Latest Drugwonks' Blog
The three-year-old Medicare Part D drug program is seeing the number of its enrollees climb, even as costs for the program fall.
"Overall, costs for beneficiaries and taxpayers are considerably lower than originally projections, enrollment continues to rise and customer satisfaction remains very high," Kerry Weems, acting administrator at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), told reporters.
According to Weems, the projected cost for Medicare part D is $117 billion lower over the next decade than experts estimated just last summer. "This means that over the 10-year period [from] 2008 to 2017, the estimated $915 billion cost of Part D fell to $798 billion," he said.
At the same time, he reported, after the third open enrollment period that ended in December, the plan now has an additional 1.5 million people.
"Overall, there are about 25.4 million people enrolled in Part D," Weems said.
Most people surveyed today -- more than 85 percent -- are satisfied with the plan, Weems noted.
Can Part D be made even better -- absolutely. But this is good news worth sharing -- and not because it helps any particular partisan political agenda, but rather because it means that more Americans -- tens of millions of more Americans -- are getting access to the medicines (largely chronic medicines) that will help them live healthier lives. And this, in no small measure, significantly reduces more drastic medical intertventions -- which in turn reduces our overall national health care spending.
"Overall, costs for beneficiaries and taxpayers are considerably lower than originally projections, enrollment continues to rise and customer satisfaction remains very high," Kerry Weems, acting administrator at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), told reporters.
According to Weems, the projected cost for Medicare part D is $117 billion lower over the next decade than experts estimated just last summer. "This means that over the 10-year period [from] 2008 to 2017, the estimated $915 billion cost of Part D fell to $798 billion," he said.
At the same time, he reported, after the third open enrollment period that ended in December, the plan now has an additional 1.5 million people.
"Overall, there are about 25.4 million people enrolled in Part D," Weems said.
Most people surveyed today -- more than 85 percent -- are satisfied with the plan, Weems noted.
Can Part D be made even better -- absolutely. But this is good news worth sharing -- and not because it helps any particular partisan political agenda, but rather because it means that more Americans -- tens of millions of more Americans -- are getting access to the medicines (largely chronic medicines) that will help them live healthier lives. And this, in no small measure, significantly reduces more drastic medical intertventions -- which in turn reduces our overall national health care spending.
Much has been made about how great and definitive large head to head studies of drugs such as CATIE or ALLHAT are in guiding what drugs to us. We at CMPI have often bee criticized when we talk about diagnostics replacing one size fits all trials as saying such personalized medicine is not ready for prime time. But what if more research – such as larger observational studies or Bayesian analysis of social experiments -- allowed a closer and statistically meaningful look at patient differences and how drugs worked? Given all available drugs and subtracting the cost of additional research how valuable – measured in terms in years free of schizophrenia -- would research that allow doctors and patients to prescribe the right drug generate.
Using the CATIE results as a baseline, Anirban Basu, PhD, David Meltzer, MD, PhD and Herb Meltzer, MD of Vanderbilt University estimate that such personalized research would be worth $342 billion over the next 20 years assuming that each additionally additional year of life free of schizophrenia is worth $50000. The authors note that this estimate does not take into account the ability to assign patients to treatment using more highly predictive algorithms that could raise the value even more. The value to more precisely establishing the cost-effectiveness of typical/atypical antipsychotics by more precisely establishing differences in patients –even in the absence of genetically based diagnostics is enormous. Considering that CATIE cost $42 million and is justified largely in terms of saving money for government, the CATIE results should not be considered definitive.
The study was sponsored by Best Practice, Inc. with partial support from the Foundation for Education and Research on Mental Illness, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.
For full study results go to
http://www.cmpi.org
And look under "Reports" for "Expected Value of Research on the Comparative Cost--effectiveness of Antipsychotics Drugs."
Important stuff.
Using the CATIE results as a baseline, Anirban Basu, PhD, David Meltzer, MD, PhD and Herb Meltzer, MD of Vanderbilt University estimate that such personalized research would be worth $342 billion over the next 20 years assuming that each additionally additional year of life free of schizophrenia is worth $50000. The authors note that this estimate does not take into account the ability to assign patients to treatment using more highly predictive algorithms that could raise the value even more. The value to more precisely establishing the cost-effectiveness of typical/atypical antipsychotics by more precisely establishing differences in patients –even in the absence of genetically based diagnostics is enormous. Considering that CATIE cost $42 million and is justified largely in terms of saving money for government, the CATIE results should not be considered definitive.
The study was sponsored by Best Practice, Inc. with partial support from the Foundation for Education and Research on Mental Illness, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.
For full study results go to
http://www.cmpi.org
And look under "Reports" for "Expected Value of Research on the Comparative Cost--effectiveness of Antipsychotics Drugs."
Important stuff.
Important story in today’s Wall Street Journal on the topic of patients who suffer adverse events during clinical trials and the broader issue of informed consent. The article focuses largely on the story of Suzanne Davenport, a 71-year-old retired kindergarten teacher, diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1989.
Here’s a link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120173515260330205.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone
One of the major issues discussed is standardization of consent forms. According to the Journal:
“Consent forms and compensation plans vary by institution. There have been sporadic calls to standardize these programs, but none have been widely adopted. The Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit group that advises the government on health policy, recommended in 2002 the creation of a "no fault" compensation system for injured subjects. The goal was to help trial participants resolve their claims quickly, without having to resort to lawsuits.â€
But a far more difficult question (not discussed in the WSJ article) is that of patient therapeutic misperception. Can a patient really make an informed decision about what risks he or she is willing to take in the face of serious disease?
To investigate what patients really understand about the trials in which they have enrolled, leading Parkinson’s Disease researchers, ethicists Kim and Kieburtz, have been awarded a 2007 Michael J. Foundation grant to study ongoing participants of PD clinical trials that involve sham surgery controls. They plan to assess, by structured interviews, the potential for the therapeutic misconception i.e., why and how PD patients make their decisions regarding participation in sham surgery controlled studies
Regardless of the outcome, the biggest question remains the concept of what desperate patients want to understand and what they will do for a glimmer of hope.
Here’s a link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120173515260330205.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone
One of the major issues discussed is standardization of consent forms. According to the Journal:
“Consent forms and compensation plans vary by institution. There have been sporadic calls to standardize these programs, but none have been widely adopted. The Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit group that advises the government on health policy, recommended in 2002 the creation of a "no fault" compensation system for injured subjects. The goal was to help trial participants resolve their claims quickly, without having to resort to lawsuits.â€
But a far more difficult question (not discussed in the WSJ article) is that of patient therapeutic misperception. Can a patient really make an informed decision about what risks he or she is willing to take in the face of serious disease?
To investigate what patients really understand about the trials in which they have enrolled, leading Parkinson’s Disease researchers, ethicists Kim and Kieburtz, have been awarded a 2007 Michael J. Foundation grant to study ongoing participants of PD clinical trials that involve sham surgery controls. They plan to assess, by structured interviews, the potential for the therapeutic misconception i.e., why and how PD patients make their decisions regarding participation in sham surgery controlled studies
Regardless of the outcome, the biggest question remains the concept of what desperate patients want to understand and what they will do for a glimmer of hope.
On January 24th, Germany's Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare (IQWiG) released the first version of its draft methodology paper on cost-benefit analysis.
Here's a link:
http://www.iqwig.de/download/08-01-24_Methods_of_the_Relation_of_Benefits_to_Costs_Version_1_0.pdf
(It's in English. What does that tell you?)
IQWiG will host an open forum on February 26 to discuss this paper, and written comments will be accepted until March 31, 2008.
Here's a link:
http://www.iqwig.de/download/08-01-24_Methods_of_the_Relation_of_Benefits_to_Costs_Version_1_0.pdf
(It's in English. What does that tell you?)
IQWiG will host an open forum on February 26 to discuss this paper, and written comments will be accepted until March 31, 2008.
According to the Wall Street Journal (and other media) "Congressional Democrats began a push for more Food and Drug Administration funding, saying the agency lacks the resources to deal with risks to consumers and pressing the agency's head to endorse more spending."
Now as far as Andy tin cupping -- that's not going to happen. Not that it isn't justified -- it's just not how the system works. That's the job of Andy's boss -- and his boss' boss.
But increased funding is required -- and it ain't gonna come from PDUFA fees.
Time to step up to the plate, Mr. President.
Now as far as Andy tin cupping -- that's not going to happen. Not that it isn't justified -- it's just not how the system works. That's the job of Andy's boss -- and his boss' boss.
But increased funding is required -- and it ain't gonna come from PDUFA fees.
Time to step up to the plate, Mr. President.
Talk about a report that's dated before it gets printed. A just released GAO study reports that ... ready ... sitting down ... here it comes ... the FDA is under-staffed and under-funded. Gasp.
What? You thought FDA reform was a done deal. Er, no.
Consider this factoid, over the last 14 years, the FDA has lost 1311 employees and nearly $300 million in appropriations -- while Congress has lathered on additional mandates and responsibilities.
And they have the chuzpah to accuse FDA of not doing its job. Shameful but, unfortunately, not surprising.
And you know who you are.
Okay -- once more with feeling -- those four little words that mean real FDA reform ...
Show me the money!
What? You thought FDA reform was a done deal. Er, no.
Consider this factoid, over the last 14 years, the FDA has lost 1311 employees and nearly $300 million in appropriations -- while Congress has lathered on additional mandates and responsibilities.
And they have the chuzpah to accuse FDA of not doing its job. Shameful but, unfortunately, not surprising.
And you know who you are.
Okay -- once more with feeling -- those four little words that mean real FDA reform ...
Show me the money!
While we are on the subject of conflicts, I am still waiting for the Pharmaceutical Purity Priesthood to connect the dots between those who comment on pharmaceutical funding and their funding from George Soros. While doing so, here's a great piece by Michael Fumento in the Weekly Standard on how the Lancet continues to ignore and coverup the Soros funding of the now deeply discredited 2006 Lancet study of Iraqi war deaths. Not only did the Lancet hide the Soros funding and not ask the authors to disclose the funding, it timed the release of the highly inflated numbers to the weeks running up to the 2006 mid-term election where of course it received maximum coverage.
Fumento writes:
"Horton spoke at a rally in 2006 sponsored by Stop the War Coalition, a British group set up on September 21, 2001, which is to say its purpose was to oppose punishing and defeating the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. At the rally, Horton shouted about the "mountain of violence and torture" in Iraq--and no, he wasn't talking about Saddam. "This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease," he angrily added. This is not your father's medical journal editor.
As National Journal revealed, Lancet's 2006 study was about half funded by antiwar billionaire George Soros, who in a November 2003 Washington Post interview said that removing President Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." This no doubt explains the release of the Lancet study four weeks before the 2006 midterm elections, just as Lancet's 2004 study was released days before the presidential election. Even the magazine's ardent defenders don't claim the timing was a coincidence.
The 2006 Lancet report states only, "Funding was provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health." Soros is known for concealing his massive political donations, and the Lancet was complicit on this occasion."
As I have noted before, there are many sources of bias and conflict in publications. Financial conflict is but one. I would say political and ideological bias looms larger and is more problematic. As I will argue in future posts, a new pseusdscience of pseudocertainty is forming around meta-analysis to feed into the desire of trial attorneys to usurp FDA control over drug labeling authority. My guess is that much of the leftist and purist blogosphere will fall into line around using meta-analysis to challenge the FDA's right of pre-emption on the subjective grounds that it is a "captive" of the industry it regulates. Again, this challenge ignores outcomes and risks and arrogates the framing of those risks to trial attorneys and "their" experts who are funded by....George Soros, trial attorney backed groups, etc.
Not coincidentally, though this is entirely speculation on my part, the Lancet was the source of the article that claimed the MMR vaccines caused autism.
http://www.fumento.com/military/lancet2008.html
Fumento writes:
"Horton spoke at a rally in 2006 sponsored by Stop the War Coalition, a British group set up on September 21, 2001, which is to say its purpose was to oppose punishing and defeating the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. At the rally, Horton shouted about the "mountain of violence and torture" in Iraq--and no, he wasn't talking about Saddam. "This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease," he angrily added. This is not your father's medical journal editor.
As National Journal revealed, Lancet's 2006 study was about half funded by antiwar billionaire George Soros, who in a November 2003 Washington Post interview said that removing President Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." This no doubt explains the release of the Lancet study four weeks before the 2006 midterm elections, just as Lancet's 2004 study was released days before the presidential election. Even the magazine's ardent defenders don't claim the timing was a coincidence.
The 2006 Lancet report states only, "Funding was provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health." Soros is known for concealing his massive political donations, and the Lancet was complicit on this occasion."
As I have noted before, there are many sources of bias and conflict in publications. Financial conflict is but one. I would say political and ideological bias looms larger and is more problematic. As I will argue in future posts, a new pseusdscience of pseudocertainty is forming around meta-analysis to feed into the desire of trial attorneys to usurp FDA control over drug labeling authority. My guess is that much of the leftist and purist blogosphere will fall into line around using meta-analysis to challenge the FDA's right of pre-emption on the subjective grounds that it is a "captive" of the industry it regulates. Again, this challenge ignores outcomes and risks and arrogates the framing of those risks to trial attorneys and "their" experts who are funded by....George Soros, trial attorney backed groups, etc.
Not coincidentally, though this is entirely speculation on my part, the Lancet was the source of the article that claimed the MMR vaccines caused autism.
http://www.fumento.com/military/lancet2008.html
Antibiotic research is drying up because of a politically inspired demand for larger clinical trials and a push for placebo controlled trials where they need not be required. Congress tosses money at the problem when reform is needed. So I agree with Sid Wolfe when he says: “I’m tired of all these lures to an industry making so much money today that they can’t even see straight,â€
The lures are to biotech start ups mostly. But mostly they need regulatory help and money for Critical Path. Two weeks ago the FDA, academics and industry held a workshop on clinical trial design in cooperation with the Infectious Disease Society of America. The key issue was when to use adaptive trials and other approaches. This is like returning to "GO" in Monopoly. We should be much farther ahead in our approach to drug development in infectious diseases. Kudos to Helen Boucher, David Shlaes and FDAer Ed Cox who have been nurturing this working relationship. It needs -- via support for Reagan Udall -- support from unusual suspects such as hospital groups, private foundations, food companies, as well as FDA senior leadership, from HHS and Congress. Oh wait, this might lead to conflicts. So forget it, let a thousand bugs multiply. What's a thousands deaths and disease when the real disease we are trying to contain is the corruption of our medical research establishment at the hands of BIg Pharma?
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/01/28/new-antibiotics-grow-scarce-as-bad-bugs-multiply/
The lures are to biotech start ups mostly. But mostly they need regulatory help and money for Critical Path. Two weeks ago the FDA, academics and industry held a workshop on clinical trial design in cooperation with the Infectious Disease Society of America. The key issue was when to use adaptive trials and other approaches. This is like returning to "GO" in Monopoly. We should be much farther ahead in our approach to drug development in infectious diseases. Kudos to Helen Boucher, David Shlaes and FDAer Ed Cox who have been nurturing this working relationship. It needs -- via support for Reagan Udall -- support from unusual suspects such as hospital groups, private foundations, food companies, as well as FDA senior leadership, from HHS and Congress. Oh wait, this might lead to conflicts. So forget it, let a thousand bugs multiply. What's a thousands deaths and disease when the real disease we are trying to contain is the corruption of our medical research establishment at the hands of BIg Pharma?
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/01/28/new-antibiotics-grow-scarce-as-bad-bugs-multiply/
Article published Jan 29, 2008 The Washington Times
Health care spending
January 29, 2008
By Robert Goldberg - What do Hillary Clinton and the recent government data on prescription drug spending have in common? In both cases, the mainstream media got it wrong. Just days ago every reporter and pundit were predicting that Mrs. Clinton was on the verge of a major blowout in New Hampshire and that Barack Obama's nomination was virtually assured. We know what happened. Now of course, the media is furiously spinning in the other direction, calling her victory "historic" and the election a "horserace." Until the next primary.
With prescription drug spending, the media of course reported that it increased in 2006 by about 8.5 percent, more than last year because of increased Medicare drug spending. Health care spending went up overall too, by about 6.7 percent about the same as last year. So all the headlines and stories claimed that "drug spending fueled rising health care costs" "Drug benefit fuels Medicare spending" and so on.
But the press got that wrong too. And unlike electoral politics, the pundits didn't have to rely solely on exit polls and recycled "experts" for the intelligence estimates. They were all working from the same study, which was published in Health Affairs.
Drug spending for Medicare did increase. But that's not news because when you give 39 million people a new drug benefit that's going to happen. Apart from the fact that the Medicare Part D program is running at 20 percent under budget estimates, it is not fueling Medicare spending overall. Quite the opposite.
Even as drug spending has increased by nearly 9 percent as a percentage of total health care spending its share remains about the same. If it's fueling the rise in spending it is very efficient fuel. Indeed, the increase in drug spending corresponds nationally with a decline in the rate of increase in spending in hospitals, nursing homes and visits to the doctor.
Could it be that more drug spending is driving down the rate of increase in other health care spending, particularly in Medicare? Public money (mostly Medicare and Medicaid) pays for about half of those other expenses. The surge in drug spending, which includes a shift of the Medicaid drug population to Medicare coincides with this decline in spending in other areas.
What's more, the goal of the Medicare Part D program was to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for people with limited incomes and chronic illnesses. It has accomplished that. Studies have shown, most recently another study in health affairs, that by eliminating the co-payments for prescription drugs, people use more medicines. When that happens their chronic illnesses such as diabetes, blood pressure and depression improve. They use other, more expensive health care services, less often. They are happier and healthier. Which is the real value of medicine in the first place.
Does this relationship apply for seniors in general? It would be great to see more research done using current Medicare beneficiary data. According to earlier work by my colleague Frank Lichtenberg, Courtney Brown Professor of Economics at Columbia University's School of Business, it does. Access to newer drugs costs more money but is offset by a reduction in hospital, home health care and physician costs according to Dr. Lichtenberg's research.
In other words, the value of the Part D program is not just that it makes drugs affordable but that it makes new medicines rapidly available as well. Efforts to restrict access to new drugs through co-pays and formularies would not only discriminate against the poor and chronically ill, it would actually drive up spending across the board. (Dr. Lichtenberg has also found that Medicare Part D has increase drug usage by less than 5 percent nationally. So much for claims that it created a huge windfall for drug firms. ) What's news is that the media, which was so quick to bill the Medicare prescription drug program as a failure two weeks into it's existence, once again rendered a snap judgment so far from reality that it should have used Narnia as its dateline.
James Q. Wilson has observed that journalism, like so much scholarship, now dwells in a postmodern age in which truth is hard to find and statements merely serve someone's interests. Health care will be an important issue in the coming campaign. Accuracy is always a casualty of electioneering. Too bad journalists are increasingly part of the problem whether it's coverage of candidates or the concerns that shape our vote in the first place.
Robert Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.
Health care spending
January 29, 2008
By Robert Goldberg - What do Hillary Clinton and the recent government data on prescription drug spending have in common? In both cases, the mainstream media got it wrong. Just days ago every reporter and pundit were predicting that Mrs. Clinton was on the verge of a major blowout in New Hampshire and that Barack Obama's nomination was virtually assured. We know what happened. Now of course, the media is furiously spinning in the other direction, calling her victory "historic" and the election a "horserace." Until the next primary.
With prescription drug spending, the media of course reported that it increased in 2006 by about 8.5 percent, more than last year because of increased Medicare drug spending. Health care spending went up overall too, by about 6.7 percent about the same as last year. So all the headlines and stories claimed that "drug spending fueled rising health care costs" "Drug benefit fuels Medicare spending" and so on.
But the press got that wrong too. And unlike electoral politics, the pundits didn't have to rely solely on exit polls and recycled "experts" for the intelligence estimates. They were all working from the same study, which was published in Health Affairs.
Drug spending for Medicare did increase. But that's not news because when you give 39 million people a new drug benefit that's going to happen. Apart from the fact that the Medicare Part D program is running at 20 percent under budget estimates, it is not fueling Medicare spending overall. Quite the opposite.
Even as drug spending has increased by nearly 9 percent as a percentage of total health care spending its share remains about the same. If it's fueling the rise in spending it is very efficient fuel. Indeed, the increase in drug spending corresponds nationally with a decline in the rate of increase in spending in hospitals, nursing homes and visits to the doctor.
Could it be that more drug spending is driving down the rate of increase in other health care spending, particularly in Medicare? Public money (mostly Medicare and Medicaid) pays for about half of those other expenses. The surge in drug spending, which includes a shift of the Medicaid drug population to Medicare coincides with this decline in spending in other areas.
What's more, the goal of the Medicare Part D program was to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for people with limited incomes and chronic illnesses. It has accomplished that. Studies have shown, most recently another study in health affairs, that by eliminating the co-payments for prescription drugs, people use more medicines. When that happens their chronic illnesses such as diabetes, blood pressure and depression improve. They use other, more expensive health care services, less often. They are happier and healthier. Which is the real value of medicine in the first place.
Does this relationship apply for seniors in general? It would be great to see more research done using current Medicare beneficiary data. According to earlier work by my colleague Frank Lichtenberg, Courtney Brown Professor of Economics at Columbia University's School of Business, it does. Access to newer drugs costs more money but is offset by a reduction in hospital, home health care and physician costs according to Dr. Lichtenberg's research.
In other words, the value of the Part D program is not just that it makes drugs affordable but that it makes new medicines rapidly available as well. Efforts to restrict access to new drugs through co-pays and formularies would not only discriminate against the poor and chronically ill, it would actually drive up spending across the board. (Dr. Lichtenberg has also found that Medicare Part D has increase drug usage by less than 5 percent nationally. So much for claims that it created a huge windfall for drug firms. ) What's news is that the media, which was so quick to bill the Medicare prescription drug program as a failure two weeks into it's existence, once again rendered a snap judgment so far from reality that it should have used Narnia as its dateline.
James Q. Wilson has observed that journalism, like so much scholarship, now dwells in a postmodern age in which truth is hard to find and statements merely serve someone's interests. Health care will be an important issue in the coming campaign. Accuracy is always a casualty of electioneering. Too bad journalists are increasingly part of the problem whether it's coverage of candidates or the concerns that shape our vote in the first place.
Robert Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.
Attacking the "conflicts" and "coverups" of companies and affiliated researchers in an attempt to discredit the commercialization of medical research comes at a price: undermining confidence in the science and the use of products themselves. As with all Ad Hominem attacks, particularly circumstancial, the fact that a researcher may stand to benefit from the acceptance of their research does not affect the validity of the research itself, since scientifically established evidence can stand or fall on its own merits. The failure to challenge such research in this fashion is of course, intellectually dishonest and manipulative. The consequence and object of such manipulation is to "frame" the choice or perspective of research as a risk to be avoid and as not relying on the research and its results as a place of certainty..
Which lead us to the spike in whooping cough cases triggered by the decline in the number of kids being immunized:
"Before the development of a vaccine, whooping cough was a major public health threat, particularly from the 1920s to the '40s, when it infected as many as 265,000 Americans a year and killed as many as 9,000 a year, said Dr. Mary Healy, director of the Texas Children's cocoon-strategy program.
Since the vaccine, she said, its annual incidence dropped to around 30,000 in the 1950s and as low as about 1,000 in 1976. It began creeping up in the 1980s and 1990s."
Click Here for More Info
Parents are convinced vaccines are unsafe not because of any evidence they are dangerous but because critics claim that the people pushing vaccines like Paul Offit are "conflicted" and therefore should not be trusted. ....Ditto the decline in SSRI and rising suicide rates because of "conflicts" and "coverups". This is now the new standard for determining whether or not research or a scientist is acceptable. Truth is now function of political correctness and adherence to the view that the commercialization of medical research is inherently corrupting. Can someone say Lysenko?
Pseudoscience leads to pseudocertainty which leads to a decline in the public health.
Those who claim that it "seems that negative studies are suppressed" are substituting emotion and bias for the scientific method. So too are those who change the subject from the outcomes to the studies to the character of those who sponsored them. Or as Saul Bellow once said: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Which lead us to the spike in whooping cough cases triggered by the decline in the number of kids being immunized:
"Before the development of a vaccine, whooping cough was a major public health threat, particularly from the 1920s to the '40s, when it infected as many as 265,000 Americans a year and killed as many as 9,000 a year, said Dr. Mary Healy, director of the Texas Children's cocoon-strategy program.
Since the vaccine, she said, its annual incidence dropped to around 30,000 in the 1950s and as low as about 1,000 in 1976. It began creeping up in the 1980s and 1990s."
Click Here for More Info
Parents are convinced vaccines are unsafe not because of any evidence they are dangerous but because critics claim that the people pushing vaccines like Paul Offit are "conflicted" and therefore should not be trusted. ....Ditto the decline in SSRI and rising suicide rates because of "conflicts" and "coverups". This is now the new standard for determining whether or not research or a scientist is acceptable. Truth is now function of political correctness and adherence to the view that the commercialization of medical research is inherently corrupting. Can someone say Lysenko?
Pseudoscience leads to pseudocertainty which leads to a decline in the public health.
Those who claim that it "seems that negative studies are suppressed" are substituting emotion and bias for the scientific method. So too are those who change the subject from the outcomes to the studies to the character of those who sponsored them. Or as Saul Bellow once said: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization promoting innovative solutions that advance medical progress, reduce health disparities, extend life and make health care more affordable, preventive and patient-centered. CMPI also provides the public, policymakers and the media a reliable source of independent scientific analysis on issues ranging from personalized medicine, food and drug safety, health care reform and comparative effectiveness.
