steffijade
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Nice to know that Big Pharma can be trusted to do the right thing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21066261
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21066261
So just to confirm.. Big pharma, totally trustworthy... not.
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KulrMeStoopid
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Ah but this story helps with our EU issue! Added to the list of MUST reads for MP's and MEP's!
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This is exactly what Ben Goldacre has been on about vehemently for awhile now .. its unbelievable
Yep, sadly old story but a scandal nonetheless, and it's a good thing BBC is covering it.
Another thing the often do is not to declare what exactly they are trying to prove with testing before running tests.
Which makes it easy to rephrase the aims of the study once data are there, so to downplay any negative finding.
Actually, I remember a guy on TED who organized a campaign to allow people to request their full medical records so to upload them to an online database. Basically allowing researchers from all over the world to access existing data from hundred thousands of people.
A privacy risk in a sense, of course, but privacy protection is just what pharmaceutical companies use to oppose release of trial results and methodologies.
There is so much knowledge locked up.
Another thing the often do is not to declare what exactly they are trying to prove with testing before running tests.
Which makes it easy to rephrase the aims of the study once data are there, so to downplay any negative finding.
Actually, I remember a guy on TED who organized a campaign to allow people to request their full medical records so to upload them to an online database. Basically allowing researchers from all over the world to access existing data from hundred thousands of people.
A privacy risk in a sense, of course, but privacy protection is just what pharmaceutical companies use to oppose release of trial results and methodologies.
There is so much knowledge locked up.
Last edited:
AnnaLaw
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Pharmacuetical companies are probably number one in the top ten of companies that only allow possitive publicity and they extend that to trials. If threy don't get the results they want they bury them and won't release any results even to trial participants.
I know a few people who took part in clinical trials and never were even told of they acheived the desired result or not. Pharmacuetical companies pay out billions to people harmed by their drugs and usually only pull them if ordered to by governments.
I am biased here as I have a friend who has a chronic ilness that probably would have caused little damage if she hadn't been put on a drug regime that left her with, amongst other things, osteoporosis and auto-immune hepatitis which led to cirrhosis. Last year she found she had cancer, stage one, treatable, but the hospital wanted to put her on a trial to learn how cancer cells spread, which would have meant her death. Luckily by then she could tell the difference between researchers and ordinary doctors so refused. She wasn't told she was a trial candidate, she was told that she would have to go on chemotherapy in spite of the fact that they would have killed her due to the liver damage she had from earlier drugs, and she was told that she was terminal, refused surgery. She changed hospitals, had surgery and radiotherapy and there is a good chance for her. Tnhe pharmacuetical companies wanted to use her as a sacrificial lamb.
That's why I need a lot of evidence before taking any drug, especially a fairly new one. The new drugs are pushed because they have the highest mark-up.
From my experience and that of people I know, never trust Big Pharma to want to cure anything! Tnhey just want to boost profits and eliminate competition.
I know a few people who took part in clinical trials and never were even told of they acheived the desired result or not. Pharmacuetical companies pay out billions to people harmed by their drugs and usually only pull them if ordered to by governments.
I am biased here as I have a friend who has a chronic ilness that probably would have caused little damage if she hadn't been put on a drug regime that left her with, amongst other things, osteoporosis and auto-immune hepatitis which led to cirrhosis. Last year she found she had cancer, stage one, treatable, but the hospital wanted to put her on a trial to learn how cancer cells spread, which would have meant her death. Luckily by then she could tell the difference between researchers and ordinary doctors so refused. She wasn't told she was a trial candidate, she was told that she would have to go on chemotherapy in spite of the fact that they would have killed her due to the liver damage she had from earlier drugs, and she was told that she was terminal, refused surgery. She changed hospitals, had surgery and radiotherapy and there is a good chance for her. Tnhe pharmacuetical companies wanted to use her as a sacrificial lamb.
That's why I need a lot of evidence before taking any drug, especially a fairly new one. The new drugs are pushed because they have the highest mark-up.
From my experience and that of people I know, never trust Big Pharma to want to cure anything! Tnhey just want to boost profits and eliminate competition.
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