This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Am I the only one who see's that other's just strive to get rich off of this disease that ruin's live's and causes long pain and suffering? Found this interesting...maybe I should have just invested in some stock's....

http://www.investorguide.com/article/83 ... ceuticals/

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GOD BLESS.... CCSVI treatment Dr. Siskin great doc....symptom's improved for about 3 week's (gait, balance, spasticity) now back to square 1...

Somewhere in a parallel universe run by pharmas...

Little Timmy comes home from school all excited...

"Look Mommy, I got a 30% on my test!"

"Why that's wonderful Timmy! I'm so proud!"

NHE

Nope - many agree with you entirely. Curing illness is coincidential to the work of the pharmaceutical industry. Same with healthcare. Doing the best for you and me comes second to six figure salary's and bonuses. Ever wondered why the health care system (wherever you are) treats you like a piece of meat rather than a human being?

hahaha, welcome to the real world! Did you know that a placebo efficience is 33%?!! That's even more than any MS drug in the market... so better drink water with sugar, at least you'd avoid their side effects...
No seriously, we have to do sth about this mascarade...
For example, I was reading about the pins and needles sensation that we all have, this sensation is linked to MS but it can also happen in situation of stress or in what the French call "spasmophlia"... Then that means whatever causes the stres reaction may be the same that causes our pins and needles, me may just have it way more strong ... Still, that does NOT explain brain lesions nor brain atrophy... So it's just OBVIOUS to me that MS is at least a DOUBLE process: one in the brain, the other in the rest of the body...which one provokes the other, i don't know...
It is also OBVIOUS that those reasearchers do NOT want to find a cure...
I remember once, years ago, i had dinner with a woman who was running a big Lab in Vegas and I think she had drunk a bit too much because she suddenly started crying saying that they've knowm for a long long time how to cure leukemia, still they have to act like they don't know and just give the regular treatments... The woman was part of the American pharma lobby so she obviously knew what she was talking about...
I am sure the same applies to MS...

Yes. However, the 30% that the drug companies quote is in comparison to placebo so it is effectively 30% greater than placebo. It's still not a passing grade though and alludes to the idea that they're likely missing something. Moreover, the fact that it's a relative percentage difference instead of an absolute percentage difference makes it even less impressive. See the first data plot in this post for Avonex. The relative percentage difference is 37% while there is only a 13% absolute difference.

NHE

that means it's actually 30% of 33% added to the 33%... which means 42% but 42% doing what? reducing what exactly? really...

I'm not sure that I follow your math. In the example I noted above for the Avonex study, there were 21.9% of patients progressing in the Avonex treatment group and 34.9% of patients progressing in the placebo treatment group. The relative percentage difference is calculated as follows.

(34.9-21.9)/34.9 = 37.2%

However, the absolute percentage difference between Avonex and placebo regarding disability progression is only 13%. In my opinion, this is the number that really matters.

The use of relative percentage calculations in medical studies has been criticized . Consider the following example which is similar to what I have read about the studies which led to the approval of one of the statins (if I remember correctly, it was this book; "Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine" by Dr. John Abramson).

If 4 out of 100 people in the placebo group have a fatal heart attack while only 2 out of 100 people in the statin treatment group have a fatal heart attack, then the pharmas can say that the statin led to a 50% reduction in fatal heart attacks. However, the 50% figure is a relative percentage difference between the two groups. The absolute percentage difference is only 2%.

Here's the best reference on relative percentages that I was able to find via a quick Google search.
Interpretation of Medical Statistics by Leslie E. Daly, Geoffrey Joseph Bourke.


NHE

I remember when I worked in marketing, there were amazing ways to make statistics look misleading, visually and otherwise. It didn't make any difference whether it was scholarly or commercial. Look closely any time you see statistics, as NHE points out.

hhaha, so right, I m pretty sure the marketing guys for Avonex and Copaxone work very hard:-) I am also sure some of them are employed to go on forums pretend they achieved remission with those... I mean really If i was them that's what i would do...