But let's not lose track of the biggest one.
Bad or biased research influences medical decision-making. If the only studies printed in big medical journals are all pro drug, why would anyone ever develop a critical attitude towards Big Pharmacy?
They would remain "good guys" to doctors and patients alike.
While they may not always be bad guys, the events of the last year clearly underscore the need for critical thinking.
Here are a few more reasons medical research often sucks.
Biased results. Medical researchers often devise standardized tests to quantify their results. These tests can also be used to make the results look one way or another.
For instance if you are trying to demonstrate that your blood pressure drug is better than a sugar pill but you don't get the results you want, you can simply invent a new number that looks better.
Here might be an example.
Let's take the change in systolic (top number) blood pressure, divided by age, multiplied by the bottom number (diastolic) and call it the XYZ ratio.
If it looks good, you say your drug markedly improved XYZ ratios over the sugar pill.
In a more real world example, my favorite journal, JAMA (you know the one that keeps trying to bash fish oil), tried to K.O. St. John's Wort by publishing an article suggesting it was worthless for depression.
They used a test called the HAM-D to prove their point. They ignored the actual response of the patients who took the St. John's Wort and focused on their test scores.
It is not too hard to imagine that a person might feel much better but not have a different score after treatment depending on the questions you ask in the test.
What matters to patients is if they feel better, not what a contrived test score shows.
Another related way to fool with data is to ignore the placebo (sugar pill) 0 effect or at least minimize it.
In the same journal, JAMA recently published a trial using the next cure all drug, Rimonabant, which had a 50% placebo effect. Such a high placebo rate should call any conclusion into question.
Their comment was along the lines of, "Well it's a high placebo rate but we think this drug is going to be really useful."
They would never publish a statement like that about fish oil, Regenerizer or any other supplement.
Which brings me to:
Different levels of scientific proof are applied to studies. Studies that further the cause of drug companies are published, ones that don't are either ignored or counter studies funded by big pharmacy. A classic example of this surrounds the laws governing the marketing of supplements.
Read this phrase very carefully:
"FDA approves new drugs on the basis of scientific data submitted by a drug sponsor to demonstrate that the drugs are safe and effective."
This means that no supplement can ever cure or treat or mitigate or do anything else for any disease legally until it has a "drug sponsor".
Who do you think is the "drug sponsor"!?
Effectively it means that only drug companies can make these claims no matter how biased their results may be.
Once again, I will call to the stand the recent article in JAMA about fish oil and cancer. Even though there is tons of evidence that people with cancer benefit from fish oil because and until a drug company says so it cannot be so.
Why don't supplement manufacturers fund the studies?
Simple, no one I know can afford them. So even though there is a loop hole in the law that suggest anyone can do a study, the money required to do one effectively means that only drug companies can afford them.
In case you are wondering, that very italicized phrase above was sent to a competitor's website in order to let them know they would be shut down. If you follow the guidelines, then all supplement web sites will wind up looking exactly the same, using the same words no matter how good or bad their products are.
Effectively that means that only giant companies with deep pockets can survive. Now add in the Codex laws and you have a perfect set up for Big Pharmacy to take over the supplement industry.
With that I want to say I really appreciate your support and that if one day in the near future you stop hearing from me, you'll know what happened.
In the meantime, go to the site and order. Regenerizer is back in stock and will be the first one of my supplements to go if the government and the drug companies have their way.
Don't forget to join me tomorrow when I wrap this thing up with some insights from the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
All the Best from the King of Pharmaceutical Grade fish Oil
Dr Dave
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