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Tuesday, 30 October 2018

MEDICAL SCIENCE. It provides the 'evidence base' for conventional medicine. But is drug testing honest?

On the same day that the UK government announced in its budget an increase of £20 billion for the NHS, it was reported that "Unpublished medical research is "a threat to public health". Apparently this is the conclusion of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which says that important information about the efficacy of new drugs and treatments are going unpublished, posing a risk to health. It goes on to say that

               "... despite repeated warnings, not enough is being done to make sure the results of all clinical trials are reported".

Medical science is supposed to provide the "evidence base' for conventional medicine, dominated as it is by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Yet it is accused, here, of failing to make public all the available evidence from all clinical trials - and that this has been going to for a long time - despite repeated warnings.

Repeated warnings?

The modern system of drug regulation, and drug testing regimes, began soon after the pharmaceutical industry was forced to recognise that one of its drugs, Thalidomide, had caused devastating harm to hundreds of babies in the 1950's and 1960's. In future, drug regulation would safeguard patients from dangerous drugs that were harmful to our health.

YET THE FACT IS THAT SINCE THE 1960'S DRUG AFTER DRUG HAS BEEN  PASSED BY DRUG REGULATORS, AND PRESCRIBED TO PATIENTS, ONLY TO CAUSE SO MUCH HARM THEY HAD EVENTUALLY TO BE BANNED!

Withholding information means that evidence indicating that a new drug is harmful is not published. Even our doctors do not know. They prescribe drugs to patients - ignorant of the evidence of harm that may be caused. Only the pharmaceutical companies, and the medical 'scientists' know about this, and it is in the business interests, and their profits. that they decide that we are not to be told.

Yet the situation is far worse than just the withholding of information. Information about the harm caused by pharmaceutical drugs is hidden from view in lots of other ways. I have written about this in more detail in "Drug Regulation and Medical Science", emphasising the reasons why conventional medicine is not scientific, why drug regulation is ineffective, and why it does not provide an 'evidence base' that safeguards patients. In summary, this is what is known:
  • The financial rewards of a 'successful' drug mean that drug companies are reluctant to admit any 'negative' information.
  • Drug Regulation agencies, throughout the world, are now dominated by people who have a vested interest in the pharmaceutical industry. In effect, they have been 'captured' by drug company place-men.
  • The funding of drug trials is predominantly done by the pharmaceutical industry, with all the problems 'cheque-book science' brings with it.
    • they select the scientists
    • they make it known that if scientists want further work drug companies require the 'correct' result.
  • The manipulation of drug test results is also a problem. The way this is done was outlined in Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Pharma", and summarised and extended in my ebook. My summary is as follows
               "Goldacre ... is ...setting out what has long been recognised about what constitutes a properly and honestly constructed randomised trial. All medical scientists know this but quite regardless have chosen to conduct the trials in the way (he) describes. Perhaps these 'scientists' will argue that they had to, even though they must have been quite aware that they were 'massaging' the test results in favour of the drug companies."
  • Withholding 'negative' tests results is then covered, and in my book I provide several examples of when this has been done, involving drugs like Vioxx, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Fosamax, Neurontin, Avandia, et al. Some of these cases date back to the early 2000's so it is little wonder that the House of Commons report talks about 'repeated warnings'!
There is more dishonesty though. I go on to deal with drug companies secretly pulling out of studies that are producing the 'wrong' results. And the 'favourable' interpretation of test data. And the lack of any checks on the honesty and integrity of published medical science.

So why is it that nothing happen? Why will this House of Commons report, like similar reports, make any difference? Why has Ben Goldacre's book (published back in 2012) made no difference to the way medical science operates? Why does the dishonesty and corruption, outlined in my 'Failure of Conventional Medicine' ebook, continue to be ignored by politicians and the media?


And why do we continue to insist on spending more money on an NHS dominated by pharmaceutical 
drug and vaccine treatment? An extra £20 billion for the NHS? To spend on the same medical treatment that has consistently failed to cope with the health demands being made on the NHS for over 70 years? Does it make sense?

It is all quite simply the result of the conventional medicine's amazing success in keeping the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, from us!

We must now wake up to the reality - that pharmaceutical drugs do not work. They harm us. The more drugs and vaccines we take, the sicker we become. Conventional medicine is not winning the battle with illness and disease, as it so often claims. It is creating epidemics of chronic disease.

So the solution is not to spend another £20 billion of the same, failed and failing medicine. It is to begin to look for something different, something safer and more effective, something that actually works for patients, something that keeps them healthy, and make them better when they are sick.