I wrote this post last year about the problems with Tamiflu. Now it seems that the problems are still around. According to a BBC news report The Cochrane Collaboration claims the drug did not prevent the spread of flu or reduce dangerous complications, and only slightly helped symptoms. The consequence of this is that if they are correct the Governments around the world that stockpiled this material wasted billions. Where did the billions go? To Roche of course.

This all comes about because big pharma do not publish all of their amassed clinical data. The reason for this is not clear, but the complete disclosure of research/clinical date would certainly have financial implications and would perhaps provide an insight into the inner workings of these companies which, of course, is not really desirable, from their point of view.

The Cochrane report concludes that Tamiflu is not really better than paracetamol in alleviating flu symptoms! Worse is that it apparently did not prevent complications such as pneumonia. Cochrane say that the trials were so bad that there was no visible effect. I must say that I find that last statement difficult to believe although I have not seen the data myself. The BBC report goes on to quote “experts” who say that the public has been mis-lead and that there have been mistakes made on both sides, manufacturer  and regulatory authorities. Certainly if this is true both sides need to apportion any blame accordingly, but that won’t return the money spent. Roche countered with a statement from their UK medical director:“The pharmaceutical company Roche said “we disagree with the overall conclusions” and warned they could “potentially have serious public health implications”. Its UK medical director, Dr Daniel Thurley, told the BBC News website: “The definitive piece of research stands as the randomised control trials, which were shared with the regulators, which led to them in 100 countries around the world approving Tamiflu for treatment and prevention of flu.”He said the Cochrane group had used the wrong statistics, which “systematically underestimate the benefits” of the drug, and used “unorthodox” methods to analyse the side-effects.

This comment is not surprising and other experts were wheeled forward to counter the view of the first bunch, which they did. So where does that leave poor Joe Public? Stuck in the middle shelling out millions for something that may not actually work, that’s where. Personally I try and consume as few pharma products as possible and suffer in silence.

The BBC man also asks a fundamental question” Do any drugs work?” The answer to this is yes some, if not, most work or show an effect. Aspirin and its analogues certainly do, and more than just for headaches. Some anti-cancer compounds actually cause remission and ultimately remove the cancer. Antibiotics work, but there are problems as we all know. However, a lot of the CNS drugs are of questionable efficacy, oh there is an effect but is it the desired one. THC and heroin etc do work and well.

So on the whole I think most drugs do demonstrate their desired effect, which is making money for the big pharma shareholders. This combined with rationalisation of employees and “offshoring” means even more shareholder value and huge bonuses for upper managers.

p.s. Here is another link concerning this post shedding a bit more light on the Cochrane study report.

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Prof. dangerdackel (199 Posts)