Bad Science: "This morning at 11:30, Dr Sarah Wollaston MP will ask questions in parliament about the ongoing scandal of missing trial data. This is widely recognised as a problem by academics and doctors, but governments, regulators, and journalists have neglected the problem, while industry simply denies it. Watch the questions live here or watch it later here.
As an example, we spent £500m stockpiling Tamiflu in the UK, but the company Roche are still withholding vitally important information about the trials on whether it works from Cochrane, the international academic collaboration who make gold standard reviews of evidence for doctors, patients, and governments."
'via Blog this'
Irving Kirsch, P.h.D: Antidepressants: The Emperor's New Drugs?
Irving Kirsch, P.h.D: Antidepressants: The Emperor's New Drugs?: "It turned out that 75 percent of the antidepressant effect was also produced by placebos - sugar pills with no active ingredients that are used to control the effects of hope and expectation in clinical trials. In other words, most of the improvement seen in patients given antidepressants was a placebo effect."
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Peer review: Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre
Peer review: Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre: "In Bad Pharma he repeats this trick, but the headline news is infinitely more disturbing: contemporary medicine is acutely sick and in desperate need of therapy. Usually, it’s naturopaths who run this argument, portraying what they see as contemporary medicine’s de-humanising reductionism.
Goldacre’s perspective is very different: medicine’s evidence base has been undermined by an unscrupulous alliance of the pharmaceutical industry and regulators, which leads to the routine suppression of negative studies revealing many drugs to be either ineffective or less effective than those they seek to replace.
This suppression has been wilful and many academics (the industry’s “key opinion leaders”) have acted as willing partners in the enterprise, putting their names to ghostwritten articles reporting positive trials, while failing to publish negative trials.
Since there’s so much missing data, we can’t really say whether the therapies we use work or not. "
'via Blog this'
Goldacre’s perspective is very different: medicine’s evidence base has been undermined by an unscrupulous alliance of the pharmaceutical industry and regulators, which leads to the routine suppression of negative studies revealing many drugs to be either ineffective or less effective than those they seek to replace.
This suppression has been wilful and many academics (the industry’s “key opinion leaders”) have acted as willing partners in the enterprise, putting their names to ghostwritten articles reporting positive trials, while failing to publish negative trials.
Since there’s so much missing data, we can’t really say whether the therapies we use work or not. "
'via Blog this'
Limited heart rate variability, autonomic nervous system imbalance implicated in the aetiology of CFS
The Conversation: "The stress-response neural systems of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients remain on high alert even when they sleep, signalling that it’s not safe to relax, researchers have found.
Researchers also discovered that reduced heart rate variability, or changes in heart beat timing, are the best predictors of cognitive disturbances, such as concentration difficulties commonly reported by CFS sufferers. This adds to the growing body of evidence linking autonomic nervous system imbalance to this disorder.
The findings could lead to new ways to improve cognitive difficulties in people with CFS, which remains a poorly understood condition."
ETS result in limited (reduced) heart rate variability and alters the ANS (sympathetic and parasympathetic balance). This article might provide some insight into the cases where ETS resulted in a variety of unwelcome and detrimental side-effects, including fatigue, altered cognitive function ('brain fog'), etc.
Tamiflu effectiveness questioned as drug company refuses to release data
Tamiflu effectiveness questioned as drug company refuses to release data: "Public health researchers have stepped up their campaign to access clinical trial data about influenza drug Tamiflu, amid concerns about its effectiveness.
Professor Peter Gøtzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, has called for drug company Roche, which manufacturers Tamiflu, to be sued over its refusal to share data with independent researchers.
Meanwhile, questions are being raised about whether Tamiflu works in the way its manufacturers claim, or acts like paracetamol instead.
Tamiflu, or oseltamivir, is supposed to reduce complications from flu, such as pneumonia, and reduce the rate of hospitalisation and death during outbreaks of the illness.
The drug was stockpiled in Australia, Europe and the US following the swine flu outbreak of 2009. The British Medical Journal claims it has made billions of pounds for Roche."
'via Blog this'
Professor Peter Gøtzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, has called for drug company Roche, which manufacturers Tamiflu, to be sued over its refusal to share data with independent researchers.
Meanwhile, questions are being raised about whether Tamiflu works in the way its manufacturers claim, or acts like paracetamol instead.
Tamiflu, or oseltamivir, is supposed to reduce complications from flu, such as pneumonia, and reduce the rate of hospitalisation and death during outbreaks of the illness.
The drug was stockpiled in Australia, Europe and the US following the swine flu outbreak of 2009. The British Medical Journal claims it has made billions of pounds for Roche."
'via Blog this'
Doctor pleads guilty to abortion clinic infections
Doctor pleads guilty to abortion clinic infections: "He made admissions to the Medical Practitioners Board in 1995 that he had abused fentanyl and pethidine, obtained by forging prescriptions.
He was charged by police with several counts of failing to give notice that a patient was drug-dependent and obtaining a drug of dependence by forging prescriptions.
He was convicted over the charges, received community-based orders and two months’ jail, which was wholly suspended for 18 months.
In July 1996 he was also charged with multiple counts of aiding and abetting another person to forge a prescription for drugs, and for being in possession of a drug of dependence, using a drug of dependence and introducing a drug into the body of another. He was again convicted and released on a community-based order for 18 months.
He was ordered to undergo assessment for a drug addiction, submit to medical, psychological and/or psychiatric treatment and be drug-tested as part of his conditions.
The medical board suspended him in 1996 before he returned to work at Box Hill Hospital the following year.
He tested positive for hepatitis C — a disease of which the health department must be notified — in 1997."
He was charged by police with several counts of failing to give notice that a patient was drug-dependent and obtaining a drug of dependence by forging prescriptions.
He was convicted over the charges, received community-based orders and two months’ jail, which was wholly suspended for 18 months.
In July 1996 he was also charged with multiple counts of aiding and abetting another person to forge a prescription for drugs, and for being in possession of a drug of dependence, using a drug of dependence and introducing a drug into the body of another. He was again convicted and released on a community-based order for 18 months.
He was ordered to undergo assessment for a drug addiction, submit to medical, psychological and/or psychiatric treatment and be drug-tested as part of his conditions.
The medical board suspended him in 1996 before he returned to work at Box Hill Hospital the following year.
He tested positive for hepatitis C — a disease of which the health department must be notified — in 1997."
GMC suspends 'rogue surgeon' accused of unnecessary breast operations | Society | The Guardian
GMC suspends 'rogue surgeon' accused of unnecessary breast operations | Society | The Guardian: "
An alleged "rogue surgeon" has been suspended by the General Medical Council after it emerged he might have performed "unnecessary or inappropriate" breast operations on more than 1,000 women in Britain.
Ian Stuart Paterson, a breast cancer specialist who worked at NHS and private hospitals in the Midlands from 1994 until last month, is suspected of misdiagnosing at least 450 of the women with breast cancer when they were in fact healthy, and then performing unnecessary "lumpectomy" surgery."
An alleged "rogue surgeon" has been suspended by the General Medical Council after it emerged he might have performed "unnecessary or inappropriate" breast operations on more than 1,000 women in Britain.
Ian Stuart Paterson, a breast cancer specialist who worked at NHS and private hospitals in the Midlands from 1994 until last month, is suspected of misdiagnosing at least 450 of the women with breast cancer when they were in fact healthy, and then performing unnecessary "lumpectomy" surgery."
We need a different national conversation about ADHD
We need a different national conversation about ADHD: "That’s why Australia needs to start a broader conversation about ADHD. And if we do, we might uncover a deep contradiction in our past response.
While we laud the qualities of activity, alertness and resistance to authority in our grandparents as foundations of the ANZAC tradition, we consider these same qualities in our children as something to be treated with medication.
It leads to the question – if Ginger Meggs were around today, would he be ADHD?"
'via Blog this'
While we laud the qualities of activity, alertness and resistance to authority in our grandparents as foundations of the ANZAC tradition, we consider these same qualities in our children as something to be treated with medication.
It leads to the question – if Ginger Meggs were around today, would he be ADHD?"
'via Blog this'
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