Top Researcher Finds Medical Studies to be Largely Wrong or Fraudulent Top Researcher Finds Medical Studies to be Largely Wrong or Fraudulent
Top Researcher Finds Medical Studies... 
Tony Isaacs
14 y
13,069
BSA Educational
Considering his background, Dr. John Ioannidis had good reason to expect that he might become a noted and respected researcher when he first entered the field of medical research. What he did not expect was that he would become known for challenging and exposing the bad science of his peers and finding that up to 80 percent of medical studies results are either wrong or fraudulent. Ioannidis was unusually well prepared to enter medical research: he had been a math prodigy of near-celebrity status in high school and both of his parents were physician-researchers. He believed he would be able to follow his parents footsteps and use math to better support findings in a surprisingly sloppy field. "I assumed that everything we physicians did was basically right, but now I was going to help verify it," he said. "All we'd have to do was systematically review the evidence, trust what it told us, and then everything would be perfect."
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Top Researcher Finds Medical Studies to be Largely Wrong or Fraudulent
by Tony Isaacs
It didn't turn out that way. When he pored over medical journals, Ioannidis was struck by how many findings of all types were later refuted and he was shocked at the range and reach of the reversals in everyday medical research.
Randomized controlled trials, which compare how one group responds to a treatment against how an identical group without the treatment fares, "had long been considered nearly unshakable" said Ioannidis. But they too ended up sometimes being wrong. "I realized even our gold-standard research had a lot of problems."
After working at Harvard, Tufts University, Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health, Ioannidis set up a base at the University of Ioannina in Greece. His team began producing a series of papers that pointed out specific ways certain studies were getting misleading results. In 2005 he published a paper which shook the foundations of medical research in the journal PLoS Medicine.
In the paper, Ioannidis laid out a detailed mathematical proof that, assuming modest levels of researcher bias, typically imperfect research techniques, and the tendency to focus on exciting rather than plausible theories, researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time. His model, based on the rates in which studies had been overturned, predicted that 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the most common type), 25 percent of so-called gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the platinum-standard large randomized trials turned out to be wrong.
The paper detailed how researchers were frequently manipulating data analyses and chasing career-advancing findings rather than good science, and even using the peer-review process to suppress opposing views. "The studies were biased," said Ioannidis. "Sometimes they were overtly biased. Sometimes it was difficult to see the bias, but it was there. At every step in the process, there is room to distort results, a way to make a stronger claim or to select what is going to be concluded. There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded."
Ioannidis noted that, in addition to the factors which doomed nutritional studies, drug studies had the additional corruptive force of financial conflict of interest - much to the detriment of doctors and patients. "Doctors need to rely on instinct and judgment to make choices," he said. "But these choices should be as informed as possible by the evidence," said Ioannidis.
He also noted that, "I'm not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life."
Sources included:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/2/218
Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... Tony Isaacs
14 y
7,251
Perhaps that should be the beauty of the scientific method, but the researcher in the article found out that the reality is just the opposite - namely that scientific research was largely corrupted by vested interests, that scientists were reluctant to question others research, that scientists often built on prior faulty research instead of questioning it and that scientists tended to return results that favored the funders instead of objective results.
I am a great fan of pure science; however, much of the purity has been taken out of medical science due to the greed and corruption of the drug and medical industry. Look at how long medical science was corrupted by the tobacco companies for decades. Likewise it only took four decades for medical science to finally admit that vitamin supplements might be beneficial after all the years of denial at the behest of their drug and medical industry masters. Too often the beauty of the scientific method does not present itself until the body counts caused by corrupted science had become too high to ignore. Call it the Vioxx effect.
The very large majority of scientific medical research is funded by those with a vested interest in the outcomes of the studies. When your job and your institution depend on continued funding by the big drug companies, there is very little sharp shooting going on. More like a bunch of pencil sharpening going on to make sure that profits are served and no one rocks the boat and gets blacklisted. Now, the truth may eventually out - the same as it did with smoking, vitamins to some extent, and Vioxx - after all, it is hard to maintain a scientific lie indefinitely. But how many lives are lost or damaged in the meanwhile. I see no beauty in that.
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Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... grzbear
14 y
7,190
Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... Tony Isaacs
14 y
7,319
Yes, but is it profitable? Why quibble about damage when there's money to be made? And I am sure that Merck has some "beautiful" science to back up the drug.
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Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... Tony Isaacs
14 y
7,388
Fluoride based drugs and other chemicals are known to have serious and even deadly side effects. If a compound is not found in nature, whether it is an entirely new compound created by man or a synthesized compound, then there is a very good chance that it will have side effects when the human body ingests it or is exposed to it. That is a big reason why over 95% of all the 25,000 plus prescribed and approved OTC medications have side effects. Another big reason is that far too often man made drugs cause the body to perform unnaturally in order to treat or suppress symptoms.
I'll have someone who is better versed in fluoride come along to answer your question - assuming that it is a question and not an attempt to debate the merits of fluoride.
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Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... Tony Isaacs
14 y
7,210
That must explain why, despite the fact that an estimated 71% of the US population takes supplements - including tens of millions who take herbal supplements, in any given year the average deaths reported for such items is ZERO, while year after year over 100,000 deaths in the US are reported to be caused by side effects from properly prescribed and administered unnatural drugs in hospitals and another 40,000 deaths are estimated in homes from unnatural drugs.
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Of course we should not discourage all research. We should, however, make a greater effort to clean up all the abuses and encourage unbiased medical research.
Given their track record I do pretty much suspect any research that is funded by pharma companies or those they control. Especially if the research contradicts other research with findings that are beneficial to those who funded it.
Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... Tony Isaacs
14 y
7,541
RR
Now there is a really well reasoned argument. I suppose that not only does the emporer have no clothes, neither does he/she have any sound arguments.
My research is "funded" by my desire to tell people the truth about the evils and dangers of mainstream medicine as well as the benefits of natural alternatives. If you are a defender of mainstream medicine, then perhaps you should take a good look at just what you are defending:
Modern Medicine: How Healing Illness became Managing Illness
It isn't pretty and it isn't what is taught in medical schools whose major source of funding is the big pharmaceutical companies and whose curriculum is set by the doctor's union (the AMA). Neither is it what you find in the mainstream media which depends on all the hundreds of millions of drug ads (which are prohibited in much of the rest ofthe world). But it is hard to argue with facts and history.
With each post you make in this forum and on this website, you reveal yourself to be either an agent or a dupe of mainstream medicine. If you wish to continue trying to provoke and debate then take it to the debate forums. This is my private forum. It is not a debate forum and neither is it a welcome forum for mainstream apologists with little to contribute other than denialism, provocation and arguments - and I do not intend to let this forum get cluttered up with that kind of crap.
This forum is about natural ways to live longer, healthier and happier lives without getting caught up in the mainstream unnatural drugs and illness-managed-for-profit paradigm. It also focuses on natural alternatives to beat and avoid serious conditions such as cancer. If you have anything positive to contribute along those themes, please feel free to do so. If not, then take your arguments and debates to the proper debate forums and take your chances there.
A word of caution: Mainstream apologists who have been much better equipped than you appear to be based on your posts thus far have tried to defend and uphold mainstream drugs and naysay nature and natural healing. None have been successful. But go ahead and try if you will. Maybe you will learn something and your experience here will be a positive one after all.
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Private? You're on the web!
True but far from all of the web is a free-for-all where anyone can post whatever they like. Web or not, this is a private forum which I own and moderate. That means I set what the theme is and decide what is or is not appropriate to post here. While it is not my intention to stifle opinions which may differ from mine, it is my firm intention to keep this forum on topic and not have it turn into a debate forum or provide a stage for propenents of mainstream medicine. Notice that I have not censored or edited your messages nor have I banned you from this forum - though I could do any of those if I so desired. And might yet do if you continue to try to provoke me, engage in prolonged debate or try to use this forum to defend mainstream medicine.
From what I see here, pretty soon my head will explode! You'd like that.
No, I would never like to see anyone's head explode - that would be decidedly unhealthy. Don't worry though, from what I have seen I am pretty confidant that your head is in no imminent danger of being overly full anytime soon.
Apologists defend a faith - I much prefer data analysis. The efficacy of a particular treatment modality is not validated by defences, debates or arguments, it's supported by FACTS. I've seen the facts - lots of them for years
I have seen many things which have been put forward as facts for years myself which have been anything but factual - quite likely a great many more years than you have. Mainstream medicine itself is pretty much an exercise in faith. It is inevitable that those who worship it and use its self-generated data and studies will be proven to have worshipped false gods in years to come - primarily because they are proceeding largely under the false premise of Pasteur's germ theory of disease and largely in ignorance of the roles proper diet and nutrition play, the roles toxins play, and the roles that nature's healing herbs and other plants can play in preventing and actually healing disease instead of managing symptoms.
In every age, there are masses of people who falsely believe that the science of the day has reached the pinnacle of understanding when history has proved time and again that the science of today will often be overturned and proven to be the quackery of tomorrow. Just as it was proven in the past that the earth was not flat and that the sun did not revolve around the earth, so will the use of unnatural compounds not found in nature be proven to be antithetical to healing natural bodies.
If it helps any, a couple of decades ago I pretty much had blind faith in mainstream medicine and science too. But I opened my own head up and did not allow my pre-conceptions and mainstream conditioning to prevent me from learning the truth. Maybe the same can happen for you and you can fill your head with healthy information. If it begins to feel a bit crowded, just discard some of those junk facts you have misslearned over the years. Science is ever changing. Nature on the other hand, remains true through the ages.
"We have no real proof of the boasted effectiveness of any form of anti-toxin or vaccine or serum... If such a vaccinated or immunised person contracts the disease which he is supposed to be protected, it is pretty good evidence that such "protection" is valueless, isn't it? Surely people do contract disease against which they are supposed to be immunised, as we all know.... Well, are you satisfied that WE ARE QUACKS? In the eyes of those who are willing to forgot the present prestige of medicine, such as it is, with all its dignity, its scientific jargon, its pratings of altruism, its great endowment, its well heralded "achievements," we are most assuredly quacks, professing to do things we cannot do, and yes, taking money under this pretence." Dr. Paul M. Koonin, D.D.Sc.
"Unless the doctor of today becomes the dietitian of tomorrow, the dietitian of today will become the doctor of tomorrow." Dr. Alexis Carrol, famous biological scientist and head of the Rockefeller Institute
Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... LuellaMay
14 y
7,289
If you don't mind, I am going to jump in here.
Oleander in its raw state is extremely poisonous. However, when properly made into an extract, it attains powerful healing qualities and very strong anti-cancer properties.
You may want to google Anvirzel which is a patented extract from the Oleander plant. It passed Phase I clinical trials performed by Dr. Robert Newman, Chief of Pharmacology at M. D. Anderson Clinic in Houston, Texas. However, there was no funding available for Phase II. Probably becuse of the same obstacles your uncle has had to face. And I agree with you, that it is all about "Big Pharma."
I am going to give you my personal testimony with regard to Oleander. I attribute Oleander and colloidal silver, together with a proper diet for my no longer having fibromyalgia. It is also effective in treating many other conditions, especially cancer and HIV/Aids. Have you read the Oleander Series of Articles at the following link?
http://www.tbyil.com/articles.htm
I would also point you to the following case studies done on the Oleander extract:
http://www.tbyil.com/Oleander_Case_Reports_Studies.htm
Properly made into an extract, Oleander is safe and non-toxic.
My Best,
Luella
Be sure to visit our website today - it's never too late to begin living longer, healthier and happier lives! Click on the image above or go to http://www.tbyil.com
Re: Top Researcher Finds Medical Stu... Tony Isaacs
14 y
7,276
R
To answer your questions about oleander:
First of all, the oleanders supplements you see me "offer" are sold by other companies. One of those companies is owned by a personal friend I have known since the second grade and I am an affiliate of that company. Thus, when someone happens to link to that product or company via a link which contains my affiliate ID, then yes I do get a bit of credit for the sale the same as I do with any other items so linked. Outside of my own forum here and my own website, however, you will find no such affiliate links to the product. I have no affiliate link whatsoever for the other supplement company either here or on my website or anywhere else.
Yes, oleander is quite toxic in raw form. In any given year anywhere from 0 to 2 or 3 deaths are reported worldwide from ingestion of raw oleander. However, when oleander is properly boiled and strained, it is a different story entirely. Dr. H. Z. Ozel has been working with oleander for over 40 years since he discovered villagers in his native Turkey using an oleander type tea. He perfected the way to properly boil, condense and strain oleander to have effectiveness against cancer without toxicity issues. His extract was later patented as the medicine Anvirzel. In phase I trials which are designed to determine toxicity and maximum safe dose limits, they never did reach an unsafe dose level and instead halted at the point where the amount injected became impractically large.
The homemade extract know as "oleander soup" (and recommended doseage amounts) was modeled after Dr. Ozel's original patent and so later were the two oleander supplements I "offer" and recommend. In addition to Dr. Ozel treating thousands of patients with oleander, over the past several years thousands of people have taken oleander in supplement or home extract form. Not only has there not been a single death from the home extract or supplements, there has not even been a single major adverse reaction when the oleander extract has been properly made and administered. I know this in several ways: First of all, I am the owner/moderator of the Yahoo Oleandersoup group, which has been around over six years and now has over 2000 members. I am also a good friend and colleague of the person who devised both of the oleander supplements I recommend. We first came across one another some years back in oleander and Anvirzel forums when he was looking into oleander to use for the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as well as for cancer, in his native South Africa - due to several reports leaking out of oleander having benefits for HIV among cancer patients who had HIV. In addition, I am well acquainted with two biotech companies who have oleander products which are in FDA testing.
I hear what you are saying about the struggle of small biotech companies and can appreciate how daunting your uncle's struggles have been. The game has been thoroughly rigged in favor of the hugely profitable Big Pharma companies and it costs hundreds of millions to over a billion to get a new drug all the way through FDA trials and to market. Not that the process has saved us from horrors like Vioxx, Avandia, Fosamax, et al, but it surely has created an obstacle for anyone except the FDA's true masters to be able to have the table stakes to play in the rigged game. From what I have observed, most biotech companies - with the help of venture capitalists and other investors - are mainly hoping to get a product far enough along for it to be bought out for a relatively few million by one of the Big Pharma players. And if that product should happen to pose too big of a threat to a Big Pharma's other products, the chances of it ever making it to market in unadulterated form are probably very, very slim.
BTW, I am from Texas and we say "That's for danged sure!" around here.
All the best,
Tony
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