We Tend To Trust Medical Research Without Question And Often At Great Peril

In my ongoing research for educational material to share with my patients, those who follow me on social media and anyone who happens upon my articles and blogs, I recently came across some very interesting information to share with you. I truly hope it gives you pause and makes you think more deeply about how ‘scientific research’ is often conducted, by whom and what ultimately gets presented to the public.

The topic is about studies done to prove the effectiveness of pharmacological products versus alternative medical treatments. The article I am drawing from and referencing begins, “We’re often told that alternative medicine is unproven and pharmacological treatments are well validated. Is this true?” https://www.paintreatmentdirectory.com/posts/can-we-trust-the-science
What a great question and one that should be asked and researched frequently.

There has been a trend in the medical field to push for what is referred to as “Evidence-Based Medicine” (EBM), which means” integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.” Since the early 1990’s there has been a push for this type of research. However, according to the article, “EBM sounds good in theory, but its application to medical decision-making has left much to be desired. A 2014 article in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice reported that EBM has failed to achieve its main objectives: to improve health care outcomes and reduce health care costs.” Critics of this method have noted that, “one issue of major concern is that most studies available in medical literature are funded by parties that have a financial interest in the outcome, such as pharmaceutical companies. These entities manipulate the outcome of the research by their choice of issues studied and by manipulating the study design to favor their desired results. When the study still does not turn out as they had hoped, they fail to publish it and bury the results.” These same critics concluded “that relying indiscriminately on industry-funded studies to make clinical decisions is like trusting politicians to count their own votes.”

I implore you to investigate further by reading the article in its entirety. You can access it here: https://www.paintreatmentdirectory.com/posts/can-we-trust-the-science

The author states, “We need to recognize that claims of pharmaceutical safety and effectiveness are often overblown, and the benefits of alternative therapies are often minimized. We need to ask, “What does the promoter or disparager of this treatment have to gain or lose?”
Alternative therapies are much safer than pharmaceuticals and, if accessible and affordable, are worth trying first.”

I am in total agreement with the author of this informative article. And, in conclusion, I would like to point out one of the most disturbing facts about research, and especially research funded by those who benefit from positive results. The most important and never asked question is “Where is the journal that prints all the failed or negative outcome studies?” Sadly this journal doesn’t exist and if it did there would be only a handful of drugs that would ever make it to market.

Again please read the entire piece to get a more in-depth understanding of how medical research is done in this country.