The following is important information from Drugwonks.
We are used to drug companies using studies to market their drugs, but if the underlying facts are true for the report below, it means that the government is no better. As far as Dr. Michael Weber goes, I know him well, and his comments made me read the report. You should too.
The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest recently held a conference on large scale comparative effectiveness studies. (Report can be found here)
One government study (ALLHAT) didn’t prove its hypothesis that older drugs are more effective in controlling blood pressure:
At the CMPI conference Dr. Michael Weber (an original member of the ALLHAT team) revealed that “ALLHAT exposed African-American patients for several years to treatments investigators knew would not be effective in controlling their blood pressure -- something so unethical that if a pharmaceutical company had done it or any of us as individual academics had done it, we would not only be thrown out of our jobs, we would be pilloried and maybe even be facing criminal charges. The study was driven entirely by a 40% excess stroke rate in black patients that was predictable before the study began. And they used that as their reason to claim superiority of the diuretic.”
Considering the wide marketing of the ALLHAT trial, this is a rather shocking statement.
Can't we trust ANYONE?
I guess not.
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