I'm baaaaaack . . .

It was just too painful to type for a few days so I decided not to bite the bullet. People ask me what I do for a living and I say I'm a medical sociologist, but now I realize that a better job description is typist. Anyway . . .Millions of people are locked up for shoplifting and smoking pot and shooting dope, but if you steal $20 billion you're cool. I don't know how much of this you can read, but the new BMJ has a theme issue on the latest fraud of the century. The story is that in 2006, one Tom Jefferson led a Cochrane review* of neuraminidase inhibitors -- these are drugs to treat influenza, most notably oseltamavir (brand name Tamiflu, manufactured by Roche).  He concluded that it can prevent hospitalizations, shorten the course of influenza, and save lives. Accordingly, during the flu pandemic hoax of 2010-2011,** governments stockpiled huge amounts of the drug and doctors handed it out like lollipops.Then Jefferson got a heads up from a Japanese researcher that there was a lot of unpublished data that might change these conclusions. He fought for years to get the drug companies to cough it up. They resisted every step of the way, but backed up by BMJ and powerful (mostly British) physicians, he finally got the data. What do you know? The full clinical trial data finds that the benefits of the drugs don't outweigh harms. Says BMJ International Editor Kamran Abassi:Worryingly, the welfare of patients seems a secondary consideration for all stakeholders. Drug compan...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs