Recently, CTV reported that data from a clinical trial was misrepresented, and now the research community is renewing their resolve to have the true findings of thousands of abandoned or misrepresented studies published.
The study in question was a 2011 osteoporosis study performed at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. In the study, researchers had concluded that nitroglycerin can help osteoporosis. However, recent findings have proven that data for the study was systematically manipulated. The head researcher, Dr. Sophie Jamal, has since resigned her clinical privileges and stepped down as research director at the Centre for Osteoporosis and Bone Health. The CTV article goes on to list several other studies that have provided false or misleading results.
The findings released in this osteoporosis study were only half the findings; the negative findings were not released, as the researchers falsified the data in order to bring their product to the marketplace.
In the meantime, diseases like cancer are rising at an alarming rate around the world. Among indigenouspopulations, lung, breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers are becoming commonplace. In China, smokingis pervasive, and if trends continue, smoking will be lethal for 1 out of 3 Chinese young men. It is projectedthat by 2030, Canadian cancer rates will grow by 40 percent.
On one hand, we have disease rates out of proportion, and the other, contributing factors that are fueling the disease like the majority of corn, cotton and sugar beets among others heavily sprayed with GMO’s like Roundup, a known carcinogenic agent according to the WHO.
And because of the growing diseases out of proportion, pharmaceutical companies are desperate in cashing in and in doing so are falsifying clinical data with hopes of speeding the process of getting their products approved and in the marketplace. How does the media react to such findings? They report them, but they get little attention. On the flip side, natural health products (NPN) are coming under attack by the like of investigative reports such as W5 and Marketplace.
Safety has never been a concern for NPN products, and no deaths have been caused, yet properly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs are the 3rd leading cause of death, and these are the ones the media attacks. Natural substances have scientific evidence in effectiveness for cancer. Melatonin protects against chemotherapy-induced immunosuppression and has been shown to improve survival rates. Cannabis inhibitstumor cell growth.
My question is why--why do they attack the one thing that is perfectly safe and licensed, and a majority of the population believes in and takes on a regular bases? Is that why they are attacked--because they are safe--or is it to make the drugs not look so bad? Where is the loyalty of true investigative journalists? Is it really in finding the truth or is it because of lobbying and funding from pharma?
In any respect, and according to Peter Doshi, a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, when studies are retracted, it hurts everyone and erodes the public’s trust.
And I think that is a good thing, trust is earned and with pharma’s track record, they have a long way to come if they once again want the public’s trust.
Eldon Dahl, Doctorate in natural medicine,
Founder and CEO of Life Choice Ltd, Est. 1986