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Wednesday 31 January 2024

Pharmaceutical Medicine: Outcomes, and the importance of Empiricism

Observing the outcomes of taking pharmaceutical medicine is important. Such observations are an important element of science - examining the world, investigating what is happening around us. It is called empirical science.

        "Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation. Scientists record and analyze this data. The process is a central part of the scientific method." 

"I'm ill again, I've been diagnosed with (illness3) now!"

"Oh! What bad luck. That's a nasty illness, I am so sorry."

"You know I have never been well since I got (illness1) and was given that (drug) to treat it."

"Yes, I remember. You went down with (illness2) soon after; and now you have (illness3)."

"I'm just unlucky; or perhaps I am just getting old".

So what has caused these illnesses? Is it a matter of luck? Can it be put down to ageing? Or are other factors involved - like the 'side effects' from the medication we have taken for previous illnesses?

Since early 2021 many people have been having similar conversations regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, and the vaccines used to prevent and treat it. It is time for us all to start asking the same questions. Anyone who actually observes, and considers what they are seeing, cannot help but conclude that the world is witnessing dreadful adverse vaccine reactions, including heart disease and death. Millions of people, particularly in the most vaccinated countries, are reporting these 'side effects' to national drug regulators. One Covid-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca) has already been quietly withdrawn from the market, and described as "defective".

Conventional, or pharmaceutical medicine, have always (and are clearly doing so now) routinely dismissed such observations and reports as ‘anecdotal’ and ‘unscientific’. The problem is that medical science does not usually look at vaccine or drug harm without being paid; and drug companies won’t pay for them to do so if the outcome is likely to produce bad publicity! So such conversations pass by, never examined, never investigated.

Yet these observation are the basis of science - empirical science. If something is observed it should trigger more science, more investigation either to confirm or deny the observation. Britannica describes empirical evidence as "information gathered directly or indirectly through observation or experimentation that may be used to confirm or disconfirm a scientific theory or to help justify, or establish as reasonable, a person’s belief in a given proposition. A belief may be said to be justified if there is sufficient evidence to make holding the belief reasonable."

So medical science usually ignores our observations about health, preferring not to investigate in case what they find is not appreciated by their drug company paymasters.

Yet our observations are important for another, more practical reason: what we witness going on around us is a clinical outcome - they are the outcome of an illness, and/or the outcome of medical treatment. It is a truism that patients are only interested in medical treatment only when they are sick. They then want treatments that make them better, treatments that are both effective (an outcome) and safe (another outcome).

Most patients are not interested in what has once took place in a scientific laboratory!

Yet this is why pharmaceutical medicine have never been interested in treatment outcomes. Drug companies invest in ‘medical science’ for one reason - to produce positive evidence of the safety and effectiveness of a treatment. This evidence forms the basis of their advertising and promotion; it is used to encourage people to take the treatment; it ensures that profits are made - this is their primary purpose. 

Any outcome of a treatment, after this, might prove that the treatment is less safe, and less effective than patients have been told. This is not wanted. It’s bad advertising. It's not what pharmaceutical medicine wants us to know!

In the 1960's and 1970's conventional medicine clearly recognised the need for empiricism in medicine, and the importance of outcomes. Around the world, National Drug Regulators were created in order to ensure there was no further drug scandals, like Thalidomide disaster. Each new drug had to go through a process of scientific tests; and in addition reporting systems were established. 

These reporting system were based almost entirely on patient observations about the outcomes of medical treatment.

The result was that many new drugs and vaccines were tested, approved by the regulator, came to the market, and given to patients. Then patients reported on adverse drug reactions; the drug regulator investigated the reports, and then took appropriate action. The result was that many pharmaceutical drugs were eventually banned, withdrawn, or 'discontinued' because they were were found to be either ineffective, or unsafe for patients. I have listed many of these banned drugs here. It is a very long list. But what is becoming clearer, as the years have passed, is that drug regulation is no longer as effective as it was during the latter decades of the 20th century.

The reason for this is also becoming clearer. Drug Regulation is now effectively controlled by the Pharmaceutical Industry. I first wrote about this situation over 10 years ago now. The situation has become progressively much worse. The Regulator is now controlling the Regulated. Even the unprecedented number of patient reports about the harm caused by the Covid-19 vaccines, based on patient observation, have been largely ignored. It is not that the reports have been investigated, and found to be unreliable. They have not been properly investigated!

We are sicker now than we have ever been. Name any chronic disease that has not reached epidemic proportions during the last 70-100 years - the years when pharmaceutical medicine has gradually taken over health provision, and now control it entirely.

Many people are beginning to ask important questions about the outcomes of conventional medicine:

  • is what I am being told about pharmaceutical treatments honest and true?
  • what are the health outcomes of taking pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines?
  • could my illness be an adverse drug or vaccine reaction?
  • when will medical science be expected to focus on adverse drug outcomes?
  • how many people will drug regulators allow to contract a serious disease, how many people allowed to die, before they take action to protect patients?
  • why is it that politicians, governments, and the mainstream media do not tell us about what is going on?
  • how much more money will we have to spend on pharmaceutical medicine before we reach the conclusion that it is ineffective, and unsafe for patients.