By Kennedy Shelley
Just how reliable is the health advice you just got from the media, your friend or even your doctor?
Has anyone taken a look at the information they are relying on to see if it was influenced by Big Pharma?
So far today I have read three stories about people suffering from horrible side effects from therapies that were recommended by their doctors…and it turned out the doctors got their information solely from pharmaceutical representatives.
This is why you need to become familiar with Cochrane Reviews.
This collaboration began in 1993 when a group of scientists noticed that no one was reviewing or doing follow-up work on major treatments or pharmaceuticals.
“It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organized a critical summary, by specialty or subspecialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomized controlled trials.” (Archie Cochrane 1979)
Why is this so important?
The retired editors of the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association have all reported that big pharma so dominates medicine now that they don’t believe any studies being reported.
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —Dr. Marcia Angell
And this is why Cochrane Reviews are so important. Teams of scientists and volunteer statisticians review the studies that were paid for by people trying to sell us stuff and dig into the data.
For instance, it was their relentless research that showed us why the so-called cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins do not save any lives. (To learn more about why statin drugs are ineffective for most people see this article in Freedom Health News.)
The group showed that Nicotine Replacement Therapy actually works for those who want to quit.
And it has some of the best reviews of diet research on the web.
In short, if you want unbiased reviews of treatments, therapies or pharmaceuticals, then check and see if there is a Cochrane Review of it.
“’The best single resource for methodologic research and for developing the science of meta-epidemiology’ and crediting them with leading to methodological improvements in the medical literature.” –The Canadian Medical Association Journal
Freedom Health News has done several stories on the dangers and ineffectiveness of prescribed antidepressants. Most of the research that shows the ineffectiveness of these so-called wonder drugs is from the Cochrane Institute.
Without their insights, most of us would be at the mercy of the advice of companies who want to sell us a pill.
Why should you worry about that? This quote from CNBC should be chilling:
“Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: ‘Is curing patients a sustainable business model?’”
Someone said ‘There is no money in death. There is no money in cures.’ In other words, unless someone is making money, no one is pushing a treatment.
That is the unfortunate reality.
Thankfully we live in the internet age and can do our own research.
Be sure to bookmark Cochrane Reviews or google a drug or treatment to see if there has been a Cochrane Review of it before you put your health at risk.
