This Day In Snookland...All Your Worthwhile Initiatives Must End

Evidence?
WeDon'tNeedNoStinkingEvidence-BasedDecisionMakingVille


Remember when all those efforts were afoot from first the Knotty Gordians and then, later, the Snooklandians to shut down the 'Therapeutics Initiative', which is an independent research group that looks for actual evidence that new drugs we, the people of British Columbia, are going to pay for actually work?

And remember how we couldn't believe the ludicrousiosity of such efforts based on the actual evidence at hand?

Well....

More evidence is now in.

And, clearly, the Therapeutics Initiative got it right again. Paul Webster has the latest story of why evidence matters in The Tyee. Here's his lede:

News that an international team of investigators has found the flu drug Tamiflu of little medical use -- despite billions spent stockpiling it in B.C. and around the world -- comes as bittersweet vindication for Barbara Mintzes and her associates with the Therapeutics Initiative, a UBC-based pharmaceutical research group that bills itself as independent from government, industry and other vested interest groups.

When the B.C. government asked the Therapeutics Initiative to assess Tamiflu's scientific merits nine years ago, Mintzes concluded it offered flu patients little benefit. This closely matches findings published earlier this month by the Cochrane Collaboration, a U.K.-based network of independent health researchers...

So.

Here's the real, if exceedingly obvious, question....

When evidence-based watchdogs like the TI are shut down (and/or severely hamstrung based on the conclusions of 'blue ribbon' panels of little apparent value, based on the evidence)...who benefits.

Seriously.

Who benefits if we waste millions and millions on useless drugs?

Seriously.


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