Byline: GARY SILVERMAN

WASHINGTON Public cholesterol screening has become a booming billion-dollar-a-year business, but much of the testing is unsafe, inaccurate and unregulated, a Health and Human Services Department report said Monday.

'Compounding serious quality control problems are a growing number of fast-buck artists who have a keen sense of how to exploit the enormous public interest in cholesterol control for easy, huge profits,' said Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who requested the report by the department's inspector general.

'This is a very, very lucrative small business that requires little more in start-up costs than the few thousand dollars it takes to buy a digital testing machine,' Wyden said. 'The purchaser need not demonstrate any medical training or health expertise.'

The study, released at a hearing of Wyden's subcommittee on regulation, business opportunities and energy, said most states do not regulate public cholesterol screening and called for federal regulation of the tests, which involve the drawing...