John Abramson Lecture: McDougall DVD Review
Posted in McDougall, Reviews on March 14th, 2008 by jeff
The fourth McDougall Advanced Study Series DVD I’m going to review is from John Abramson, MD, author of Overdo$ed America. It is the only disc in the series that contains three lectures, the first two run about 45 minutes in length, with the third lasting for an hour. The first lecture is “The Misdirection of American Medicine: The Biomedical/Commercial Juggernaut,” with the second lecture on “Evidence-Based Medicine vs. Epidemiologically-Based Medicine,” and the third lecture on “National Cholesterol Education Program Guidelines: Pushing Statins or Preventing Heart Disease”
As you can tell from the lecture titles, this disc is all about the medical industry and not as much about diet and nutrition. In “The Misdirection of American Medicine: The Biomedical/Commercial Juggernaut,” Abramson talks about his revelation that the medical journals had been infiltrated by the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and that it was no longer safe to trust the information as the medical community had previously done. He is also aware that he comes across to his colleagues as a conspiracy theorist of the highest order. Thankfully, he has a lot of studies and photographs in his lecture to let us know that he’s on the right side of the evidence.
He documents that the medical community gets a lot of credit for things it hasn’t accomplished, which is often the basis for our trust. For example, the tuberculosis epidemic is something that was greatly reduced in society, but medicine was introduced when it was already nearly controlled by public health campaigns, so it played a very minor role. Similarly, people are living up to 30 years longer than before, but Abramson shows studies whereby the medical community only accounts for five of those 30 years, though they are often credited for the whole thing. In this lecture, he also explores the paradox whereby the more we spend on medical care, the worse the end result; and the complete co-opting of the medical community by the pharmaceutical industry, whereby even going to get re-accreditation is now navigating a big pharma obstacle course. It’s an interesting lecture and one you hope will someday show up in a time capsule as a document to what things were like before the reform.
“Evidence-Based Medicine vs. Epidemiologically-Based Medicine” builds on the information in the first lecture, showing how drug companies use misdirection to tout the benefits of their products. Compared to doctors working with their patients to discuss better health responses to their issues, which have dramatically better results, they are instead shown very processed data showing the effectiveness of one drug versus another. But the sad part is, the medical journals and clinical trials have been corrupted by the drug makers. With research money drying up, academia entered into a relationship with the pharmaceutical companies for their funding. While they don’t necessarily influence the process itself, many times the drug companies write the first draft of the findings, and use their more favorable data slides than the ones the academics prepared. With Vioxx, the company actually based its research findings on the first six months of a 12-month trial, because more cardiac issues were found in the second six months. But this information was never included in the report, which means it never was included as part of the information doctors use to determine whether to prescribe drugs. Ironically, the government reviewed the study and knew what had happened, but said they couldn’t stop them because the drug companies have a “first amendment right to commercial speech.” Abramson is passionate about this issue, although it does make you wonder what path there is to get things back on the right course.
In the final lecture “National Cholesterol Education Program Guidelines: Pushing Statins or Preventing Heart Disease,” Abramson digs down into what he showed in his previous lectures to show how this system works against us, focusing on cholesterol-lowering statins. He shows how the numbers don’t add up in the bigger picture, seeing that the United States currently takes twice as many statins as other industrialized nations, but still has three times as many angioplasties, and three times as many bypass procedures. In addition, for some populations of people for whom statins are recommended, such as women at risk of heart disease, there are no studies that show it would have any benefit, and one study indicates there might be a possible cancer increase as a result of taking statins.
Ironically, studies also show that diet, exercise, and stopping smoking all have extremely higher rates of preventing heart disease compared to statins, but they are not the recommended path because doctors are programmed to prescribe medications and their patients have similar expectations.
Abramson shows the vast different between what the medical studies say, how that information is reported in medical journals, and how those studies are then used as supporting documents in future recommendations despite them having no connection to the conclusions they are used to support.
Although this review is long, it is worth noting that these are incredibly dense lectures with a lot of facts, figures, charts, and additional resources. This information barely scratches the surface of what was presented. The overall thing that kept running through my mind as I watched these lectures was wondering how, in a time where candidates are running on universal health care, how the end result if it based on our current system still wouldn’t be health. In fact, the inability to get on medications for chronic conditions based on perpetually-reduced dosage guidelines might actually save more lives than giving everyone access. (Although, this doesn’t apply to necessary things the medical community provides that would save people’s lives who currently can’t afford them).
This lecture is part of the McDougall Advanced Study Series DVD set. The DVDs cost $20 each, but you can get all five new DVDs for $60 total, including additional lectures from Howard Lyman, T. Colin Campbell, Michael Greger MD, and Neal Barnard MD. You can order them from McDougall’s website.





