That's why independent, double blind studies, done by reliable and
credible researchers, are important.

It matters quite a bit. That's why the study results on Valtrex were
of such great interest to everyone. It put to rest the speculation on
what it can and cannot do.

You mean, like a one person study??
The anecdotal information you'd gain from that wouldn't be nearly as
reliable as the studies done by the pros when they do it right.

Nothing wrong with that advice as far as it goes. Problem is, what
about the times when there are NO signs?

Congrats.  And good luck on keeping your record in tact (seriously,
I'm not being flippant).

That's a bit of it  ;-)

M2

Why spend $300 or more a month (which I

Thats alot of money, but most health insurance companies pay most of
the cost. I know on my plan I only have to pay $25.00 per month for
Valtrex, otherwise its about $240.00 per month retail in my area.

Al

Well for a start all the independant sientists and academics who are often
highly sceptical of commercial type talk, are capable of double checking
the results, have all the independant data and large scale governmental
funded stuff (eg NHANES in the USA for instance) would turn round and tear
them a new one. It would become very rapidly obvious.

The data is there to be seen, the US repository at www.pubmed.com is
publically searchable and highly detailed. One of the requirements of most
journals is a listing of where authors of papers are based and
corresponding from.

Also note 1) the statements attributed to drug companies are simply what
has been being nosed around in the field for years so it isnt something
they came up with, 2) they say the same thing in the UK where they cannot
market direct to patients who dont pay for prescription drugs on a vaule
basis, its a fixed fee whatever is prescribed.

All the above tend to provide pretty heavy checks and balances. Also they
are in competition with each other...if one was talking rubbish someone
else would have a massive incentive to expose and benefit form the fall of
the other...so assuming pure self interest and secrets the idea falls
apart too. People can hide stuff for a while, but only on what they have a
total monopoly and thats pretty rare in science...even small scale
perpetrators of scientific fraud who have very priviliged access to rare
data in academic labs so the checks and balances appear gone usually get
found out when someone tries to reproduce...or even before when people
start looking at data....peer review is pretty good at spotting that.

Tim
--
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
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