What We Do

We inform and help make better decisions. We do research to find unbiased information, allowing fair, pragmatic and ethical decisions, for the wellbeing of humans. We guide patients, but also decision-makers, healthcare providers, enterprises and governmental associations.

Why We Do

We care about human’s well-being, and are advocates for righteous information, allowing a true freedom of choice. A right decision is an informed and unbiased decision. We hope to incentivize policymakers to initiate positive changes for humanity.

How We Do

“You don’t know what you don’t know.”

— Socrates

But once you know and review, you can change.

Question. Everything.

Creating systematic reviews or critical literature reviews regarding different health related topics.

Question.Everything. is an independent project that aims to research and provide more in depth analysis to allow decision making. We are science driven and will look at different perspectives. We often read hundreds and hundreds of articles before we write our conclusions. Any conclusions provided in an article or blog post is aimed to understand the topic in depth. There is no one-size fits all. Every human is different and any decisions is personal.

FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS:

Some answers and posts may differ from what you (and I) learned in school. As a pharmacist, I believe I can have an influence and I make sure my articles express facts. Your clinical judgment, experience, and comments are more than welcome! Don’t hesitate to contact us if you wish to share your thoughts or join as a collaborative volunteer.

A LITTLE ABOUT OUR METHODS AND IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

Reading on the internet is more complicated than you may believe. A scientific article does not mean truth. A blog post doesn’t either. This is not a class on how to understand what we read and analyze scientific research (this required more studies and graduate degree classes), but here are a few points to explain what we mean:

Confirmation bias

This cognitive bias is the tendency to look for, to search or interpret information that supports or confirms our prior beliefs or values. Our brains are full of beliefs either from school, culture, or anything else. This can lead to distortion of evidence-based decision-making in a society.1 If you are looking for a side effect, you will put all your efforts towards this research, and may pass all the other potential side effects or benefits. You won’t realize you are doing this, it’s unconscious.

During our research work, we aim to reduce this bias by looking for contradictory information and questioning concepts we initially believed, or questioning previously established thought or confirmed information. This is a skill that was developed by Dr Stephanie El-Chakieh, pharmacist. It requires courage to question things we even read in books for the purpose of clarity.

Confounding bias

This is the result of ‘‘mixing of effects’’. When trying to understand a cause or what lead to an effect, e.g. this vaccine caused a specific side effect, or the opposite, this vaccine prevented this specific disease, it is important to consider all possibilities that could have led to the result. Are we assessing other risk factors of this specific side effect or positive factors to reduce this specific disease? 2

A more specific example:

Cervical cancer increases with the contraceptive pill, and this is reversible once stopped.3 (p.s. the pill also protects from other cancers, this is only one example and is not a recommendation or advice). In a study assessing the effectiveness of Gardasil (r) 9 or other HPV vaccines, they should assess if the subjects stopped or changed contraceptive method. If stopping the pill can reduce cervical cancer, and this is not measure int he study, we don’t know if the vaccine is really effective, or if there were other confounding variables not considered. There is possibility of confounding biases when other factors are not taken into account, and could be the cause or contributing factors to the measured effect. Unfortunately, this happens quite often in clinical trials. Randomization (when subjects are randomly place in groups) is not sufficient. The confounding variables should be established before a study and stratification should be done in the study. Otherwise, the results will be biased, establishing an untrue association link. This again leads to distortion of the outcome.

We try reducing this bias by exploring all the identified risk factors before starting our research, in order to understand what is appropriate, and what cannot be concluded.

Methodology

When reading an article, it is also important to evaluate the methodology chosen by the authors. In other words, not believing that what you are reading is appropriate. It requires critical thinking, but also previous knowledge in what is considered appropriate or not. Things get complicated, and I don’t want to overwhelm you. I just wish to make you realize that ‘‘scientific article’’ does not = proven, good, or anything else before it was analyzed.

We have a holistic approach, meaning that we view things as a hole, not a collection of parts. We asses all the possible known factors, risks, ethics, benefits, costs, etc.

Conflict of interest: While receiving a financial return allows to produce research and systematic reviews, when these analysis are financed by a drug or device company, it has been found that these systematic reviews have a lower methodological quality and more favourable conclusions.4 In other words, the conclusions may be wrong or biased.

We work with volunteers for different topics, and charge a fee to the requesting person to allow us to spend time researching. We do not accept any financial or other benefits from drugs or device companies.

Conspiracy theory

Conspiracy is defined as a secret plan to do something unlawful or harmful by a group.

A cult is a social group distinguished by different religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by common interest regarding a personality, object or goal.

“Belief in conspiracy theories appears to be driven by motives that can be characterized as epistemic (understanding one’s environment), existential (being safe and in control of one’s environment), and social (maintaining a positive image of the self and the social group).” […]

“Studies have shown that people are likely to turn to conspiracy theories when they are anxious (Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013) and feel powerless (Abalakina-Paap, Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999). Other research indicates that conspiracy belief is strongly related to lack of sociopolitical control or lack of psychological empowerment (Bruder et al., 2013). Experiments have shown that compared with baseline conditions, conspiracy belief is heightened when people feel unable to control outcomes and is reduced when their sense of control is affirmed (van Prooijen & Acker, 2015).”

"However, the comparatively scarce research examining the consequences of conspiracy theories does not indicate that they ultimately help people fulfill these motives.”5

We LOVE to question everything, but we do not engage in conspiracy theory. We select and analyze evidence-based information. The collection of data is very important for us. We are comfortable with the unknown and prefer mentioning that we don’t know rather then find unfounded explanations. We do not associate with any group or cult. We look at data as it is. With very critical eyes.

We presented some important factors we take into account when analyzing data to provide more explanation and understanding of our work.

Disclaimer: The articles are written by myself and do not, in any case, replace your healthcare provider’s recommendations. For appropriate care, a throughout analysis needs to be conducted. You may agree or disagree, and as a pharmacist, I have a responsibility to share the truth, which I consider my truth. Because truth is also subjective. For more details, see Disclaimer.