Tuesday 8 May 2012

The Health Debate (2). The effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs.

So what are the elements of the health debate that the mainstream media is refusing to consider, and almost entirely ignoring? What are the questions an open, honest and 'free' media should be asking, and informing us?

Drug Effectiveness
  • Why are there so many ‘good news’ stories regularly coming from the conventional medical establishment? And why is the Media happy merely to slavishly report these pharmaceutical news releases without serious question. Indeed, why does the media continually fail to question how realistic, or how honest conventional medicine's claims are for these new drugs and treatments?
  • What is known about the effectiveness of existing pharmaceutical drugs being prescribed to us by doctors, in ever-increasing amounts? Why is research that raises questions about drug effectiveness routinely ignored by the media?
  • Are claims for the efficacy of pharmaceutical drugs reflected in actual patient outcomes? And if such treatments are as effective as the media is happy to report, why are levels of chronic disease continuing to increase to epidemic levels?
  • Why have so many pharmaceutical drugs eventually been found to be ineffective, often after being prescribed for many years, and usually at great expense? Why is the ineffectiveness of drugs never reported?
  • Why does the media fail to ask questions about medical science, drug testing procedures, and the statutory process of drug regulation, which regularly fail to discover that pharmaceutical drugs are ineffective, or have limited effectiveness?
  • Why is the media content to report pharmaceutical propaganda about new 'medical breakthroughs' and the promise effective new drugs - which will happen in 5, 10, or even 15 years time? And why does the media fail to ask about what happened to the medical breakthroughs that were announced 5, 10 and 15 years previously?
  • Why, if pharmaceutical drugs are so successful in treating illness and disease, has there been epidemic increases in a wide variety of serious illness and chronic disease (including Arthritis, Heart, Liver and Kidney disease, Alzheimers, Autism, Depression, Diabetes, mental health, et al) during the past 60-70 years?
  • Why does the media not report when conventional medical drugs and treatments are failing? Indeed, why does the media fail to tell us about the failure of conventional medical treatments when they are found to be ineffective, or are withdrawn?
  • Why is the media hostile to other medical therapies? If conventional medicine is unable to deal with illness and disease effectively, why does it not ask what alternative therapies, such as homeopathy, can offer patients? Why is it not honestly looking into how effective these alternative treatments are by examining patient outcomes, and comparing these with conventional drug treatment?
These issues are regularly raised in this blog, and indeed, elsewhere on the internet, and in magazines such as 'What Doctors Don't Tell You'. 

 However, they are rarely, if ever raised within the mainstream media

The third part of this series will focus on the safety of pharmaceutical drugs, and other forms of conventional medical treatment. Whilst the effectiveness of treatment is crucial, the safety of treatment is equally important. Ineffective treatment raises hopes, and wastes out time. It also costs the country vast sums of money. But if medical treatment is also unsafe, it it causes illness and disease, if it can actually lead to death, then this is even more serious, and the failure of the Media to tell us, more shameful. Part Three will be published soon.

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