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Tamiflu Hoax

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Hoax as defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary:

: to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous

According to a recent article, Tamiflu doesn’t prevent the flu, nor does it cure the flu once someone has it. The notion that Tamiflu has any efficacy in fighting the flu is actually the result of a well orchestrated hoax, relying on faulty science and marketing schemes, it says. This sounds familiar. The “Anthropocentric-Global-Warming-Climate-Change-Greenhouse-Gas-Effect” hoax comes to mind as well. So does the Darwinian notion of an “Undirected-Evolution-Of-A-Molecule-To-Man” hoax. The fraudulent science on all fronts, just to promote a particular fancy, is really alarming. Remember Ida and Ardi and the Piltdown Man and Haeckel’s embryos?

Tamiflu’s maker, 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 The only complete data set they received was from an unpublished study of 1,447 adults which showed that Tamiflu was no better than placebo.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.

Lost, like the raw data that was lost by the East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit.  The parallels are uncanny. It seems that the business of science has become a science of business. If the data and evidence isn’t saying what you want it to say when you want it to say it, just say it anyway, and sell the product to the masses.

Comments
Leviathan, I have a degree in psychology, and I must agree with you that time and again researchers show that human common sense is often way off base. But science is based on logic, which relies in part on common sense assumptions, such as principles of symmetry. It's kind of a philosophical conundrum. Collin
Leviathan at 40, just roll up your sleeve and get the shot, okay? I am merely making an observation: On the whole, it is better for people - especially older people - to get flu shots than not to get them. I have little faith in statistics whose provenance I do not know; much more in practical prevention. You cannot know when or how your health may be compromised. It could happen in a situation you did not expect and could not predict. O'Leary
Mrs. O'Leary, with all due respect, are you aware of the saying in psychology that common sense is not enough? Often our common sense is simply wrong on a variety of topics. Saying that you doubt something in one instance simply because of your subjective experiences does not mean that it occurs exactly the same, or even differently, in another instance. Investigation is needed, especially when reporting it to masses via journalism. This is not a personal attack, but merely an observation. Leviathan
Heinrich at 35, many regions simply do not have reliable statistics because they do not have lab results (to begin with). That is how swine flu became a 'demic in Mexico. Estimates can be way over or way under. In a panic, who knows? My best guess is that - because flu commonly (not always) targets people who were expected to die anyway in a couple of years - it is an underreported cause of death. Yes, some young people get H1N1 and die - we've had that here - but it is not the pattern. Anyway, get your shots. Added: Here's some stuff on reported deaths from 2003. It will probably rise significantly due to the aging of the population. O'Leary
Hi all. Glad to be here. This is in reference to iPod’s comments regarding the “lab escape.” This is crazy. I didn’t know about that tidbit at all. Sadly, neither has anyone in my immediate family or circle of friends, at least the ones I’ve asked. I am really disgusted in how the major news networks are handling this or any other such controversies. At the same time, I am glad for websites like UD, which are not in the business of stifling information, however uncomfortable they may seem to our sensibilities or preconceived notions. Hopefully other people will become aware of the Truth as long as dissent is given a wider voice. 4QDanC
Flu stalks vulnerable people, whose immune system is already compromised.
What? So why do so many healthy people get flu? Perhaps you didn't read my post @24, where I quoted an epidemiologist:
Epidemiology studies the patterns of disease in the population and swine flu is hitting — and killing — a very different demographic from seasonal flu. Its victims are young and many are vigorous and healthy.
Back to Mrs. O'Leary
Admittedly, I don’t know how many people die of various flus but I doubt anyone does, and it is likely much higher than reported.
On what basis are you making the claim that the statistics are underestimates? Do you have a reason to suggest that the methods used are underestimates? Heinrich
Leviathan at 23 and Seversky at 24, I would never assume that the reported causes of death are the same as actual ones. Many people die with no reported cause of death, or no seriously examined one. Flu stalks vulnerable people, whose immune system is already compromised. If it kills many people in Canada (where we have a reasonably competent health system for emergencies), I must suppose it does so elsewhere - especially where one might question the health care policies (self-prescription, non-scientific medicine, etc.). Admittedly, I don't know how many people die of various flus but I doubt anyone does know, and it is likely much higher than reported. I don't have a problem with the vaccines. They either work or they don't. O'Leary
what’s your source for “millions”? It sounds high to me, but I don’t work in epidemiology.
I decided to do some fact checking. Googling 'flu deaths global' took me to the WHO's webpage where they write
Influenza epidemics occur yearly during autumn and winter in temperate regions. Illnesses result in hospitalizations and deaths mainly among high-risk groups (the very young, elderly or chronically ill). Worldwide, these annual epidemics result in about three to five million cases of severe illness, and about 250 000 to 500 000 deaths.
(emphasis added) So I'm even more curious about where Mrs. O'Leary got her figures from. Heinrich
I remember from my schooldays, Pirquet testing every year. Negative's would be vaccinated. After vaccination, the Pirquet test usually would be positive. My question then is: Was the presence of TBC antibodies, which I presume is quite an effective protection against contracting the disease, not a result of the vaccination? Cabal
To continue in the same vein, what happened to smallpox? Wikipedia,
After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979.[10] To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated.[11]
Cabal
Lenoxus: "Would this Tamiflu scandal perhaps not have occurred if scientists had only considered non-naturalistic hypotheses for the origin and spread of diseases?" I don't think methodology is in question here. It has more to do with attitude, professional arrogance, exclusivity, and the restrictive powers and dangers of consensus thinking. Factors that should also be looked out for in the "non-naturalist" camp, or any other line of thinking. JPCollado
Scurvy - caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. Beriberi - caused by a deficiency of Vitamin B1. Pellagra - majorly caused by a deficiency of vitamin B3. These and other diseases share common symptoms and syndromes with polio (in cases where symptoms manifest themselves), but no microbe has ever been pinpointed as the culprit. Healing has always come on the heels of nutritional deficit reversals. The question is, has there been any studies that looked at the possible connection between the incidence of polio cases and such nutritional disorders, and whether the introduction of better and effective food delivery systems had any role in reducing polio, insofar as the "polio-like" medical signs are concerned ? JPCollado
In the cases of global warming or medical science, is naturalism a serious problem, as is supposedly is for biology (and physics and neurology)? Would this Tamiflu scandal perhaps not have occurred if scientists had only considered non-naturalistic hypotheses for the origin and spread of diseases? Lenoxus
It had nothing to do with any vaccines? Are we talking about the same concept here? The idea of vaccines as a biological sample that increases disease immunity?
Developed in the 1950s, polio vaccines are credited with reducing the global number of polio cases per year from many hundreds of thousands to around a thousand.[7] Enhanced vaccination efforts led by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Rotary International could result in global eradication of the disease.[8]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16899145 Leviathan
Medical propaganda really works! Seversky, if you bother to look at the history of Polio and its supposed eradication through vaccinations, you'll see what really happened, and how Polio's eradication had nothing to do with any vaccines. I'll be awaiting your embarrassed humble apology. If you don't know where to start, try here: http://google.com Gods iPod
Seversky, way to stay on topic and be mature. Collin
Gods iPod @ 25
In my view, and I know a little about vaccines, they should be avoided at all costs. Vaccines are the last vestige of quackery in modern medicine.
Quite right. It is too easy to forget that it was the power of prayer that stopped all those polio victims being trapped in "iron lungs" for the rest of their lives. It is just incredible how many people were taken in by Salk's quackery. Seversky
In my view, and I know a little about vaccines, they should be avoided at all costs. Vaccines are the last vestige of quackery in modern medicine.
Gods iPod
Flu kills millions every year – most of whom are already in compromised health conditions. So the discovery of a new variant should not – in itself – be treated as a big public health disaster. Put another way: People who did not die of Variant B might well die of Variant A.
what's your source for "millions"? It sounds high to me, but I don't work in epidemiology. Your "it doesn't matter, because if someone doesn't die of A they'll die of B" sounds rather uncaring to me. It also ignores the evidence that the epidemiology of H1N1 was different:
Epidemiology studies the patterns of disease in the population and swine flu is hitting -- and killing -- a very different demographic from seasonal flu. Its victims are young and many are vigorous and healthy.
So they might die of A, but only 50 years in the future. Heinrich
Mrs. O'Leary,
Flu kills millions every year
Really? This is news to me....according to this source, the figure is quite different:
Regular flu in the United States kills about 30,000 people in an average year. . . . A regular year worldwide is for 250,000 to 500,000 people to die from the flu.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/04/regular-flu-deaths-in-usa-in-2009.html Leviathan
Flu kills millions every year - most of whom are already in compromised health conditions. So the discovery of a new variant should not - in itself - be treated as a big public health disaster. Put another way: People who did not die of Variant B might well die of Variant A. Most people only experience nasty stuff from flu. (= More time spent in the john.) By the way, if you have not had the H1N1 vaccine, here where I live, they give it in the other arm from the one where you get the usual flu vax - but your H1N1 arm will be a bit sorer. *In my view, you may as well get the vaccine if offered. I don't know that it causes harm, and people over 50 should get flu vax anyway. O'Leary
And this today: A leading health expert said the swine flu scare was a "false pandemic" led by drug companies that stood to make billions from vaccines, The Sun reported Monday. Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms organized a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic. He believes it is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century," and he has called for an inquiry. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582749,00.html Gods iPod
Heinrich at 15: It was first explicitly identified in Canada, in a scientific way. It first emerged in Mexico and was "sort of" identified as a possible new virus. After that comes all the real work. O'Leary
I can't and won't comment on the science aspect of this debate. I just want to point out that we have any number of scandals involving all, and I mean virtually all aspects of human endeavor. Like the car industry (Ralph Nader), the oil industry (lead additives to gasoline), the tobacco industry (Philip Morris). Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex There must be many others industries too, and lobbies as well. Eisenhower: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdrGKwkmxAU I am not afraid of science but I am scared by many other of man's institutions. We got a lot of cleansing to do, haven't we? Cabal
Gods iPod said, "He stated that the strands of 3 flu virii, Swine, Avian and Human could not have recombined through any natural method." Sounds like a God of the gaps theory to me! (Sarcasm). Collin
Heinrich at 6, if you can’t follow my logic, I will try to help, but don’t know how much help I can be.
Ah, I think I know what you are trying to say, but did you mean where "it first emerged" rather than where "it was first identified"? Heinrich
Collin. He stated that the strands of 3 flu virii, Swine, Avian and Human could not have recombined through any natural method. Gods iPod
Gods iPod @ # 3, I'll back you up on Adrian Gibbs because I remember reading about this too this past summer. I don't think I got the info from Bloomberg, though. Anyway, the Bloomberg update shows a date of May 2009 the content of which corresponds with the news file retained by the archival website shown below. See Tamiflu Developer: Swine Flu May Have Been Released From A Lab http://www.prisonplanet.com/tamiflu-developer-swine-flu-may-have-been-released-from-a-lab.html Note that all of the original quotes are intact. But I agree. The corollary to "there is no way for this to have occurred in nature" is "clearly a lab-escape.” JPCollado
Big Science defenders are uausally BigPharma defenders as well. It goes without saying. JPCollado
God's Ipod, I find it very very interesting what you say. It seems like this scientist has made a design inference about a life form. What methods and tools did he use to figure out that H1N1 was not a naturally occuring organism? Thank you for sharing what I think is a huge piece of news. Collin
All this just goes to show what I and others have been saying for many years now - there needs to be a major public outcry against frauds in science and a major drop in public confidence is inevitable. It is a crying shame, and highly revealing, that the needed outcry and exposing of fraud in science has not not come from the scientific community itself. Business as usual - "pay no attention to the freezing man behind the curtain, trust us, we are the inscrutable unimpeachable elite of humanity and you are the 'unwashed masses'" It's getting to the point where we can repeat the adage, , usually applied to lawyers, "It's only 99% of scientists that give a bad reputation to the rest". Borne
Did someone say climate hoax? Possible new "mini Ice Age"? http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool New deep sea measurements predicted this years cooling trends? DATCG
In fairness to Roche - their response... http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec08_3/b5374?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=tamiflu&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT I do not know if they've made the data available yet. DATCG
Here is a search list by date of published articles and correspondance between BMJ and Roche. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/search?fulltext=tamiflu&sortspec=date Two articles discuss the delays in getting good data... A review of problems and request and failures of system accountability... http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec08_3/b5351 And We Want Raw Data Now I've not found an article where it says data was lost, only that it has not been forthcoming as of Dec 10th. Maybe someone else can find more recent articles? Or, ask Mike Adams? DATCG
Heinrich at 6, if you can't follow my logic, I will try to help, but don't know how much help I can be. If you read the original article, you will discover - and this is generally accepted so far as I know - that in the country where H1N1 first emerged (thousands of kilometres from the country in which it was first identified [Canada]), people can get medications from a pharmacist to relieve their symptoms without a prescribing physician who asks why this is happening. This may help poor people in important ways, but it disables the system with respect to epidemics, because disease symptoms are often the same - and remedies may be too - even if the causes are different. But if an epidemic of a new virus (or some other pathogen) is in progress, there would be no record of its course. That is the reason we don't do things that way here. O'Leary
Mr Hayden, A follow-up article in New Scientist on the BMJ study. Most of the article lays out the story with references to the published studies, but the lead paragraphs raise the point that the use of Tamiflu in slowing an epidemic outbreak is not the same as its use against seasonal flu. I also looked at the original BMJ article but could not find anything to support the claim that the original data for the two published studies had been lost. Nakashima
Just how H1N1 got into the system is a bit murky, but that’s in part because it was first identified – sort of – in a country where pharmacists are permitted to prescribe without physicians.
Sorry, I can't follow your logic. Can you explain? Heinrich
The thing is, there are so many of these scandals now. Just how H1N1 got into the system is a bit murky, but that's in part because it was first identified - sort of - in a country where pharmacists are permitted to prescribe without physicians. The problem with that policy is that prescriptions are often dispensed based on symptoms alone. All flu and many other illnesses cause familiar patterns of feeling rotten (= spending way too much time in the john, for example, and I do NOT mean reading the comics there). That doesn't tell us much except that the person is sick. Lab testing is essential for determining whether the disease is something new. That country didn't even realize it had an epidemic on its hands until it had become much bigger than it should have been. A lab in Winnipeg, Canada, identified the virus. I wrote about this problem here. O'Leary
Again, colour me taken aback. IRQ Conflict
There's a lot more to this than meets the eye, but most will not swallow the red pill. The co-creator of Tamiflu, Adrian Gibbs, an Australian bio-chemist, was one of the very first to reveal, after receiving culture samples of the H1N1 flu, that the virus shows clear signs of being a "lab escape". He says this because, and I quote "...". Well! I WAS going to quote, but the article, which I had become familiar with, as now been radically altered to avoid saying what he had said. At least they acknowledge tgat the article has been "updated". It was here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afrdATVXPEAk What Gibbs said, that now is not there, was as far as I can remember, this "there is no way for this to have occurred in nature, it is clearly a lab-escape". Regardless, the H1N1 strain is made up of Avian, Swine and Human flu, and many have now testified that this virus could not have formed in nature. On top of this, the patent for H1N1 vaccine, was granted a full 7 months before the virus appeared in the wild, on August 28, 2008. See here: http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/vaccines/Baxter%20Vaccine%20Patent%20Application.pdf Of course, as i said, so few are willing to accept the red pill and "follow the money" to see what might really be going on here. And that's sad. So do I think there's some massive global conspiracy here to introduce a new strain of flu and then have the vaccine ready to distribute to the govts of the world at break-neck speed, thereby creating your own big-Pharma stimulus in a dying economy? Actually yes, I do. Gods iPod
Shocked, and so surprised. Not. IRQ Conflict
On the face of it, Roche's behavior in this matter appears to be highly questionable. Further down the article, however, there is this line:
Even if Tamiflu did work, there are Tamiflu-resistant strains of H1N1 are now circulating...
Surely this would indicate that Tamiflu does work to some extent. Why, otherwise, would a virus become resistant to an agent that has no effect on it? Why become resistant when there is nothing to resist? Seversky

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