The majority of modern drugs come with strict warnings.
There’s rarely a drug on the market that doesn’t stress the likelihood of dangerous side effects.
But apparently the number of negative side effects is a fraction of those reported in the original clinical data.
According to a recent analysis published in PLOS Medicine journal, half of all medical reporting on clinical trials leave out adverse side effects.
The Research
The research was conducted by scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK.
They investigated 28 journal articles that cross-referenced data from up to 500 clinical trials.
The team concluded that there’s “strong evidence that much of the information on adverse events remains unpublished.
Disturbingly, they said the number and range of adverse events is higher in unpublished than published versions of the same study.”
What Does This Mean?
Firstly, the original data from trials, which doesn’t appear in medical journals show more adverse effects than the published versions of the same trials.
Secondly, the repercussion of these findings are very serious.
For example, if a physician is unaware of the additional side effects, then how can they prescribe a drug to a patient with complete certainty?
Thirdly, additional side effects may counter pre-existing conditions or interfere with existing prescription medications.
Last year a TED talk investigated the chemical reactions that occur when medications are mixed.
Why are adverse effects kept out of medical journals?
Yoon Loke, a physician and lecturer at the University of East Anglia told Scientific American.“I myself was an editor of a scientific journal, and you want to publish interesting, positive things that people want to read.
It’s an optimism bias.
There are a lot of other issues that have been hinted at, too.
For a company to market a product, it’s more beneficial to publish positive results, as opposed to adverse events.
Fortunately, there’s new rules from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The results of all clinical trials must now be publicly available – whatever the outcome.
Also, the University of Oxford has designed a new online hub called Trial Tracker.
Finally, it allows you to see which pharmaceutical companies are withholding their trial data.
David L. Edwards is an author, Chinese medicine physician and acupuncturist. He is the author of The Body Fat Formula and The Pocketbook guide to Chinese medicine. David is the director of Barefoot Health and Wellness health programs.
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