The Founder’s Corner Edition 13: The Double-blind Trial

The double-blind trial is at the heart of testing by pharmaceutical companies. It has become accepted as the basis upon which to assess product efficacy. However, does it actually provide the gold standard of trust that it is credited with?

Dr. Raghavan, the developer of NANO SOMA® and a man with a prior career in the pharmaceutical industry, does not give it the credence that Big Pharma does.

The reason for this is covered in this paper from the journal, Nature –https://nature.thenanosoma.com/.

The author, Nicholas Schork, argues that traditional trials do not provide the outcomes claimed for them, in part because of the variability of the physical profile of the public, including genetic and racial variables, whereas the trials tend to be run on people with a common profile such as white people. The result is that for every one person the drug may assist, there can be up to 24 for whom it has no benefit. This is part of the reason why medical practitioners will often trial several treatments to see what works best for a patient. As Raghu says, if one of the blood pressure medications really worked, the rest would be out of business.

An alternative is N-of-1 trials, and the simplest form of this is the personal testimonial – people sharing their experience with others, confirming product efficacy.

The pharmaceutical industry also has a vested interest in sustaining the accepted trial process as the costs involved in the double-blind process are a serious barrier to entry for alternative solutions. Few recognise that the pharmaceutical industry began in earnest when John D Rockefeller of Standard Oil fame discovered the early pharmaceuticals in Germany made from tar sands, a waste product from oil refining, which in turn led him to create Western (allopathic) medicine as its sales force. The double-blind trial emerged with the industry as humanity was moved away from natural healing solutions to manmade chemicals.

In my opinion, our engagement with unnatural medicines will prove to be a passing phase as we return to natural solutions, just as we will do with agriculture.