Cancer Research Worthless? (page 2)

LisaRose

I have realized for quite a while that pharmaceutical companies are soulless, and will do anything to increase profits. I had a very bad outcome from taking the drug Cymbalta. After realizing that the side effects were not worth the minimal benefits, it took me four months of hell to get off of it. All these issues were described in the web site, but buried in a page intended for doctors, and stated in a way that is deliberately misleading. They don't care what problems they cause, they are willing to put out a bad drug, that they know will be of minimal benefit, and that will be extremely difficult for people to stop taking. It is an evil industry.

talesin

LisaRose

They are advertising the HELL out of Cymbalta lately ........... ffs, what is wrong with people?

My family doctor recently told a friend of mine this "Yeah, we in the medical profession call Effexor,,,, "Side-Effexor" ............ YET, they are prescribing it like candy.

Marvin, you don't know WTF you are talking about ... maybe you should bow out of this discussion and stick to the drawings of Eve's breasts in early 20th century Watchtower magazines. That seems to be more along your lines of 'expertise'.

t

sooner7nc

I read this article and did a bit of research on it, the authors, and the original site that it came from.

http://www.naturalnews.com/040230_cancer_research_false_conclusions.html

Natural News is a site that promotes natural healing so not exactly unbiased.

The two guys that wrote it are C. Glenn Begley, formerly Global Head of Hematology and Oncology Research at Amgen, and Lee M. Ellis of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Centere.

"It is claimed in the editorial that when Dr. Begley asked his team at Amgen to reproduce the findings of 53 "landmark" papers in this area, only six results could be reproduced, and by implication 47 results could not be reproduced. As the authors did not state which 53 papers were so tested, this has led to predictable jokes about the findings of the editorial themselves not being reproducible."

http://lifesciences.ieee.org/publications/newsletter/september-2012/185-computational-biology-corner

The following are a couple of items about the company Amgen.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/18/business/la-fi-amgen-plea-20121219

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000391&year=2012 Amgen's lobbying disclosure

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000082&year=2013 For fun, here's the NRA's disclosure

While I don't imagine that all research is verifiable or accurate, the article in the OP is suspect.

Refriedtruth

Interesting,I believe there is a measure of fraud in science (could be large) because grant money allegations are given out by cliques. But remember the supposed 'pigeon hole-ing; of cures kills the loved ones of the supposed perpetrators conspirators.They die horribly from cancer too.Look at the obituaries they don't lie none of the bad guys live longer.

because grant money allegations are given out by cliques http://cosmologystatement.org/ Check out this link on how even the nearly universally accepted 'big bang' inflationery theory is affected big time by clique grant money

lost

cantleave

I have just read through the article you posted, and also checked all their references, which do not in anyway give credence to the information the article. I am afraid it is total tosh.

Yes as in any research funded commercially there are conflicts of interest and confidentiality agreements, and as with the nature of any initial research it is impossible to foresee the who picture form early trials and conclusion are drawn based on historical / shared data. But to come up with a figure of 89% of research in the field of oncology is flawed / worthless is a totally misleading headline.

still thinking

When a new drug gets tested, the results of the trials should be published for the rest of the medical world -- except much of the time, negative or inconclusive findings go unreported, leaving doctors and researchers in the dark. In this impassioned talk, Ben Goldacre explains why these unreported instances of negative data are especially misleading and dangerous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKmxL8VYy0M

Sorry, can't make that youtube link live for you

cantleave

Still Thinking - Yes disclosure of negative results does happen, far too often. This is something that really needs to be adressed. It is cherry picking of the the most dangerous kind.

still thinking

I think the problem is with pharmaceutical companies. They have a huge conflict of interest. They make a hell of a lot of money out of what they do. Which can in no way guarantee that what they produce is the best result for us...but it does guarantee it is the best result for them...always.

This is where the distrust comes in. Then when you add into that scenario hospitals being privately owned and operated...profit based businesses. And insurance companies that also want to make a profit, that makes health care a lethal combination of big corporations who's main priority is to make money.

Distrust is huge...and so it should be. They need to be kept under scrutiny to keep them honest. They are businesses not charities.

I would not say cancer research is worthless by any means...but, it should always be questioned.

Even government funded hospitals should be answerable to the public for where the money goes and what they are doing...because things like this still happen. Even when it is not profit based.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/06/us-britain-hospital-idUSBRE9150SP20130206

Between 400 and 1,200 patients are estimated to have died needlessly at Stafford Hospital in central England between January 2005 and March 2009 in one of the worst scandals to hit the NHS since it was founded in 1948.

metatron

I haven't checked it out yet but it is asserted that the Begley study originates in the journal Nature, which if true, is pretty top level. Natural News is irrelevant.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/09/24/the-cranks-pile-on-john-ioannidis-work-o/

The above is a mainstream blog about the work of John Ioannidis in exposing how much of published research is wrong. As his work is often cited in condemnation of current medical research, I thought it provided some balance.

I know that science generates lots of null/deadend results. I accept that as part of the process. What disturbs me is what is suppressed, ignored, forgotten or shelved.

My personal theory is that the following is why so much research is ineffective: A drug development company finds 5 potential cures. They throw out 3 that are natural or unpatentable as uneconomic. They throw out a 4th because it is predicted to be modestly profitable and may only break even with regulatory costs. They pursue the 5th one and chance being what it is, it never gets to approval.

I'm not sure how the above can be reformed.

metatron

Cancer Research Worthless?

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