Review Shows Flaws and Misinterpretations in Randomized Medical Trials

by Heidi Stevenson

27 January 2010

A review of published medical trials has concluded that results are often misinterpreted and statistical techniques often obscure the truth of results. That's what Gaia Health has been saying—and documenting—all along. As Mark Twain quoted Disraeli, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Sadly, Big Pharma has used statistics to good effect, consistently obscuring the real results by using shady statistical techniques.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology's latest issue has published a study by Doctors Sanjay Kaul and George Diamond of Cedars-Sinai Medical Clinic in Los Angeles titled "Trial and Error". The abstract states

...they [randomized controlled clinical trials] have a number of limitations that challenge the interpretation of the results

The article then goes on to blame reliance on the use of statistics.

TheHeart.org reports that there are "three particular limitations of randomized trials"⁽¹⁾, including:

• Disregarding the significance of clinical results in favor of statistical significance. Statistical significance is an indication of whether the results are repeatable, but it has nothing to do with whether they are meaningful to patients.
• A statistical technique that combines results to give an impression of a larger sample size is often used, and is not scientifically valid.
• Subgroups are often found that give a statistically favorable impression of the overall results, and they're then reported, giving a false impression of efficacy.

The study itself does not bring up the most important issue: What's the motivation behind focusing on misleading statistics? As ever, of course, following the money trail leads to the answer. More often than not, studies are directly or indirectly financed by Big Pharma.

Big Pharma corporations either pay directly for the studies—a practice that's been in place and has been routinely accepted in Big Medicine for decades—or the researchers are on the their payroll.

There are many ways of being on the payroll. Some researchers are hired directly as members of the board or consultants. Some work for university departments that are heavily indebted to the corporation. Many hold university department seats that are financed by the pharmaceutical company. Some get paid to give talks on the subject being studied, which motivates highly to manufacture results. Many researchers are angling for lucrative jobs in Big Pharma. The methods of subverting trial results are endless—but they're all about money, one way or another.

Statistics are used to mislead and obscure the results that have already been obscured through a host of techniques, such as eliminating the people who are supposedly being studied, as was done in a study widely claimed to prove that thimerosol doesn't cause autism.⁽²⁾

There seems to be no low to which Big Pharma won't stoop to push its deadly concoctions. Beyond lip service, don't expect the "Trial and Error" study to cause any changes in how drugs are tested. As long as Big Money controls the medical industry, Big Pharma's methods won't change.