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By Matthew Jones Thu Jan 5, 7:28 PM ET

LONDON - The use of magnetic devices to cure a variety of ills has soared in recent years but there is no evidence they work, according to an editorial in the British Medical Journal.

The market for magnetic bracelets, knee pads and the like may now be worth about one billion dollars a year, but two American scientists argue in the journal on Friday that many people are being fooled as to their therapeutic benefits.

"Money spent on expensive and unproved magnet therapy might be better spent on evidence-based medicine," professors Leonard Finegold and Bruce Flamm wrote.

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Read it here.

(Thread title edited by me since it hasn't been put back on topic)

[ 09 January 2006: Message edited by: DrConway ]

Of all the 'medical' treatments for which there is absolutely no credible explanation or conceivable logical reasoning, this was the absurd quack remedy which I thought to be beyond reproach.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Meanwhile, big pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars in profit from old discoveries. We haven't had anything as life-saving as the insulin eureka or polio vaccines after decades of record breaking profits and 20 and 30 year drug patent protection laws to prevent competition.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
That's two people compared with millions of diabetics around the world whose lives are extended because of a Canadian doctor's discovery made on a shoe string budget several decades ago.

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For example, between the years 1955 and 1992, more than 90 percent of all cancer drug discoveries were a result of taxpayer-funded research in the United States - the largest tax base in North America as well as publicly funded research that has been skimmed by private corporations which puts the onus for R&D of new drug discoveries on US taxpayers. Taxol, the best selling cancer drug in history, was a direct result of NIH research handed-off to Bristol-Meyer. AZT is another publicly-funded discovery handed over to "the market" or private enterprise. Big pharmas have very little incentive to find new cures and tend to focus their spending on clinical trials to prove secondary benefits for old discoveries. Tylenol is an example of where the white powder recipe is changed by one or two micro-ingredients to satisfy new drug applications for FDA approval and continued patent protection and guaranteeing additional years of protection from generic competition.

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In 1983, at the prompting of Ralph Nader, and with David Noble (now at York University but then at MIT), he organized the National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest and became its Executive Director - to date. The Coalition was formed to opposed "corporatization" of the university curriculum and its research agenda that, in the United States, became public policy with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act.

This legislation was designed to guarantee that large corporations would capture the profits from inventions created by taxpayer funded scientific research through a licensing procedure that effectively gave corporations exclusive control of the invention.

These policies were then emulated in Canada, especially well at Simon Fraser University.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Meanwhile, big pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars in profit from old discoveries. We haven't had anything as life-saving as the insulin eureka or polio vaccines after decades of record breaking profits and 20 and 30 year drug patent protection laws to prevent competition.

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Originally posted by Blink:

Come on, don't be silly. I'm not suggesting these two are the only ones in the world. Insulin wasn't just discovered and the problem of diabetes was solved. Insulin has been been developed and refined in numerous ways. And there are lots of drugs on the market now that have improved lives immeasurably.

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Indeed. As a lifelong epileptic, I can attest to the significance of anticonvulsant research over the last few decades and in the present as well, and the vast improvement of available treatments. For someone dependent on anticonvulsants, the difference between epilepsy treatment 50 years ago and epilepsy treatment today is not substantially different in practice, in my opinion, from the difference between epilepsy treatment 2000 years ago and epilepsy treatment today. That is to say, in that whether what was available then is a happier option than nothing at all is debatable but doubtful in either case.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
[QB]Big pharmas have very little incentive to find new cures and tend to focus their spending on clinical trials to prove secondary benefits for old discoveries.

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This is nonsense. There are entire new classes of drugs that have been researched and developed. The pharmaceutical industry should be overseen like any other but the rampant conspiracy theory is really boring.

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I think what adds to the disappointment of their market solutions to real problems is the fact that between something like 1986 and 1995, big pharma revenues increased from about $90 billion world-wide to over $160 billion in that time. Where's the beef ?.

[ 07 January 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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And I think that research scientists would not consider post-nasal drip to be a life threatening disease. So clear all of that stuff off the chemist's shelves, and what do we have left besides Tylenol version umpteen plus one?.
I think what adds to the disappointment of their market solutions to real problems is the fact that between something like 1986 and 1995, big pharma revenues increased from about $90 billion world-wide to over $160 billion in that time. Where's the beef ?.

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Name one drug that big pharma has R&D'd themselves, from initial discovery to the shelves, that has saved more lives than insulin or the polio vaccines. Your turn.

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Magnet Therapy

Magnetic Therapy: Plausible Attraction?

Biomagnetic Pseudoscience and Nonsense Claims

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Name one drug that big pharma has R&D'd themselves, from initial discovery to the shelves, that has saved more lives than insulin or the polio vaccines. Your turn.

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Is this a new rule? A drug is only worthwhile if it saves as many lives as insulin or polio vaccine?

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Originally posted by Blink:
Is this a new rule? A drug is only worthwhile if it saves as many lives as insulin or polio vaccine?

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But when politicians were explaining why big pharma needed extended patent protections on old discoveries, the rationale was that they needed to recover money spent on R&D in order to invest in new research. Word is that they've simply been pocketing the extra money and shadowing publicly-funded research. I will admit that diseases and repairing the human body is not as easy as they once thought it could be, the human body is a universe of virtually unexplored territory all by itself, but consumer advocates like Ralph Nader believe that big pharma's have been acting like big, slow moving protectionist entities with just one incentive as their driving force - the bottom line. R&D is the most expensive and highest risk aspect of the pharmaceutical industry.

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Orthodox Western economists would tend to dismiss this socialist[Cuban] model of medical innovation and production as a quaint aberration in today's world, clearly out of synch in the globalised economy. But the Cuban record boasts 26 inventions with more than 100 international patents already granted. ...

Cuba has also set its sights on breaking into the Western market and has been actively seeking joint venture partners. Last month, a Cuban anti-cancer therapy known as TheraCIM hr3 was contracted to a joint venture with the German pharmaceutical Oncoscience AG of Wedel. The German partner will be responsible for taking the Cuban product through further clinical trials and regulatory processes so that it can enter the European market.

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Yale

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Originally posted by Blink:
Anyway, my answer would start with anti-depressants. Saved many lives and improved the quality of life for thousands and thousands of people.

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
Aside from some anti-depressants having been (ironically) linked to suicidal behaviour among other things,

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This is a tiny percentage and may or may not be attributable to the drugs.

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I suspect that many cases of "depression" are simply diagnosed to provide a market for the drugs when maybe trying to identify reasons that this person may be depressed in the first place.

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So the Big Pharma conspiracy strikes again!

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Originally posted by Blink:
Hey, there is such a thing as clinical depression. I really think patients deserve better than being made out to be unsuspecting morons.

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Incidentally, I doubt that a magnetic field from one of those silly "wear it and feel better" things would have any really beneficial effect. Although I'm sure it might be fun to affect the dipole moment of the molecules or the nuclear spin states of the atoms in your red blood cells, the net result would be to simply warm your blood a teensy tiny bit as they leave the field. *shrug*

[ 08 January 2006: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
I suspect that many cases of "depression" are simply diagnosed to provide a market for the drugs when maybe trying to identify reasons that this person may be depressed in the first place.

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Originally posted by Makwa:
This is quite unkind to those of us who have suffered serious and debilitating (and sometimes life threatening) depression for years, finally to find some relief through medication.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
So you're saying that antidepressants aren't a cure for depression

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Huh? I was saying the exact opposite. I used them as an example of a useful drug developed by Big Pharma (in answer to your assertion that there weren't any).

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but big pharma wants people suffering from the illness to buy them regardless of the side effects and lack of efficacy ?. Gee, maybe it's you who doesn't think very highly of depressed people ?.

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WTF are you talking about? I said no such thing.

[ 08 January 2006: Message edited by: Blink ]

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A study of the 21 drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992 that were considered by experts to have had the highest therapeutic impact on society found that public funding of research was instrumental in the development of 15 of the 21 drugs (71 percent). Three-captopril (Capoten), fluoxetine (Prozac), and acyclovir (Zovirax)-had more than $1 billion in sales in 1994 and 1995. In addition to these drugs, other members of the group of 21 drugs, including AZT, acyclovir, fluconazole (Diflucan), foscarnet (Foscavir), and ketoconazole (Nizoral), had NIH funding and research to help in clinical trials.

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However, in future, if I say thread drift has become unacceptable and that a new thread should be created...

TAKE THE HINT!

No, I think it's gone in interesting directions.
I'm not a medical person and wonder whether magnets may help where excess iron is present - as long as it didn't lead to too much bleeding as it pulled the iron or other ferrous metals from the body.

I do know that permanent magnets work wonders in the field of electric motors.

Brian White asks:

"Why not debate something interesting like maggot therapy? It gets rave reviews!"

I had heard as much. As long as the little critters stop chomping when they got past the rotten stuff.

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Originally posted by DrConway:
However, in future, if I say thread drift has become unacceptable and that a new thread should be created...

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Originally posted by Fidel:
May 17, 2000, Joint Economic Committee. The Benefits of Medical Research and the Role of NIH.

Source

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I wanted to check this out, Fidel, but at the cptech site the link to that is dead.

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Originally posted by Blink:
How do you make this determination, exactly? Conversations evolve. I doubt you'll find many threads where people never drift. What's the purpose of throwing your weight around like this?

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*moderator hat on*

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Originally posted by Blink:

Oh, I can't agree with that. Two of my close friends' lives were saved by recent drugs both produced by big pharamceutical companies.

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Now here's an interesting little tale, found at--of all places--linuxtoday.com The poster Greygeek, tells of his research experiences:

GreyGeek - Subject: Eight years! ( Aug 25, 2005, 20:55:54 )

[snip]

I worked three years on my disseration for an MS in Biochemistry. My thesis initally was over 300 pages in length and my consulting professor tore it to shreds, almost literally. It ended up being 52 pages long, with most of the three years being spent on developing chemical sequences necessary to produce a single compound. The pathway could be described graphically on one page. For those with an interest in biochemistry the compound was:
3-Amino, 3,4-dihydro,1-hydroxy carbostyril.

It was supposed to be an anti-cancer compound, but it was not effective in that role. We also checked its antibiotic activity. When I bioassayed it to determine its toxicity I discovered that it was a broad spectrum antibiotic at 1 mg/Kg and non-toxic to people.