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The illusion called medical journalism: the deep secret |
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(To read about Jon's mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
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The Illusion called medical journalism: the deep secret
By Jon Rappoport
---Some of the greatest illusions are sitting out in the
open. They are bypassed for two reasons. People refuse to believe they
are illusions, despite the abundant evidence; and the professionals
dedicated to upholding the illusions continue their work as if nothing
at all has been exposed.
Medical journalists in the mainstream rely completely on studies published in prestigious journals.
This the rock. This is the science.
This is also the source of doctors' authoritarian and arrogant advice to patients.
"Studies show..."
Medical reporters base their entire careers on these published reports.
But what if higher authorities contradicted all these
studies? What if they scrutinized more studies than any reporter or
doctor possibly could...and came to a shocking and opposite conclusion?
This very thing has happened. And the conclusions have been
published. But medical reporters ignore them and go their merry way, as
if a vast pillar of modern medicine is still intact...when it isn't,
when it has been decimated.
Buckle up.
Let us begin with a statement made by Dr. Marcia Angell, the
former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, perhaps the most
prestigious medical journal in the world---a journal that routinely vets
and prints thousands of medical studies:
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the
clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of
trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no
pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over
my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine." -Marcia Angell, MD, The New York Review of Books, January 15, 2009
You might want to read that statement several times, to savor
its full impact. Then proceed to this next one, penned by the editor of
The Lancet, another elite and time-honored medical journal that
publishes medical studies:
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, "Offline: What is medicine's 5 sigma?"
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the
scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by
studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory
analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession
for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has
taken a turn towards darkness...
"The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is
alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too
often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they
retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their
fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our
acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a
place in a select few journals. Our love of 'significance' pollutes the
literature with many a statistical fairy-tale...Journals are not the
only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and
talent..."
Still standing? Here are several more statements. They are devastating.
The NY Review of Books (May 12, 2011), Helen Epstein, "Flu Warning: Beware the Drug Companies":
"Six years ago, John Ioannidis, a professor of epidemiology
at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, found that
nearly half of published articles in scientific journals contained
findings that were false, in the sense that independent researchers
couldn't replicate them. The problem is particularly widespread in
medical research, where peer-reviewed articles in medical journals can
be crucial in influencing multimillion- and sometimes
multibillion-dollar spending decisions. It would be surprising if
conflicts of interest did not sometimes compromise editorial neutrality,
and in the case of medical research, the sources of bias are obvious.
Most medical journals receive half or more of their income from
pharmaceutical company advertising and reprint orders, and dozens of
others [journals] are owned by companies like Wolters Kluwer, a medical
publisher that also provides marketing services to the pharmaceutical
industry."
Here's another quote from the same article:
"The FDA also relies increasingly upon fees and other
payments from the pharmaceutical companies whose products the agency is
supposed to regulate. This could contribute to the growing number of
scandals in which the dangers of widely prescribed drugs have been
discovered too late. Last year, GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia
was linked to thousands of heart attacks, and earlier in the decade, the
company's antidepressant Paxil was discovered to exacerbate the risk of
suicide in young people. Merck's painkiller Vioxx was also linked to
thousands of heart disease deaths. In each case, the scientific
literature gave little hint of these dangers. The companies have agreed
to pay settlements in class action lawsuits amounting to far less than
the profits the drugs earned on the market. These precedents could be
creating incentives for reduced vigilance concerning the side effects of
prescription drugs in general."
Also from the NY Review of Books, here are two more quotes
from Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of
Medicine ("Drug Companies and Doctors: A Story of Corruption"):
"Consider the clinical trials by which drugs are tested in
human subjects. Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer
must sponsor clinical trials to show the Food and Drug Administration
that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo
or dummy pill. The results of all the (there may be many) are submitted
to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positive-that is, they show
effectiveness without serious risk-the drug is usually approved, even if
all the other trials are negative."
Here is another Angell statement:
"In view of this control and the conflicts of interest that
permeate the enterprise, it is not surprising that industry-sponsored
trials published in medical journals consistently favor sponsors'
drugs-largely because negative results are not published, positive
results are repeatedly published in slightly different forms, and a
positive spin is put on even negative results. A review of seventy-four
clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven
of thirty-eight positive studies were published. But of the thirty-six
negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in
a form that conveyed a positive outcome."
If you have the patience to read and re-read these
statements, you'll see they are marking out a scandal of scandals---the
entirety of medical literature is a pipeline for deep fraud.
Citing with confidence a study on a drug, for example, would
carry no more weight than an article about a celebrity in a gossip rag.
But medical reporters must pretend their sources are correct.
It's their job. If they reject published studies, they have nothing
left---except to expose the giant scandal I'm outlining in this article.
Biting the hand that feeds them would put them out of work. They'd end
up writing about picnics for some local paper---if they were lucky.
However, that's not my problem or yours. It's theirs. They chose their profession.
We can settle on the truth. We can even spread it.
Why not?
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Use this link to order Jon's Matrix Collections.
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Jon Rappoport
The
author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM
THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US
Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a
consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the
expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he
has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles
on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin
Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and
Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics,
health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
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