TRUST ME I’M NOT A DOCTOR
Infection Super-Spreaders, with Michael Hengartner’s comment…
I cannot recommend rejection, as this would mean to reject about 90% of clinical research and call into question everything EBM has achieved, including the Cochrane collaboration.
.. opens up an unsettling vista. Calling into question EBM, and the Cochrane Collaboration, has echoes that are little short of well ……
How about Pius XII’s failure to intervene in the Holocaust ? Pius presumably was operating on some basis like to do so would have called into question the people that gave us Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as Pasqualini Lehnert (google her).
No one suggests Pius turned on the gas in any of the ovens and no one will ever suggest Andrea Cipriani put any of the pills in the mouths of any teenager whose suicide is caused by the antidepressant they take or Stephen O’Neill who was killed by the Zoloft he took. Stephen may well have been put on Zoloft by his family doctor, Dr Brannigan, on the basis of Andrea’s promotion of Zoloft. Hard to know if promotion is the right word here but a lot of Zoloft has been shifted on the back of articles by Andrea.
Andrea has a defence – he is not responsible for producing the Fake literature he puts through his network meta-analytic sausage maker. It’s not his job to blow the whistle on fine people like Marty Keller and Charlie Nemeroff publishing in the very best journals. His job is a technical one – push the articles through the sausage grinder. Who cares where the rockets come down!
But there is an outrage here on the scale of the Holocaust or the Slave Trade that someone needs to get to grips with. Close to the entire medical literature on on-patent drugs is ghostwritten and there is zero access to the data from these trials. By definition, these trials are not science, but they are idolatrously enshrined in our most sacred journals (data-launderers in the Temple).
As a result, day by day our medicines – which are chemicals plus information – get ever more dangerous leading to more and more unnecessary, often grisly, deaths, as the death of Stephen O’Neill showed.
Pilates (a form of contortion)
Pontius Pilate like, the NICE guideline apparatus, or at least their former Chair David Haslam, and former CEO Andrew Dillon, NICE before Christmas, which depends totally on this Fake Literature, have washed their hands of the matters.
The first Cochrane High Priest, Iain Chalmers, and one of the most Senior Medical Journal Rabbis, a promoter of EBM, and the medical journal editor who has thundered most furiously against the corruption of the scientific literature, Richard Horton, helped create the problem we now have in 2005 by dismissing all this ghosty-wosty, data access nonsense in front of a British Health Select Committee – Spotlight on the Suicides Behind the Scenes. This has made it very difficult, for someone like Michael Hengartner, to do the right thing and call EBM and Cochrane to account.
This month the question of what to do with the borders on the island of Ireland and in the Irish Sea and potentially between England and Scotland, has become one of the hottest political issues in both North America and Europe. But politicians in health departments in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic are all quite happy to have no border at all – hard, soft or invisible – between science and junk. Its fine by us if you want to smuggle chlorinated lies into the pills our citizens take or to have the supposed very best assessments of the harms a drug might cause based on ‘data’ from non-existent patients in India or foster-homes in the US.
We know the academic literature is full of chlorinated clinical trials but what can we do about it – Vaughan von Gething’s office said.
Even turning to a Super-Hero, SpiderWoman Brenda Hale, doesn’t get anywhere as outlined in There is no Sanity Clause. Maybe contrary to appearances it was Brenda and the Supreme Court rather than BJ, the British Prime Minister, whose noses got bloodied last year when she tut-tutted him. Maybe no-one in her gang is willing to take BJ on again when he’s pushing to get a vaccine licensed and force us to take it without any transparency as to the risks we might be taking, while denying us any comeback in the event of an injury.
An old phrase comes to mind – first, they came for a bunch of us with nothing wrong with us and hypnotized us into taking chemicals for risk factors, then they came for our teenagers turning those who don’t kill themselves into eunuchs, male and female, and now – well if you’re sleeping soundly good on you.
Trust me I’m a Doctor
Doctors are conspicuously absent in pretty well all considerations of these issues. But these are the people who turn the gas on/ put pills in our mouth. The one point in my correspondence with politicians, NICE, regulators, pharma, on which they and I appear to agree – is that whoever else might be blamed doctors are central to the problem.
When writing to the Departments of Health, around the Western European Archipelago about this, as well as to NICE, MHRA, Brenda and others, I copied the British Medical Association (BMA), through their Chair Chand Nagpaul, into everything.
Martin Davies responded on behalf of BMA:
Thank you for sending Dr Nagpaul your recent correspondence on ghost-written medical literature, which has been passed onto my team in the BMA’s policy directorate.
I’m not aware of current BMA policy on this issue, however we will read through the letter and documents and will share with colleagues internally as appropriate.
Kind regards Martin
I’ve heard nothing since from BMA despite copying them in on ongoing correspondence with other bodies – see letter to Matt Hancock April 2020.
MAGA
BMA are a trade body rather than an ethical or academic body. My correspondence with them made it clear that I thought this was a trade issue as much as an ethical or academic one. If the meds work wonderfully well, and are free of any hazards, as even the bits of the current Fake Medical Literature without links to industry suggests – like Andrea’s article – and if politicians and managers figure that they at least are going to be fireproof if everyone just sticks to the Guidelines, then the cost-effective money-saving option is to get rid of doctors and replace them with cheaper prescribers, like nurses or pharmacists.
So my letters aimed at alerting BMA to the risks of doctors being replaced. Chances are no-one in the BMA apparatus, whatever about BMA’s members, will be much bothered by this. Spending time in committees as they do, they probably already see the medical future in management rather than in having to deal with human beings, where since the 1970s or so the terms of engagement have been increasingly messy – and equal. Managers in contrast – accountable to no-one – have it sorted.
So MAGA is in BMA’s interest. It’s a terrible acronym and will never take off – but Medically Assisted Garbage Acclamation is even worse. So its the acronym or bust.
Trust
As Onora O’Neill put it in a Reith lecture from some years ago:
Confucius told his disciple Tsze-kung that three things are needed for government: weapons, food and trust. If a ruler can’t hold on to all three, he should give up the weapons first and the food next. Trust should be guarded to the end: “without trust we cannot stand” .
Our current governments are technocracies. Technocrats love bureaucrats (managers) and technicians – people who are ethical by keeping to their job descriptions. In these technocratic – Deep State – times, our rulers can trust an increasing number of people. We meanwhile are increasingly atomised. This is Evil.
Tis The Season to Rebel – perhaps by calling for a Retraction of Andrea’s article.
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Michael’s excuse reminds me of the days when mothers were blamed for giving paradoxical messages to children so causing them to become mentally ill. Does he understand what he has said!?
He and his chums can get away with publishing dangerous papers if the bodies they destroy as a consequence remain hidden and denied by those in positions to expose them Yellow Cards? – Yellow bellies who never speak up and undermine those who do for another chair on another committee.Another interview on the telly. People who trust those who ally themselves with ‘patient’ groups are, sometimes with well intentions, the snakes in the grass and just as dangerous.. It’s ‘interesting’ how many of them are described as charming…seductive even.
Hopefully one day they will be top of the leaderboard published by Retraction Watch
Although even being outed doesn’t stop them. They are a type of sub human beings with no conscience
Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Ten takeaways from ten years at Retraction Watch
As we celebrate our tenth birthday and look forward to our second decade, we thought it would be a good time to take stock and reflect on some lessons we — and others — have learned.
Retractions are more common than we — or anyone else — thought they were. Two decades ago, journals were retracting roughly 40 papers per year. Although we were pretty sure they needed to be doing more to police the literature, we had no idea how much more. We also assumed the number was somewhat similar in 2010, but we were off by at least an order of magnitude, depending how you count. Journals now retract about 1,500 articles annually — a nearly 40-fold increase over 2000, and a dramatic change even if you account for the roughly doubling or tripling of papers published per year — and even that’s too few.
Oransky and Marcus Retraction Watch
Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Thanks for visiting Retraction Watch. I’m Ivan Oransky, Vice President, Editorial, at Medscape, and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University’s Carter Journalism Institute, where I teach medical journalism in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. I’m also the president of the Association of Health Care Journalists. The views here do not necessarily represent those of any of those organizations.
In the past, I’ve been vice president and global editorial director of MedPage Today, executive editor of Reuters Health, managing editor, online, of Scientific American, deputy editor of The Scientist, and editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Praxis Post. For three years, I taught in the health and medicine track at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.were motivated to launch the blog to increase the transparency of the retraction process.[5]
They observed that retractions of papers generally are not announced, and the reasons for retractions are not publicized.[5] One result is that other researchers or the public who are unaware of the retraction may make decisions based on invalid results.
―a must-read for medical professionals, and especially aspiring key opinion leaders.
https://samizdathealth.org/malcharist-fact-or-fiction-big-pharma-psychiatry-and-ghostwriters/
In Scott’s novel, the coding of adverse events in the ghostwritten Study 463 publication, “Serotonal in the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder,” Jeremy Elton et al., made Serotonal appear safe compared to placebo by hiding completed suicides in the study drug under the code “Suicidal Events” whereas suicidal nightmares, thoughts, and acts of self-harm were also coded as “Suicidal Events” in both the drug and the placebo groups. (126) The suicidal events that occurred in pre-randomization were also inappropriately included in the placebo group. “By inflating suicidal events in the placebo arm,” as Griffin explained the process to a confused KOL,
“Makes normal life look more dangerous, and that makes the problem on the drug look more like normal life.” (274)
Tis The Season to Rebel –
Michael P. Hengartner, PhD
@HengartnerMP
A few days ago I received a hostile letter from the heads of Swiss psychiatry. They wrote my public statements about AD dependence and withdrawal are absurd and misleading. They state that it‘s as absurd as if I would claim that people with diabetes are addicted to insulin.
But they won‘t silence me, because we have the scientific evidence that suggests that just like the benzodiazepines, AD too can cause dependence and withdrawal. And user reports confirm these findings. IMO denying this evidence base is absurd and misleading.
‘However, until the RCPsych can come up with an efficient strategy to prevent children’s dying by “suicide”, those whose lives are taken from them by SSRI-induced akathisia will continue to be regarded merely as collateral damage.’
Right …
Scott nails it in one purple passage
And it turns out that they are almost entirely written by salesmen.… It’s not against the law or even the ethical codes that govern practice in the various specialties. Think of it as a loophole big enough to drive through with a bus wrapped in vinyl humping Bioferex.”
Right…
Paul John Scott
@pauljohnscott
Thrilled for this review today of my new novel #Malcharist, and by one the smartest people in the country on the subject of medical ghostwriting and the industrialization of clinical trials. https://madinamerica.com/2020/09/malcharist-psychiatry-kols-ghostwriters/
‘Who cares where the rockets come down!
McH and McG and McFlurry…
Good for Michael H – off with their heads – heads of Swiss Psychiatry need to come out of their silos and interact with those who are providing and publishing the evidence And give up any perks they may be getting fron prescribing drugs. Plus apologise (as if) for telling lies for decades to create fear in people with depression if they resist taking drugs or with- hold the truth about them. Diabetes is not like depression. Whoever dreamed up the. tell them it’s like diabetes’ has served psychiatry well. They seem oblivious of the fact that open minded clinicians are helping people with type 2 diabetes to come off the drugs they would have been on for life by using carefully monitored healthier life styles. They will need another persuader soon. It’s a bit more effort on the part of consultants – a lot more quality of life for many people. But not all Just as not all will want to do without psych drugs – . A UK psychiatrist I know (sorry no name possible) flagged up that a relative who had suffered severe mental illness , which she wrote about herself, committed suicide and that one of the causes could have been the ‘wrong’ drug He was castigated for that but had been using the diabetes analogy to ‘encourage’ his relative (and others) to take drugs for decades. In turn because he had some authority she was propogating the myth herself before she died. He has never published anything about the harms caused to other than his own relative. There’s no need for myths and legends .Time to slay that dragon.
A not-to-be-missed “blast” from “James and the Disorders”
Rock along with the indomitable Stevie Lewis, aka Seroxat, and John Read and all having ‘the time of their life”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdsDPVLuvFM&feature=emb_logo
Say it with Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=wQTpmhmQCS4&feature=emb_logo
An earlier rendition
“Doctor, I don’t find this very funny” …
The other day did a search for – The truth about Sertraline. This came up:
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/sertraline-does-a-tablet-a-day-keep-anxiety-away
‘Sertraline – does a tablet a day keep anxiety away’
Oh dear.
It seems they are going for these lifestyle magazines. I’ve no doubt the editor has no idea his/her decision will likely lead to suicide violence and maybe homicide by a psych drug naive normal 17-30 year old after reading that some time down the line.
Forgotten about ‘Seroxat’, already…
‘Vallance himself has remained tight-lipped about the matter ‘
As yer do..
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8770415/ANDREW-PIERCE-Patrick-Vallance-5m-company-racing-vaccine.html
He studied medicine at St George’s at the University of London, becoming a senior lecturer in medicines policy and for a while was a doctor seeing patients – but it did not suit him.
‘Every time I didn’t give a patient enough time,’ he said.
‘Every mistake I made resulted from not giving 100 per cent to the patient I was with – and it is dreadful to short-change people when they are at their most vulnerable.’
The ‘career’ in a nutshell…
Crash, Bang, Wallop…
BOB FIDDAMAN
@Fiddaman
·
Hey,
@rcpsych thanks for posting this information *after* the collapse of the UK Seroxat litigation.
Glaxo will be proud of you.
BOB FIDDAMAN
@Fiddaman
·
How long have @rcpsych known that Seroxat (paroxetine) was the worst in class for withdrawal? This information would have been helpful in the UK Seroxat litigation, which collapsed for lack of evidence that it was actually the worst in class.
Thanks for posting after the collapse
https://twitter.com/Fiddaman/status/1309753988074491904/photo/1
Disclaimer
This resource provides information, not advice.
The content in this resource is provided for general information only. It is not intended to, and does not, amount to advice which you should rely on. It is not in any way an alternative to specific advice. You must therefore obtain the relevant professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action based on the information in this resource.
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellbeing/stopping-antidepressants
you should consult your doctor ..
What is happening with Cochrane and papers-with-no-raw-data and “scandals” and so on is something that must make us think.
Let’s see.
Before “science” (let’s put the “genesis” of this enterprise with Pasteur but we can go some years back, but not centuries) created “evidence” in simple and lineal worlds (and then exploded to complex and non-lineal ones like “illness”) there was no guidelines to look at or analytical work to review it. So doctor needed to amplify verbal and non-verbal actions, generate trust (i.e. believe patient’s words) and potentiate placebo effects. There was (and there is) people who can be “saved”, people who can had their chronic illness managed (life is a mystery to live and not a problem to be solved – Kierkegaard) and kafkian people (read his diaries. Very interesting). So, my question is:
-Why, in pre-science times, an old man / woman could live (and die) with Alzheimer with better quality of life than now? (Thinking with the “knowledge is power”‘s adage from Bacon. I mean, diagnosis most of the times add angst and suffering)
So, my next question is: why are dokhtorrs always threatening us with “going back to dark-times” analogy from Plato when the actual “Enlighten times” burn us all? Not even with type 2 diabetes mellitus I want EVERY technological advance (some people are o.k. with injections, others will take automatic gadget as well). With antibiotics, is the pharmacological industry itself that NEGATES innovation. So what would happen if we erase all journals that publish papers with no raw-data? I can only imagine utopian cases, not much dystopian ones. So I would push the “do-it” button. Meanwhile, with all the time available for researchers, we could start qualitative studies (anthropological, ethnographic, philosophical…). And watch the eyes of the patients, hear their stories and so on.
Can you spot please any fault in my short-list logic? I can’t see any horizon of hope available to me without raw-data available. It’s like saying “you must live in a building, but, starting today, you could only see 50% of your future house”. The solution is getting ride of this naïver architects (peacefully or using force). So, why can’t we get ride of faith-based medicine? I thought we were post-Nietzschean humans, not Augustine ones.
Alan Cassels
@AKECassels
Tim: Why don’t you ask him about how many childhood suicides are due to the fraud called Study 329 of which he was a co-author? He’s certainly an expert on ‘public trust.’
https://www.ti.ubc.ca/2016/11/22/101-study-329-important/
@Mad_In_America @Pgtzsche1 @DrNancyOlivieri @ColleenFuller @DrDavidHealy
Timothy Caulfield
@CaulfieldTim
·
#COVID19: Six-Month Check In! Looking forward to this LIVE @Twitter chat with Senator Stan Kutcher. Oct 1 at 11:30AM ET. I’m guessing we will talk #infodemic, #vaccines, #science and public trust. #GoTeam!
Original Study 329 Team
September, 3, 2015 | 10 Comments
https://davidhealy.org/original-study-329-team/
Author of Ghostwritten Study Runs for Parliament in Canada
MAY 12, 2011
https://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/05/author-of-ghostwritten-study-runs-for-parliament-in-canada.html
“I don’t think that study caused any particular controversy,” he said. “There certainly is a group of people who would like to cause a controversy around it, but science is nasty, brutish and long.”
Fiona French, honesty and integrity are my values Retweeted
Dr. Nancy Olivieri
@DrNancyOlivieri
TY @AKECassels; 100%
Just guessing that he won’t discuss ‘public trust.’ #HST440 students, plse look up this article (great, & great title) about #Study329 (I’ll post full study to course site):
https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4629
Much more on Study 329 to come!
#ghostwriting #transparency
“None of us – journals, regulators, academics, or doctors – come out of this with much credit.”
‘Yep. Right. Uh-huh.
329 A Lullaby. A soothing, clever astute song by the indomitable Stevie Lewis, other creatives are singing a song of dissention, writing poetry, (Chemical Embrace V1) and drawing pictures,…..Literally killer lines and brilliant incites, Incite or is that insight, plus action =Change. X
In conjunction with the UK Litigation for Seroxat/Paroxetine for adults, there was to be an Adjunct Case for Minors who took Seroxat.
Yesterday I read through a 100-page Sheriff’s Report into the death of a 13-year old girl who was prescribed Fluoxetine/Prozac followed by Sertraline/Zoloft. This young girl hanged herself from the window of her bedroom.
This death by a minor struck me as having close parallels to the death of Stephen O’Neill which was covered in a series of posts on this blog. In the case of Stephen O’Neill, David Healy had been asked by the family to be an Expert Witness and to put forth his views.
In this case of a child, it is unfortunate that there was not an ‘Expert’ invited.
Today I read through the case analysed by Brian at Antidepaware, who has put together his highlights and conclusions regarding this child’s death. See below.
This case is a terrible reflection on all those who were dealing with Sophie as was the same with the conclusions in the Stephen O’Neill case.
Any adult who has experienced MH teams with regard to these drugs will recognise the pattern that this child lived through; it is extremely alarming and disturbing.
It is hardly credible that Stephen O’Neill, the young Sophie and so many of us were subject to similar narratives with exactly the same end-results..
“Dr McQuitty changed Sophie’s dosage twice, then changed the brand, putting Sophie at even more risk than she had been during the previous weeks. Yet he chose not to reveal this at the inquiry. More importantly, before Sophie’s death, he kept this information from her mother.
And, of course, the three “experts” – Dr Blower, Dr Mockett and Dr Marshall – would have been well aware of what NICE and the BNF have had to say about the considerable risk of prescribing antidepressants to children. But not one of them had the honesty or decency to reveal that vital evidence to the court.”
BBC and Sheriff’s Report:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-54384647
https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-general-docs/pdf-docs-for-opinions/2020fai32.pdf?sfvrsn=0
This is one of the most blatant acts of denial I have ever come across and Marion Brown summed it up most acutely when this death was first publicised :
Sophie and the Silent Experts (updated)
Posted on August 21, 2020 by Brian — 1 Comment ↓
http://antidepaware.co.uk/sophie-silent-experts/
Marion Brown on August 21, 2020 at 11:45 said:
Thank you so much Brian for your very important summary of yet another tragic case.
How on earth can this tragic (contrived?) oversight – routinely omitting to investigate and gather, at suicide inquest, such important relevant evidence – go on?
https://fiddaman.blogspot.com/2020/03/uk-national-suicide-prevention-strategy.html
This ties in with RxISK and the conversations pertaining to Royal Colleges whose Senior Figures have so much to answer for
This ties in with why Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative is so vital
https://samizdathealth.org/
Go on..
Can it be this bad in the real world?
Scott’s novel is the first published by Samizdat Health Writer’s Cooperative, a Canadian publisher addressing the broad category of health information. This publisher clearly thinks Scott has created a story grounded enough in reality for people to learn a lot about pharma industry practices and our health.
Debut novel by Rochester author takes on Big Pharma issues
https://www.startribune.com/schafer-debut-novel-by-rochester-author-takes-on-big-pharma-issues/572679992/
Among our hero’s blunders was personally taking a new drug with a dangerous side effect, a very real-world condition called akathisia. The condition is a kind of acute mental restlessness that is a documented side effect of some approved drugs.
Have controversies erupted over drug trials? Absolutely, including a 2001 study about a popular antidepressant called Paxil used to treat kids. The trial was formally reevaluated many years later, and these new researchers found the previous conclusions to be flat wrong.
This original Paxil study was a big part of the story when global drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in 2012 agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle criminal and civil liability for, among other things, promoting drugs for unapproved uses.
A drug company is not just a group of scientists in search of more effective treatments for disease. It’s really a group of marketers with a drug compound in diligent search of a bigger market.
…..and how underappreciated side effects like akathisia are.
Screen-Shot Big-Shots Shot…
https://twitter.com/Fiddaman/status/1315538024349003777
GSK’s Manifesto: Voyeurs of the World Unite!
Reading the RIAT Act..
https://davidhealy.org/gsks-manifesto-voyeurs-of-the-world-unite/
AntiDepAware
@AntiDepAware
·
58m
Replying to @Fiddaman @leoniefen and @briangdaniels
And this is what it was all about: http://antidepaware.co.uk/antidepressants-and-the-politics-of-health/
Antidepressants and the Politics of Health
Posted on October 10, 2013 by Brian — 2 Comments ↓
http://antidepaware.co.uk/antidepressants-and-the-politics-of-health/
…GSK are offering an opportunity for voyeurism rather than the full-bodied engagement with the data that is science.”
So while GSK, under the leadership of the recently-knighted Andrew Witty (right), appears on the surface to be in favour of increasing data transparency, it is actually employing tactics that make it impossible to establish what their data actually shows.
Specific invitations to the talk had been issued to GSK, and also to the UK’s Pharma-funded regulator of medicines, the MHRA. Unfortunately, neither body was represented in the audience.
* Bob Fiddaman’s account of the meeting can be read here, while you’ll find Leonie’s exposé here
“and this is what it was all about”