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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 The only complete data set they received was from an unpublished study of 1,447 adults which showed that Tamiflu was no better than placebo.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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 13, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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/16899145Leviathan
January 12, 2010
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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.comGods iPod
January 12, 2010
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Seversky, way to stay on topic and be mature.Collin
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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.htmlLeviathan
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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.htmlGods iPod
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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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
January 12, 2010
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Collin. He stated that the strands of 3 flu virii, Swine, Avian and Human could not have recombined through any natural method.Gods iPod
January 11, 2010
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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
January 11, 2010
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Big Science defenders are uausally BigPharma defenders as well. It goes without saying.JPCollado
January 11, 2010
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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
January 11, 2010
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