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Flu Treatment a Hoax: The Tale of Tamiflu
| January 6, 2010 | |
| Dr. Gary Huber : Head Medical Ego |
New reports indicate that the popular drug Tamiflu is ‘no better than a placebo’ for fighting H1N1 which means billions of tax payer dollars have swirled down the drain. Fake studies, missing data and psychiatric episodes round out this latest tale.
My dear readers, I feel a duty to report to you some information that has just recently come to light which causes me to retract a recommendation I made in our October flu discussions. At the time I recommended Tamiflu as one of the possible drugs available for reduction of flu symptoms and severity. Uh…let me take that back.
An article published in The Atlantic dated December 10, 2009 sheds some very disturbing light on Tamiflu. It seems that we were all fooled by some dirty play on the part of Roche, the manufacturer of Tamiflu.
In past discussions on flu related topics I have made reference to the Cochrane Collaborative which is an international consortium that reviews present data on a wide range of topics and offers general opinion and recommendations. They are essentially unbiased, as they are not selling anything, thus their opinions hold much more weight than many others. This consortium reviewed the literature on Tamiflu and was shocked by what it found.
10 You Say?
There were 10 articles that supposedly showed Tamiflu’s ability to reduce flu symptoms and reportedly reduced complications such as pneumonia, hospitalizations and deaths related to flu. Turns out that this is all just ‘manufactured fantasy’ on the part of Roche.
Of the 10 reported studies, all of them were sponsored or paid for by Roche and eight of them were never published and could not even be located. (Note: Missing, unpublished and data not subject to peer review generally falls into the rubbish category for sane practitioners everywhere.)
The Cochrane representative then approached the authors of the remaining two studies in search of their data but the authors couldn’t produce ANY results. They essentially said “we lost it.”
So let me get this right. You dedicate months of your life to a clinical study that results in a publication and then you just accidentally . . . oops. . . lose all that work into thin air? Odd.
So the researchers went directly to Roche who would certainly have the data that shows their drug works. After all they are making billions of dollars from the sale of this drug, surely you have evidence that it works.
Nope.
Roche was only able to present two studies to the researchers and these studies showed that Tamiflu was no better than a placebo (sugar pill). So essentially there is NO EVIDENCE to support the sale of this fantasy drug that nets Roche Pharmaceuticals billions of dollars.
But it gets worse.
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[6 Comments] [6 Comments]
Wow – all I can say…is WOW!
How on earth can no one be held responsible for those lies? How is it possible that they can pay someone to create a bogus study, they are found out, but nothing is done about it? That really makes me mad, actually!
When I had a sudden onset of flu….doctor did not want me coming to office with 101 fever…..I am 63 years old. After I started the Tamiflu the day after I had fever, within hours I was vomiting severely and felt awful. The first side effect in the med flyer was nausea, vomiting and dizziness….if it shortened the duration of my flu symptoms, I would be surprised. From the obvious flu symptoms it morphed into chest congestion and cough….serious enough that I went in to the doctor to be sure I didn’t have the beginning of pneumonia. I was then given a Z Pack.
A
Good job in highlighting this fraud. The same information on the review in British Medical Journal is documented on the wikipedia’s website and of course, the British Medical Journal’s website. What I fail to understand is why do Doctors in US still prescribe TamiFlu when there is no clear evidence that this drug is effective, especially after the first 24 hours?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseltamivir
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec07_2/b5106
-CW
Dear Chen,
My daughter asked me, “Daddy, why is Mom’s meatloaf so dry?” Now I had the answer for her but to offer it up in front of my wife would potentially damage that relationship and would certainly ruin any chance of getting a good night kiss. So how do I answer your question without alienating my colleagues? Thanks for putting me on the hot seat Chen.
Actually the answer is quite simple. Roche Laboratories is the pharmaceutical company that makes Tamiflu. Roche spends millions of dollars every year to hire an army of young attractive well dressed sales people to walk into every doctors office in the country every single month to remind them of the wonder benefits (lies) of Tamiflu. The CDC has recommended it. It’s been available for years and offers doctors an easy answer to offer their patients that come in with flu symptoms. So essentially it has become an American institution built on fraud and lies.
You also have to remember that medical schools don’t teach doctors anything about health or nutrition. Doctors are not taught about the benefits of vitamin D, vitamin C, anti-oxidants, and good general nutrition. They aren’t made aware of herbal treatments like andrographis, Echinacea, or homeopathic treatments. So essentially all we are given to work with is a bag of potentially toxic synthetic medications that may or may not help. So any kind hearted physician when faced with a sick patient is compelled to offer assistance any way they can and a prescription is the only tool at our disposal.
The information about Tamiflu has JUST come to light as of December so most physicians have likely not been made aware of it. But there are many other drugs and treatments that we as a medical community know are not beneficial or that offer more risk than benefit but we continue to use them because they are profitable and because that’s what all of our other colleagues are doing. The governing bodies over medicine that hold the big money contracts, will always dictate what doctors should do by proclaiming a standard of care that most doctors feel compelled to abide by.
Very nice site!