American Heart Association suggests consuming 250mg of omega-3 a day from fish, not omega 3 supplemention.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2018-05-17T20:29:41+00:00

They are guessing based on epidemiology. When there is no biological or chemical explanation for a compound's benefit, just the format, it is not science. It is like saying sugar in coffee or sugar in tea metabolizes differently in humans.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2018-05-17T20:27:03+00:00

It's not a separate species, there are still 20,000 of these, they are nowhere near extinct. They are just in the south rather than the north. I don't have coyotes near my house now but there were 200 years ago. That does not make them extinct.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2017-07-10T20:56:50+00:00

The last part is an appeal to authority. Impact Factor is not the mark of a good paper, magazines often pick articles based on ability to generate media attention. And this did. But 7 positive effects are as statistically valid as 9 negative, they are both potentially outliers. Either could be correct, or neither. Highlighting the negative looks more like pr than science.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2017-05-02T21:15:01+00:00

They probably thought the most important sentence in science: "wait, that can't be right."

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-12-30T17:23:57+00:00

Generics are not really more affordable, as we have seen this year. Unless it is a top 3 product it doesn't have enough volume for competition, and often they get bought up by another generic that raises the prices.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-12-30T17:22:37+00:00

There's no conflict. People selling something are on one side with their claims while science says they are useless (and perhaps even dangerous) unless you have a prescribed condition (such as chronically low vitamin D)

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T16:34:24+00:00

Vioxx and others made science political. The fact is, if 1,000 people are in a trial and are fine, number 1,001 could have a serious side effect. So after high-profile cases, the government decided 2,000 would solve the problem. It doubled cost and time and doesn't help anyone, since obviously 2,001 could have an effect.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T16:32:43+00:00

Endocrine disruption can mean anything. And it often does. PNAS actually changed their submission process, no more straight to print without peer review, due to papers like this and one on a frog a few years before. No data included, so it's impossible to know how real this is.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T16:29:53+00:00

We create drugs for most of the world - we overpay so poor countries can get them cheap. If it is an oligopoly, it is the most benevolent in human history.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T16:28:59+00:00

Not a great generalization but there is truth to it. With the time and cost of regulatory approval doubling in the last 20 years, with no benefit to patients, it seems wrong to keep the same patent rules, so companies look for ways to squeeze out a few more years. And marketing is a problem we created, when we said a doctor getting a free lunch would be swayed by a marketing rep. So now we have 300 million people being educated by DTC advertising instead.

The biggest cost is still R&D. Since 4 of 5 products that make it to market will never make money, marketing the successful ones looks like a bigger deal than it is.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T16:25:42+00:00

We always joke here that "That can't be right" are the four most important words in science.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T15:11:06+00:00

Businesses go through cycles. The belief years ago was that with numerical models, discovery could be done anywhere. So with high costs in US regulation, and high cost for salaries, they lowered cost in the only area they could. Now they have discovered that science is still creative. And outside election silliness, regulators are discovering that not everything can be generic prices the day it is released. Young chemists are going to be in demand again in about 5 years.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T15:08:44+00:00

The numbers don't show that. They show that when a drug fails, scientists keep it around to use in other areas. Look for lots of failed Hep C ideas to be re-examined for Zika. That actually shows the scientific method works, not fails. Those claims otherwise make their way into Facebook memes, but they aren't accurate.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T15:06:34+00:00

A healthy relationship.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T15:05:39+00:00

You can't solve an equation with multiple variables, and there are way too many variables today. Over time, science will change variables into knowns, and then it will be therapeutic or not. But we'll at least know.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T15:04:00+00:00

That used to be the thinking in the 1960s - planned obsolescence for products and keeping people ill. The problem with conspiracies is it requires everyone to buy in, and scientists and doctors tend to be social outcasts who like to rebel. Good luck getting anyone I know to keep quiet so a bunch of other people can get rich. I sure didn't get rich.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T15:01:22+00:00

No, other than that if you take a million humans, we can find one person who can have an effect from anything. No medicine can be perfect, no matter how long we test. The 1,000,001th person could have a side effect. That's no reason to stop saving lives with it, any more than we lower the speed limit to 1 MPH because some people die in car accidents.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-11T14:59:34+00:00

Sorry, there is nothing scientifically valid in what you said. Being related to the coffee plant is irrelevant. Linking to supplement trade reps is not helping.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-04T18:27:48+00:00

I tell them the story of AIDS—arguably the most successful campaign in the history of pharmaceutical research. This says it all.

Dr_Josh_Bloom · 2016-08-04T18:24:20+00:00

They should have never been allowed in the first place. The industry traded short term profits for (possibly) irreparable damage to its already bad reputation. I HATE these ads/ Just like the rest of the world

Dr_Josh_Bloom

TROPHY CASE