ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. A new wonder drug for dementia? What is the truth behind the media hype?

There is news today 23 October 2019) of a new wonder drug that can treat Alzheimer's disease. It's called aducanumab. It has hit the headlines in BBC News ('First drug that can slow Alzheimer's dementia'), the Times ('Alzheimer's drug suggests our research billions were not for naught'), the Telegraph ('New drug that halts mental decline is 'best news for dementia in 25 years'), and no doubt the rest of the mainstream media too. You do not need to read all these accounts as they are all virtually identical. The source material will undoubtedly be a press release by the drug company, Biogen, which is seeking regulatory approval in the USA for this 'groundbreaking" drug.

The news will encourage, and raise the expectations, of millions of people who suffer from, or have loved one's who suffer from, dementia. The pharmaceutical industry has done it again! It has come up with yet another wonder drug that will transform our health! Or so they are led to  believe.

The truth is rather more uncertain than the media coverage, who as usual have meekly accepted what the drug company has told them, without investigating any of the downsides. So what is the truth about aducanumab? What is known about it that we are not supposed to know?

• In March 2015, Biogen presented 'positive interim results' of a study.
• In March 2019, just four years later, Biogen discontinued all trials into the drug.

Why was this? We are told that an "independent data monitoring committee advises aducanumab unlikely to meet primary endpoints", although we were also told that "the recommendation to stop the studies was not based on safety concerns". So what was it based on? Presumably it was found not to be effective!

But what about the safety of aducanumab? Conventional medicine frequently dismisses any safety concerns that are known about drugs, both old and new. This is the warning statement about aducanumab on the Drugs.com website.

               "Patients treated with adalimumab are at increased risk of infection, some of which may become serious and lead to hospitalization or death. These infections have included TB, invasive fungal infections, bacterial, viral, and those caused by opportunistic pathogens including Legionella and Listeria." (my emphasis).

For conventional medicine (and the Drugs.com website is owned by pharmaeutical interests) such safety concerns do not warrant any more than a warning, however drastic that warning might be! And, of course, the trials abandoned in March 2019 had nothing to do with 'safety' concerns! Instead, doctors are advised to take care about how the drug is used.

               "The risks and benefits of therapy should be carefully considered prior to treatment initiation in patients with chronic or recurrent infection. Evaluate for latent TB and treat if necessary prior to initiating therapy. Monitor patients closely for signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment, including the possible development of TB in patients who tested negative prior to treatment. Consider empirical antifungal therapy in at-risk patients who develop severe systemic illness. Lymphoma and other malignancies, some fatal, have been reported in pediatric and adolescent patients treated with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers such as adalimumab. Postmarketing cases of hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma (HSTCL), usually fatal, have been reported in patients treated with TNF blockers including adalimumab, primarily in adolescent and young adult males with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis." (my emphasis).


Clearly, the concept of 'first do not harm", and the precautionary principle" do not apply to conventional medical practice.

Nor does it appear to be a concern for the mainstream media. I did not have to struggle to find this informaton. It is not hidden. Nor is it information that comes from anywhere else but conventional medical literature. But the mainstream media does not bother to inform us. And the drug companies are, as sure as hell, will not do so!

What guides the BBC, the Telegraph, the Times, et al., is what drug companies want us to know; not what we need to know about these 'wonder drugs' before we begin to consume them.

This is not unusual. Whenever we face an epidemic of chronic disease, such as dementia, but also allergy, arthritis, autism, diabetes, and so many more, the first questions asked by the conventional medical establishment is "how can we respond?" "What treatments (usually what drug) do we have to combat this epidemic?"

The first question that should be asked, both by doctors and patients, is - "what has caused this epidemic?" Why are the numbers of older people, and even young adults and children, now suffering from dementia increasing so rapidly?"

Unfortunately it is a question that conventional medicine, and the drug companies that controls it, do not want us to ask. The cause of these epidemic levels of chronic disease are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines - at least in large measure. They are certainly known to cause dementia, and although doctors know this (it's in their medical literature) they certainly do not want us to know!

Asking such a question does not fit in with the business plan of the pharmaceutical industry, which is to treat illness with drugs that cause other illnesses through side effects, and then treat these illnesses with other drugs, which also cause side effects............. and so on.

So investigating the CAUSE of Alzheimer's is not part of conventional medical strategy. Finding new, and every more harmful (and profitable) drugs to treat it, most certainly is! And our mainstream media is complicit in this.

Postscript (7th June 2021)

This awful drug, Aducanumab, has raised its ugly head again. 18 months after this free advertising of a nasty drug the mainstream media is at it again.

 

"US approves first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years" is the BBC's headline. It is good, free advertising, although this time the BBC does mention the "uncertainty" about the drug trial results; but of course this  is not reflected in the headline.

And it's more than just 'uncertainty'. Members of the FDA (the USA drug regulator) have resigned "amid backlash over controversial drug approval". Even members of the pharmaceutical medical establishment will take action to prevent patient harm by such an approval. Perhaps all is not well within conventional medicine!

New Pharmaceutical Drugs? New Medical Breakthroughs? New 'Wonder' Drugs? New Miracles treatments? No Benefits

• We are constantly being told by doctors and the mainstream media about new medical breakthroughs, new 'wonder' drugs, new miracles cures, that are going to be 'game changers' in the treatment of disease.

• Yet year by year we are getting sicker. Chronic diseases (allergy, arthritis, autism, cancer, dementia, diabetes, et al) is now running at epidemic levels, and increasing, and conventional medicine says that it does not know what is causing them. Nor do they have any treatment capable of treating them successfully.

So perhaps a new study from Germany can square these two remarkably conflicting health facts. This is how the Study Finds (research in a nutshell) describes the outcome of the research.


               "There seems to be a new drug to treat anything and everything these days, but are these medications as effective as they claim to be? A new study has concluded that the answer to that question is no. Furthermore, researchers say that international drug development processes, standards, and policies are fundamentally broken and must be reformed."

The study was undertaken at the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care. It found that more than half of new drugs introduced to the German healthcare system have shown absolutely no added benefit. The researchers examined 216 drugs that between 2011 and 2017 had passed regulatory approval, and the European Medicines Agency had further approved for widespread use in Europe.
               "... only a quarter of those drugs showed any significant medical added benefit, and 16% showed even a minor added benefit, and a whopping 58% of studied drugs showed no benefit at all beyond 'standard patient care".

These are, of course, the same pharmaceutical drugs that our mainstream media are always telling us about - the one's that are going to be 'medical breakthroughs', 'wonder drugs', miracle cures', and similar propaganda.

Of course, there has been no mention of this study in the mainstream media. Or by Government. Or by National Health Services throughout the world? Or from our doctors?

But be assured, this is not fake news. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has mentioned the study in its article "New drugs: where did we go wrong and what can we do better?" This is what it said about the study.

               "More than half of new drugs entering the German healthcare system have not been shown to add benefit" suggesting that the researchers said that international drug development processes and policies are responsible "and must be reformed". It commented further.

               "Medicines regulators around the world are pursuing a strategy aimed at accelerating the development and approval of drugs. These approaches are based on the assumption that faster access to new drugs benefits patients. The rhetoric of novelty and innovation creates an assumption that new products are better than existing ones. But although gaps in the therapeutic armamentarium undoubtedly exist, research covering drug approvals since the 1970s suggests only a limited number of new drugs provide real advances over existing drugs. Most studies put the proportion of true innovation at under 15%, with no clear improvement over time."

So the epidemics of chronic disease will continue. Even if we ignore the fact that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are causing these epidemics, it seems clear that conventional medicine has no means of combating them!

• PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS ARE NOT ONLY UNSAFE, DANGEROUS.
• NOT ONLY HAVE PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS BEEN BANNED IN THE PAST BEFORE THEY WERE EITHER DANGEROUS OR USELESS.
• EVEN THE NEW DRUGS COMING ON TO THE MARKET ARE NO BETTER.

Conventional medicine is failing, and failing badly. But let me add one more recent news story, courtesy of BBC News, concerning the cost of these wonderful new pharmaceutical drugs. The article was entitled "Cystic fibrosis drugs rejected for use by NHS in Scotland". The BBC, as per usual, described the drugs, Oekambi and Symkevi, as "life changing" - so perhaps they have not read the German study, or have decided not to mention it!

These drugs cost about £1,000 per patient per year.

Rather a high price, don't you think, for drugs that are both dangerous, and of limited (if any) value!

Still, the drugs industry is a business, and this is how they make a living.

Selling expensive, useless and dangerous drugs.