|
Unproven
Medical Claims and Practices
By Darrell
Stoddard - Copyright 2007
Part 3 of 4
Dictatorial Judgment
of
the Federal
Trade Commission against Darrell Stoddard
To find out how to buy Biotape or Biotape
products,
You will
have to do a Google search on the Internet.
I am forbidden
to sell anything or even tell you where to buy.
Abstract:
•
Selective Justice of the FTC
•
Spinal Surgery is Unproven
•
Four Hour Erection Warning is Unproven
•
Lawsuits Against Pharmaceutical Companies
for
False Claims
•
Misleading Statin Drug Ads
•
Unbelievable Opportunity for Lawyers
• Miracles of Modern Medicine
Selective
Justice of the FTC
The most frequent criticism of any alternative treatment
(outside of that performed by medical doctors) is that
such treatments are "unproven" because randomized, double-blind,
placebo controlled, crossover studies have not been done to
prove effectiveness. Such criticisms (and the FTC) ignore the
fact that most medical procedures routinely performed in the
practice of medicine are also unproven using those same criteria.
The Office of Technology Assessment, a branch of
the United States Congress, with the help of an advisory
board of eminent university faculty, has published a report
with the conclusion that, " . . . only 10 to 20 percent of
all procedures currently used in medical practice have been
shown to be efficacious by controlled trial." Therefore, 80% to
90% of medical procedures routinely performed are unproven.
The FDA (Food and Drug
Administration) does regulate the pharmaceutical industry but
it seems the lawsuits prosecuted by the FTC for making false and
misleading medical claims are nearly always against people outside
of the pharmaceutical industry and the American Medical Association.
If someone from alternative
medicine makes a medical claim, they must hire someone from mainstream
medicine to do the research or it will not be accepted as “reliable
medical evidence." This gives the AMA a monopoly and almost
total control of everything related to health care.
Such a
monopoly was predicted by Benjamin Rush one of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence: “Unless we put medical
freedom into the constitution, the time will come when medicine
will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship. To restrict
the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges
to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such
laws are un-American and despotic."
When medical doctors
read about judgments against those outside of mainstream medicine
that have made medical claims, they will respond, “Medical
doctors are the only ones who can make medical claims because
only those who have been to medical school are qualified to do so.”
I support this IF doctors and pharmaceutical companies
are held to the same standards of proof as required of those outside
of mainstream medicine.
Medical claims from those
outside of mainstream medicine are not accepted unless they
are validated by placebo controlled studies. Claims and practices
by medical doctors are accepted even when they are not supported
by controlled studies. Spinal surgery is an example of this
double standard of proof.
Spinal Surgery is Unproven
The FTC’s demand that everything be supported
by scientific double-blind placebo controlled studies would
be commendable if it applied to everyone. Spinal
surgery, as an example, is also only supported by anecdotal
evidence.
Contrary to what you may be thinking,
blinded placebo controlled studies for surgery can be done.
The Houston Veterans Medical Center did a study that was published
in the July 11, 2001 New England Journal of Medicine. One hundred
eighty patients with chronic knee pain were in the study. Ninety
patients received a general anesthetic and arthroscopic knee
surgery to clean out the arthritis in the knee joint believed to
be the cause of their knee pain. The other ninety patients were put
under a general anesthetic. An incision was made but nothing more
was done. Neither group of patients knew who got the real surgery or
who got the placebo surgery. For two years following, those receiving
the real surgery had no less pain than those who received the sham surgery.
This showed that more than three billion dollars of arthroscopic knee surgery
for pain performed each year in the United States was no better than
a placebo. Would a blinded study of spinal surgery do
any better?
Recently I went to New York to help
a lady with severe disabling pain after spinal surgery.
There is even a name for such pain. It is called Failed Spine
Surgery Syndrome (FSSS). Her operation cost $150,000. She was in
more pain after the operation than before. When she told the
surgeon, he said, “You’re just a complainer. DON’T YOU EVER
COME BACK TO ME!” She was allowed to see the doctor for only four
minutes. He has refused talk to her since.
I am not alone in questioning
the medical necessity or even the wisdom of unproven and
unsubstantiated spinal surgery:
“Never
get back surgery for back pain! It’s the wrong treatment
and it doesn’t work! – Martin Samuels, MD, Founder
Chair of the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
“Surgical successes unfortunately
only apply to approximately one percent of patients with low back
pain. Bulging disks are found and taken as an excuse to do a lot of
surgery and percutaneous discectomy. Disks are made to
bulge; that is a normal finding.” – Alf Nachemson,
MD., editor of the medical journal Spine.
The largest study ever done on the diagnosis and
treatment of acute low back pain analyzed 3,900 scientific
studies and concluded that, “Surgery has been found to be helpful in only
one in 100 cases of low back problems. In some people surgery
can even cause more problems. This is especially true if your
only symptom is back pain.” (You can read more about this
study in my book Pain Free for Life.)
Everyone is equal under the law but it seems
some are more equal than others. What would the reaction be if spinal
surgeons were ordered to stop doing surgery no matter how many disclaimers
they made and then fined the amount of their gross income from doing
spinal surgery because their surgery is unproven and unsubstantiated
by blinded placebo controlled studies?
I received this exact
same order, judgment, and a penalty more than 7 times my total
gross income from selling Biotape which "does no harm." Spinal surgeons
are not limited in any way. Who is the FTC
trying to protect?
Is it possible that
Biotape could help people who are told they must
have spinal surgery for pain? Following is an email from
another “victim” of the Biotape “scam.”
“Nine years ago I had two
ruptured cervical spine disks that two neurologists insisted
would compromise my life style if I did NOT have a laminectomy
(spinal fusion). ONE treatment with Biotape along with life
style changes described in your book - mainly hydration
- and I have been doing everything the doctors insisted I
would never do again.” - John Liammari (If this is just the placebo
effect of Biotape, then we need a lot more placebos!)
Four
Hour Erection Warning is Unproven
I was charged and convicted of making a “false
and misleading medical claim.” You hear a false and misleading
medical claim (unproven and unsubstantiated by double-blind
placebo controlled studies) every time you turn on the TV.
It is the “four hour erection warning” spoken of in the Erectile
Dysfuntion (“ED”) ads for Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. This
affliction is a rare event known medically as priapism that
can cause permanent injury if not treated. It may occur when
taking the drugs, but it can also happen to men at any
age (even to baby boys) that don’t take the drugs.
There are no double-blind studies
to show that priapism happens more often to men taking the
drugs than it happens to the same number of men having erections
that do not take the drugs. No one really knows.
Could it be that the warning is given
to sell drugs? An M.D. who is a very highly paid consultant
for the pharmaceutical companies said it better than I can,
"Drug companies are like lions.
For lions, it's their nature to kill zebras and eat them. For
drug companies, it's their nature to make money. They're not
really trying to improve anybody's health except if it makes them
money.”
Do you think the Pharmaceutical
companies are really worried about someone having a four
hour erection? If the ED ads were truthful and not misleading
they would state: “Four hour erections can also happen to men not taking
Viagra, Cialis or Levitra. It is a serious medical condition
that may cause permanent damage. The only sure
way not to be injured by a four hour erection is to NOT HAVE ANY
ERECTIONS.”
I suggest a class action lawsuit against the erectile
dysfunction drug companies with the monetary award going to victims
of child abuse, sexual abuse, and deserted or battered wives. Aside
from being misleading, should adolescents be exposed to four hour erection
warnings and erectile dysfunction ads?
Lawsuits
Against Pharmaceutical Companies for False and Misleading
Claims
Could lawsuits against the ED drug companies
ever be won? The answer is yes.
But you say, “No one has ever
been harmed by the four hour erection warning.” That is
not necessary. Not one person was harmed by a Qray bracelet
but the company still paid a 22 million dollar fine. I know
that no one was ever harmed by Biotape, and I have been ordered
to pay a fine of $112617.20. The charges were never made
that anyone was harmed.
Misleading
Statin Drug Ads
The TV ads for cholesterol lowering statin drugs
(the biggest selling class of drugs in history) are also false
and misleading. The ads state that we get cholesterol from
two sources, our ancestors and from our food. We inherit
life and cholesterol required by the billions of cells that make our
bodies from our ancestors. Food is also a source of cholesterol.
What the ads don’t say is that cholesterol is produced by our liver
to supply the bodies need for cholesterol.
We are misled into
believing that cholesterol is always bad, but it is an indisputable
biological fact that we cannot live without cholesterol. Cells (the foundation of life) cannot divide or even
function without cholesterol. “Misled” is the understatement
of the century.
In contrast
to lawsuits by the FTC for making false and misleading medical
claims for products that do no harm, statin drugs can and
do cause harm. Millions of people could die as a result of being
misled. (See No. 10 “Statin Drug Pain Warning” at www.healpain.net
)
In addition to the
above, if I live long enough, I will present statistical evidence
to show that the harmful side effects of statin drugs are grossly
understated. I am motivated to do this
because my best friend, who was on cholesterol lowering statin
drug, died on the operating table. I am confident that he would
not have died if the doctors had just remembered their high school
biology. His doctors knew only what the pharmaceutical companies
and the media had taught them about cholesterol being bad.
Any surgeon that performs surgery on
patients taking cholesterol lowering drugs, without taking them
off the drugs first, is ignorant of basic biological facts –
cellular division (healing) cannot
take place without cholesterol. To recover
from surgery and the effects of the anesthesia, the patient
needs all of the cholesterol he or she can get!
It
is a tragic fact but pharmaceutical companies do the
thinking for most medical doctors. (See No. 17.5 “Do Doctors
Think for Themselves?” at www.healpain.net
)
Unbelivable
Opportunity for Lawyers
In contrast to medical malpractice lawsuits,
and wrongful death and injury lawsuits against drug companies
that have harmed someone, this whole scenario of lawsuits
against anyone making false and misleading medical claims opens
up an incredible opportunity for attorneys. Imagine winning a medical lawsuit without ever having
to show that one person was harmed! Judgments
awarded could be for enormous sums of money, even for amounts equal
to or more than the gross income of the services provided or the goods
sold.
Previous legal precedents and case law for making
false and misleading medical claims, reveals that such lawsuits
have been won and could be won. In fact, as far as I know,
100% of such lawsuits filed against people outside of the AMA,
have been won. Why could they not as well be won against medical
doctors and pharmaceutical companies?
Miracles of Modern Medicine
To be balanced and fair we
must give credit where credit is due: Small pox has been eliminated from
the face of the Earth by moderm medicine. Infantile Paralysis (Polio)
is now unknown in the United States. (I’m old enough to remember rows and
rows of iron lungs in the hospital. My cousin died while in one of them.)
Unless you are over 70 years old, you have probably never seen a goiter
(because of iodized salt). I remember a large hospital called a tuberculosis
sanitarium. Does such a thing even exist today in the United States? My
own life was saved when I contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in a
time and place when it was 90% fatal.
Just as approved drugs are not always safe; some alternative
medical practices can be very harmful. I will tell what these harmful
practices are in my new book. We must be “wise as serpents and harmless
as doves.”
Darrell
Stoddard,
Founder
- Pain Research Institute www.healpain.net
Author
– Pain Free for Life
and a future
book
Cure Pain
And other Diseases for a
Dime
(Read about my
new book in Part 4 of this paper.)
Go to Part 4 by clicking here
Email:
stoddard@healpain.net
266 East
3200 North, Provo, UT 84604 U.S.A.
Phone 801-377-3891
|