attention lots of people became worried about the other major side effect, which is "liver trouble." To expound on that a bit - making cholesterol is one of the liver's usual chores; it just sometimes doesn't know when to stop, and so a statin is given to interfere with this liver function. Problem only arises if the statin interferes with other, more desirable, liver functions. There is an easy (routine) blood test to show if this has happened, and almost always the abnormality goes away when the pills are discontinued. A different statin may not have that problem, by the way.

Bottom line: If your doctor has told you your chance of having a heart attack in the next five or ten years is, say, 25% or even higher, say for a 60-year-old male with a bad family history and smoking and diabetes and high blood pressure (oh yes, and a high cholesterol), and can maybe be reduced by a third is you take a statin, doesn't it seems a little silly to worry about rhabdomyolysis (Remember rhabdomyolysis? This here's a song about rhabdomyolysis) which occurs only once out of ten thousand - that's 0.001% - or liver trouble which is routinely searched for and generally reversible when found...

[Disclaimer: See your doctor for additional information if wanted !]