flu treatments banner

Tamiflu effectiveness
New study cast serious doubts over the drug and its manufacturer

A new study has cast serious doubts over Tamiflu effectiveness and also questioned the integrity of its manufacturer and some of the scientsts who did earlier research on this anti-viral drug.

The study, led by Professor Chris del Mar of the Cochrane Collaboration, with Dr Tom Jefferson as researcher, and published by the British Medical Journal (8 December 2009), found no evidence that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu.

It further suggests that Roche Pharmaceuticals, the Swiss company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, may have misled governments and physicians by withholding vital information through not publishing critical studies that showed Tamiflu to be ineffective.

But Roche maintains that it “has never concealed (or had the intention to conceal) any pertinent data.” And the company now says it will publish all the study data on a password-restricted website.


New doubts over Tamiflu effectiveness

The latest findings on Tamiflu effectiveness come from a re-evaluation of an earlier 2006 study by Cochrane, which is a highly respected not-for-profit organisation that evaluates the effectiveness of various treatments. In that earlier study, Cochrane Collaboration generally agreed with claims by Roche that Tamiflu reduces:

  • hospital admissions by 61 percent
  • complications as bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis by 67 percent
  • and lower respiratory tract infections requiring antibiotics by 55 percent.

That 2006 Cochrane review was based largely on a paper that looked at 10 studies, all of them funded by Roche. But following concerns expressed by a Japanese doctor about the lack of medical evidence on Tamiflu effectiveness, the Cochrane team decided to re-examine the earlier study. In doing so, they found that only two of the 10 studies had ever been published in medical journals. Those two studies on Tamiflu effectiveness showed the drug had very little effect on complications compared to a placebo.

Meanwhile, attempts to trace the data from the remaining eight studies were not entirely successful. Said Prof Chris del Mar:

The most important finding we found, which is a change from the previous review, was that we didn’t have enough data to know whether it reduces the complications of influenza.

There was a study written by professor Laurent Kaiser from Geneva in Switzerland, which was a summary of about 10 different trials that had been conducted by Roche Pharmaceuticals. When we actually put the data together and analysed them, we found that we couldn’t draw the conclusions that Kaiser had drawn. And so we felt very insecure about that. In fact we didn’t think it was proper to use those data.

When we wrote to Kaiser and said ‘can you give us these data because we need to sort it all out properly’, he wrote back and said, ‘I’m very sorry I don’t have the data’. That’s a very weird thing to say. And he referred us to Roche. He said, ‘You’ll have to go and talk to the pharmaceutical company that funded it’.


According to Professor Del Mar, Roche never gave out the data that the research team requested, but only some tables of data that were not what they needed. The study report said Roche “offered the data under conditions we thought unacceptable, and what was offered to us was insufficient to analyze properly.” So now, Roche is accusing the Cochrane researchers of conducting an incomplete review of Tamiflu effectiveness, because those eight studies had been left out.

Prf Chris del Mar added:

I can only speculate. It would be pure guesswork. But I do know that this is a drug which has made a lot of money based on the conclusions drawn from this and maybe they’re not keen for other scientists to scrutinise it in the way that the Cochrane Collaboration does.

I do think that we need the data before we can draw conclusions and that’s why we’ve had to withdraw that conclusion that we had previously made. It’s something that makes me feel that we were rather naive as an organisation. I think this does call into question a lot of things about scientific debate and I am worried about it.”

Adding to the doubts about Tamiflu effectiveness, two former employees of a large communications company, Adis International, have come forward with documents showing they had ghostwritten some of the published studies of Tamiflu. One of the ghostwriters revealed:

The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in. It was run by the [Roche] marketing department and you were answerable to them. In the introduction . . . I had to say what a big problem influenza is. I’d also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer.

All in, the latest Cochrane study evaluated 20 published trials. It concluded that drugs like Tamiflu are, at best, are modestly effective against flu symptoms in otherwise healthy adults and that there is a “paucity of good data” to support claims that such drugs can prevent complications from flu.


RELATED ARTICLES

Earlier article about Tamiflu effectiveness or rather, the lack of it.

Side effects of Tamiflu

How drugs like Tamiflu might cause pneumonia.


THE FLU
What causes the flu?
What is a pandemic?
Pandemic definition changed
What is H1N1?
H1N1 deaths
Flu deaths
Swine flu
1918 Spanish flu
Germ theory of disease
Flu symptoms
Yin & yang of the flu
Viruses vs bacteria
PNEUMONIA
Causes of pneumonia
What causes pneumonia
Pneumonia from medical care
Is pneumonia contagious
Pneumonia vaccines
Pneumonia vaccine side effects
PCV vaccine for pneumonia
Prevnar vaccine dangers
How long does pneumonia last?
Treating pneumonia naturally
NEWS / COMMENTARIES
Flu shot side effects - more deadly than they seem
Vaccine risks vs lottery odds
Dangerous vaccines - how are they justified?
World rejects swine flu vaccine
Polish Health Minister rejects H1N1 vaccine
H1N1 conspiracy theories
Is H1N1 man-made?
Bubonic plague - shoud we worry?
Flu vaccine ingredients - cynic's response to a funny video
FLU PREVENTION
Prevent the flu naturally
Hydrogen peroxide
Cell membrane structure
Zinc
Vitamin D
Alkaline foods
Umeboshi
Kuzu
Sea salt
Saturated fats
Water - how much to drink?
FLU TREATMENTS
Chinese herbal medicine
Chiropractic care
Osteopathy
Homeopathy
Studies on homeopathy
NATURAL REMEDIES

Flu remedies

Cough
Sore throat
Fever
Natural antibiotics
Probiotics
DRUGS / VACCINES
Anaphylaxis from flu shots
Miscarriages after flu vaccine
Do you need the h1n1 vaccine?
H1N1 vaccine side effects
Guillain Barre Syndrome - worth the "1 in a million" risk?
H1N1 vaccine deaths
Immune adjuvant dangers
Squalene in vaccines
Are flu shots effective?
Flu shot effectiveness - what vaccine inserts say
Vaccine package inserts
Flu shot ingredients
Vaccine side effects
Vaccine deadlier than flu
Ineffectiveness of Tamiflu
Ineffectiveness of Tamiflu II
Tamiflu side effects
No Tamiflu for children
Tamiflu resistance
Relenza and its side effects
Antibiotics - not for flu
WEBSITES BY RICHARD SEAH
The Health Forum
Natural cures
Stop trans fats
Health Promotion Blog
Art Photographs
Photographs of Hands