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J Altern Med Res 2016;8(4):347-357 ISSN: 1939-5868
© 2016 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
A review of World Health Organization’s recommendations
in “WHO’s model list of essential medicines.”
Who provides the data for the drug register?
Søren Ventegodt1-3,, MD, MMedSci,
EU-MSc-CAM
1Quality of Life Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark
2Research Clinic for Holistic Medicine
3Nordic School of Holistic Medicine, Copenhagen,
Denmark
Correspondence: Søren Ventegodt, MD, MMedSci, EU-MSc-
CAM, Director, Quality of Life Research Center,
Frederiksberg Allé 13A, 2tv, DK-1661 Copenhagen V,
Denmark. E-mail: ventegodt@livskvalitet.org
Abstract
The author has reviewed the World Health Organization’s
(WHO) drug directories and found they are based on data
from the pharmaceutical industry’s own documentation
files and not from studies of higher quality, i.e., meta-
analyses from independent researchers such as the
Cochrane reviews. Many drugs recommended in WHO’s
drug directories that are listed as “essential medicines” are
found in Cochrane reviews to be without significant
positive effects, but causing a number of often severe
adverse effects, including sexual problems, heart problems,
and even sudden death. As WHO has been acknowledged
as a world leader in medicine, its 194 member states are
likely to follow WHO’s recommendations. The bias found
in the WHO drug directories are also found in the national
Danish drug directories and we believe that there is a causal
relationship here as Denmark follows WHO’s
recommendations. We also believe that this pattern is
present in most if not all of WHO’s 194 member states. As
WHO’s recommendations are passed on to various
countries, doctors, and patients by their national health
authorities, we estimate that the treatment of people in at
least the major cities of the wealthy member states are
influenced by the biased information coming from WHO;
this group are the patients who can afford to buy these
drugs and is estimated at three billion person. We estimate
that at least 100,000,000 patients today are treated with
pharmaceutical drugs that have no or almost no beneficial
effect but often have many harmful adverse effects. We
recommend a fundamental revision of WHO and warn all
governments, physicians, and patients that the existing
WHO drug directories are strongly biased and not reliable
sources of information on drugs, vaccines, and other
medicines. We encourage all 194 WHO member states to
use their power as member states to revise this
malfunctioning WHO system.
Keywords: World Health Organization (WHO), drug
directory, essential medicines, Swine flu scandal, national
drug directory, bias, clinically relevant outcomes,
horizontal risk measures, vertical risk measures, NNT,
NNH, Cochrane review, meta-analysis, health politics,
public health
Søren Ventegodt
348
Introduction
The World Health Organization (WHO) gives
recommendations on medicine to its 194 member
states. These recommendations come in lists and
directories over useful, necessary, and “essential”
medicines. We have analyzed WHO’s drug directory
(WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines) (1) and
found that it, like the national Danish drug directory
“medicine.dk” we have analyzed earlier (2), is based
on information from industrial drug trials instead of
on the more objective and reliable information on
pharmaceutical drugs provided by meta-analyses
made by researchers independent of the pharma-
ceutical industry, such as the Cochrane reviews from
the Cochrane collaboration.
Whole classes of drugs that in independent meta-
analyses have been found to be of little clinical value,
or even harmful and of no value as medicine;
however, they are still listed in the WHO drug
directories as beneficial pharmaceutical drugs,
including cytotoxic anti-cancer chemotherapy (3-5),
the anti-depressive drugs (6), the anti-psychotic drugs
(7), the influenza vaccines (8) and the anti-influenza
medicines (9). Table 1 compares the NNTs and
NNHtotals from the two different sources for selected
groups of pharmacological drugs.
Table 1. NNT, NNHtotal and (Therapeutic Value TV = NNHtotal//NNT) for groups of pharmaceutical drug.
Data coming from industrial trials are compared with data from independent meta-analyses. WHO’s
recommendations in its drug directories are in accordance with the industrial data and in conflict with the data from
the independent reviews. All the listed types of pharmaceutical drugs are recommended by the WHO (1)
*) The size of NNHtotal is often determined by a few very common side effects, so NNH is often a third or so of NNHtotal.
**) TV (“Therapeutic value”) expressing the balance between beneficial and harmful effects of a drug or medicine is calculated as
NNHtotal/NNT (NNHtotal is the Number of patients Needed to Treat for one patient to have one adverse effect/ NNHtotal/NNT is
the Number of patients Needed to Treat for one patient to have a beneficial effect).
Note 1: The effect can be explained as active placebo.
Note 2: The only relevant outcome for the patients is the improvement of “mental state” (or quality of life) but this was found not
improved.
Note 3: It was found that chemotherapy shortened the patients’ life; since this study has data comparing treatment with no treatment
not been collected by the pharmaceutical industry
Note 4: It was found that chemotherapy destroyed the patients’ quality of life; since this study has data comparing treatment with
no treatment not been collected by the pharmaceutical industry.
Note 5: Influenza vaccines were found not useful.
Note 6: Anti influenza drugs were found not useful and very harmful.
Drug-class (with outcome) Typical numbers from industrial
trials seemingly used by WHO as
basis for recommendations in
drug directories (see text)
Typical numbers from Cochrane/
reviews seemingly not used by
WHO and conflicting with WHOs
recommendations in WHO’s drug
directories (see text)
NNT ; NNH
total*)
; TV
**)
NNT ; NNH
total
; TV (ref)
Antidepressant drugs
(outcome: less depressed)
3-20; 2-4; ≈1 ∞; 1; 0 ((6), Note 1)
Antipsychotic drugs
(outcome: mental state improved)
3-20; 2-4 ; ≈1 ∞; 1; 0 ((7), Note 2)
Cytotoxic anticancer chemotherapy
(outcome: better survival, treatment vs. no treatment)
10-100 ; 1 ; 0.1-0.01 ∞; 1; 0 ((3-5), Note 3)
Cytotoxic anticancer chemotherapy
(outcome quality of life improved, treatment vs. no
treatment)
10-100 ; 1 ; 0.1-0.01 ∞; 1; 0 ((3-5), Note 4)
Anti-influenza medicine
(outcome: Influenza prevented)
10-50 ; 1-5 ; ≤0.5 ∞; 1; 0 ((9), Note 5)
Influenza vaccines
(outcome: Influenza prevented)
10-50 ; 1-5 ; ≤0.5 ∞; 1-3; 0 ((8), Note 6)
WHO drug register 349
The Cochrane collaboration position
A number of meta-analyses and Cochrane reviews
have recently documented that the drugs are less
useful than generally assumed. The pharmaceutical
drugs used by psychiatry are in general not helping
the patients but only harming them according to the
Danish leader of the Nordic Cochrane Center, Peter
Gøtzsche. In the major Danish daily newspaper,
Politiken, he recently concluded that “Our citizens
would be far better off if we eliminated all
psychopharmacological drugs from the market
because doctors are not able to handle them” (10).
In his article Gøtzsche points out that
antidepressants cause suicide in patients under 40
years old, causes bipolar disorder in children, gives a
majority of the patients sexual problems, and makes
people dependent on them. Also noted is that
antipsychotic drugs are normally not necessary not
even with schizophrenic patients; such drugs prolong
the time the patients are sick, create chronic patients,
and they are the major reason why schizophrenic
patients live 20 years shorter than other people (10).
In this way the psychiatric treatment by
psychopharmacological drugs has itself become the
major cause of health problems, quality of life
problems, disease, and even death and suicide for the
mentally ill.
That this bad news comes from a leader of a
movement with 3000 researchers who are making
high quality research independent of the
pharmaceutical industry is extremely alarming, and
the big media in Denmark and other countries are now
debating how to improve the state of medicine. It is
worth noticing that Denmark seems to be using the
drugs and drug classes recommended by WHO.
Ranking of medical science according
to quality
The consequence of WHO still using the industrial
data and not the data from studies of higher quality is
a strong bias so the pharmaceutical drugs are
generally presented as being more beneficial and less
harmful than they actually are; this leads to
misinformation for the 194 WHO member states and
the public.
Even ranking the scientific studies’ quality has
been an issue of debate; the pharmaceutical industry
has defended its use of the RCT method that recently
has been strongly criticized by researchers in
methodology such as the leaders of the Cochrane
collaboration (11-13). Table 2 gives our
recommendation for ranking study quality based on
the conclusions from the Cochrane Collaboration’s
most recent examinations of the RCT method (11-14).
Only science of level 1 and 2 supplies valid and
unbiased information on medicine; while cohort
studies are more reliable, they are often costly and
they often take many years while before-and after
studies can be done quickly and on a low budget.
Table 2. Evidence Level 1-11 (after study quality) of drug trials. The reliability of the trial varies significantly with
the level of analysis (RCT, review of RCTs, meta-analysis of RCTs, national study, cohort study) and the level of
independency from the pharmaceutical industry. (1 is best and most reliable, 11 worst and least reliable)
1. Cohort studies of long term positive and negative effects of pharmaceutical drugs on the different categories of patients
made by independent researchers at independent research centers. Data i.e. design of questionnaires must be collected
independently of commercial interest, and important factors like global quality of life, self-assessed physical and mental
health, and survival must be included. All types of medicine the patients have used including non-drug medicine must
also be included. Academic experts may have often open or hidden ties to the pharmaceutical industry which can give
severe bias also to data from cohort studies and central registers.
2. Simple before and after studies of treatment versus no treatment (including at least 20 patients and 20 controls in non-
drug studies and at least 2000 patients and 2000 controls in drug studies) where important factors like global quality of
life, self-assessed physical and mental health, and survival are included, and all side/adverse effects are listed and
controlled for, and done by independent researchers at independent research institutions. Studies of chronic patients can
use the patients as their own control.
Søren Ventegodt
350
Table 2. (Continued)
3. Studies by independent researchers at independent research centers based on data from national studies using central
registers made by independent researchers at independent research centers. If the health organizations of the state are
influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, which is often the case, the data and also the studies based on them will be
biased.
4. Meta-analyses of meta-analyses of RCTs made by independent researchers at independent research centers (studies
including several meta-analysis). If the data comes from RCTs made by researchers related to the pharmaceutical
industry, they are biased, and all analyses no matter how objective, will still be biased and not reliable. If an active
chemical substance is used as medicine the placebo used for control MUST be active placebo; if not the result is not
reliable.
5. Reviews of meta-analyses of RCTs made by independent researchers at independent research centers. If the data comes
from RCTs made by researchers related to the pharmaceutical industry, they are biased, and all analyses no matter how
objective, will still be biased and not reliable.
6. Meta-analyses made by independent researchers at independent research centers i.e. the Cochrane reviews are as good as
the data is. If the data comes from RCTs made by researchers related to the pharmaceutical industry, they are biased, and
all analyses no matter how objective, will still be biased and not reliable. This is a problem for most Cochrane reviews.
7. Reviews of RCTs made by independent researchers at independent research centers i.e. the Cochrane reviews are as good
as the data is. If the data comes from RCTs made by researchers related to the pharmaceutical industry, they are biased.
8. Cohort studies of long term positive and negative effects of pharmaceutical drugs on the different categories of patients
made by physicians, statisticians and other experts paid or in any other ways supported by the pharmaceutical industry are
biased; they are made to serve the one who pays and not a reliable source of information.
9. Data from central registers collected by independent experts are good but studies made by physicians, statisticians and
other experts paid or in any other ways supported by the pharmaceutical industry or made in institutions supported by or
working together with the pharmaceutical industry are biased. Academic experts have most often open or hidden ties to
the pharmaceutical industry so data from central registers using their services are biased.
10. Meta-analysis of RCTs made by physicians, statisticians and other experts paid or in any other ways supported by the
pharmaceutical industry are biased and not reliable.
11. RCTs are in general not reliable due to methodological problems (6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 33, 34); bias can too easily be
introduced through the many phases of the procedure. RTCs sponsored by pharmaceutical companies are therefore always
severely biased and not a reliable source of information. RCTs made by organizations or national agencies which
members are supported by or related to the pharmaceutical industry are biased. RCTs made by members of academic
institutions who are supported by pharmaceutical companies are biased. RCTs approved by a Scientific Ethical committee
without sufficient expertise in RCTs and scientific test methods are likely to be biased.
The consequences of bias in the WHO
drug directories
Denmark seems to be following WHO’s
recommendations closely; we therefore find it likely
that the similar bias in the national Danish drug
directory we have documented earlier (2) is directly
or indirectly inherited from the bias we now find in
the drug directories of WHO. We believe that this
problem systematically impacts all the 194 WHO
member states.
The consequence of WHO misguiding its 194
member states seems to be that at least 100,000,000
patients are getting the wrong treatment. This number
is estimated from the number of patients who 1) live
in the major cities of the wealthy member states
(about 3 billion people) and 2) who are sick (about 1
billion) and 3) who are treated with one of the
ineffective and dangerous pharmaceutical drugs (from
the groups in Table 1) by their doctors following the
flawed WHO recommendations passed on to them by
the local health authorities (at least 10% or
100.000.000 patients - in many wealthy countries like
Denmark about 35%).
These patients are thus being treated with
pharmaceutical drugs which have a scientifically
documented lack of positive effect and a scientifically
documented presence of one or more adverse effects.
These drugs are thus only harmful and not beneficial
to these patients.
WHO drug register 351
Objective information
In order to make physicians and patients able to
choose the optimal treatment for a clinical condition
WHO should provide objective information about
medicine. As the concept “medicine” covers both
pharmaceutical, surgical, and therapeutic treatments
with non-invasive, non-pharmacological medicine
(talk and touch therapy) WHO should also include the
existing information about evidence-based non-drug
medicine (i.e., from (15-20) in its directories.
If one compare the NNT and NNH numbers for
the drug treatments and non-drug treatments, it is
clear that the non-invasive non-drug treatments using
only touch and talk therapy are often favourable,
especially if the two methods are combined. Such
“holistic” treatments with emotionally oriented
bodywork (19-21) and psychodynamically oriented
psychotherapy (16-18, 22) are in general highly
effective and almost without side effects (see Table 3,
based on studies of level-2 quality (comp. Table 2))
(see 15-29 for reviews).
Table 3. NNT and NNH
total
numbers for the best evidence-based non-drug treatments of physical and mental
disorders, quality of life and sexual-health issues, and working disability (mostly based on clinical studies using
chronic patients as their own control i.e. based on studies of level-2 quality, see 15-29 for reviews).
Only data on the most important clinical conditions are listed
*) According to the many Cochrane reviews in (15) are side effects extremely rare in non-invasive non-drug medicine, like
talk-therapy and massage, estimated one in a million patients (i.e., short reactive psychosis). High-energy manipulation
like Chiropractic are known to have more side effects (i.e., fractures) but they are still rare (NNH
total
>1000).
WHO drug register
352
Number needed to treat (NNT)
and number needed to harm (NNH)
Remember that NNT numbers for pharmaceutical
drugs are normally 20 or higher (29), meaning that
only one patient in 20 (i.e., 5% of the patients!) or
even less is helped by these drugs. NNH numbers of
drugs are often 2-5 and as a drug often has many
adverse effects, the NNHtotal numbers are often around
1, meaning that in average every patient using the
drug will have an adverse effect.
When we compare the drug treatments with non-
drug medicine, it seems that such treatments are in
general far more effective and far less dangerous than
a treatment with drugs (or surgery). If WHO
published the NNT, NNH, NNHtotal and TV numbers
for both the pharmacological drugs, surgical
interventions, and the evidence-based non-drug
treatments for every clinical condition for
comparison, we believe that very few doctors and
patients would chose a drug treatment in the future. In
general a non-drug non-invasive treatment must be
recommended for most clinical conditions if you base
recommendations on the best scientific evidence.
Some of the drugs recommended by WHO
(especially the drugs used in psychiatry such the
antipsychotic drugs) are not only causing sexual and
other quality of life problems but according to leaders
of the Cochrane collaboration (11) and also a national
Danish report (31), they are documented to cause
heart problems (NNH≈20) and even the patient’s
sudden death (NNH≈1000). Such drugs have
according to estimates from leaders of the Cochrane
collaboration already caused the death of thousands of
patients worldwide (11) but WHO continues to
recommend them. Also, patients with cancer and
coronary heart disease are often getting a medical
treatment which is not the best, safest and most
effective according to the newest medical evidence on
the efficacy and harm of the psychotherapy,
bodywork, psychosomatic treatments, and CAM-
interventions (15-35) (comp. Table 1 with Table 3).
Core principles
In order to solve the serious problem that WHO’s
drug directories are biased and that WHO therefore is
seriously misleading its member states, millions of
doctors, and a billion patients, we have identified the
core principles for rational listening of data regarding
positive and negative effects of the pharmaceutical
drugs and medicines in general (see Table 4)
(improved from (2). An outline of a standard list of
positive and negative drug (or treatment) effects is
suggested here.
Information on each drug should be provided
with due regard to dose, indication of use, all
clinically relevant outcomes, method of drug study
used for documentation, including placebo type, and
the quality of the study. We recommend the use of
Number Needed to Treat (NNT) and Number Needed
to Harm (NNH), Total Number Needed to Harm
(NNHTotal) which shows the likelihood for a patient to
have at least one adverse effect from using a drug, and
Therapeutic Value (TV=NNHTotal/NNT) (35) which
tells us about the balance between beneficial and
harmful effects of the drug.
When more objective and reliable data on a
pharmaceutical drug exist, i.e., from independent
metaanalyses like the Cochrane reviews, they should
be preferred before more doubtful data from studies
of lower quality, i.e., data from the pharmaceutical
industry’s own documentation (see Table 2).
Discussion
The Swine flu scandal from 2009 showed the world
how the present relationship is between the
pharmaceutical industry and WHO. During this
scandal WHO first declared a fake pandemic followed
by recommendations to the WHO member states to
spend tens of billions of EUROs and dollars to
purchase ineffective and unnecessary influenza
vaccines and anti-influenza medicine. The
recommendations included two jabs of poorly
tested vaccine for every citizen on the planet! During
the scandal the media documented a close link
between people paid directly by the pharmaceutical
companies making the vaccines and the WHO
leadership and this was strongly criticized by The
European Commission (36), major media, scientific
journals, and health authorities in a number of
countries (37-68).
WHO drug register 353
Table 4 Structure of table for listing the positive and negative effects and therapeutic value of pharmaceutical drugs,
vaccines, surgeries, examinations, and medicines and medical procedures in general. (When a surgical intervention
or a non-invasive non-drug medicine is listed, the name of the treatment/cure and the applied intensity replaces the
word “drug” in the list i.e. “Swedish massage, one weekly session”). For practical reasons the medicine directory
must have one entrance for the treatment/cure to see what it is good for, and one entrance for the clinical condition,
to see what can cure it. Here we only show how to make the first list
Drug A, dose α
A α 1. Indication: Disease D1
Short term Medium term Long term
Positive effects (Benefit)
A α 1-B(1)
Outcome 1: XXX. NNT X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (1,2,3…) (6,7,8…) (12,13,14…)
A α 1-B(2)
Outcome 2: XXX. NNT X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (21,22,23…) (26,27,28…) (32,33,34…)
ETC
Negative effects (Harm)
A α 1-H(1)
Adverse effect 1: XXX. NNH X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (41,42,43…) (46,47,48…) (52,53,54…)
A α 1-H(2)
Adverse effect 2: XXX. NNH X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (61,62,63…) (66,67,68…) (72,73,74…)
A α 1-H(3)
Adverse effect 3: XXX. NNH X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (81,82,83…) (86,87,88…) (92,93,94…)
ETC
A α 1-H (Death)
Death NNH X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (121,122,123…) (126,127,128…)(132,133,134…)
A α 1-H (total)
Total harm NNH
total
X X X
Method of documentation: a/b/c/d a/b/c/d a/b/c/d
Evidence level (1-11) N N N
Reference (221,222,223…)(226,227,228…)(232,233,234…)
Therapeutic value (Benefit/Harm)
Estimated therapeutic value for the treatment of disease 1 with drug A, dose
α:
Short term Medium term Long ter m
Therapeutic value (NNT/NNH
total
) X X X
========= =========== ========
ETC
A α 3. Indication: Disease D3
Short term Medium term Long term
ETC
Drug A, dose β
ETC
Drug A, dose µ
ETC
---
Drug B, dose α
ETC
…
REFERENCES
_
__
WHO drug register
354
The scandal forced WHO to make an
investigation of itself which led to the remarkable
conclusion that WHO had done nothing wrong:
“WHO performed well in many ways during the
pandemic…” and “The Committee found no evidence
of malfeasance.” (69 p. xvi). With this conclusion
WHO has clearly showed the world where it stands:
Side by side with the pharmaceutical industry.
With this said it is important to underline that this
article do not take the position that drugs cannot be
used as medicine. Vaccines have saved millions of
humans and there is much good literature to support
that. The uses of chemotherapy along with other
treatments have lowered the mortality rates for
children with leukaemia and other malignancies over
the past decades. And if someone is actively
hallucinating and hearing voices to kill themselves or
others, and has strong urges to follow such voices,
antipsychotic medicine might be what is needed here
even if this treatment is not improving the patient’s
mental health i.e., removing the hallucinations.
Conclusion
WHO recommends a long list of drugs which in
independent meta-analyses Such as the Cochrane
Reviews have been found to have little or no value as
medicine but often severe adverse effects, including
sexual problems, major health problems (i.e., heart
problems, sudden death, and even suicide). The
recommendations in WHO’s drug registers are
followed by its 194 member states leading in our
estimation to at least 100,000,000 patients getting a
wrong treatment. WHO, the organization who was
established to solve the health problems of the world,
has itself become a major threat to public health
worldwide.
We therefore recommend a fundamental revision
of the whole WHO-system that has proven itself weak
to the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. We
warn all governments, physicians, and patients that
the existing WHO drug directories are strongly biased
and not reliable sources of information on drugs and
vaccines. We encourage all WHO member states to
use their power as member states to revise the
malfunctioning WHO system and set WHO free of
the malicious influence of the pharmaceutical
industry.
The critique we raise in this article is not new. All
financial ties between WHO and the pharmaceutical
industry must be cut as Flynn on behalf of the Council
of Europe concluded in his famous rapport (36). The
funding of WHO should never have been privatized.
It simply does not work and was a major mistake. It
leads to the corrupted WHO we have today.
In the future all funding of WHO must come from
the member states only. The establishment of a new
leadership of WHO which can stand the strong and
continued pressure from the pharmaceutical industry
must be amongst the first action taken; the importance
of this action must be acknowledged by WHO’s
member states. WHO needs urgently new and
independent leaders with a strong and well established
scientific expertise in the scientific testing of
medicine.
Acknowledgments
The Danish Quality of Life Survey, Quality of Life
Research Center and The Research Clinic for Holistic
Medicine, Copenhagen, was from 1987 till today
supported by grants from the 1991 Pharmacy
Foundation, the Goodwill-fonden, the JL-Foundation,
E. Danielsen and Wife’s Foundation, Emmerick
Meyer's Trust, the Frimodt-Heineken Foundation, the
Hede Nielsen Family Foundation, Petrus Andersens
Fond, Wholesaler C.P. Frederiksens Study Trust, Else
& Mogens Wedell-Wedellsborg's Foundation and
IMK Almene Fond. The research in quality of life and
scientific complementary and holistic medicine was
approved by the Copenhagen Scientific Ethical
Committee under the numbers (KF)V. 100.1762-90,
(KF)V. 100.2123/91, (KF)V. 01-502/93, (KF)V. 01-
026/97, (KF)V. 01-162/97, (KF)V. 01-198/97 and
further correspondence. We declare no conflict of
interest.
Contributorship/transparency statement: This
article was done by Søren Ventegodt, who affirms
that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and
transparent account of the study being reported; no
important aspects of the study have been omitted; any
discrepancies from the study as planned have been
explained.
WHO drug register 355
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Submitted: March 01, 2015. Revised: April 25, 2015.
Accepted: May 09, 2015.
