Let’s look at these so called “scientific studies” which drug companies use to push their drugs or discredit natural remedies. The fact is that studies are funded by someone, and are commissioned for a specific reason. They are either requested to prove something works or to prove that something doesn’t work. Studies paid for by pharmaceutical companies are never commissioned to find the truth. They are paid for to give a specific and preplanned result. Drug companies have specific ways in which they organize studies.
First, they produce secret studies to get some preliminary information on how to conduct the final study that will give them the required result. These preliminary studies are never released to the public and are only done to find the best way to organize the final study to give the drug companies the desired end result. Drug companies fund 99% of all studies, directly or indirectly. To hide the fact that a drug company is funding a particular study, sometimes the funding is 10 times removed! By channeling money through smaller companies, groups, foundations, and institutes the study seems like it is honest and truthful. These studies that produce results and supposedly “prove” that a particular drug is safe and effective are completely false and misleading!
For example, first they run studies to find out what kind of person has the least adverse reaction to their new drug, or no reaction at all. Then they test various doses of the drug to figure out one that has the least side effects. Let’s say they find that 45 year old physically fit healthy females are the least prone to side effects. In their final study they then recruit mostly 45 year old physically fit healthy females, and get their desired end result.
If you were a dishonest crook whose only motive was money, and you were funding a study to prove the effectiveness of your product. Wouldn’t you try absolutely everything to get the desired results? Especially if billions of dollars were at stake?
Once the FDA approves the medication or a drug for use by the general public, they know less than half of the serious adverse drug reactions. It is just impossible to know them all. So how do they find out the others? Well, it's owing to you, the public, or what is called, “the great clinical trial.” It is you who finds out. You are the guinea pig.
You might be wondering why such a small amount of drugs get taken off the market even though there are so many deaths.
“It is a voluntary reporting system. Less than one percent of these adverse drug reactions are really reported back to the FDA, because doctors and hospitals are not required to report them back. It is voluntary. Then, it is reported to a committee in the FDA that has no authority. Once enough of these red flags come in on a drug, then they'll send it back to the original committee that approved the drug in the first place. I do not feel that they have an unbiased representation when they look at this. That’s why over 99 percent of the time all that happens is a change to the drug label or what we call a package insert. This usually goes unnoticed even if they send out a "dear doctor" letter warning doctors about these drugs, and that they better be careful here. There have been studies that show doctors don’t pay much attention to that. So it’s not a very good system.” Dr. Ray Strand
The final studies are usually done on healthy individuals and many times not even in the age category the drug is marketed for! For example, a clinical trial might over-select young, healthy subjects when the drug being tested is intended for use primarily on older patients.
"Rochon et al. found that only 2.1 percent of subjects in trials of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were 65 years of age or older, even though these drugs are more commonly used and have a higher incidence of side effects in the elderly." Bodenheimer T, "Uneasy Alliance-Clinical Investigators and the Pharmaceutical Industry," New England Journal of Medicine, 342(20), May 18, 2000.
Critics of the FDA point out the agency's close ties to the big drug companies as one of the problems in the drug approval process. A USA Today report found that more than half the advisors to the FDA have "financial relationships" with drug companies that have an interest in FDA decisions (De Angelis C, "Conflict of Interest and the Public Trust," JAMA, Nov 1, 2000). But even if panel members involved in approving a drug are scrupulously honest, they still depend on data from that company's clinical trials to approve the drug as safe and efficacious, and the data can be misleading.
"Efforts by drug companies to suppress, spin, and obfuscate findings that do not suit their commercial purposes were first revealed to their full, lethal extent during the thalidomide tragedy. Although government drug regulation schemes around the world are now in place, the insidious tactics of Big Pharma have changed little." "The Tightening Grip of Big Pharmaceutical Companies," Editorial, The Lancet, April 14, 2001.
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