The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal

[Raoh]

Here's an interesting article posted yesterday on the Guardian site, regarding drugs and the companies that produce and trial them - this may be no surprise to many but it's worth a read and sharing to give people another perspective:

Guardian article

Here's a small part of the article:

Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don't like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug's true effects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drug's life, and even then they don't give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion.

In their 40 years of practice after leaving medical school, doctors hear about what works ad hoc, from sales reps, colleagues and journals. But those colleagues can be in the pay of drug companies – often undisclosed – and the journals are, too. And so are the patient groups. And finally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies, without disclosure. Sometimes whole academic journals are owned outright by one drug company. Aside from all this, for several of the most important and enduring problems in medicine, we have no idea what the best treatment is, because it's not in anyone's financial interest to conduct any trials at all.​

Just something to bear in mind if and when you or your family are next prescribed something. Not to say all drugs are bad, they certainly aren't, but there's a lot of dodgy dealing in the big Pharma companies and it's worth being aware of.
Many (nearly all?) of them are out there to make a profit first and foremost, not to make people well - healthy people do not tend to generate good profits after all.

Allowing a 'clinical' (ahem) trial to be carried out by the same company creating and selling the actual drug ('product') is baffling enough to begin with - surely warning buzzers should have been going off there when that was agreed to? Oh wait, it's designed to be that way for a reason, and not for our benefit - so shut up and pop your pills.

 

[Deadbeat]

Link doesn't work.

 

[LordSplodge]

I like Ben Goldacre but a: he has a book to sell and b: sometimes has an axe to grind.

 

[Tefal]

lets put it this way tough, if i offer you a range of cold symptom treatments for £10 or a cure for £20, which you going to buy?

a cure destroys your competition and gives you an edge so wide it makes the "big pharma only treat symptoms" argument invalid.

also got any sources for this?

Cause that article is so vague it could be from above top secret about the moon bases.

If he knows all these corrupt people and journals, name them. If he's got proof thena libel case would simply serve to give him a soap box to destroy them in public from.

 

[Kenai]

lets put it this way tough, if i offer you a range of cold symptom treatments for £10 or a cure for £20, which you going to buy?

Well a cure, but only once.

Only offer me the range of treatments though, and i'll be spending £10 year after year, even with competing brands, you'd likely see more money returned for less research investment.

 

[pooley]

Yep, you will then be a returning customer! £££££

 

[Glaucus]

What an idiotic thread, you need help op, you have trust issues.

NHS do large scale tests to find out cost vs success rating of drugs.

Also the tests pharma companies have to do in the first place are extremely strict, time consuming and througher.

Add to that what Tefal says.

 

[godinman]

I like Ben Goldacre but a: he has a book to sell and b: sometimes has an axe to grind.

Saved me typing, ta.

 

[Tefal]

Well a cure, but only once.

Only offer me the range of treatments though, and i'll be spending £10 year after year, even with competing brands, you'd likely see more money returned for less research investment.

no your not as you'll catch a cold again, a cure is not a vaccine. (and you're not going to get a vaccine against something as mutating as a cold anyway)

You'll be buying the cure every time you get a new cold, but it will cure that cold instead of just drying your nose a little bit.

 

[daz]

Viagra definitely works.

 

[Kenai]

no your not as you'll catch a cold again, a cure is not a vaccine. (and you're not going to get a vaccine against something as mutating as a cold anyway)

You'll be buying the cure every time you get a new cold, but it will cure that cold instead of just drying your nose a little bit.

Well then we're talking at cross purposes about what a cure is regarding this debate, every time i've discussed this before, a 'cure' was being used to refer to putting at an end to it once and for all.

As you're describing it there, then of course, that's hardly a big revelation though, it's just common sense.

 

[Tefal]

Well then we're talking at cross purposes about what a cure is regarding this debate, every time i've discussed this before, a 'cure' was being used to refer to putting at an end to it once and for all.

As you're describing it there, then of course, that's hardly a big revelation though, it's just common sense.

Not really, penicillin is a cure for syphilis it's not a vaccine for syphilis.

You wouldn't go around saying you're not cured of it if you had it and then were treated would you?


A cure simply restores you back to your healthy state not life long protection for ever and ever and ever.

Basically I'm using the dictionary definition of cure, you're using a ******** definition of cure to try and bolster the argument "pharma only treats symptoms".

 

[Glaucus]

^
+1

And why would one companies hold back a vaccine/cure.
They would become the sole supplier and rake in far more. Money than just mitigating symptoms drugs, which are manufactured by every man and their dog. They would get the praise. And their name would become recognized.

 

[oli collett]

Looking forward to reading this book

Also looking forward to reading the alt-med types citing Goldacre when ranting at big pharma, who were the same types saying he was in big pharma's pocket when he was writing about the scam of alt-med.

 

[Kenai]

Basically I'm using the dictionary definition of cure, you're using a ******** definition of cure to try and bolster the argument "pharma only treats symptoms".

An incorrect definition maybe, but not intently with the purpose of bolstering an otherwise empty argument, that's just the term that is used rightly or wrongly. You need only look at the post below yours to see Glaucus immediately lumping vaccine/cure in together to see people treat them the same in this debate, rightly or wrongly.

If you're talking strict dictionary definitions, then sure, they're not going to hold back a 'cure' but like I say, that's hardly a big revelation, it's just plain common sense that isn't even a debate worthy topic. That's why when the debate appears, i've always taken it as given that it's a 'final solution' solution being discussed, if anything else is meant by it then there isn't even a debate to be had, so what would be the point?

As you describe things, it's just a comparison between 1x £20 cure, or 20x £1 packs of lemsip every time you get a cold. There's no debate to be had there.

 

[Glaucus]

No I'm not lumping them to gather, I'm saying why would a company hold back either. So try again. A cure does not mean life long protection and never has, not even in common usage.
That's a vaccine.

As said you can cure plenty of stds and other stuff, doesn't mean you won't contract it again.

Normally when this discussion comes up, it's the aids drugs. These mitigate the symptoms and make you live longer they are not a cure and people say that if if there was a cure they wouldn't release it due to profits. But that's BS as proved by the 10s of thousands of cures and loads of vaccines they have released. As well as that profit is split between many companies, where a cure, would mean all that profit goes to the company with the cure.

 

[Kenai]

Would you like me to write out again why it's a completely pointless debate in the first place if you're taking cure at it's strict definition?

The argument revolves around whether people think companies would withhold a one time 'fix' in preference to selling you something over and over again.

If you're saying a cure isn't a permanent fix and you can sell the cure over and over again too, there isn't a debate, there's just nothing.

 

[Glaucus]

Would you like me to write out again why it's a completely pointless debate in the first place if you're taking cure at it's strict definition?

The argument revolves around whether people think companies would withhold a one time 'fix' in preference to selling you something over and over again.

If you're saying a cure isn't a permanent fix and you can sell the cure over and over again too, there isn't a debate, there's just nothing.

Your still missing the point, you point despite what you say is not the normal debate at all. Your is a twisted point, which doesn't make sense.

The normal debate is companies won't release an aids cure. As they can keep you on drugs for the rest of your life, rather than being cured and you may well not get aids again.

No where in that common argument, do people argue that cure = vaccine.

Just that a cure would mitigate life long drug dependencie.

It's not nothing as that stance only deals with things like common cold, which you are very likely to catch.

 

[Kenai]

When did it become specifically about AIDS?

I've seen this debate many many times and AIDS has rarely been mentioned, so i'd contest that the 'normal debate' is about an AIDS cure.

The debate can only be about what I describe, otherwise there isn't a debate at all If it's as you describe, then people have spent years having the most pointless discussions in the history of humanity.

 

[Glaucus]

If you look at the last 10million (number made up) threads, it nearly always comes down to AIDs as the example.

It's not a pointless discussion, if you expand your horizon from the common cold and your 20x£1 or £20x1 to something like aids. Where it is not the case as you aren't likely to catch aids loads of times, unlike a cold.