News
 International
 National
 Embassy News
 Arts & Living
 Business
 Travel & Hotel
 Medical Tourism New
 Taekwondo
 Media
 Letters to Editor
 Photo Gallery
 News Media Link
 TV Schedule Link
 News English
 Life
 Hospitals & Clinics
 Flea Market
 Moving & Packaging
 Religious Service
 Korean Classes
 Korean Weather
 Housing
 Real Estate
 Home Stay
 Room Mate
 Job
 English Teaching
 Translation/Writing
 Job Offered/Wanted
 Business
 Hotel Lounge
 Foreign Exchanges
 Korean Stock
 Business Center
 PR & Ads
 Entertainment
 Arts & Performances
 Restaurants & Bars
 Tour & Travel
 Shopping Guide
 Community
 Foreign Missions
 Community Groups
 PenPal/Friendship
 Volunteers
 Foreign Workers
 Useful Services
 ST Banner Exchange
  Medical Tourism
Medical Malpractices: Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?
Special Contribution
By Shobha Shukla
Dr. Peter Gotzsche, director of Nordic Cochrane Centre and professor at University of Copenhagen

The noblest professional of all-to heal fellow human beings- is certainly witnessing its worst decay. Dr. Peter Gotzsche, director, Nordic Cochrane Centre and professor in University of Copenhagen, said to Citizen News Service (CNS): "There is a lot that needs to change in healthcare. It is one of the most corrupted sectors in society.

In Denmark, for example, we have thousands of doctors who are on industry payrolls - they are consultants, they sit on advisory boards - but in reality it is a soft form of bribery because if you do not behave as expected you will no longer be on the payroll." Dr Gotzsche is one of the sanest voices in medical fraternity striving hard to bring evidence-based medicine, ethics and integrity back in fashion. Dr Gotzsche spoke with CNS on the sidelines of 22nd Cochrane Colloquium. Normalization of practices that stink of 'soft bribery' such as gifts, incentives or other financial favours of pharmaceutical companies and other medical manufacturers to medical professionals is indeed a slap on the face of medical ethics.

The conflict of interest between pharmaceutical companies/medical manufacturers, and public health is seldom made evident. "This contributes to using expensive drugs, or at times using drugs that are not totally rational, or even using drugs instead of thinking of other evidence-based treatments - this has been well documented. I have tried to change attitudes towards accepting industry money. We should learn to say, 'No, Thank you'" asserted Dr Gotzsche.

Not just corrupted, but medical practices are often not evidence-based. Despite strong evidence pointing to the contrary, they remain popular as some strong opinion makers in medical field keep propelling them. Despite Cochrane review showing that directly observed treatment therapy for anti-tuberculosis treatment has no edge over self-administered therapy, there was no hesitation in aggressively promoting what we knew will not give any better results. Similarly mammography screening for breast cancer remains popular despite research evidence pointing against it.

Mammography breast screening doing more harm than good"We have done research on using mammography screening for breast cancer for over 15 years and have documented that mammography screening does more harm than good. I am only waiting for the first country to stop mammography screening in wake of the existing strong evidence. We found that mammography screening leads to 50% over diagnosis. All these additional 50% women diagnosed with breast cancer (which probably they do not have) are just harmed by getting a cancer diagnosis. Many times we have found that breast disease disappears by itself and it would not have bothered many of these additional women who got detected by mammography screening.

Radiotherapy is very good if you have a real dangerous breast cancer not detected by screening. But when we use radiotherapy on healthy women we kill some of them through increasing their likelihood of developing lung cancer, heart disease and other cancers. Radiotherapy is lethal when we use it on healthy women. " said Dr Gotzsche. Mammography screening does not seem to have any mortality benefit because even if it had any effect on breast cancer deaths, the increase in deaths due to treating additional 50% over-diagnosed women far outweighs any benefit. "We also have false positives if we use mammography screening for breast cancer.

If we screen 10 times for over 20 years, a quarter of all women will get at least one false positive diagnosis. What my colleagues at Copenhagen found was that even 3 years after false positive diagnosis, the women are still worried and anxious about it, and their anxiety lies between those who have breast cancer and those who were told that everything is fine on screening. So we should factor-in the psychological harm that hits one quarter of all women who go to such screenings.

Also it is likely that it has no mortality benefit. Mammography screening is definitely harmful and it should definitely be stopped." Is this another manifestation of gender-based inequalities in our patriarchal society? "It is a gender issue too. Males have been honestly informed that screening for prostate cancer is a very bad idea (because of no evidence that it has any benefit). We do not do prostate cancer screening in Europe but women have never been honestly informed about harms of breast screening. They have just been told 'come to screening'.

This is a patronizing attitude that I do not understand but which women have accepted." General health checkup is not beneficial either!"People think general health checks are like sending your car for servicing every year. But it is not the same because human beings can heal themselves at times which a car can never do. We did a Cochrane review on general health checks and to our big surprise there were actually a number of very large trials out there. When we analyzed them we found that it does not work at all and does not decrease mortality. It leads more healthy people to get diagnosed that would not help them, but that might harm them. Because of our review Danish government decided not to introduce general health checks" said Dr Peter Gotzsche.

He added: "We were in a fortunate situation because new Danish government had plans to introduce general health checks and then it is much easier to say 'no' when you have the evidence. Whereas in the UK they had introduced general health checks few years back and they did not pay any attention to our reviews which came later - because that is how politics is – when you have introduced something like that it is almost impossible to stop it again. Issue of general health checkup has come up again in Denmark because soon we will have general elections.

The health minister has not paid any attention to the Cochrane review based upon evidence from 240,000 individuals! The whole idea is political – as it is popular to offer something to the population that they think will help them. This can give them votes. We have reacted strongly citing strong evidence against general health checks." People before profits when it comes to information"I and my PhD students were the first in the world who got access to unpublished clinical studies at the European Medical Agency - no one had ever gotten access to such studies anywhere in the world. The agency would not give us access because they wanted to protect commercial interests.

Our health authorities do not think about protecting patients but they think about protecting the health industry, which is very bizarre. We complained to the European Ombudsman and the process took three years, after which European Ombudsman accused the European Medical Agency with maladministration. Then they needed to do something and they changed their policy and we got access" said Dr Gotzsche. "I am also working in the European parliament trying to influence the European trials directive which in its final form was much better than what was proposed by the European Commission. We will now have access to much more data, from all trials from 2016. If we do not have access to all the data we may be harming our patients as we do not know what the value of our treatments are."



Related Articles
    Are We Putting Money Where the Mouth Is to ...
    Early and Accurate TB Diagnosis Is the Gateway ...
    Long Walk to Transgender Rights and Gender ...
    Strong Local Actions Are Pivotal to Reduce ...
    The Head Must Follow What the Hand Writes
    Ending Tobacco Smoking Is Bedrock for ...
    Asia Pacific Has over 6.7 Million New TB Cases
    Will Shorter, Safer and More Effective TB ...
    Whither Women's Reproductive Health in Asia ...
    Build the World We Want: Healthy Future for All
    New TB Treatment Breakthroughs Must Reach the ...
    How Will Children Living with HIV Grow Up ...
    Writing Is on the Wall: Pictorial Health ...
    Failing on the Basics: Are We Able to Break ...
    A Bouquet of Novel Compounds: New Treatment ...
    One Size Does Not Fit All: Expanding the ...
    Tale of Two Pandemics: Follow the Science and ...
    Governments Must Adopt a Strong Political ...
    What Is the Ring?
    Disability Is Not Limited to the Body, It Is ...
    Accelerating Progress on Sexual & Reproductive ...
    Stop This Shaming of Menstruation
    Complacency Breeds Failure: Consolidate ...
    For Age Is Opportunity No Less Than Youth ...
    New Study Pegs the Number of TB Cases in India ...
    Self-stigma: Let Us Do More Than Just "Ttalk ...
    We Cannot Eliminate TB If We Leave Children ...
    MDR-TB Treatment Rgimen: Short Indeed Is ...
    A Plain Face Can Take the Sheen Out of Deadly ...
    Strike at the Root of the Problem to Kill TB
    Antibiotic Use Is Driving Antibiotic Resistance
    Big Push for Transgender and Hijra Welfare
    Where There Is a Will There Is a Way: Teeja ...
    Lung Cancer: Difficult to Diagnose, Difficult ...
    Long Road to Justice: Human Rights of Female ...
    Overcoming Roadblocks in Translating ...
    Management of Respiratory Diseases beyond ...
    Gender Justice to Be at the Heart of ...
    Connecting the Dots: Tobacco Use, Diabetes, ...
    It Is Time To Control Asthma
    Call for No More New HIV Infected Children
    Smoking Goes Electronic
    Break the Silence around Cancer
    How Can You Treat Your Illness Unless You Take ...
    Asthma Medicines Still Unaffordable for Many
    New Technique to Prevent Diabetic Lower-Limb ...
    Cycle Beads: The Bead String for Family ...
    Beware: All Forms of Tobacco Are Harmful!
    Mother's Milk Is the Best Nutrition for the ...
    Where Is The TB Quilt, Nay Mask?
    Hello, This Is Nature¡¯s Call From Garbage ...
    Tuberculosis: Ugly Scar on Beautiful Childhood
    Towards A More Enabling Environment for ...
    What¡¯s Cooking in Kitchen: Peace or Conflict?
    Feed Your Child Well: Prevent Pneumonia
    Costly Medicines Mean Debt or Death for People ...
    AIDS Epidemic at a Critical Juncture in ...
    Watch Your Tongue Mr. Minister!
    Free Trade Agreements: A Threat To People's ...
    In The Pursuit Of Healthy Happiness
    Empowering Rural Women
    Say Yes To Life: Say No To Tobacco
    Homophobia Is A Human Rights Issue
    Viva La Woman Power
    Rubbish Rubbish Food and Embrace Healthy ...
    Of Music and Divinity
    Wake Up Call on Childhood Obesity after Years ...
    A New Hope of Life for Our Ailing Education ...
    Reminiscences of Egypt
    Do Not Break the Nucleus
    Whispers of Sanity in the Frenzy of Madness
    Tobacco Cessation Can Piggy-back Ride on ...
    In The Spirit Of Freedom (from Tobacco)
    World Conference on Tobacco or Health to ...
    Requiem for Purity
    Rhapsody 2008 -- a Symphony of Different ...
    'Diabetes Doctor Is at Your Doorstep' in ...
    Activists Decry India's Deferment of Pictorial ...
    South-East Asian Diabetes Summit to Open Up in ...
    Special on Universal Children's Day
    The Wrath Of God
    World Food Scarcity and the Challenges of ...
    Victim of Terrorism -- the Common Man
    Teachers' Day: The Sacrificial Goat
    Hiroshima Day: Let Us Worship Peace and Shun ...
    Whither the Innocence of Childhood?
    Food for Thought -- on World Food Day
    Love Is the Missing Link in War-on-Terror
    Irom Sharmila: The Iron Lady
    India Poised And Shining
    Is It Just Another Day in Life of Indian Woman?
    He Has His Cake and Eats It Too
    To Be Young, to Be Married, and to Be in India
    The Mad Mad World of Ads

Other Articles by Shobha Shukla
    Early and Accurate TB Diagnosis Is the ...
    Strong Local Actions Are Pivotal to Reduce ...
    The Head Must Follow What the Hand Writes
    Ending Tobacco Smoking Is Bedrock for ...
    Asia Pacific Has over 6.7 Million New TB ...


Ms. Shobha Shukla has been teaching Physics at India's noted Loreto Convent, and has written for The Hindustan Times and Women's Era in the past. She serves as Editor of Citizen News Service (CNS). She can be contacted at shobha1shukla@yahoo.co.in)

 

back

 

 

 

The Seoul Times, Shinheung-ro 36ga-gil 24-4, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Korea 04337 (ZC)
Office: 82-10-6606-6188 Email:seoultimes@gmail.com
Copyrights 2000 The Seoul Times Company  ST Banner Exchange