Tamiflu: Millions wasted on flu drug, claims major report
 

As soon as you see the name Donald Rumsfled just run :2 cents:

The Cochrane Collaboration who compiled the report are independent and not for profit; they are pretty much the last hope we have in the fight against Big Pharma. :2 cents:

Key quote from the article here "The system that exists for producing evidence on drugs is so flawed and open to misuse that the public has been misled."

Full story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26954482


"Hundreds of millions of pounds may have been wasted on a drug for flu that works no better than paracetamol, a landmark analysis has said.

The UK has spent £473m on Tamiflu, which is stockpiled by governments globally to prepare for flu pandemics,

The Cochrane Collaboration claimed the drug did not prevent the spread of flu or reduce dangerous complications, and only slightly helped symptoms.

The manufacturers Roche and other experts say the analysis is flawed.

The antiviral drug Tamiflu was stockpiled from 2006 in the UK when some agencies were predicting that a pandemic of bird flu could kill up to 750,000 people in Britain. Similar decisions were made in other countries.


Hidden Data

The drug was widely prescribed during the swine flu outbreak in 2009.

Drug companies do not publish all their research data. This report is the result of a colossal fight for the previously hidden data into the effectiveness and side-effects of Tamiflu.

It concluded that the drug reduced the persistence of flu symptoms from seven days to 6.3 days in adults and to 5.8 days in children. But the report's authors said drugs such as paracetamol could have a similar impact.

On claims that the drug prevented complications such as pneumonia developing, Cochrane suggested the trials were so poor there was "no visible effect".

"Another justification for stockpiling was to slow the spread of the disease to give time for a vaccine to be developed. The report's authors said "the case for this is simply unproven" and "there is no credible way these drugs could prevent a pandemic".

It also claimed that the drug had a number of side-effects, including nausea, headaches, psychiatric events, kidney problems and hyperglycaemia.

Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford and one of the report's authors, told the BBC: "I think the whole £500m has not benefited human health in any way and we may have harmed people. "

"The system that exists for producing evidence on drugs is so flawed and open to misuse that the public has been misled."

Dr Tom Jefferson, a clinical epidemiologist and former GP, said: "I wouldn't give it for symptom relief, I'd give paracetamol."

The Cochrane Collaboration researchers have not placed the blame on any individual or organisation, instead saying there had been failings at every step from the manufacturers to the regulators and government. "

Continued http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26954482

Is there any mainstream news you do believe in? I'd pretty much take any example at this point.

Personally I think the weather reporting is typically false , but I don't make threads about it everyday

He posted mainstream news that the drug doesn't work. That's something you can believe in.

By default don't believe anything just because it is or isn't mainstream, look to the sources, this one was Cochrane so the BBC had no choice but to write about it through gritted teeth. The reason the BBC still has to publish it is because they are publicly funded.

I just checked CNN and USA Today, didn't spot anything about it there.

What the Tamiflu saga tells us about drug trials and big pharma

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...als-big-pharma

These pharmaceuticals are so shady...from http://www.theguardian.com/business/...als-big-pharma

"First, the Cochrane researchers wrote to the authors of the Kaiser paper. By reply, they were told that this team no longer had the files: they should contact Roche. Here the problems began. Roche said it would hand over some information, but the Cochrane reviewers would need to sign a confidentiality agreement. This was tricky: Cochrane reviews are built around showing their working, but Roche's proposed contract would require them to keep the information behind their reasoning secret from readers. More than this, the contract said they were not allowed to discuss the terms of their secrecy agreement, or publicly acknowledge that it even existed. Roche was demanding a secret contract, with secret terms, requiring secrecy about the methods and results of trials, in a discussion about the safety and efficacy of a drug that has been taken by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and on which governments had spent billions. Roche's demand, worryingly, is not unusual. At this point, many in medicine would either acquiesce, or give up. Jefferson asked Roche for clarification about why the contract was necessary. He never received a reply."

And as for vaccine testing, the standards are even lower :2 cents:

Fear the latest case of ____________. You can avoid catching it or lower the risk by taking __________.

Or, you can just use duct tape and seal your windows and doors shut.