The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal

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The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal | Ben Goldacre | Business | The Guardian


Reboxetine is a drug I have prescribed. Other drugs had done nothing for my patient, so we wanted to try something new. I'd read the trial data before I wrote the prescription, and found only well-designed, fair tests, with overwhelmingly positive results. Reboxetine was better than a placebo, and as good as any other antidepressant in head-to-head comparisons. It's approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA), which governs all drugs in the UK. Millions of doses are prescribed every year, around the world. Reboxetine was clearly a safe and effective treatment. The patient and I discussed the evidence briefly, and agreed it was the right treatment to try next. I signed a prescription.

But we had both been misled. In October 2010, a group of researchers was finally able to bring together all the data that had ever been collected on reboxetine, both from trials that were published and from those that had never appeared in academic papers. When all this trial data was put together, it produced a shocking picture. Seven trials had been conducted comparing reboxetine against a placebo. Only one, conducted in 254 patients, had a neat, positive result, and that one was published in an academic journal, for doctors and researchers to read. But six more trials were conducted, in almost 10 times as many patients. All of them showed that reboxetine was no better than a dummy sugar pill. None of these trials was published. I had no idea they existed.

It got worse. The trials comparing reboxetine against other drugs showed exactly the same picture: three small studies, 507 patients in total, showed that reboxetine was just as good as any other drug. They were all published. But 1,657 patients' worth of data was left unpublished, and this unpublished data showed that patients on reboxetine did worse than those on other drugs. If all this wasn't bad enough, there was also the side-effects data. The drug looked fine in the trials that appeared in the academic literature; but when we saw the unpublished studies, it turned out that patients were more likely to have side-effects, more likely to drop out of taking the drug and more likely to withdraw from the trial because of side-effects, if they were taking reboxetine rather than one of its competitors.

I did everything a doctor is supposed to do. I read all the papers, I critically appraised them, I understood them, I discussed them with the patient and we made a decision together, based on the evidence. In the published data, reboxetine was a safe and effective drug. In reality, it was no better than a sugar pill and, worse, it does more harm than good. As a doctor, I did something that, on the balance of all the evidence, harmed my patient, simply because unflattering data was left unpublished...
 

BlvdBrawler

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There was a law and order episode about this. I'm sure this happens quite a bit.
 

Sensitive Blake Griffin

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200 thousand people die per year from medical , Mistakes.

Prescription drugs kill more people then illegal drugs.

Scientists, are killing friends, friend.
How many people are saved per year from medical miracles? Theoretically, they could save your hairline
 

OsO

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200 thousand people die per year from medical , Mistakes.

Prescription drugs kill more people then illegal drugs.

Scientists, are killing friends, friend.



you got a link with those exact numbers?


i know it happens sometimes but damn... so sad if true.
 

CouldntBeMeTho

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Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., Times analysis shows - Los Angeles Times

Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. One relative newcomer to the scene is Fentanyl, a painkiller that comes in the form of patches and lollipops and is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Such drugs now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

The seeds of the problem were planted more than a decade ago by well-meaning efforts by doctors to mitigate suffering, as well as aggressive sales campaigns by pharmaceutical manufacturers. In hindsight, the liberalized prescription of pain drugs "may in fact be the cause of the epidemic we're now facing," said Linda Rosenstock, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health.

definitely demonic. :sitdown:
 

Habit

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You think they would have learned after Vioxx and SSRIs.
 

Mr. Somebody

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How many people are saved per year from medical miracles? Theoretically, they could save your hairline

The point is that medicine clearly needs more oversite because people are dying because of someones stupidity or because a drug was pushed through trials without being properly tested to make sure its safe for friends, friend. You're dismissive attitude on the issue is really telling about how demonic you truely are and thats so demonic, demon.
 

Sensitive Blake Griffin

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The point is that medicine clearly needs more oversite because people are dying because of someones stupidity or because a drug was pushed through trials without being properly tested to make sure its safe for friends, friend. You're dismissive attitude on the issue is really telling about how demonic you truely are and thats so demonic, demon.
Oh mowgli, you make me giggle so demonically sometimes friend, thanks for that, laughing makes you live longer so you just extended my demonic life by a few seconds. That is something a true friend would do, thanks for being friendly, friend.
 
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