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The drugs don't work
Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 4:40 pm
by Thomas
A new article by Ashton Embry:
New Studies Show the MS Drugs Don’t Slow Progression
Ashton Embry, July 7, 2010
Five years ago, I wrote a New Pathways column on the value of the
commonly used, CRAB drugs (Copaxone, Rebif, Avonex, Betaseron)
for MS. It was based on published evaluations by the Cochrane
Collaboration, an organization which is free from drug company
influence. Based on their objective analyses, my unavoidable
conclusion was that “the available data on the effectiveness of the MS
drugs indicates that there is very little evidence that the interferons do
much good and that there is no evidence at all that Copaxone has any
value.”
Not surprisingly, this conclusion did not sit well with many people who
were taking the drugs and it was completely ignored (as were the
Cochrane analyses) by the neurologists who over the past 5 years
have kept prescribing the drugs as fast as they can. The annual
revenues from MS drugs is approaching the 10 billion dollar mark,
much to the satisfaction of both the drug companies that produce them
and the neurologists and MS societies that receive substantial financial
and in-kind benefits from those drug companies.
Read the whole thing:
http://tinyurl.com/25jrtmk
http://www.facebook.com/l/54253dJIv3jUN ... om/25jrtmk
Re: The drugs don't work
Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:36 pm
by scorpion
I am sure he did. Just follow his dietary protocol and you will be fine.
Re: The drugs don't work
Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 9:09 pm
by Thomas
scorpion wrote:
I am sure he did. Just follow his dietary protocol and you will be fine.
I'm sorry - you're sure he did what?
Re: The drugs don't work
Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:26 am
by HarryZ
Thanks for the article Thomas.
Back in 1996, my wife's neurologist told her that MS docs in general were quite disappointed at the results they were seeing with these drugs. He would never say this publicly, of course, because the clinic he was in charge of was one of the centers that tested the CRABs.
Embry has spent a lot of time following MS drug treatment and I believe what he has researched. When it comes to MS drug treatment, money reigns!!
Harry
Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:34 am
by sbr487
The question also is whether these drugs cause any side effects. I am sure suppressing immune (and in this case without any benefit) is not without some harmful results.
Is it also a fact that drug companies are not obliged to publish every data they have from a study? Given their size, they definitely have lot of clout to collect information on how patients using their drugs are doing. But do they honestly publish everything they find?
Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:46 am
by HarryZ
sbr487 wrote:The question also is whether these drugs cause any side effects. I am sure suppressing immune (and in this case without any benefit) is not without some harmful results.
Is it also a fact that drug companies are not obliged to publish every data they have from a study? Given their size, they definitely have lot of clout to collect information on how patients using their drugs are doing. But do they honestly publish everything they find?
The MS drug makers are protected by the Orphan Drug Act, promoted by the National MS Society and can circle the wagons of protection to anything that questions their expensive medications.
Harry
Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 7:26 am
by gothicrosie
sbr487 wrote:The question also is whether these drugs cause any side effects. I am sure suppressing immune (and in this case without any benefit) is not without some harmful results.
Oh yes, they have side effects. They vary from person to person, just like MS does.
sbr487 wrote:Is it also a fact that drug companies are not obliged to publish every data they have from a study? Given their size, they definitely have lot of clout to collect information on how patients using their drugs are doing. But do they honestly publish everything they find?
The good thing here is that other companies and parties do research and the system is not set up to keep the data completely out of the picture.
HarryZ wrote:The MS drug makers are protected by the Orphan Drug Act, promoted by the National MS Society and can circle the wagons of protection to anything that questions their expensive medications.
This is the first time I actually looked up the Orphan Drug Act and it is pretty annoying. The funny thing is, the DMD I take (Rebif) is NOT labeld as an Orphan Drug, but the only thing they are protected against is competition and additional clinical trials for a period of 7 years. It does not protect against research that analyzes actual patient experiences and thus drug effectiveness.
They get better, and longer protection from a patent which lasts 20 years.