We believe that medicine is evidence based.
Doctors are scientists and practice their craft based on the best scientific evidence, right?
What if the whole process has been so corrupted that your doctor can no longer get the information he needs?
For instance, many of us believe our doctor when he prescribes a drug to reduce our cholesterol.
He knows that one out of every 300 people who take the drug have a reduction in their cholesterol rate.
But would he still prescribe the drug if he knew that 15 of the 300 people, he prescribed the drug to would suffer tremendous negative side effects including muscle aches to the point his patients may have to give up their jobs.
Unfortunately, that is the reality, one of the most prescribed drugs in the United States are cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins.
The drug companies reprint studies that show the reduction in cholesterol, but they don’t mention the side effects.
“The war on cholesterol has been fought by advocates that have used statistical deception to create the appearance that statins are wonder drugs, when the reality is that their trivial benefit is more than offset by their adverse effects.” Diamond and Ravnskov
For instance, the drug companies will tell you that if you use a statin you cut your heart attack risk by 50%.
What they don’t tell you is your risk was 2% before the drug.
The drug drops that to 1%. And they don’t tell you about the side effects.
So, would you risk your health for a possible 1% reduction in your heart attack risk? That’s the reality.
Just how bad is this problem?
Former editors of the three most prestigious medical journals spell out the problem clearly:
“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful” Arnold S. Relman, Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue” Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet
“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” Dr. Marcia Angell former Editor in Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine
What many people don’t realize is that these publications make a huge amount of money from reprints, most from Big Pharma when they get an article published they like:
The New England Journal of Medicine – 23% of its income is from reprints.
The Lancet – 41% of its income is from reprints.
The American Medical Association – 53% of its income is also from reprints.
This is an obvious conflict of interest.
The most important medical journals in the world have a strong incentive to publish articles that highlight the good side of a drug, but they don’t publish any negative reviews.
And it might get worse than this.
An article published in the respected medical journal BMJ in 2017 tracked the payments to all the editors of major medical journals and found they were paid on medium $28,136 directly by pharmaceutical and medical devise manufacturers.
This conflict of interest is dangerous to your health.
Too many times doctors who challenge the major medical journals are dismissed as crackpots who are ignoring the evidence.
But remember these charges are coming from people who are being paid to ignore the evidence.
