The worst part is that I don't think most docs understand or believe
they are being duped. I obviously don't understand the medicine but in
many cases you don't have to. The tricks are in the dodgy statistics
and that's something I do understand. And sometimes it's not even a
statistical trick but simply a false statement. I remember reading that
clearly false statements were not uncommon. I thought that was absurd.
Afterall, these are "peer reviewed" science. So I downloaded two very
short papers on statin drugs from PubMed
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/> of 3 pages each. They were chosen
at random other than the selection criteria being that they be short so
I could comprehend them. Both of the papers made claims in the abstract
(the only part the docs read) that were not supported by ANY data in the
body of the paper. I was flabbergasted and continue to be. I'm a
triple bypass patient of 12 years ago and used to take Lipitor
religiously. I gave it up 6 or 7 years ago and will not go back. My
doc thinks I'm nuts and dutifully records in my records that I will not
follow his advice. Not surprising that he has not a clue about
statistics. He gets his info from the drug reps that I frequently see
in the waiting room. The waiting room even has a TV set that runs
continuous drug commercials.
Chuck Norcutt
On 9/18/2011 7:54 AM, Chris Barker wrote:
> How depressing!
>
> But I don't suppose that I am surprised. Over Here, the EU is trying
> to ban homeopathic treatments and I can only suppose that Big Pharma
> is behind the attempt.
>
> Chris
>
> On 18 Sep 2011, at 03:55, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>
>> Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, tells
>> you here how they cook that stats:
>> <http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138>
>>
>>
>>
He finally resigned his job after realizing that he no longer was in
>> full control of the content of his own journal. He also said the
>> American journals were far worse.
>
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