Dr Brett says: Well said Dr Parry. It is a major concern to see just how much of a doctors education comes from pharmaceutical reps with no formal medical training. The fact that 'big pharma' can hide studies that are negative and only publish positive ones is also a MAJOR concern. It undermines the whole scientific method of analysis.
DOCTORS are losing faith in medical literature as pharmaceutical companies undermine the integrity of trials, an Adelaide doctor says.
Dr Peter Parry, a psychiatrist and senior lecturer at Flinders University, says trial sponsors use suppression and spinning of negative data to sell their products and that leads to doctors unknowingly making the wrong prescribing choices.
Dr Brett Says: Pretty telling really. The facts are that whilst a flu shot may or may not increase your resistance to the particular strain of flu it targets, it also contains ingredients that decrease your health. I.e. the swine flu vaccine contains in gredients that the NIH have said are are reasonably expected to cause cancer. As a result, it makes sense that you will become more succeptable to other diseases, including other flu's as a result of that loss of health.
USnews.com
TUESDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) The traditional seasonal flu vaccine may have increased the risk of infection with pandemic H1N1 swine flu, according to the results of four new studies by Canadian researchers.
Dr Brett Says: It is outrageous that some women wanting to birth at home will now be forced to 'go it alone' rather than have the support of a trusted, learned midwife. These mums are making informed decisions about their health and the health of their babies but are being overruled by blokes that think they know better than mother nature.
From Manly Daily
LEGISLATION requiring midwives to collaborate with doctors, who would have the final say on whether a homebirth could go ahead, has passed through the Senate.
Dr Brett Says: This is certainly something chiropractors have been aware of clinically but it is great to see the research backing it up. Jeanne does fantastic work worldwide both in researching and in sharing the information.
From The Coffs Coast Advocate
PREGNANT women may reduce the potential for a caesarean delivery with pre-natal chiropractic care, visiting paediatric chiropractic expert and home birth advocate, Dr Jeanne Ohm, told a Coffs Harbour community forum yesterday.
Posted by: drbretthill in Medical intervention on
Jan 29, 2010
Dr Brett Says: Not much more to be said here apart from BRAVO MILES!
From Adelaide Now
A FLINDERS University study has exposed "corrupt" drug company marketing practices including covering up adverse side effects and pushing patients on to new, more expensive drugs even when they are less effective.
Posted by: drbretthill in Medical intervention on
Jan 17, 2010
Dr Brett Says: Yet another medication is removed from the market because it has proven to do more harm than good. Surely there is a problem with the way we test our medication when this same story keeps getting told over and over. Our drugs are often tested only in short term testing, from pharmaceutical company funded studies and there is no requirement for negative findings to be published.
From Adelaide Now
DOCTORS have been ordered to stop prescribing Australia's most popular weight-loss drug - amid warnings it could be fatal.
Posted by: drbretthill in Medical intervention on
Jan 12, 2010
Dr Brett Says: The Swine Flu vaccine fiasco has really shown once and for all what an unhealthy level of influence the big pharmaceutical companies have on Governments world wide.
Form The Guardian
Council of Europe to discuss whether pharmaceutical firms spread alarm over pandemic to boost orders of medicines
Dr Brett Says: I wrote about his in my article on the swine flu vaccine back in September and now Harvard agrees. The Swine Flu as it turned out was as mild or perhaps even more so than the regular seasonal flu despite the millions spent and the fear spread.
From ABC News
A new analysis, using H1N1 deaths in the United States in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, shows that a typical -- or possibly even a milder flu season than average -- should have been expected.
Posted by: drbretthill in Medical intervention on
Nov 12, 2009
Dr Brett Says: The accuracy rates and side effects of many of the tests we rely on in modern medicine can be really concerning. Especially when we are talking about such drastic procedures. I always find it strange when this testing is counted in the statistics as prevention when it is really only early detection and it isn't even all that good at that. The best form of prevention of course is eating, thinking and moving in a healthy way!
From abc.net.au
TONY EASTLEY: Australian researchers have found that as many as a third of women diagnosed with breast cancer may not need treatment.
The researchers from the University of Sydney say they found that the screening process is far from perfect and women often go on to have surgery and chemotherapy that is unnecessary because the cancers detected are not life threatening.
Cancer experts are warning that breast screening is valuable and continues to save lives.
Simon Santow reports.
SIMON SANTOW: More than half of all Australian women aged between 50 and 69 currently get screened for breast cancer.
Screening occurs in women who don't have symptoms for the disease.
Just as more women are getting screened, a Sydney University study has found that over-diagnosis too is a growing side effect of the process.
ALEX BARRETT: I think what it means is for people thinking about extending the screening program, that this is another piece of evidence that over-diagnosis of cancer is a real possibility and it is a real and important downside of cancer screening.
It is something we need to keep in mind when we are thinking about implementing cancer screening and it is something that we need to do a better job of giving women information about so that when they come to be screened, we actually give them fair and balanced information.
SIMON SANTOW: Study co-author, epidemiologist Professor Alex Barratt.
ALEX BARRETT: This is one of the downsides and it is another piece of evidence that the downsides are, this particular one, is more significant than we have realised until now really.
SIMON SANTOW: Dr Barratt says her study for the first time takes into account increases in risk factors for cancer which have coincided with the advent of a screening programme.
ALEX BARRETT: And the most important ones are hormone replacement therapy and increasing rates of obesity, overweight and obesity and those risk factors have affected women of the same age. So it was possible that the increase that we were seeing was due to those factors, not to the screening.
Even allowing for those two things we still found this excess and the only way that we believe that it is explainable is that screening is actually causing this by diagnosing cancer so they are very slow growing and that we would not have found in the absence of screening.
SIMON SANTOW: Professor Ian Olver is the chief executive of Cancer Council Australia. He says he's wary of the study and it needs to be seen in a broader context.
IAN OLVER: The good news about breast screening is that it reduces the mortality of the target group by 35 per cent.
SIMON SANTOW: Professor Olver says the screening isn't faultless and more research is needed to help eliminate false positive results.
IAN OLVER: What these new studies show is that it is not a perfect test and we need to take that into account but they are based on population studies and they don't given any indication as to what an individual woman should do.
SIMON SANTOW: Do you agree that these studies are pointing out that some women are receiving treatment when they don't actually need it?
IAN OLVER: Oh, that is what the studies undoubtedly show - that the test is not accurate enough to tell us which women have indolent breast cancers and which have aggressive breast cancers that need immediate treatment. And we need to really direct research to try and discriminate between those two.
TONY EASTLEY: Professor Ian Olver, chief executive of Cancer Council Australia, ending Simon Santow's report.
Dr Brett Says: This is a crisis of our own doing. Type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle disease that is caused by our poor diets and lack of exercise. Unsurprisingly (given that this research is funded by the makers of a diabetes drug) this article focuses mainly on the drug treatments for diabetes. The real results though will be achieved by preventing diabetes. By eating a healthy diet and getting adequate exercise you can not only save a lot of money, you can prevent these chronic diseases as well.
From The Canberra Times
About 1.6 million Australians will be living with Type 2 diabetes by 2050, almost double the current number and a figure that exposes the alarming challenge facing the country.
