The Problem With Modern Medicine

The Manganese Overlord

Came across this on Ted, a talk by Ben Goldacre on publication bias. I've always had some vague idea not to be totally trusting of medicine, but the scale of it is much larger than I thought. In one example he gives, research on the effects of FDA approved antidepressents over a 15 years, the trials (the ones known about) produced 38 positive results, and 36 negative. However, the number of results actually published was a lot different, 37 positive were published, but only 3 negative. Well worth a listen

http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html

Torakx

Got to be carefull with the medical conspiracies. They are the most protected
Check out Agenda 21 if you are interested in the fantastic.
I have a lot to say on medical things, but most likely unable to mention them.

Borderfox

Have a look back further

http://www.corbettreport.com/rockefeller-medicine-video/

Dude111

The Manganese Overlord wrote:

However, the number of results actually published was a lot different, 37 positive were published, but only 3 negative. Well worth a listen

Thats no surprise at all........ Its all mostly a BIG PHARMA scam now.... They want ppl to have issues from this crap SO THEY HAVE TO GIVE THEM EVEN MORE $$$$$$$$$ to get over it!! (Most doctors are in bed with big pharma)

newmug

Yea, I thought this was old news. Sure years ago, they even convinced people that smoking was good for you. Nothing to see here, just stick to the tried and tested meds, you'll be grand.

thehippychippy

Didn't the guy who came up with ADHD come out awhile ago and say he was paid to make it up? Big pharma saw a big market in minors and needed a reason, so, paid a guy to come up with it. Will look back over some stuff I read and see if I can link it.

http://rushmessageboard.com/index.php?/topic/376-adhd-is-fictitious-says-the-man-who-invented-it/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/adhd.asp
http://www.naturalnews.com/041607_psychiatry_adhd_fake_diseases.html

Corkfeen

thehippychippy wrote: »

Didn't the guy who came up with ADHD come out awhile ago and say he was paid to make it up? Big pharma saw a big market in minors and needed a reason, so, paid a guy to come up with it. Will look back over some stuff I read and see if I can link it.

http://rushmessageboard.com/index.php?/topic/376-adhd-is-fictitious-says-the-man-who-invented-it/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/adhd.asp
http://www.naturalnews.com/041607_psychiatry_adhd_fake_diseases.html

Your Snopes link doesn't state that. It was more of a case of what he said being lost in translation. He criticised the fact that it is greatly over diagnosed which I'd happily agree with. However adhd is not a fictional condition.

iamstop

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26038460

"Because vitamin C has no patent potential, its development will not be supported by pharmaceutical companies," said lead researcher Qi Chen.

This pretty much sums up the big pharma business in my mind.

jh79

iamstop wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26038460

"Because vitamin C has no patent potential, its development will not be supported by pharmaceutical companies," said lead researcher Qi Chen.

This pretty much sums up the big pharma business in my mind.

Or any business in fairness

enno99

Medicine Or Mass Murder? Guideline Based on Discredited Research May Have Caused 800,000 Deaths In Europe Over The Last 5 Years

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2014/01/15/medicine-or-mass-murder-guideline-based-on-discredited-research-may-have-caused-800000-deaths-in-europe-over-the-last-5-years/


Last summer British researchers provoked concern when they published a paper raising the possibility that by following an established guideline UK doctors may have caused as many as 10,000 deaths each year. Now they have gone a step further and published an estimate that the same guideline may have led to the deaths of as many as 800,00 people in Europe over the last five years. The finding, they write, “is so large that the only context in the last 50 years comes from the largest scale professional failures in the political sphere.” The 800,000 deaths are comparable in size to the worst cases of genocide and mass murder in recent history.


The earlier paper demonstrated the potentially large and lethal consequences of the current European Society of Cardiology guideline recommending the liberal use of beta-blockers to protect the heart during surgery for people undergoing non cardiac surgery. The guideline was flawed because it was partly based on unreliable research performed by the disgraced Poldermans (who also served as the chairman of the guideline committee). This may seem like a highly technical question but it effects many millions of people and may, as Francis and his colleagues have demonstrated, led to many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Stainless_Steel

Torakx wrote: »

Got to be carefull with the medical conspiracies. They are the most protected
Check out Agenda 21 if you are interested in the fantastic.
I have a lot to say on medical things, but most likely unable to mention them.

There's a reason they're protected. It's life and death.

Waking-Dreams

Ben Goldacre is spot on but be careful not to take his valid criticisms of publication bias in modern medicine and then tar the whole industry as being in on some grand conspiracy. The alternative medicine industry makes billions and have their own vested interests as well.

In his first book, Ben rightly pointed out the same kind of research bias is present when it comes to merchants of woo, who will also cherry pick any studies which support their claims (and often in these positive studies the methodologies are flawed) and discard any negative ones.

His proposal is that people should have to register their proposed study before they conduct it, so that when they results come back (be they good or bad) they cannot just bury them. This is the way forward.

Unsurprisingly, more and more people now believe in medical conspiracies and I suppose it is because of things like publication bias from big companies which only adds fuel to the fire.

AnonoBoy

While big pharma companies are quite obviously more interested in profit than the health of people it is interesting to see homeopaths and other such woo merchants use this fact to prop up their own crazy claims.

Of course they themselves are also selling a product and interesting in making money off you but they put an anti-establishment spin on it and people lap it up.

Jumboman

I read somewhere that legal drugs kill more people than illgeal drugs.

BabyMonkeyy

Jumboman wrote: »

I read somewhere that legal drugs kill more people than illgeal drugs.

A lot more people take legal drugs than illegal ones.

gctest50

Jumboman wrote: »

I read somewhere that legal drugs kill more people than illgeal drugs.

for sure

2.5 million deaths each year.

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/alcohol/en/

http://www.rte.ie/documents/news/ndrdi-web-update-2004-2011-220114.pdf

Beano

Jumboman wrote: »

I read somewhere that legal drugs kill more people than illgeal drugs.

a lot more people benefit from legal drugs as well.

ivyQ

Im a newbie so cant post links .....

Google "bayer Asprin company knowingly sold AIDs tainted drugs " and watch

I will never believe anything published by any of these pharmaceutical company's ever again after seeing this .

Nesta99

ivyQ wrote: »

Im a newbie so cant post links .....

Google "bayer Asprin company knowingly sold AIDs tainted drugs " and watch

I will never believe anything published by any of these pharmaceutical company's ever again after seeing this .

I havent googled the topic but what you have posted seems odd due to:

AIDS is a disease caused by HIV so AIDS(when T cells drop to >200) 'tainted' drugs is not possible.

HIV as a virus is really quite hard to catch due to its rapid deterioration outside its enviornment eg human body so tainting anything would be fairly pointless.

Now if there was a claim that drugs were distributed that cause AIDS like symptoms well I suppose a conspiracy could run!

gctest50

Nesta99 wrote: »

............
Now if there was a claim that drugs were distributed that cause AIDS like symptoms well I suppose a conspiracy could run!

how 'bout thalidomide
- good for cancer n stuff
- not so good to hide its effects though

The suits, consolidated in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, allege that Grunenthal GMBH, the German drug company who invented thalidomide, in cooperation with American companies Smith, Kline and French, now GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), and Merrell Richardson, now Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY), hid evidence of thalidomide distribution in the United States in the late 1950s, lying to Congress and creating a false historical narrative that the drug was blocked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

http://www.thalidomideireland.com/recentnews.htm

gctest50

Nesta99 wrote: »

HIV as a virus is really quite hard to catch due to its rapid deterioration outside its enviornment eg human body so tainting anything would be fairly pointless.

Cutter made stuff for haemophiliacs years ago - after a few years they thought it might safer to heat-treat it - all the older stuff though ....

As for the hemophiliacs themselves, 44 of Dr. Shen's patients got AIDS, including a 2-year-old. He said 23 had died.None of the Taiwan patients interviewed by The Times said they knew that Cutter had begun selling the safer medicine in the United States in early 1984.
One Taiwan patient who received Cutter's old concentrate was Lee Ching-chang. Mr. Lee said he got his first concentrate in November 1983 at age 22, and continued receiving the unheated type into 1985.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bayer-says-it-settled-decades-old-hiv-tainted-blood-cases/


.

Nesta99

They're not the same thing though - thalidomide was marketed as an anti-emetic and used by pregnant women with dreadful consequences. thalidomide is fairly frontline for some cancer treatments now. How did they figure that well 2 groups where nausea is treated, pregnant women and chemo patients.......

Drugs 'tainted' with a disease that is a stage or an effect of of a viral infection is impossible. Drugs may be tainted by the virus itself; in the instance of the mechanisms of infection with HIV this would be pointless and such errors while seemingly nitpicky undermine what could be a genuine case with elements of plausability

Nesta99

gctest50 wrote: »

Cutter made stuff for haemophiliacs years ago - after a few years they thought it might safer to heat-treat it - all the older stuff though ....





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bayer-says-it-settled-decades-old-hiv-tainted-blood-cases/


.

Was biological in origin as a product, not synthetically produced. Growth Hormone replacements had similar unknown risks eg CJD as the drug was derived from a biological (pre existing contamination). This risk is now a non issue due to the synthetic versions available.

There wasnt a deliberate tainting rather a lack of understanding!

ivyQ

Nesta99 wrote: »

I havent googled the topic but what you have posted seems odd due to:

AIDS is a disease caused by HIV so AIDS(when T cells drop to >200) 'tainted' drugs is not possible.

HIV as a virus is really quite hard to catch due to its rapid deterioration outside its enviornment eg human body so tainting anything would be fairly pointless.

Now if there was a claim that drugs were distributed that cause AIDS like symptoms well I suppose a conspiracy could run!

"In 1984 Bayer became aware that several batches of this Factor 8 contained HIV. They knew this because there was an outbreak of HIV among hemophiliac children, and this outbreak was traced back to Bayer.
Unable to sell their Factor 8 in the US, Bayer, with the FDA’s permission, sold this HIV infected medicine to Argentina, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore after February 1984, according to the documents obtained by the NY Times.
As a result of the HIV tainted meds tens f thousands were infected and thousands killed. Innocent children and adults have died because of this corporation. Our government has yet to take action against them.
When asked about the sale of the tainted Factor 8, Bayer responded, “Decisions made nearly two decades ago were based on the best scientific information of the time and were consistent with the regulations in place.” Basically Bayer received permission from the FDA to murder children for profit. "

gctest50

ivyQ wrote: »

............... Basically Bayer received permission from the FDA to murder children for profit. "

Worse - they knew they probably knew they could sell the iffy batches of product on to those countries because hiv/aids wasn't such big news there yet.

Proper thing to do - dispose of it carefully , don't source blood from high risk groups ( they were getting some from prisoners and so on afaik )

Torakx

Need more profits mwuahahaha!