Dr. Robert Fletcher

 Dr. Robert Fletcher

"At the same time that medical journals are given incentives to please the drug companies, they are also given strong disincentives to go against drug company interests."

Dr. Abramson described that the medical journal articles in the 2000s were beginning to be affected by bias because of the pharmaceutical companies. Journal articles were being published that were positive reviews for newer medication when writers were choosing to hide real information to prevent negative results from being published or described in the case of Vioxx and Celebrex. In the case of Celebrex, the adverse effects were omitted from being published in the twelve month study and only the first six months of the study were published. 

Dr. Fletcher spoke truth being an editor of a journal of Internal Medicine. Dr. Fletcher published an article that stated that 44% of the drug ads in medical journals are written in a way that would lead doctors with no other source of information to prescribe improperly. Dr. Fletcher also described that 92% of the drug ads were in violation of FDA rules (Overdo$ed America page 113).

This describes the incongruency between how individuals that spoke truth to prevent medical harm to others were actually punished instead of rewarded. This was in 1992 that Dr. Fletcher described concern over drug ads in medical journals that are known to be significant in the prescribing of medication. This is similar to Dr. Gueriguian and Dr. Applegate who spoke out against the bias that the pharmaceutical companies were attempting to have on research of new medications.

Dr. Fletcher wrote in The Lancet in 2003 about how he was punished by the pharmaceutical industry who withdrew ads from the journal where he was the main editor. This describes that pharmaceutical companies have attempted to encroach and prevent real unbiased research in favor of positively reviewing newer medication that can have significant side effects and symptoms. This is interesting noting how since the 2000s, the pharmaceutical companies have attempted to prevent unbiased research in favor of newer medication approved in haste. 

Statins May Not Only Be Correlated With Incidence of Cancer But Also Strokes

"Not mentioned in the article's abstract, and mentioned only once in passing in the text, were the unexpected findings that the lower (that is, what we think of as healthier) the total and LDL (bad) cholesterol, the greater was the risk of stroke. (More on cholesterol later, but generally total cholesterol and more specifically LDL cholesterol play a role in blocking arteries, and HDL cholesterol partially counteracts this effect.) Buried with the tables included in this article were statistics showing that lower levels of total cholesterol and lower levels of LDL cholesterol were both significantly correlated with a higher risk of stroke (p< .001 and p= .04, respectively). As I read on, I was completely baffled by the authors' statement that 'we found no relation between total cholesterol levels and stroke when their own data showed that the odds were greater than 1000 to 1 that lower total cholesterol levels were associated with a higher risk of stroke? A follow-up letter to the editor of JAMA from a doctor employed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (expressing his own views) pointed out that the authors had 'neglected to discuss these findings'... The article got even stranger when it argued that its data supported the use of statins to prevent strokes in patients with low HDL cholesterol levels. Statins raise HDL cholesterol only half as much as the article found would be necessary to significantly reduce the risk of stroke. But statins lower total and LDL cholesterol at least three times more on a percentage basis, far more than enough to significantly increase the risk of stroke, according to the data from the study. Nevertheless, the article concluded that treatment of low HDL cholesterol with statin drugs could significantly decrease the risk of stroke- ignoring its own findings that the overall effect on cholesterol would be associated with increased risk of stroke."- (page 19-20)

Dr. Abramson described how statin use may be correlated with potential carcinogenicity based on a medical journal article in 1994. Dr. Abramson also described that using statin medications may also increase the risk of strokes when they were said to have decreased the risk of stroke based on medical journal articles on Pravachol medication. Medical journal articles stated that statin medications supposedly increase (good cholesterol) HDL while decreasing total cholesterol and LDL (bad cholesterol). Dr. Abramson found out that statins only increase HDL by half of the amount that would cause a health benefit while actually decreasing LDL and total cholesterol that has been proven to cause strokes. Statins decrease LDL and total cholesterol about three times as much and can cause strokes instead of helping reduce strokes. A doctor of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services even sent a letter in June 2001 to an editor of JAMA to describe the discrepency. 

Statin medications may cause strokes by reducing total cholesterol and LDL. Dr. Abramson stated that lowering total cholesterol and LDL leads to increase of strokes. Dr. Abramson also stated that exercise can be more beneficial to lowering stroke risk than taking statins, yet medical journal articles did not state that exercise is of greater benefit than statins. (Probably because exercise does not have a monetary cost while statins can be expensive if they are brand name and newer than generics.)

"I started to wonder why the article ["Pravastatin Therapy and the Risk of Stroke"] focused on cholesterol at all. The study found that other factors were just as significant as low HDL cholesterol in increasing the risk of strokes: untreated blood pressure, lack of exercise, cigarette smoking, heavy drinking... In fact, the authors of this study had used data from the same case-control study in an article published in 1998 to show that even light to moderate physical activity reduced the risk of stroke in the same people by 61 percent and that heavy exercise reduced the risk of stroke by 77 percent. The benefit of exercise documented by these authors certainly overshadows the 19 percent reduction in stroke associated with an increase in HDL of mg/dL-almost twice as much as is achievable with statins. Curiously, the authors' earlier findings about the important role of exercise were not even mentioned in the current article. And, though the authors did cite the earlier NEJM article about Pravachol and stroke, they failed to mention that the article found no relationship between low HDL levels and increased risk of stroke."- (page 20) 

Expensive and Harmful Medications Were Promoted on Medical Journal Articles in 2000

Pravachol was not the only medication that was promoted on medical journal articles. Celebrex and Vioxx were anti-rheumatoid arthritis medication that were also dangerous to the health. Vioxx caused upper GI bleeds, heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular events. Despite conclusive evidence of the medication causing health problems, it was marketed on television commercials and kept on the market for multiple years prior to being removed from pharmacies. Medical journals promoted the medications despite there being financial ties between pharmaceutical companies and researchers in the publication.

The medical journals also decided to allow for financial ties between pharmaceutical companies and researchers. This describes the obvious lack of integrity from the pharmaceutical companies (monopoly), medical journals, and reseachers. This describes how since the 1990s even medical journal articles have been compromised by the lack of ethics and integrity in medical research. If that was happening in the 1990s with dismal medication that harmed patients, can we be surprised with covid experimental "vaccine" propaganda. 

Celebrex Was Promoted on Medical Journal Articles Without Having All the Data Published

"Pharmacia, the manufacturer of Celebrex, presented a statistical argument to the FDA justifying its omission of the data from the second half of the study. The company claimed that since a higher percentage of people taking diclofenac dropped out of the study because of minor symptoms like heartburn, the data from the second half of the study were invalid because of what is called 'informed censoring'. The manufacturer argued that these dropouts would have gone on to develop serious gastrointestinal complications, and their dropping out of the study artificially minimized the risk of serious complications from taking diclofenac. The FDA flatly rejected this argument. It countered that there was no proof that the people with heartburn would have developed more serious gastrointestinal problems. Further, if minor symptoms caused people in the study to stop taking diclofenac, people in the real world similarly would stop taking the drug if it caused heartburn and would similarly protect themselves from going on to develop serious gastrointestinal complications. The FDA's opinion of the manufacturer's decision to publish only half of the data from its study was clear: 'the sponsor's presentations of 6-month data... are not statistically valid or supportable.'"- (page 30)

Celebrex was promoted as a safer medication option to NSAIDs that can cause irritation of the stomach lining. Researchers stated that Celebrex did not cause irritation of the stomach lining like Ibuprofen and Diclofenac generic medication. Dr. Abramson described that Celebrex was noted to cause stomach complications such as upper GI bleeds and health problems. Researchers knew about the side effects of Celebrex yet hid the results of the second six months of the study from medical journal publication to allow the medication to be promoted on commercials and even prescribed as a great medication. 

The first six months of the study were published where no adverse health effects were noted, yet the second six months of the study were hidden from publication since they described that Celebrex was an unsafe medication causing upper GI bleeds and not being a better alternative to NSAIDs such as Ibuprofen and Diclofenac. The medical journal article published described that Celebrex was a better alternative to NSAIDs while being a dangerous treatment for minor to moderate aches and pains. The researchers had ties with the pharmaceutical companies and describe how dangerous medications were approved in haste even in the 2000s. New medications must submit their research findings to the FDA prior to drug approval. The FDA reviewed the 6 month and 12 month data and found out that the conclusion of the publications on medical journals that Celebrex was better than generic NSAIDS to be false. The faulty argument of Pharmacia was that the second half of the study was not published because individuals taking Diclofenac who had heartburn had dropped out and caused the data to be invalidated. This was to make Celebrex seem like a better medication through deceit. This was called "informed censoring". The real reason was that Diclofenac was a better treatment than Celebrex and did not cause as numerous upper GI bleeds and health complications compared to Celebrex. 

"Looking at the data from the entire year of the study, the FDA's gastroenterology reviewer concluded that 'the sponsor has failed to demonstrate a statistically lower rate' of serious GI complications in the people who took Celebrex compared with the people who took the other NSAIDs. When the reviewer looked at only the second six months of the data (i.e., the data that had not been published in the JAMA article), he concluded that the risk of serious GI complications appeared to be higher in the people who took Celebrex 'compared to both Ibuprofen and Diclofenac'. This was hardly an endorsement for a drug whose only advantage (besides the convenience of a once-daily dosing) was that it caused fewer serious GI problems.

The FDA told the pharmaceutical company, Pharmacia, that it could not promote the Celebrex medication with false statements that it was safer than NSAIDs because it was not true. However, Celebrex kept marketing the medication, and the medication kept being prescribed. The FDA also did not prevent the medication from being recalled once it knew about the findings and only issued warning letters to the pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical company kept promoting the dangerous medication. Journal articles which are supposed to promote the best treatment were promoting dangerous and harmful medication. Pharmaceutical companies were using medical journals to promote bad medication with flawed research design and dishonest findings. Celebrex was not the only medication featured in medical journal articles.

Vioxx Was Promoted in Medical Journals Yet Led to Heart Attacks and Cardiovascular Complications

Vioxx also was touted as a better alternative than Naproxen that prevented GI complications yet caused increased heart attacks and serious cardiac adverse events that led to hospitalizagions or death compared to the people who took Naproxen (p= .013). 

"Overall, the people in the VIGOR study who took Vioxx were 2.4 times more likely than those who took Naproxen to experience a serious cardiovascular complication. The statistical significance of this finding (p= .0016) means that there are less than two chances out of a thousand that this increase in the risk of developing serious cardiovascular complications is simply due to chance.

"The results of the VIGOR study show that for every 100 people with a history of cardiovascular disease treated with Vioxx instead of Naproxen there were between seven to eleven additional serious cardiovascular complications each year."- (page 35)

The NEJM article did not describe the finding as significant and called it a "play of chance" in order to promote the medication as safe. The role of using statistics in research is to find the cause of a finding and remove illogical explanations. The "play of chance" phrasing may have been to downplay the significance of the truthful finding so that the unsafe medication could be promoted as a better alternative to Naproxen. The FDA sent a warning letter to Merck, the pharmaceutical company that made Vioxx, about false and misleading statements about itssafety concerning cardiovascular comolications, yet the medication kept being prescribed. The newer, non-generic, and expensive medication caused adverse health effects and was not better than Naproxen. We can persevere learning about statistics and science in ordert to avoid bad medication and "vaccines". 

"Vioxx costs $100 to $134 a month, compared with $18.19 a month for prescription Naproxen or $7.50 for over-the-counter Naproxen."

"By the end of 2001, 57 percent of all money spent on prescription arthritis medication in the United States was spent on Celebrex and Vioxx, and both were among the top 10 selling drugs in the United States."- (page 38)