Master Class: Lessons 5 & 6 on Research & the Law

Lesson 5: Research Methodology

A Few Flaws with respect to the Health Sciences and Biomedical Research

“…for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research”  John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine published one of the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) entitled Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

In oder to get as close as possible to scientific truth, knowing how the scientific method works and being able to articulate arguments and wrap up a study with coherent conclusions is no longer sufficient. Titles such as PhD and MD behind a published article are no longer credible. We could easily show that the Middle Age’s medical theory on the Doctrine of Signatures regarding food is way superior in terms of clinical results to most published studies with regard to the present theories on food, including its impact on health and gene expression.

A close look at the totality of the evidence suggests that contemporary biomedical research is a field of knowledge that is fraught with reductionism, bias, unreliability, contradictions, incompetence, careerism, conflicts of interests, dogma, fraud and constant change. Its published research findings are often refuted by subsequent evidence. Refutation and controversy are seen across the range of biomedical research designs, from clinical trials and traditional epidemiological studies to the most modern molecular research. Furthermore, much of biomedical research isn’t even reproducible. And there is increasing concern that in modern conventional biomedical research, false findings may be the norm.

One of the most consternating aspects of today’s biomedical research is its hijacking by medical and pharmaceutical profit-driven corporations.

“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.”  Arnold Seymour Relman (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and Former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal

As a result, it is not surprising that as much as half of what is published in medical journals may simply be not true. Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet confirmed this claim back in 2015.

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.  (source)

Many other well respected scientists, who are in a position to know about scientific corruption have made similar statements. For example, Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), which is considered to be one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, said that:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal Of Medicine”. (Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), which is considered to another one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world). (Source)

Universities and medical schools are not exempt from this pervasive scientific reductionism and falsehood.

“Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent, endpoints that foster reductive metrics, such as high-impact publication. National assessment procedures, such as the Research Excellence Framework, incentivize bad practices. And individual scientists, including their most senior leaders, do little to alter a research culture that occasionally veers close to misconduct”. (source)

If one is interested in understanding why accelerated aging and cancer can be reversed holistically, it is important to realize that this claim is all the more not popular in the published medical literature and mainstream media that much of the health sciences are less interested in knowing the truth than in producing cash-flow, self-gratification and convenience. In this Lesson, we will review the relevant facts with regard to these societal and methodological problems.

Is most of the scientific Data in biomedical research, in particular in gerontology and oncology, false and-or misleading ?

Is the central reason why modern medicine and public health systems are so mediocre at fixing the chronic diseases and accelerated aging epidemics based on scientific reductionism and corruption ? Are there other factors ?

How to Find reliable scientific Data

The Scientific Method explained

Why the gold standard of evidence, the double-blind randomized control trial, is bad science with regard to healthy longevity and chronic disease resolution.

Are Animal Experimentation studies reliable ? 

  The Limitations & Strengths of Conventional Medicine, Gerontology and Allopathic Oncology

The Limitations and Strengths of Alternative biogerontology and oncology

Case Studies

Lesson 6: Medical Law

“It’s not because we are old that we don’t play, it’s because we don’t play that we get old” (George Bernard Shaw)

If we are to help resolve the chronic diseases and accelerated aging challenges, some understanding of the mechanics that explain the Nation’s dysfunctional legal system with regard to public health and medicine is needed. In this perspective, one of the key notions in medicine is the “standard-of-care”. We think of the “standard-of-care” as the definition of proper scientifically based care that a patient receives from the medical establishment. However, this representation is misleading. The evidence does suggest that standards of care in the US are based less on robust Science than on what the mainstream “Medical Community” thinks is Science. And what many (not all, just many) of the medical community’s scientists and clinicians think  appears to be more often than not the result of dogma,  mis-education, financial interests, convenience, negligence, stress and mental impairment. And more often than not, the Courts promote this norm.

In this Lesson, we will also share power point information for the benefit of innovative and alternative health-care providers and patients on liabilities as well as on legal protection techniques that can be implemented in order to avoid legal pitfalls. In addition, key arguments that can be invoked in a Court of law when arbitrary legal attacks hit (from Medical Boards, FDA, FTC, frivolous patients, et al) will follow as well as a brief discussion of Patients’ Fundamental Health Rights, Doctors’ Duties and the Government’s constitutional mandate.

Understanding why the American Legal System is usually not a friend to innovative biomedical research and public health in the optimal longevity and healthy lifestyle fields. The Frye versus Daubert Supreme Court Precedents and other cases.

Norms (standard of care), liability and health fraud 

Medical Malpractice

Rampant violation of informed consent

How to argue in Court the occasional need to deviate from the enforceable standards of care with regard to cancer, chronic diseases and accelerated aging