(NaturalNews) When it comes to selling chemicals that claim to treat H1N1 swine flu, the pharmaceutical industry's options are limited to two: Vaccines and anti-virals. The most popular anti-viral, by far, is Tamiflu, a drug that's actually derived from a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb called
star anise.
But Tamiflu is no herb. It's a potentially fatal concentration of isolated chemical components that have essentially been bio-pirated from Chinese medicine. And when you isolate and concentrate specific
chemicals in these herbs, you lose the value (and safety) of full-spectrum herbal
medicine.
That didn't stop Tamiflu's maker,
Roche, from trying to find a multi-billion-dollar market for its
drug. In order to tap into that market, however, Roche needed to drum up some
evidence that Tamiflu was both safe and effective.
Roche engages in science fraud
Roche claims there are ten
studies providing Tamiflu is both safe and effective. According to the company, Tamiflu has all sorts of
benefits, including a 61% reduction in
hospital admissions by people who catch the
flu and then get put on
Tamiflu.
The problem with these claims is that
they aren't true. They were simply invented by Roche.
A groundbreaking article recently published in the
British Medical Journal accuses Roche of misleading governments and physicians over the benefits of Tamiflu. Out of the ten studies cited by Roche, it turns out, only two were ever published in science journals. And where is the original data from those two studies?
Lost.The data has disappeared. Files were discarded. The researcher of one study says he never even saw the data. Roche took care of all that, he explains.
So the
Cochrane Collaboration, tasked with reviewing the data behind Tamiflu, decided to investigate. After repeated requests to Roche for the original study data, they remained stonewalled. The only complete data set they received was from an unpublished study of 1,447 adults which showed that Tamiflu was no better than
placebo. Data from the studies that claimed Tamiflu was effective was apparently lost forever.
As
The Atlantic reports, that's when former
employees of Adis International (essentially a
Big Pharma P.R. company) shocked the medical world by announcing
they had been hired to ghost-write the studies for Roche.
It gets even better:
These researchers were told what to write by Roche!As one of these ghostwriters told the
British Medical Journal:
"The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in. It was run by the [Roche]
marketing department and you were answerable to them. In the introduction ...I had to say what a big problem
influenza is. I'd also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer."
In other words,
the Roche marketing department ran the science and told researchers what conclusions to draw from the clinical trials. Researchers hired to conduct the science were controlled by the marketing puppeteers. No matter what they found in the science, they had already been directed to reach to conclusion that "Tamiflu was the answer."
Now, I don't know about you, but where I come from, we call this "science
fraud." And as numerous
NaturalNews investigations have revealed,
this appears to be the status quo in the pharmaceutical industry.
Virtually none of the "science" conducted by drug
companies can be trusted at all because it really isn't science in the first place. It's just
propaganda being dressed up to look like science.
Sadly, even the
CDC has been fooled by this clinical trial con. As stated by author Shannon Brownlee in
The Atlantic:
"...the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appears to be operating in some alternative universe, where valid science no longer matters to public policy. The agency's flu recommendations are in lockstep with Roche's claims that the drug can be life-saving -- despite the FDA's findings and despite the lack of studies to prove such a claim. What's more, neither the CDC nor
the FDA has demanded the types of scientific studies that could definitively determine whether or not the company's claims are true: that Tamiflu reduces the risk of serious complications and saves lives. Nancy Cox, who heads the CDC's flu program, told us earlier this year she opposes a placebo-controlled study (in which one half of
patients would be given Tamiflu and the other half would be given placebo), because the drug's benefits are already proven."
Did you catch that last line? The CDC isn't interested in testing Tamiflu because "the drug's benefits are already proven." Except they aren't. But this is how the pharmaceutical
industry operates:
Step 1) Fabricate evidence that your drug works.
Step 2) Use that fraudulent evidence to get your drug approved.
Step 3) Use fear to create consumer demand for your drug (and encourage governments to stockpile it).
Step 4) Avoid any actual scientific testing by claiming the drug has already been proven to work (and cite your original fraudulent studies to back you up).
This is the recipe the CDC is following right now with Tamiflu. It's a recipe of
scientific stupidity and circular logic, of course, but that seems to be strangely common in the medical community these days.
Even the FDA says Tamiflu doesn't work
The FDA, remarkably, hasn't entirely given in to the Tamiflu hoax. They required Roche to print the following disclaimer on Tamiflu lables -- a disclaimer that openly admits the drug has never been proven to work:
"Tamiflu has not been proven to have a positive impact on the potential consequences (such as hospitalizations, mortality, or economic impact) of seasonal, avian, or pandemic influenza."Even further, an FDA spokesperson told the British Medical Journal, "The clinical trials... failed to demonstrate any significant difference in rates of hospitalization, complications, or mortality in patients receiving either Tamiflu or placebo."
It's the same message over and over again, like a broken record:
Tamiflu doesn't work. And the "science" that says Tamiflu does work was all apparently fabricated from the start.
The Tamiflu stockpiling scandal
Junk science, though, is good enough for the U.S.
government. Based on little more than fabricated evidence and Big Pharma propaganda, the U.S. government has spent $1.5 billion stockpiling Tamiflu. This turned out to be a great deal for Roche, but a poor investment for U.S. citizens who ended up spending huge dollars for a medicine that doesn't work.
As is stated in
the Atlantic:
"Governments, public
health agencies, and international bodies such as the World Health Organization, have all based their decisions to recommend and stockpile Tamiflu on studies that had seemed independent, but had in fact been funded by the company and were authored almost entirely by Roche employees or paid academic consultants."
Even if Tamiflu did work, there are Tamiflu-resistant strains of
H1N1 are now circulating (
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gcLbtyrgyneF...).
The upshot of all this is that
governments around the world are flushing billions of dollars down the drain stockpiling a drug that doesn't work -- a drug promoted via propaganda and scientific fraud.
This isn't the first time your government has wasted taxpayer dollars, of course (it seems to be what the U.S. government does best), but this example is especially concerning given that this was all done with the excuse that
natural remedies are useless and only
vaccines and Tamiflu can protect you from a viral pandemic.
But as it turns out,
vaccines and Tamiflu are useless and only natural
remedies really work. That's why so many informed people around the world have been stocking up on vitamin D, garlic,
anti-viral tinctures and superfoods to protect themselves from a potential pandemic that most world governments remain clueless to prevent.
I find it fascinating that
the governments of the world are stockpiling medicines that DON'T work, while the natural health people of the world are stockpiling natural remedies that DO work. If a real pandemic ever strikes our world, there's no question who the survivors will be (hint: it won't be the clueless chaps standing in line waiting for their Tamiflu pills...).
Which remedies really do work to boost immune function and protect the body from infectious
disease? I've actually published a special report revealing my top five recommended remedies:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_Anti-Viral_Remedies_Influenza_0.htmlIn addition to the remedies mentioned in that report, I also recommend high-dose vitamin D as well as the Viral Defense product from
www.PlantCures.comI have no financial ties to any of the companies whose products are recommended here, by the way. Unlike the pharmaceutical industry, I don't operate purely for profit. My job is to get valuable
information out to the People -- information that can help save lives and reduce suffering. This is the job the FDA and CDC should be doing but have long since abandoned in their betrayal of the American people.
Sources for this story include:http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912u/tamifluhttp://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec07_2/b5106http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec10_2/b5405
About the author: Mike Adams is an award-winning journalist and holistic nutritionist with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He's also a noted technology pioneer and founded a software company in 1993 that developed the HTML email newsletter software currently powering the NaturalNews subscriptions. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and martial arts training. He's also author a large number of health books offered by Truth Publishing and is the creator of numerous reference website including NaturalPedia.com and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. His websites also include the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the innate healing ability of the human body. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org
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Monday, December 14, 2009
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