I tripped over this piece tonight. Scary if even half is true: ethicalnag.org/2009/11/09/n...
It's seems to be coming from impeccable sources….
ian
The Ethical Nag - Scary Piece Regarding the Pur... - Thyroid UK
The Ethical Nag - Scary Piece Regarding the Purported Manipulation and Unreliability of Pharma Related Medical Research
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vajra
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shawsAdministrator
Thanks for posting. It is scandalous that doctors in the USA get big payouts from pharmaceutical companies for using/promoting drugs - levothyroxine amongst them. Can you imagine what profits are made by the pharm. companies when they can pay 1 doctor 1.6 million dollars? In the same way that our British Thyroid Association only promote levothyroxine when our healthy thyroid gland produced T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin and Dr S said maybe other things of which we are yet unaware. Dr Peatfield has said that T2 itself has a very important. Would mother nature provide unnecessary hormones?
in reply to shaws
What makes you think it is only doctors in the USA?
I have been told about the USA and don't know about other countries.
As an aside I have read about this whistleblower. Whistleblowers in this country lose their jobs.
That is frightening and has blown my knowledge of why drugs etc are so expensive. In 1968 or there about my late husband was accepted to do research in the department I worked in. The aim was to get a PhD and he applied for a grant from a drug company for funding. I never took much notice of what he did, we didn't talk about work much but got a clue years later but the title of his PhD has the words hypothalamus and reproductive function in it! So I always understood that the profits went to find research and ethically that made sense-research is very much an ongoing thing. 8 years later, my husband was now a respected lecturer in endocrinology in a medical school and his research was carried out in conjunction with medics worldwide. On my first antenatal hospital visit I was seen by the consultant probably because of my husbands work and he was horrified that my husband had allowed me to go on the pill. It appears that although taken my many no one was really sure why it worked other than it did and was considered safe. By now his research topic was TRH and it was he who said many years later that I had a thyroid issue but couldn't convince anyone at my surgery until I presented a goitre because the accepted method was TSH readings which my husband told me time and time again was rubbish. I used to draw many graphs etc for scientific papers plus my husband produced many himself so I got used to reading them. Since I have subscribed to this site many damning arguments are put forward with a eye catching title but I've often read through to see if I know any ofthe authors, generally no but I have seen in the small print that the sample size is too small and so classed as insignificant but who reads the small print to see that the exciting heading isn't considered scientifically proven and I feel very much that this slippery slope is gaining momentum. You could argue, justifiably in my mind, that many unacceptable things are creeping in by the back door and yet the trials carried out by people like Dr S are rubbished. One could also argue that if Big Phamas money is going elsewhere what is happening to continued research? By this I mean proven scientific research as we know it. I might be completely wrong but I can't help but wonder. How we get anyone to listen with out fear of their job I don't know but I am certain that if my husband was still around today he would be fighting our corner and I do know he taught his students that the TSH reading was a complete nonsense. Sorry so long winded but I felt I needed to vent my anger!
That is the problem the good doctors that can see whats going on fear they will lose there jobs ....thanks siverfox 7 your post was very informative
This is just terrible...I always though that this happened but its scarey as to what scale...for years and years this could go on with levothyroxine ...not everyone is well on this but how to get through to our doctor's. ..I just don't know ? Thanks vajra for posting this ...it will certainly make us all think
This was Dr Lowe's response to T4 and to T4/T3.
We need to take responsibility for our own bodies and question every thing we put into or indeed onto them. We need to go back to a far more holistic way of treating people. Otherwise it's a cocktail of prescribed drugs before you even blink!
I've shared this on my Facebook page... Just proves that our therapy is in the hands of greedy doctors and pharmaceutical companies, and certainly not designed to give us the optimum treatment for our conditions.
Dr. Angell's article for those interested. nybooks.com/articles/archiv...
We have become the 'Corporate United States of America' where our motto is 'Greed Is Good'. I don't know if we will ever return to being a participatory democracy again. PR
What to my mind makes it so frustrating and difficult is the question of how can a private individual/patient get some traction in responding to this sort of stuff - by whatever means.
We seem to be largely powerless.
It's not just in the US that there are problems. Two more stories in the last couple of days in an Irish newspaper, and practices here tend to mimic those in the UK:
independent.ie/irish-news/h...
independent.ie/lifestyle/he...
Also in a very similar vein regarding the process of publication of scientific research:
theguardian.com/science/201...
federalregister.gov/article...
ian
Ian, those are good signs. I believe the reporting of money paid to doctors started in August or September here in the US. Call me cynical but I bet they will find different avenues, it is the nature of the beast.
AllTrials has been having some success which is encouraging but it can feel like the individual is lacking any power. Strength in numbers is about the only solution I can think of, an educated populace. Believe it or not, I am actually encouraged by what I see going on around the planet, there are a lot of people working to change the present system. PR
