Remember the good old doctor's clinic of yester era (like 30 years ago)? People used to be comfortable here with a personal touch and a homely atmosphere.
But these days the hospitals have become insanely huge, part of the reason for this is the psychological aspect. One look at these crazy big buildings and the patient gets psychologically intimidated. This insecure mindset forces the patient to lower his guard, become more submissive and more easily amenable to whatever the doctor tells him, even though he doesn't like it.
Leemon McHenry, PhD, "The Illusion of Evidence Based Medicine"
Now doctors give the patients only half of the information, may be because the doctors themselves do not have the complete information these days. The publishing of 'peer reviewed journal' is designed that way. Studies that are in favor of the pharmaceutical industry and their drugs are published more often (36/37 times) while those which show these drugs in negative light rarely get published and are suppressed and ignored in text books or the physician circles. These studies which are not profitable to the industry are hard to kick off, continue and get published (only 3/37 of such studies get published). And when they do, they do not get the recognition they deserve. While Pharma industry buys off hundreds of thousands of reprints of the journal which carries the study which is in favor to its drugs and distributes them in physician circles. Click Here.
Like Dr. Jason Fung has rightly put, "Suppose you know a stockbroker who publishes all his winning trades and suppresses all his losing trades, would you trust him with your money?" Such Selective Publishing makes it look like 90% of medical literature is in favor of the drug while in reality just around 50% of studies would have been in the drug's favor. But since the studies opposing the drug are not published or suppressed, the percentage in favor of the drug goes up. The pharma industry has literally taken over the medical field. It has become one big giant international- for profit- corporation (if not mafia) where the doctors have been reduced to sales representatives, most of them.
"Conflicts of interests and biases exist in virtually every field of Medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published or to rely on the judgement 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 the editor of New England Journal of Medicine."- Dr. Marcia Angell, Former Editor in Chief of New England Journal of Medicine and Author of the book The Truth About Drug Companies.
Marcia Angell in conversation with Harvard about big pharma.
- Just as Dr. Marcia has said in the video, Johnson and Johnson has agreed to pay 230 million USD and also agreed to stop selling deadly drugs in the US, in this 'settlement'. Click here.
- Johnson and Johnson agreed to pay 100 million USD for its Baby powder settlement- 1000 lawsuits had come up saying that the baby power caused cancer. Click here.
- Pfizer agreed to payout to Nigerian victims families of the Meningitis drug trail. Click Here.
- Pfizer fined 2.3 Billion USD by the US Justice Dept. for fraud. Click here.
- Merck agreed to pay 830 Million for hiding information that its painkiller Vioxx could cause heart problems. Click Here.
- All big pharma companies pay settlement money every now and then. They believe its just part of business and an investment. Their corrupt practices continue as before. No one gets hanged or arrested for causing deaths of many people with their faulty products.
Dr. Richard Smith MD in his book "Trouble with Medical Journals" explains the significant unacknowledged conflicts of interest of Journal editors and the pharmaceutical industry. He was former Editor at BMJ for around 25 years. In his 2006 article in the Journal of Royal Society of Medicine, with the same title 'The Trouble with Medical Journals', he writes, "Medical journals contain poor science."
Dr. Jerome Kassirer's 'On The Take' explains how doctors have 'tainted' information and you cant trust your doctor nor can we trust our researchers anymore. He was former Editor at New England Journal Of Medicine.
Dr. Richard Horton, former Chief Editor of The Lancet said in 2015. "The case against science is straight forward, much of the scientific literature, perhaps half may simply be untrue."
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| Fraudulent study against HCQ was Retracted from The Lancet after doctors from all over the world demanded for details and data of this study. |
Dr. Relman, another former Chief Editor at NEJM said, "The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be paid agents of pharmaceutical industry. I think its disgraceful."
The evidence based medicine is totally worthless when the evidence base is false or corrupted.
Over the past few decades, there has been a systematic erosion of the image of a doctor. From a friendly gentleman who helps the community, he has been turned into a shrewd, cunning sales agent of the Pharmaceutical Industry. In the garb of 'Evidence Based Medicine, doctors are made to believe that patients know nothing and they need to be' educated' when they come with complaints or concerns of adverse reactions to vaccines or drugs.' The so called 'evidence' is generated in the manipulated 'peer reviewed studies' which are published in medical journals which in turn have huge financial tie ups with the pharmaceutical industry.
- Ghost writing: Some professional medical writer writes the manuscript of the study and 'authors' (usually big names in academic institutions) are bought off to sign the paper, which then goes to 'peer reviewed journals' for publishing.
- The conduct of study is given to a third party, which naturally has a tendency to not disappoint the client (pharma company), so the results of the study are almost always in favor of the drug company.
- The Journal Editors receive huge payments from time to time in various forms plus publishing industry studies guarantees huge sales of reprints of the study.
Guidelines based on these published 'peer reviewed journals', devised by the WHO, CDC, NIH, American Diabetic Association, American Cancer Association etc are pro industry, boosting drug, vaccine and device sales each year. The doctor who once used to treat patients by listening to them and utilizing his experience, knowledge and intuition is now forced to follow these guidelines, which are actually designed for and by the pharmaceutical industry. These guidelines, 'peer review journals' (that give 'scientific' legitimacy to the guidelines) with the branding of Universities on them have turned today's doctor into a mechanical robotic entity.
Listening and learning from the patients are the essence of a good medical practice. In fact, this is now termed as Implicit Bias. Today the doctor may listen to the patient, but he will do what the guidelines tell him. If the patient's words are not part of the decision making, then such a 'listening' is useless. Today its quite rare to have a doctor who actually listens and respects the patients' complaints and experiences. Most of the doctors today have a prejudiced mindset that the patient is ignorant or that he has come 'after reading junk on the internet.'
You may argue, isn't it good to have such guidelines so that Doctors don't act on their own and harm the patient? No. Doctors go through a very rigorous academic and practical training through their medical courses. Guidelines might be good to have an idea of how to proceed with a particular case but they should not be strictly implemented, doctors should feel free to change course of their treatment on case by case basis. Already malpractice and negligence appeals are in place. The doctor could lose his license or even go to jail if he harms a patient. Today these laws of malpractice, negligence and ethics are being used to intimidate those few doctors who dare step or think out of the box. Doctors now are scared to talk against the guidelines or the ones designing them- for the fear of losing their license. The situation can be improved if more and more doctors open their minds and work independent of the 'guideline and journal' mentality, listening and learning from the patient while at the same time having the guidelines at the back of their mind.
References and Further Reading:
The Corruption of Evidence Based Medicine: Dr. Jason Fung.
Alliance for Human Research Protection: A Presentation before US Army Medical Dept.
Offline: What is medicine's 5 sigma: The Lancet.
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