Thread: Pmdd???

Not to mention, they are educated by who...that's right you got it, the DRUG COMPANIES!!

Actually no, the government tells them what they do and do not learn. Medical protocol, and which drugs are taught, are determined by the health sector and passed onto med students who have to sit in class learning it. Drug reps come in to promote a new medication based on research, doctors hate these people cause they are like pests that never seem to go away even when you shoo them. Doctors have better things to do, like save lives, rather than listen to a new analog of methyl__(insert common already used drug)_.

1. who is doing the clinical trials?

Researchers in the lab. Undergrads, Grad students, Post-docs, Fellowship interns...etc

2. Who is funding those trials?

Technically anyone who funds the grant money to do the research. Be it through University tuition, general taxes given to each person in a city, or private donation that money gets divided and distributed when needed, and when a research group is qualified to receive that amount.

3. Who is dictating the outcome....

The research dictates the outcome. But I know you are referring to the actual big pharma companies. The big companies are the ones that make a huge bias towards data and how it is sent to marketing afterwards....the actual researchers in the lab are not the problem, they give the numbers and say based on their professional opinion what the outcome is. The problem arises once it is in the hands of the big companies. They skew their data to make it look like it is the new end all be all product when researchers are saying "no...we saw improvement not drastic improvement".

BTW - Natural Progesterone is FDA approved and it is used widely.

Oh no sorry I was not referring to natural progesterone, because actual natural progesterone is secreted by our ovaries, corpus luteum, and the adrenal glands. That is natural progesterone, anything else made in a lab and put into a bottle and sold at any point becomes a synthetic analog and therefore needs to pass research tests (however small or large)...and that is what I was referring to when I mentioned anything to do with FDA reports.

However, because it is found in nature it is not patentable. So big drug companies can't make big money off it...that's why it's not pushed. Any thing found in nature, like an onion can not have a patent put on it.

It can be done, and is done all the time. They are sneaky though lol. The biggest ever example of a patent from an actual natural source...Aspirin. Acetylsalicylic acid. The natural chemical salicylic acid was taken from the Willow Salix. sp. tree was acetylated to not cause intestinal burning (natural salicylic acid does that to humans) and boom one of the biggest most widely used medications on the planet that came from a natural source. All a researcher has to do is take that natural compound a stick a simple acetyl or methyl group onto it and it becomes usable by the human body, thereby making it an analog (or copy) and therefore patentable. So yes it is possible to patent a natural chemical by simply making an analog that does the exact same thing as in nature....the only thing you cannot patent is the source...so a company cannot patent the tree or root that it came from.

Furthermore there are doctors (M.D.'s) that take the natural approach

They are called Naturopaths. They like the natural stuff obviously. But an M.D cannot get away from never prescribing regular prescriptions that the general population takes.

It clearly is just a personal choice and clearly I am passionate about it!

This type of choice is actually becoming a huge thing in society these days. I am a bachelor of science student and we are regularly taught the natural sources of things as well as how popular this field is becoming. More and more research is showing that people are looking for other ways to be healthy or treat certain things, I think its awesome if people are passionate about things as long as they are careful in what they do.