At the end of most articles in the Guardian newspaper you find this:
This is what we’re up against.
Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see. Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and established science. Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press. Bad actors spreading disinformation online to undermine democracy.
But we have something powerful on our side. We’ve got you.
The Guardian is funded by readers like you and the only person who decides what we publish is Katherine Viner. If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to the world, we’d love to have you on side.
################################################
This post is twinned with Challenging My Doctor to Disclose and Breaking the Word of Promise to our Hope on RxISK.
The word My in the title refers to the fact I, and others in health I know, were once Guardian readers but have stopped because of its health coverage in the last decade.
Informed Consent
As Truth, Trust and Health outlines, through to 1800 we were subjects of monarchs and sinners. With the French Revolution we became citizens and patients. Patients were citizens of a new Domain of the Sick in buildings converted from palliative care hostels into hospitals. We had formerly been preparing for Heaven in the Hotel de Dieu (House of God), looked after by religious folk, but now got doctors.
The new Acute Medicine, child of the Revolution, initially dealt with desperate situations, where there was little time for informed consent. By the 1950s as medicine, armed with new treatments, extended its reach beyond life and death situations, while the primary source of information on our treatments was the clinical experience of the doctor treating us, informed consent was born.
There was a sense that, as is appropriate with citizenship, we, as patients, should be treated decently. Surgery for breast cancer and ECT led the way. Is this how you would treat your own wife doctor? Is this a treatment you would wish for yourself in my circumstances? (See Shock Therapy and Shipwreck of the Singular for more on this).
Around 1990 we transitioned into Consumers. Healthcare was changing into health services. Rather than treating the emergencies we brought to it (acute medicine), services began calling us in for screening and giving us problems we didn’t know we had. Briefly these were called risk factors but are now called chronic medical conditions.
Increasingly, ‘our’ services rather than us decided we needed treatment for these. You might imagine, when the treatments proposed were being offered to us when we were perfectly well, and increasingly were based on supposedly public evidence rather than the experience of the doctor, that the premium on informed consent would grow.
Just the opposite happened. In 1990, proceeding as had been normal medical practice, Martin Teicher and colleagues wrote an article proving a new antidepressant, Prozac, could trigger suicide. It had been normal in the 1960s for doctors to write reports stating that, of course wonderful though antidepressants were, they could cause suicide, homicide, sexual dysfunction and physical dependence without accusations of misinformation.
Lilly’s pushback to Teicher’s article, facilitated by the BMJ, created Evidence Based Medicine. Gordon Guyatt and Iain Chalmers have been convenient figleafs covering these origins. Companies began to lay Cuckoos – Randomized Controlled Assays (RCAs) – in the medical nest, claiming this ‘evidence’ was worth more than the anecdotes that constituted clinical experience – See Health’s Illusions.
These ghostwritten RCAs hype benefits on surrogate outcomes and hide the harms often to a fraudulent extent – claiming a study shows a treatment to be effective and safe when the company knows it wasn’t. These frauds get published in the very best ‘medical’ journals – they are no use to companies otherwise. Contrary to the norms of science, no one has access to the data from these studies. But journals make money from them – especially the New England J of Misinformation.
This has been happening for 30 years and medical journals are past repair. See The Lights all went out in Massachusetts.
Noble Lies
This post is not about the cesspit of hype and fraud that parts of the medical literature have become. It is about a loss of decency, and an astonishing nastiness toward the people we are supposedly helping, who have been harmed by what we do.
When managing the Prozac and suicide crisis, FDA, who had access to behind the scenes evidence that SSRIs caused more suicidal events than they prevented, introduced a notion never before used by a regulator. They claimed reluctance to warn in case it might deter people from getting the benefit of treatment. Warnings might kill people.
We could perhaps invoke a Platonic Lie as a precedent for this inside out version of a dilemma the Pope then had – should condoms the Church banned be permitted for AIDS prevention?
It overlapped with the public execution of Andrew Wakefield. The idea vaccines could cause significant harms would deter too many people from getting the benefits. Sticking Wakefield’s head on a Spike in the Central Square chilled conversations beyond the MMR vaccine. Many parents whose perfectly normal children reacted catastrophically to the DTP vaccine faced complete denial that any vaccine could cause any harm at all.
The Mouths of Others
Even though harms were disappearing from the ‘adverts’ (the medical literature), with BMJ leading the way, it was still possible for clinicians to recognize the harms happening in front of them – people becoming suicidal or getting PSSD on treatment.
For a decade or more, the media continued to mention the drugs people were on in the event of a mass murder or colorful crime like female teachers seducing their teenage male pupils – Notes on a Scandal.
From 2000 to 2004 the Guardian carried great articles on SSRI harms, ghostwriting, and lack of access to company study data.
Between 2002 and 2004, BBC’s Panorama ran a compelling series on Paroxetine dependence and suicide, featuring internal company documents that led to a Fraud Charge and ultimately a $3 Billion resolution – Children of the Cure.
A relatively senior person in Lilly could even tell me my lectures on SSRI harms were doing more for the sales of Prozac than anything else.
Things, however, were changing. Clinicians were becoming less likely to accept a treatment had harmed the person presenting to them. People began to experience what they now call gaslighting.
While the Guardian and BBC were initially apparently successful, it also became clear the standard media approaches – find an insider to lead you to a rotten apple and make a big deal of throwing it out of the barrel – no longer worked. We now had a rotten barrel problem – something the media have still not found a way to handle.
And as of 2003 the Guardian found itself on a GSK jet to Malawi to report on GSK’s Saving Grace initiative aimed at getting their HIV drugs to people like Grace in Africa.
Perhaps it was because patients were now being openly called consumers. You might think consumers should be privy to more information, but these ex-patients had been set off on a road to polypharmacy prevention and of course we don’t want to deter people from the benefit of not having to take something to actually get a benefit.
Calling patients consumers was not welcomed by everyone. Squeamishness about changing linguistic styles aside, the consumer narrative in health is deeply misleading. The consumers of prescription-only medicines are doctors who consume side effect free by putting pills in the Mouths of Others.
Mouths of Others deliberately echoes The Lives of Others – a movie about the moral dilemmas of life in East Germany in Stasi times.
Doctors by this point were increasingly incentivized to ensure a certain proportion of their patients with hints of a risk factor chronic medical disorder ended up on treatments for multiple conditions. These doctors can remain adverse event free provided they don’t agree with a patient that the product they ordered the patient to take has caused the damage.
Doctors paid by pharma? Nope. Doctors paid by health service companies who were getting more and more business from the increased number of hospital visits triggered by osteoporosis drugs, antidiabetics, antihypertensives and antidepressants.
Since then apparently independent social media like NHS Digital list SSRI side effects as nausea, headache and other relatively minor issues – omitting suicidality, sexual dysfunction, dependence or any other significant effects because, they say in email responses if asked, they wish to avoid deterring people from seeking the benefit of treatment.
Ditto the New York Times, the BBC and what is often called the liberal media.
Doctors have been cancelled. In a reversal of free-market expectations consumers (neither patients not doctors) have any say in this market. Both have become vassals if not serfs. Printed warnings are now viewed as May Contain Nuts labels – put in place by companies and regulators to cover their backs.
If doctors try to report adverse events to NPR, BBC, NYT, Guardian, BMJ, NEJM – In France of anywhere – completely contrary to the Viner Guardian claim above the lawyers for these outlets advise against publication. Far from standing up to this menace the liberal media succumb in a way Right Wing media like the Telegraph, Fox News or the Mail don’t.
Policy
Some years ago I approached the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) laying out the case that some people are unjustly imprisoned for crimes they haven’t committed in the sense the behavior has been triggered by medicines they were on. For many Republicans, ACLU sympathy for criminals is a totemic symbol of liberalism gone mad.
Would ACLU be interested to engage with me on this? Nope.
Why not? It’s a policy matter. ACLU do not want to deter people in prison from getting the benefits of being able to access treatments.
Covid vaccine policies mandated a vigorous censoring of any mention of linked harms. Huge chunks of common sense were branded as misinformation. Posts or lectures showing nothing but company documents indicating more deaths and injuries in the vaccine arms of company trials than on placebo were blocked.
There were forced retractions of now validated data. See Rebekah Barnett on Forced Retraction of Cancer Study. A Mostert et al article on excess deaths in the years pre and post vaccines has been subject to Calls for Retraction. The push to retract is not linked to scientific flaws. It appears driven by certain people thinking there are things the rest of us should not know about.
In clinical practice, I met people with events like clotting or auto-immune reactions happening hours after and clearly caused by the vaccine – See Cause and Effect.
Astonishingly, however, doctors rather than agreeing with a person evidently badly harmed by the vaccine, with clear blood test proof, who work in clinics and were friends with the doctors, faced denial the vaccine could have caused the harm or any harm. They were forced to take follow up jabs on pain of losing their job, and then further jabs after repeated bad reactions. This was brutal beyond belief.
Pregnant women were fired for refusing the vaccine with bioethicists behind the charge for force these vaccinations – see Women, Pregnancy and Trials.
Pap Smears to screen for cervical cancer add to the policy element. No one is told before Pap Smears that Cone Biopsies can cause cervical incompetence, which can lead to premature birth with any baby then having a reduced life expectancy.
So a vaccine for the HPV virus that can cause cervical cancer might allow us to reduce cervical cancer screening. HPV vaccines are not mandatory but heavy pressure was brought to bear on teenagers, side-stepping parental consent in many cases (It Couldn’t Happen Here).
No-one, however, is told about the harms that HPV vaccines can cause. Just the opposite. Anyone claiming they have been harmed runs into a barrage of vilification – what do you expect from teenage girls (and a lot worse).
The data on cervical cancer rates after HPV vaccination is mixed. Cancers other than cervical appear to be increasing – is there a link? It is almost impossible to ask the question.
Policies introduce a lack of flexibility. HPV vaccines and Pap Smears could be targeted at high incidence areas but another policy blocks this. For DEI – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – reasons targeting is not tolerated. Something that might be particularly helpful in one setting must be mandated for everyone, even in low incidence areas. With the HPV vaccines, the Net now sweeps up Teenage and pre-Teen boys.
Gender transitions add to this scenario. Getting everyone to transition is not a matter of policy, but DEI sensitivity is. Potential accusations of DEI infringements make it difficult to mention the inevitable harms linked to medical and surgical transit events.
This gives youngsters the impression they can magically transit from being a perfectly functioning XX to a perfectly functioning Xy without any glitches. This should defy common sense. But raising the possibility of harms runs into a barrage of hostility.
The effects of Industrial practices – ghostwriting and lack of access to trial data – differ from the effects of policy. Making harms disappear is a creative act. Ghostwriters put their hands up and can be amused you have spotted the cup the nut or whatever is under – perhaps because they are removed from the harms that result.
Policy leads to outright psychotic denial of harms in a person right in front of you. Faced with harms you have been party to creating by being a prescribing doctor or trans or vaccine advocate creates a more visceral hostility perhaps because escaping responsibility is more difficult.
No less than mothers, apple pie and religion, DEI is good in principle. But our efforts to be equitable and inclusive are creating a new excluded class. In many settings it is still unfortunate to be a woman, an older person, a person of color or a prisoner, but it is now more unfortunate to be harmed by one of our sacraments (medical treatments) – sacraments are interventions that can only benefit and cannot harm. Pandora: Dos Centavos, DoS Centavos Veinte Euros, Rock, Stone Crack Disappear.
Deep State and Populists
DEI policy-makers may not realize their role in creating this situation. Seeking Equity and Universality is a good thing and is to some extent inherent in Bureaucracy. These instances seem to offer examples of an entrapment in the Iron Cage of bureaucracy run riot, that Max Weber warned about a century ago.
The role of Policy here seems linked to Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil phrase coined when observing the post-War trials of senior Nazi’s involved in the concentration camp program. See Peter Gordon’s encounters with this banality in Breaking the Promise.
For Weber, bureaucracy evidently needed to be tempered by leadership and sophistication. Leaders are the people entrusted to step in and say on this point we have lost the plot. They take responsibility for their actions rather than point to a policy.
Weber analogized the role of political leadership to that of a doctor (in his day). Taking responsibility is something medical professionals once did – they now take orders from the policy apparatus.
Sophistication, as F Scott Fitzgerald said means being able to hold two contradictory thoughts in mind at the same time and still function. Generalist doctors used to do this remarkable well, specialists less well. Now the idea a drug that can benefit might also harm has become blasphemous.
There is a Left Right split on these issues, both of which link to military needs – Truth, Trust Health.
Health has traditionally been a socialist/liberal trump card with concerns about ill-health linked to work and living conditions used to temper markets and technologies. But this has been changing greatly in recent decades.
Pharmaceutical companies have found it ridiculously easy to ‘play’ the Left. Hearing a word of promise to their ears of Free Lunches and Medicines for Everyone, politicians and media seem incapable of seeing how this word of promise will be broken – Breaking the Word of Promise to Our Hope.
When it comes to weapons, politicians and media on the Right champion our sacred right (almost a duty) to bear arms. When it comes to Drugs, politicians and media on the Left, like the Guardian and New York Times, champion our sacred right to access them and push for lower prices so people can have more and more.
Right wing media can see the problems in the Left wing takes on health and their inability to report on drug harms. In Britain the Telegraph and Mail do a much better job than the Guardian not just on the matter of harms but on the policy factors behind the denial of the obvious.
This split links to the deep divides we now face between what gets branded Populism by one side and Deep State by the other.
An unsophisticated policy response is no longer enough. The statement at the bottom of Guardian about lobbyists undermine the climate emergency and established science brings out the need for sophistication. The G and NYT left hands campaign to avoid the environment being pumped full of chemicals, while their right hands create conditions like ADHD where people increasingly pump themselves full of chemicals.
Guardian Disclosure
Meanwhile, an autism made in the media and smartphones rather than by vaccines now haunts us. A polypharmacy pandemic made in company laboratories has swept in.
We have a public health crisis with between 10 and 20 % of Western populations hooked to psychotropic drugs, primarily antidepressants, which will necessarily inhibit our ability to reverse plummeting reproductive replacement rates.
This set of crises began as a policy initiative in the US, UK and Europe called variously names like Defeat Depression – as Peter Gordon, a young psychiatrist then, tells you – see Breaking the Promise. There was no intention of Defeating Depression. This cash cow is now 1000 times more common than it was – which is not what happens when we set about defeating illnesses like tuberculosis.
This set of crises have evolved in the absence of any national discussion about the wisdom of what we are letting be done to ourselves.
There are other problems we need to look at but when it comes to Health it is the Media I once read – not just the lay media but also the BMJ and NEJM – who need to disclose the basis for taking the positions they do.
Katherine Viner (above) and Eric Rubin (NEJM) need to publish honest disclaimers.
They might say we will never publish anything about the adverse effects of drugs but will take Pariante style garbage every day of the week.
Or perhaps we are inhibited by our lawyers from publishing anything on the adverse effects of drugs.
Or perhaps we believe in Numbers Based Medicine – anything else is misinformation – which we feel duty bound not to report
That way Peter Gordon and colleagues – see Breaking the Word of Promise to our Hope – would realize the futility of crafting letters born from significant personal losses aimed at getting a co-operative conversation going that might keep more of us safe.
The only co-operation on these matters the Guardian seem to want is for folk to hand over their money.
Political actors on both the left and right once played a part in the Co-operative Movement. Something we need to reinvent?
Postscript
Thanks to Patrick Hahn for the comment below which gives an image that perfectly encapsulates why I cannot now take seriously anything the G say. Trust is the issue.
Noble Lies
‘This post is not about the cesspit of hype and fraud that parts of the medical literature have become. It is about a loss of decency, and an astonishing nastiness toward the people we are supposedly helping, who have been harmed by what we do.’
This is a complaint mostly realised, by those who were trustingly prescribed medications on blind faith, then rued the day, as cack-handed doctors, added to, doubled, took off and changed, doses and drugs.
Platonic Lies –
April 5, 2012
7 Comments
‘It’s difficult to see how Dr Appleby or others expect to get many more people on antidepressants than we now have. We have had 20 years of perhaps the most successful marketing campaign in history, a campaign that has even managed to persuade parents and doctors that pre-school children are depressed and in need of antidepressants. The vast majority of these and of anyone else who might be likely to end up on antidepressants are at a vanishingly small or no risk of suicide.’
louis appleby@ProfLApplebyJun 20
It’s that time in the election cycle – post-manifesto, pre-vote – when civil servants prepare briefing for day 1 of an incoming Govt.
My hope – obviously – is whoever wins will give #suicideprevention priority. Over 6000 deaths/yr in UK.
Leading cause of death in under 35s.
Does he ever go to work. All birds and travelogues, books and films.
Dee Doherty has already got him to admit, he recognises Akathisia, in her correspondence.
Newspapers are not specialists in mental health. They want scoops, exclusives and big stories to sell newspapers. If a Pariante comes along, with his status, they will, idiotically, think – wow – big story – not having the wherewithal to do any elementary research which might lay bare the extent to which he is making highly misleading claims. This is not journalism. But where is journalism, today?
The medical journals make the same mistakes with quite often misleading ‘studies’.
It is not my intention to draw attention to Wessely, again. It is the proposition that counts.
Peter Scott-Gordon, got it in one
In that correspondence Simon Wessely had ALL the power. He understood this. It was implicit in all his communications with me.
ALL the power has become heady and untruthful; truth in the media is a rare commodity, you only have to listen to the BBC flagship news to realise that their drift is probably not our drift.
We are becoming a dumb-down nation, the Covid debacle exposed so many lies, from the dumb.
But, of course, all the accolades kept coming.
Our backs are up against a wall – (journals and the media mostly now have paywalls,; the Guardian is still free)
How can we blend it all together – just keep on keepin’ on …
Right now I’m in the middle of reading Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann said at his trial he had nothing against the Jewish people, and there is no reason not to believe him. He was just following the guidelines.
Fabulous Patrick – thanks for this.
I routinely tell medical students and doctors when they are the audience that they have become bureaucrats – maybe I should make it more pointed – they have become Eichman’s
Another way to illustrate it is asking what use is Salt if it has lost its savor.
D
Speaking of the Guardian, they just ran an article advising readers that thinking for yourself is just too exhausting. I’m not making this up, but I wish I were:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jun/11/trust-us-institutions?CMP=share_btn_url&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1FrY7US0rmyDenNiB36mT2xfh-ul3EZ50VfytBBeB7oo5nH4_BAjerUTA_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw
Patrick
Again thanks. The image and article are great. I have added the image as a postscript the main post.
David
Trouble is unfortunately we need to read garbage to keep up with what they are putting out as your post shows in a way. Am speaking as a non g reader though I still get sent requests for subscriptions which is all they and others really want . Or to use us add ridiculous immature ticks and comments which are of no use whatsover ,just to look as though they are ‘engaging’ with readers. in most forums they get edited anyway.) I went to one of the last lectures Hannah A E gave at a church in Cardiff. She was tired and shockingly stated that she has stopped even using the ‘banality of evil’ phrase she coined Her thinking had moved on but the phrase actually stopped thought progressing further. Her message was quite jumbled as she was pretty exhausted by then but still thinking on her feet Which was the most impressive way I have ever heard a lecture given. She didn’t claim to have the answers.
No-one is going to be able to improve on a comment that mentions the last time I was at a lecture by Hannah Arendt..
D
I should clarify. In terms of events in Cardiff, having Hannah Arendt lecture there, half a century ago, was one of the biggest things to happen there before Taylor Swift gave a concert in Cardiff a few days ago
D
Was more important that that! T S will come and go Hannah’s lecture and writings will have a much bigger influence for a lot longer…..but good luch to the amazing T S
‘My Media’ …
Dr Aseem Malhotra
@DrAseemMalhotra
BREAKING NEWS NETHERLANDS:
‘It’s an absolute disgrace that the Princess Maxima Center is trying to distance itself from one of its most distinguished academics regarding a very thorough and meticulously peer reviewed paper. For all those critical thinkers with high ethical principles a substantial link with the covid vaccines and excess deaths is clearly based on irrefutable evidence. All those trying to undermine what is likely to turn out to be the greatest medical mistake and corporate crime in history are either incompetent, immoral or both’
https://x.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1804383511136067907
Dr Aseem Malhotra
@DrAseemMalhotra
Well said Mark
https://x.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1804067184865357836
‘whatever’s next down the pike’ …
Patient safety
From: Peter Scott-Gordon
3:30 PM (21 June 2024)
To: guardian.letters, RCPsych feedback, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Ellie Cannon [c/o Daily Mail]
I write to express concern in relation to the following perspective as published in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/08/antidepressants-addictive-has-been-debunked-psychiatry-depression-withhdrawal-symptoms
This published opinion has the potential to cause considerable avoidable harm.
This published opinion spins what the Lancet meta-analysis carefully says.
Why the Guardian should publish this opinion piece, without fact-checking, should be a matter of concern.
This opinion piece is by a career-long paid opinion leader whose vested interests [paid and otherwise] are multiple.
As a retired NHS psychiatrist I was dismayed to learn that the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists recommended this Guardian perspective with these words “This is a MUST read” [sic]
Yours sincerely
Dr Peter Scott-Gordon
Dr Ellie Cannon [c/o Daily Mail]
Last week, Dr Ellie Cannon, The Mail on Sunday’s resident GP columnist, wrote that, having read the new study, she was pleased to hear that the pills were much less addictive than feared.
Dr Cannon, who has publicly spoken of her own antidepressant use and the fact that she has suffered from withdrawal symptoms when stopping, added that she would be glad to reassure patients. However, scores of readers responded saying they had been hit by withdrawal.
Previously posted –
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13533737/patients-antidepressants-suffer-severe-withdrawal-symptoms-hooked-life.html
Dr Ellie Cannon, who joins us to unpack the myths surrounding antidepressants, and reveal how they work.
https://www.itv.com/thismorning/articles/the-truth-about-antidepressants-what-you-need-to-know
Reply to Wendy Burn
Joshua Ireland@JoshuaMIrelandJun 9
Pariente kens the different meanings of addiction & dependence, & he knows the general public does not. His canard that anyone says ADs cause addiction is a myth he’s debuting, not debunking. His defence against straw-men deflects attention from dependence & withdrawal. Helpful?
https://x.com/wendyburn/status/1799437144374776295
From Company Woman or Mother Ellie’s rationale at the time was that she takes AD’s herself and on that basis advises those who consult her. Ellie herself was not willing to ‘engage’ with the complaint raised on behalf initially for MadinWales
.susanne says
November 10, 2021 at 4:42 pm
Re . Dr Ellie Cannon
29 August 2019
‘In an era of fake news, TV doctor Dr Ellie Cannon is the much-needed antidote to health myths.
She is also a blogger for Pulse and has tackled issues including the anti-vax movement and fighting cervical cancer.’
Decided to go ahead with complaint to the GMC re misinformation propagated by Ellie Cannon GP re ADs
plus lack of response from the surgery manager – there is an obligation to respond CCG is trying again
Hello All (to madintheuk)
just a bit of an update – Ellie and the surgery manager have an obligation to reply.
Complaint has been forwarded to GMC – will take ages but will keep you informed
All the best – take care
susanne
———- Forwarded message ———
From: COMPLAINTS (NHS NORTH CENTRAL LONDON CCG)
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 5:08 PM
Complaint regarding the seriously misleading information broadcast by Ellie Cannon
Cc: COMPLAINTS (NHS NORTH CENTRAL LONDON CCG)
Dear (susanne)
Thank you for your response.
GPs are not employed by Clinical Commissioning Groups for their general practice work, and we are also not directly responsible for the performance management of GPs. We are co-commissioners with NHS England. We will forward on your complaint to ITV and make sure you are copied in. ITV is responsible for the information that they broadcast on their programmes, and for ensuring that a balanced perspective is presented, so we feel that they would be best placed to respond.
In regards to the complaint you have made about the practice’s contact information, our primary care team will follow this up with the practice to ensure it is addressed.
Best wishes
Brett
Brett Vallance
PALS, Complaints & FOI Manager
North Central London CCG
More on Ellie who seems to to have fingers in several pies
susanne says
October 12, 2021 at 3:26 pm
Ellie says she takes ADs – wonder which one ?. Snippetts From 2012 to 2021
Unsure whether Ellie still works as an expert for Pampers but guess there was no conflict of interest? hubby is a lawer .GP Dr Ellie Cannon, from the Pampers’ expert panel, says: https://www.magicmum.com/I’m proud to be working with Pampers as they really care about what’s best for babies, constantly innovating to create great products. The new Pampers Premium Protection™ range protects and cares for your baby’s skin every step of the way, from newborn through to potty training, meaning that every new product helps to support your baby’s wellbeing.”
Re Baby Milk Action press release 7 March 2016
Issuing the results of a survey is an old trick for companies to try to gain free publicity in the media. Nestlé is today trying to bypass restrictions on advertising its SMA brand of infant formula with a press release campaign on mothers’ knowledge about breastfeeding and protein. It has recruited “media doctor” Dr Ellie Cannon who, according to her website, is “best known for her weekly health column in the Mail on Sunday and her regular appearance on Sky News Sunrise”. Nestlé’s marketing company is attempting to set up interviews with Dr Cannon to speak on the “changing protein composition of breast milk” as part of Nestlé’s new SMA PRO infant formula rollout.
…..The press release does not mention the fact that Nestlé is relaunching its SMA formula as babies fed on the current product have “protein intake in excess of requirements”, according to information sent to health workers.
The company, which is the target of a boycott for unethical baby milk marketing practices around the world, is trying to divert attention from this, while presenting itself as an expert on protein. In the meantime, supermarkets, such as Tesco, are desperately trying to clear their shelves of the current formula, which has led to a campaign in Parliament for formula marketing regulations to be enforced.
CLICK HERE to watch Dispatches: Breastfeeding uncovered.
Broadcast on UK Channel 4 on Monday 30th July, 2018 and includes Baby Milk Action’s Policy Director, Patti Rundall being interviewed by Kate Quilton.
There has been a great response to this program, especially on social media. But also some vitriolic attacks – one from Dr Ellie Cannon in the Mail on Sunday. Worth remembering our Press Release from 2016 – showing her links with Nestle and the SMA brand. Funny she didn’t mention that in the article. Here are some excerpts:
“Just because formula is manufactured – yes, processed – it doesn’t mean it’s unhealthy. Processed merely means ingredients have undergone a process (chopping a tomato is a process, as is heating soup).”… In fact, formula milk is more than a healthy choice, and recent additions to ingredients means it now contains more essential fatty acids and pre and probiotics –…
Complaint to the GMC about Dr Ellie
5th June 2012
Dear Sirs, We write as a group of mothers who breastfeed or have breastfed our children beyond their first year. We would like to make a formal complaint about an article written by Dr Elise (Ellie) Rebecca Cannon (GMC number 6030416), published in the Daily Mail on the 20th May 2012. You can access a copy of the article here and we have enclosed a copy with this correspondence: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2146870/Breastfeed-year-old-Thats-just-selfish-wrong.html We would like to draw your attention to serious inaccuracies in her article and various assertions which we consider to be unprofessional for a registered GP to make and, in our view, breach GMC guidelines. We outline these in detail below. The article deals with ‘attachment parenting’ and, in particular, sustained (or natural-term) breastfeeding…….
Re antidepressants
Joanna Moncrieff
@joannamoncrieff
·
So many things wrong with this – but mainly that it encourages even more people to start and stay on antidepressants, and promotes the mythical idea that they ‘only stop the bad feelings’ https://itv.com/thismorning/articles/the-truth-about-antidepressants-what-you-need-to-know they should return to their moral roots as family doctors – and simply ignore the BMA”
And one from Fiona :
https://nevertrustadoctor.wordpress.com/2021/10/13/my-despair-when-i-listened-to-dr-ellie-cannon-on-itv-this-morning/
susanne says
October 15, 2021 at 2:10 pm
Re: Half of people who stopped long term antidepressants relapsed within a year, study finds Elisabeth Mahase. 374:doi 10.1136/bmj.n2403 E M Works on Thebmj
Dear Editor
This study will reassure those who wish to continue on their antidepressants and to the pharmaceutical companies that produce these drugs. However, as a jobbing GP actually treating these patients I am less reassured. For many patients who have been on anti-depressants for more than a few years a 2 month tapering period is insufficient. We have become increasingly aware that many of the symptoms these patient experience on stopping their anti-depressants are due to the drug withdrawal itself rather a return of the “illness”. It also important to reflect on the study’s finding that 39% of those who continued on their anti-depressants suffered relapses.
It is my experience that with a significantly longer taper (the sort of tapers we use for benzodiazepine users) together with active support many can stop the medication. I also worry that there is not enough of a concern with regard to possible permanent changes in brain chemistry, down -regulation of 5HT and beta-1 receptors as well as changes in serotonin receptor sensitivity with long-term use of these drugs. This might not be a problem over decades but we just do not know.
Depression and anxiety is a biopsychosocial illness and for many of our patients addressing the non-biological aspects although much more difficult is infinitely more rewarding. We must beware the easy option of just writing a prescription and moving on to the next patient.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Last year BBC reporter did a story on how he obtained a diagnosis of “ADHD” from three private clinics, after being assured by an NHS doc that he did not, in fact, have this disorder. The Guardian leapt to the defense of the ADHD industry, with a piece by BBC television presenter Adrian Chiles about his own struggles with this supposed disorder.
A few years ago, Chiles presented the BBC documentary “Drinkers Like Me” in which he revealed he drinks 100 units of alcohol — the equivalent of two and a half cases of beer — a week. If I drank two and a half cases of beer a week, I’d have problems with attention, too.
My take on the controversy:
https://patrickdhahn.substack.com/p/controversy-over-adhd-documentary
Very interesting. I didn’t realise until this recent Guardian-Pariante debacle blew up that Chiles is married to Katherine Viner the G editor.
One of the other ways the G intersects with the points made here – especially the nasty elements – is that previous G columnists like Suzanne Moore were forced out because of a censoring of Free Speech. See https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/the-guardian-freedom-of-speech-suzanne-moore-b1099386.html
She was not saying anything unreasonable or provocative but views that almost certainly are the majority view were categorized as transphobic generating an atmosphere of hostility and unreasonableness she was not prepared to put up with.
See the Silent Health post for more on this G controversy
David
As I write these words, children are being gaslighted, poisoned by hormone blockers and unnatural concentrations of hormones, and being groomed for the pleasure and profit of surgeons and associated professionals whose income stream depends of convincing children they were “born in the wrong body.” All of this is justified by an ideology which not only lacks a credible evidence base, it lacks any semblance of internal coherency, substituting instead a fog of semantic obfuscation.
We are our bodies. How can the body you are born in be the wrong body?
That’s why censorship is the linchpin this enterprise. The entire ideology breaks down under the application of a modicum of facts and logic.
Patrick
There is lots in what you say I agree with but let me distinguish between the trans phenomenon as it applies to older men which dates back 75 years or so. I’ve seen a lot of these people as none of my colleagues would and liked most of them a lot. There is real distress or yearning of some sort – as there is in some people who feel they would be better off without a leg – and have it removed. Surgeons facilitate this but its not driven by surgeons. In these cases while there are some exploitative men, a lot of the social opprobrium is directed at these mostly older men.
The trans phenomenon today though really applies mostly to teenage girls with rapid onset gender dysphoria. Let’s leave the why of why girls should want to transition and not have children to one side – a case could be made for smartphone input etc.
My interest here is more in the as I put it DEI driven nastiness, a vicious brandishing of transphobia slurs, at the mention of harms from the meds used to transit – the denial that they could happen and psychosis about them happening when they do happen. This is not driven by surgeons or the medics who hand out the drugs – although I agree there are shocking clinics doing this – its driven by DEI believers including ‘leaders’ on the Left and directed not just at those who want to transit but in particular at those who face into a detransiting having the accept living with unavoidably permanent scars. There is no sympathy there, little support just opprobrium.
A previous boss of MHRA – Britain’s FDA – June Raine refused to believe that harms like persistent sexual dysfunction after isotretinoin, finasteride or SSRIs could be persistent – because doctors can fix anything these days they can even turn women into men. To call this magical thinking is kind. It breeds hatred toward those who don’t fall into line.
D
As you say, there is a vast difference between morally indecent clinics exploiting children’s sexual confusion and EID social pressure on parents – and supporting adult human beings who have never felt comfortable with their sexuality. How decent of you to do that, when others refused.
Shocking to read – which is presumably where Patrick is ‘coming from’ – that in the US mastectomies on minors as young as 12, have increased from 3.7 PER 100,000 to 47 per 100,000 between 2007 and 2020. And to what level now, four years later?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11392117/Trans-child-surgery-risen-13-TIMES-decade-hospitals.html
I know one MTF trans sexual – my previous hairdresser. It’s not an easy path – psychologically treacherous, risking family rejection, relationship difficulties and all the health risks associated with ongoing hormone therapy and surgery. The colloquialisms – ‘top and bottom surgery’ – imply a casual easiness – which is wholly inappropriate. For the same reasons, I’m not keen on ‘meds’ (suggesting a chumminess with toxins) and ‘side effects’ (nothing negligible about PSSD, VS etc.)
I did have the privilege – and it really was – when I was a young thing in London, of meeting a middle-aged April Ashley at a friend’s party. A beautiful woman – and very brave. https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/april-ashley-her-early-life/
Generations crave ideological and political identities that differentiate them from their parents. In this context, I can understand the appeal of gender fluidity – non-binary and ace spectrum identification. After all, much of the women’s and gay sexual liberation work was done years ago.
As a libertarian, I ask myself, who am I to frown on pick ‘n mix virtual gender and sexual identities? If all these kids were joyful, I‘d celebrate their difference and individuality. We only live once. Not for long. Just do it.
But as we know from mountains of evidence, including Danny Blanchflower’s (that he didn’t seem to understand fully himself – trips to the doc could be as much causal as symptomatic of ‘mental health’ difficulties) – Gen Z’s state of mind seems increasingly PRECARIOUS. Worse than the Post-War generation struggling with homelessness, broken relationships and material hardship.
No doubt in my mind, that pathologisation and the accompanying medicalisation of the human condition, are a large part of it. People used to FEEL depressed. Now they have a reified THING – ‘depression’. Whatever that means – ticking 5 shaded boxes on Pfizer’s PHQ-9.
But the bottom line – distilling Jonathan Haidt and commonsense – Zoomers living a dominantly digital life – risk a disconnection from the VISCERALITY that makes us all human. Only to be exacerbated by pills that numb them further from their senses.
That piece by Suzanne Moore reminds me of Naomi Wolf’s discussion of men who would message her in private, thanking her for her work regarding the covid madness, while afraid to say anything in public.
Dr Aseem Malhotra
@DrAseemMalhotra
https://x.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1805118201505714522
I lost my job in 2019 and was unable to get back into the NHS because of a smear campaign initially by Sarah Boseley in the Guardian & then Barney Calman in the Mail on Sunday saying a ‘place belonged in hell for Drs that say statins don’t work’ – I never said that – their attack was rooted in support from financially conflicted university of Oxford Professor ‘Sir’ Rory Collins but in my relentless pursuit of dissemination of the whole truth we were able to expose a crucial twitter DM message exchange between myself and the then Secretary of State Matt Hancock who had been quoted in the article saying there was no place in the NHS for people like me. In addition the brave and fearless editor of the @bmj_latest
Dr Fiona Godlee also supported me unafraid to call out the Guardian & the Mail on Sunday for their misinformation. These greater truths were highlighted by one of the most thorough & honest health journalists in the U.K. ( who also exposed the ambulance delay cover up that contributed to my father’s death)
@PMGallagher1 in the @theipaper
. THIS story is NOT over
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/statins-war-debate-matt-hancock-aseem-malhotra-rory-collins-271835
The SB and G element of this last comment is interesting
D
Sarah Boseley’s writings on GlaxoSmithKline were second to none – it was a case of ‘whatever next’ …
This is interesting…..
‘What Boseley omitted to do as a decent journalist and a competent reporter was to tell her readership what the medical establishment was worried about.’
The Walker-Smith Appeal, the British Media and the Boseley Problem
https://www.ageofautism.com/2012/02/the-walker-smith-appeal-the-british-media-and-the-boseley-problem.html
The almost unavoidable conclusion is that large sections of the British media have always known that the “Wakefield” prosecution was based on an imposture, and have been holding their silence in contempt of fair reporting and of the public at large, and that these people are much more concerned about their own backs than they are about our children.
John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.
From: Peter Gordon
Sent: 20 May 2014 18:12
To: ‘secretary@ctsu.ox.ac.uk’
Subject: FAO Prof Rory Collins
20 May 2014.
Dear Professor Collins,
I am writing to ask where the public can access any declarations of interest that you may have both individually and for any collaborative research you undertake?
I assume that you may register this with your employer? Can you confirm if this register is open to the public? Perhaps you can send me the link?
Meantime, with a few others, I have helped establish a voluntary register where all doctors can openly declare any conflicts of interest: http://www.whopaysthisdoctor.org/
My declarations are on this site and also here: http://holeousia.wordpress.com/declarationof-interests/
yours sincerely,
Dr Peter J Gordon
NHS Consultant Psychiatrist for Older Adults
NHS Forth Valley
(this e-mail is written in my own time)
From: Rory Collins
Sent: 21 May 2014 17:47
To: Peter Gordon
Subject: RE: FAO Prof Rory Collins
Dear Dr Gordon
The link to the CTSU’s policy on honoraria etc is https://www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/news/press-releases-archive/honoraria. With respect to research grants to Oxford University for independent research that we conduct, I am attaching a list.
Best wishes,
Rory Collins
From: Peter Gordon
Sent: 21 May 2014 19:05
To: ‘Rory Collins’
Subject: RE: FAO Prof Rory Collins
Dear Professor Collins,
Many thanks for this which is most helpful. I should say the reason I ask is that I am interested in the area of transparency generally and have petitioned the Scottish Government for A Sunshine Act: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/GettingInvolved/Petitions/sunshineact
I noted today that today in a BMJ Rapid Response Peter C Gøtzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen concluded “I believe science ceases to exist when no one else than those who have conflicts of interest are allowed to see the data.”
http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3306/rr/698864
It is helpful to get both the CTSU’s Policy on honoraria and also the attachment for research grants to Oxford University. However my question was where can the public view any declarations of interest you might have? I find that I cannot determine this from what you have most kindly supplied.
The GMC advice is that …. “If you are in doubt about whether there is a conflict of interest, act as though there is.”
I do hope you might be able to help further on this even if it is simply to confirm in the public domain that you have no declarations to make.
Kind wishes,
Peter Gordon
From: Rory Collins
Sent: 23 May 2014 12:51
To: Peter Gordon
Subject: RE: FAO Prof Rory Collins
Dear Peter
Thank you for your comments. I do agree that it is important for potential conflicts of interest to be made explicit and we are looking at the best way to do this for all of our grants on an ongoing basis.
However, I have made it clear publicly that the unit has significant research grants from the pharmaceutical industry and, indeed, have also sent these to the BMJ.
Again, thanks for your advice.
Best wishes,
Rory
From: Peter Gordon
Sent: 23 May 2014 16:45
To: ‘Rory Collins’
Subject: RE: FAO Prof Rory Collins
You are welcome.
If you wanted to, by declaring on the voluntary register http://www.whopaysthisdoctor.org/ you would at least save yourself from further enquiries (not from me I should add; this will be my last e-mail to you on this subject).
Given the topicality of this issue I would urge all directly or indirectly involved to consider how important full transparency is in this area … even if this is to declare no conflicts of interest. I am sure as a scientist you would agree.
I wish you well and thank you kindly for your prompt replies.
Aye Peter
The ‘Pariante’ bug…
Medicine and the Media
Statins for all?
BMJ 2012; 345 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e6044 (Published 12 September 2012)Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6044
Margaret McCartney, general practitioner, Glasgow
An epidemiologist’s call for all healthy adults over 50 to take statins was uncritically reinforced by the media without proper discussion of risks and side effects, writes Margaret McCartney
“Give statins to all over-50s. Even the healthy should take heart drug, says British expert.” This headline heralded a few days of intense media publicity, focusing on a talk given by the UK epidemiologist Rory Collins at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Munich. The Daily Mail continued in the same vein: “Currently statins only given to around eight million high-risk patients; But Professor Sir Rory Collins says healthy people can also benefit; He said evidence from 130 000 patients shows they’re safe.”1
The Geoffrey Rose lecture on population science, which Collins had delivered, is an annual event at the congress. It was publicised by means of a press notice that said that “Collins’s lecture this morning will hold out the promise of even more rapid demonstration of the benefits of adding newer cholesterol-lowering agents to the statins.”2 The Mail continued: “Prof Collins, 57, went to his GP a fortnight ago to ask about taking statins despite a relatively low cholesterol level, and was dismayed to learn …
‘
Professor Sir Rory Collins, Head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health, and Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of UK Biobank, has been awarded the Medical Research Council (MCR) Millennium Medal 2020, the MRC’s most prestigious personal award.
https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/news/professor-sir-rory-collins-awarded-medical-research-council-millennium-medal-2020/
2020 is the year when the importance of medical research – from basic science at the level of the molecule to epidemiology on a global scale – for everyone in every country has become clear. The ability of the world’s scientists to find ways to help control the COVID-19 pandemic so rapidly is a consequence of the type of long-term investment that the Medical Research Council makes in all types of medical research. As someone supported by the MRC throughout their research career, it is an extraordinary honour to be awarded its Millennium Medal at such a time.’
Uh-huh…
WILD – on so many levels…
Britain snubs GSK as Pfizer wins jab rollout contract: U.S. group delivers big RSV setback to Walmsley
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/britain-snubs-gsk-as-pfizer-wins-jab-rollout-contract-u-s-group-delivers-big-rsv-setback-to-walmsley/ar-BB1oOvZl
The Pfizer drug is also approved for both the elderly and pregnant women. GSK’s only has approval for the elderly.
In June 2023, the JCVI – who determine the UK immunisation programme – decided that the time was ripe to prevent RSV infection in infants and the elderly. The experts, having read ghost-written journal reports of clinical trials, concluded that two vaccines – Pfizer’s Abyysvo, and GSK’s Arexvy were equally useful in the elderly; and that Abysvo given to pregnant women was as useful as AstraZeneca’s monoclonal antibody Beyfortus injected into neonates.
JCVI passed the buck to bureaucrats in the NHS to choose the cheapest product.
After a competitive tendering exercise by procurement teams, Pfizer won the contract – which they must be delighted with as until now GSK had 60% of the adult market and AstraZeneca monopolised almost all the neonatal market in Spain, France, Luxembourg, Ireland, Parts of Australia and Chile – where the maternal vaccine doesn’t get a look in.
This is Brexit for RSV. UK stands alone as the only nation where Beyfortus is not allowed. The only nation in the world where the only option, Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, will be administered to pregnant women early in pregnancy: “The ideal opportunity to offer vaccination would be at the 28-week antenatal contact,” according to our learned bureaucrats.
(Notwithstanding Pfizer’s American drug label which unambiguously states: “To avoid the potential risk of preterm birth with use of ABRYSVO before 32 weeks of gestation, administer ABRYSVO as indicated in pregnant individuals at 32 through 36 weeks gestational age.)
JCVI have abrogated their clinical responsibility.
GSK to pay Curevac £1.2bn for full rights to develop and commercialise mRNA vaccines
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/gsk-to-pay-curevac-1-2bn-for-full-rights-to-develop-and-commercialise-mrna-vaccines/ar-BB1pjKs4?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=2908afa70c7a4bc086ea4cf15d56bbf0&ei=14
GSK will assume full control of developing and manufacturing the candidate vaccines and will have worldwide rights to commercialise them.
© Provided by City AM
GSK and the biopharmaceutical firm Curevac have agreed to restructure their existing partnership in a €1.45bn (£1.2bn) deal that will see the former acquire rights to manufacture and commercialise vaccines mRNA vaccines globally.
Under the new agreement, which covers mRNA vaccines used in the treatment of influenze and Covid-19, German-based Curevac will receive a €400m (£338m) upfront payment and an additional €1.05bn (£900m) in development, regulatory and sales milestone fees.
GSK will assume full control of developing and manufacturing the candidate vaccines and will have worldwide rights to commercialise them.
“The agreement represents the latest step in GSK’s ongoing investment in vaccine platform technologies, matching the best platform to each pathogen to develop best-in-class vaccines,” the company said in a statement on the London Stock Exchange.
GSK and Curevac have worked together to develop mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases since 2020. The partnership has so far worked on candidates for seasonal influenze, Covid-19 and avian influenza.
Tony Wood, Chief Scientific Officer at GSK, said: “We are excited about our flu/COVID-19 programmes and the opportunity to develop best-in-class mRNA vaccines to change the standard of care.
“With this new agreement, we will apply GSK’s capabilities, partnerships and intellectual property to CureVac’s technology, to deliver these promising vaccines at pace.”
Headquartered in Tübingen in the South West of Germany, Curevac was the world’s first company to successfully harness mRNA for medical opportunities.
Alexander Zehnder, Chief Executive Officer at CureVac, said: “The collaboration with GSK has been instrumental in developing promising, late clinical-stage vaccine candidates, leveraging our proprietary mRNA platform.
“This new licensing agreement puts us in a strong financial position and enables us to focus on efforts in building a strong R&D pipeline.”
Still on the ‘Rolling-Ball’ …
‘seven-year research programme called Reduce’
Almost half of long-term antidepressant users ‘could quit with GP support’
UK researchers say study shows stopping use of the drugs is possible at scale without costly therapy
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/26/almost-half-of-antidepressant-users-could-quit-with-gp-support-study-finds
‘Almost half of long-term antidepressant users could stop taking the medication with GP support and access to internet or telephone helplines, a study suggests.’
Aye Peter
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7202413/I-hope-spared-hell-went-depression-pills-says-NHS-psychiatrist.html
The Ghost of Guardian continues …
DH: “It is about a loss of decency, and an astonishing nastiness toward the people we are supposedly helping, who have been harmed by what we do.”
Some feel-good news is that Dr Malcom Kendrick has just cleared the first hurdle in his Libel charge against the UK Mail on Sunday Newspaper and one of its journalists, Barney Calman.
The case relates to articles published in March 2019, which contained allegations that the claimants had made knowingly false statements about the cholesterol-lowering drug, statins, causing a large number of people not to take prescribed statin medication with the harm to public health that flows from this.
The main article was headed, “Deadly propaganda of the STATIN DENIERS,” and an editorial was published under the headline, “There is a special place in hell for the doctors who claim statins don’t work.” Now, that’s nasty.
“In preparing the articles Calman spoke to advocates for statins, including Rory Collins, a leading epidemiologist who has researched the drugs extensively.”
Read all about it
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2024/06/25/we-have-a-judgment-part-1/
A clue as to where this case might be leading: according to the judge:
“There is perhaps a palpable irony in the fact the Defendants, in articles that so roundly denounced those alleged to be the purveyors of misinformation, so seriously misinformed their own readers.”
‘US supreme court allows government to request removal of misinformation on social media.’
The Guardian caught PROPAGANDISING – AGAIN. Jay Bhattacharya was unforgiving on X:
‘The @guardian feeds its readers straight propaganda. The US gov’t coerced and threatened social media to remove even true information (e.g. on recovered immunity, vax injuries, etc.) that it did not like. “Request” and “misinformation” are straight lies. Also, the Sup. Ct. did not “allow” anything. It disagreed with the lower court’s evaluation of standing. It explicitly did not decide on the merits of the government’s blatant violation of the US First Amendment.’
https://x.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1806339701898637770
It’s not just their conspicuous lack of coverage of iatrogenesis, the Guardian culture feels very different these days. Some of the answer seems to lie in the business and financials.
As UK based readers will probably know, like most print media, The Guardian and sibling paper, The Observer, made huge losses for years, leading to a restructure of the whole business. The parent organisation flogged off all their UK regional operations, including original, brand heartland paper, The Manchester Evening News, and sunk that money into the Scott Trust, their independent source of funding, to ensure the Guardian’s survival. It broken even – eventually – in 2019.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/guardian-revenue-growth-2023-international-investment/
In a sense, though, it could be said that what they have done by disposing of their regional assets, is to sell off their heritage and fundamental values.
In its place, they have a glossy, mostly digital global brand with half of its readership ex-UK. What’s new to me, you may know, is that there is a US based ‘philanthropic arm’ to develop ‘funding relationships’. One of those ‘relationships’ is with The Gates Foundation. That probably puts the mockers on challenging vaccines too loudly. And I notice they have a subsidiary promotional video business – with one familiar client, Pfizer. As a general commercial principle, one can be gently critical of clients – but never trash them.
https://advertising.theguardian.com/us/labs/projects/elevate-pfizers-scientific-innovation-via-powerful-video-storytelling
Bottom line – the Guardian – aka the dear old Grauniad, as it was dubbed for its legendary typos, the staple of every self-respecting academic’s tatty briefcase and common room – seems to have SOLD ITS SOUL.
I expect, like most of us, I scan loads of different media including social, aiming off for their biases, hunting for something that feels authentic – or matches my own biases, I guess. I have recently discovered, quite unexpectedly, a fabulous little series called Mindset on Al Jazeera (part owned by the Qatari royals – mind you what isn’t?) . Mindset explores different country’s approaches to mental distress, including Iceland, of particular interest as the leading consumer of antidepressants in the world. I’ll add a comment about it to Rxisk, since it’s a better fit there. But for anyone who wants to watch https://www.aljazeera.com/program/mindset/
Intended for healthcare professionals
US Supreme Court strikes down Sackler family’s immunity, casting Purdue opioid settlement into doubt
BMJ 2024; 386 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1469 (Published 03 July 2024)
A $9bn legal settlement agreed between Purdue Pharma, the drug company whose misleading marketing helped to trigger the US opioid epidemic, and more than 600 states, cities, and native tribes will have to be renegotiated after the US Supreme Court struck down clauses that would have protected Purdue’s owners, the Sackler family, from litigation by opioid victims who had not accepted the settlement …….
AND
BMJ Investigation
Revolving door: You are free to influence us “behind the scenes,” FDA tells staff leaving for industry jobs
BMJ 2024; 386 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1418 (Published 01 July 2024)
Peter Doshi, senior editor
pdoshi@bmj.com
Internal emails show that the US Food and Drug Administration informs employees leaving for industry jobs that, despite restrictions on post-employment lobbying, they are still permitted to influence the agency. Peter Doshi report…
AND
The patients bringing lived experience to research teams
BMJ 2024; 386 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1406 (Published 03 July 2024)
eva.amsen@gmail.com
Patients are increasingly acting as co-leads on research projects, but the infrastructure to support these collaborations is still in its infancy. Eva Amsen reports
In 2015, when the Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit launched its Patient Led Research Hub (PLRH) it noticed that patients were interested in research topics that weren’t covered by most published studies.
A similar discrepancy had come up in the Netherlands in 2006, when the Dutch Burns Foundation invited patients to help set their research agenda.1 It learnt that this group’s main concern was itching, which wasn’t a research priority at that time.
Many organisations and patient groups around the world, including PLRH and ZonMW, are now creating better ways for patients and researchers to collaborate.
“Patient led” now means that research is driven by patients or by people with lived experience. This might be in consulting roles or as co-researchers. It goes further than merely encouraging researchers to incorporate patient and public involvement
Funders that ask for PPI plans include Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the UK’s National Institute for Health Research, the National Institutes of Health in the US,
While asking funding applicants about their PPI plans encourages researchers to think about patient involvement in the early stages, there is often very little follow-up2 and no guarantee that researchers will actually involve patients. “It’s often seen as a box ticking exercise and we want to change that,” says Steenhuisen. “Although funders say they want a PPI plan or evidence of PPI, it’s still very tokenistic,” agrees Cowley.
Patient groups are becoming research partners
says Cohen. “When patients and other people with relevant lived experiences are involved in research, it makes the research stronger.”
Meanwhile, the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) Evidence Alliance in Canada routinely includes patient partners in knowledge synthesis projects, but has recently also selected several new research topics that were submitted by patients or community members who are co-leading their chosen project with a research team.
. Paying patients for their involvement may affect any government benefits they are receiving. That’s why some organisations give patients the choice between remuneration or gift cards, for example.
“We try to find different options to pay people for their time, and we ask what their preference is,” says Andrea Tricco, principal investigator for the SPOR Evidence Alliance and scientist at St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto.
Problems also arise when patients are co-applicants on grant proposals, because existing funding systems aren’t set up for applicants without institutional affiliations. “When patient partners apply as co-applicants, they need to submit an academic CV, which is just not appropriate,” says Cowley of UK funding systems. “And there’s no box for PPI. If you don’t have a medical background, you select ‘other.’ It’s such an unwelcoming first interaction for a patient.”
The situation in Canada is similar. “Right now, patients can’t necessarily hold funding unless they’re part of a formal affiliation or group,” says Tricco. “But I do know that that’s something CIHR is looking into.”
Another roadblock to further implementation of patient led research is that the research community is only gradually becoming aware of how it can collaborate with patients. “It has to become more normalised,” says Steenhuisen. “Why would you do research without involving the people that the research is about?”
“Unfortunately, a lot of research groups are still new to the idea of partnering with a patient or having patients involved at all,”
That was one of the reasons Lewis made everything openly available through the OpenAPS project, where anyone can download the software they need to run the system on either a small hardware device or through an Android phone. Even now that commercial closed loop systems are available, thousands of people are still using OpenAPS because it’s more accessible and affordable.
It’s a learning process for everyone and the next few years will likely see further progress. Cowley is optimistic, and says, “In general, people are much more aware and are at least having conversations around the challenges of patient led research.”
Read recently The Sackler Foundation is still funding but not naming who is taking the money. Also The Courtauld Gallery took the Sackler name down and put up The Denise Coates (bet365) or should we say 365 days to help you get addicted to gambling and make Denise a billionaire Gallery.
Dr Clare Craig
@ClareCraigPath
·
Jul 3
Please sign @TheHopeAccord Supporting the restoration of medical ethics and a re-evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine safety.
https://thehopeaccord.org/
‘We need an ethical statement out there that doctors can get behind and say we need to return to foundational, ethical, medical principles’
Dr @ClareCraigPath is calling for investigations into Covid-19 therapies.
https://x.com/ClareCraigPath/status/1808631637044785320
(Honest/Ethical/Safe Dr) David Cartland reposted
Dr Naomi Wolf@naomirwolf
Oh dear Lord please close this portal to Hell
NIH@NIHFeb 14
News: COVID-19 vaccination and boosting during pregnancy protects infants for six months
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/covid-19-vaccination-boosting-during-pregnancy-protects-infants-six-months
Minister of State (Minister for Science)
https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state-minister-for-science
Current role holder
Sir Patrick Vallance
Sir Patrick Vallance FRS FMedSci FRCP HonFREng was appointed Minister of State (Minister for Science) on 5 July 2024.
He was previously Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) from April 2018 to April 2023. He was also National Technology Adviser (NTA) and Head of the Government Science and Engineering (GSE) Profession.
Patrick was President, R&D at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) from 2012 until 2017. Prior to this, he was Senior Vice President, Medicines Discovery and Development. He joined the company in May 2006 as Head of Drug Discovery. He was a member of the GSK Board and the Corporate Executive Team. During his period as head of R&D, many new medicines were approved for use worldwide, for diseases ranging from cancer and rare diseases in children, to asthma and HIV.
Prior to joining GSK, he was a clinical academic, Professor of Medicine and led the Division of Medicine at UCL. He has many years’ experience of basic science and clinical research, and was a consultant physician in the NHS. His research spanned from work on medicinal chemistry and structural biology, through to cellular work, studies in humans and use of large electronic health record databases.
He was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999 and to the Royal Society in 2017. He was on the Board of the UK Office for Strategic Co-ordination of Health Research (OSCHR) from 2009 to 2016. He is an Honorary Fellow at UCL and holds honorary degrees from Imperial College London, Glasgow University, University of York and St George’s, University of London. He was a non-executive director and board member for UK Biobank and a non-executive board member for Genome Research Limited but stepped down in taking up the GCSA role.
More about this person
https://x.com/bobscartoons/status/1809328340358295999
He mentioned the World Health Organization’s push for the pandemic accord, a proposed agreement for countries to work together to prepare for pandemics, as one of the “steps in the right direction” that are being taken. “But I don’t think there’s enough focus,” he said. If this issue gets pushed off G7 and G20 agendas, “we’ll be in exactly the same position, and I hope that’s an important outcome of the inquiry”.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/25/another-pandemic-is-absolutely-inevitable-says-patrick-vallance-covid
“Just when you thought your flabber couldn’t get any more gasted” …
Lord Vallance…
Anger over appointment of ‘Dr Doom’ Sir Patrick Vallance as science minister by Sir Keir Starmer
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13607913/Anger-Sir-Patrick-Vallance-science-minister-Keir-Starmer.html
Before taking on the role of chief adviser in 2018, he was an academic and a consultant physician as well as the president of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline.
Tshtt…
A place in the Lords for the man who shot liberty: Vallance
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-lockdown-knight-from-science-chief-to-minister-of-controversy/
Best in Class- the man who shot liberty: Vallance …..
‘The best uncontaminated data’ …
By Professor Angus Dalgleish
July 11, 2024
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/systematic-suppression-of-the-truth-covid-vaccines-are-linked-to-cancer-and-death/
Cureus –
This paper and its reporting subsequently became the subject of aggressive attack by the news agency Reuters. As a result it has been withdrawn. Reuters is part of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) [sic] designed to suppress inconvenient facts – the present-day incarnation of Orwell’s 1984 Ministry of Truth. TNI is a collaboration of the world’s leading media companies founded by the BBC which includes European Broadcasting Union and NHK (Japan), key news agencies such as Associated Press and Reuters and largest technology companies such as Google, Meta and Microsoft. ‘Trusted News Initiative members work together to build audience trust and to find solutions to tackle challenges of disinformation,’ says the BBC of its pride and joy. ‘By including media organisations and social media platforms, it is the only forum in the world of its kind designed to take on disinformation in real time.’
Or putting it another way, a forum to suppress inconvenient facts immediately.
I have been shown and have read the record of the retraction – exchanges between Reuters, the editors of Cureus and the authors reported by The Defender here. It is an absolute disgrace that such censoring of hard data is still going on. It reveals and highlights the number of papers that have reported the truth and have then been bullied into retraction. The covid vaccines autopsies study in the Lancet which found 74 per cent of the deaths studied were caused by vaccine springs to mind. The study was removed within 24 hours. There are many others.
A team of US National Institutes of Health, Pharma and other paid liars must be scouring the literature and then basically blackmailing the editors and journals into withdrawing the truth. You may wonder why the book I edited, The Death of Science, was called by that name. You have the answer in this.
It is because of this persistent and near-immediate suppression plus the disingenuous theorising such as the Telegraph’s cancer report, that it is most important to bring to your attention …..
“From September, all pregnant women will be offered the RSV vaccination, providing infants with protection against the virus from birth. “
“ Vaccinations offer children the very best start in life. Quite simply, if children aren’t vaccinated, they’re not protected.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/new-rsv-vaccination-programme-approved-by-doh/ar-BB1qcFxa?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Press release
From:Department of Health and Social Care and Andrew Gwynne MP
Published
17 July 2024
National RSV vaccination programme announced
A national respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine programme protecting infants and elderly people will save lives in the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-rsv-vaccination-programme-announced
The UK will become the first country in the world to have a national programme that uses the same vaccine to protect both newborns and older adults against RSV.
The rollout, which will start from 1 September 2024 in England, includes a vaccine for pregnant women over 28 weeks to help protect their newborn babies, a routine programme for those over 75 and a one-off campaign for people aged 75 to 79. These are the groups at the greatest risk from RSV, based on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
The vaccine has been developed and produced by Pfizer.
‘Pfizer’s chief business and innovation officer Aamir Malik said earlier this year that surveys have suggested around two-thirds (65%) of women preferred to get the maternal vaccine versus having their infant treated with an antibody.’
MSD stakes claim to RSV prevention market for infants
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/msd-stakes-claim-rsv-prevention-market-infants
MSD has reported phase 2b/3 data with its clesrovimab antibody for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) preventions in infants, which could be a challenger to Sanofi and AstraZeneca’s fast-growing Beyfortus.
Clesrovimab (MK-1654) met its primary safety and efficacy endpoints in the study, including reducing medically attended lower respiratory infections (MALRI) caused by RSV through day 150 in healthy pre-term and full-term infants compared to placebo.
The company plans to file the data with global regulatory authorities, setting up a possible market challenge to Beyfortus (nirsevimab), which was first approved in Europe in 2022 as the first single-dose drug to protect newborns and infants from RSV.
Nearly all newborns get RSV and show symptoms akin to a mild version of the flu. In some cases, however, the infection reaches the lower tract, which can be much more serious. Approximately 1% to 3% of children under 12 months of age in the US are hospitalised each year due to RSV, according to figures from the American Academy of Paediatrics.
Only topline data from the study are available so far, and MSD – known as Merck & Co in the US and Canada – said it would present detailed data at a future medical congress.
“As a widespread illness globally, RSV is the leading cause of hospitalisation for healthy infants,” said Paula Annunziato, head of infectious diseases and vaccines at Merck Research Laboratories. “We are encouraged by these findings and look forward to working with regulators to provide a new option to help address the impact of RSV on infants and their families.”
MSD will have quite a challenge ahead of it as it tries to chase down Beyfortus, which made almost $600 million in its first full year on the market in 2023, even though it was only cleared for use in the US in the middle of that year and has been held back by manufacturing capacity constraints.
Sanofi and AZ have been working hard to lay in new production capacity for the drug and, while that is not due to come fully into play until next year, the two partners are still predicting Beyfortus sales breach the $1 billion threshold in 2024.
Take-up of the $495 one-shot drug has surpassed that seen with any other childhood interventions, including rotavirus and pneumococcal disease vaccines, with more than a third of newborns in the US receiving it last year.
MSD will likely have to show compelling data to slow down that momentum and carve out a space for itself in the market, unless it decides to compete on price.
An alternative to the antibody therapies is Pfizer’s RSV vaccine Abrysvo, which is approved for maternal immunisation to prevent disease in newborns and infants as well as for use in older adults aged 60 and above. Two other RSV vaccines – GSK’s Arexvy and Moderna’s mResvia – are approved for older adult use only.
Abrysvo made $890 million in sales last year, but it’s not clear what proportion of that came from maternal use. Pfizer’s chief business and innovation officer Aamir Malik said earlier this year that surveys have suggested around two-thirds (65%) of women preferred to get the maternal vaccine versus having their infant treated with an antibody.
All three RSV vaccines are facing reduced sales expectations after a US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention committee recommended routine shots only for the over-75s, restricting use in the 60-74 age bracket to people at risk of severe RSV, tightening its earlier position.
Challenging My Media to Disclose
Is Sir, Professor, Simon Wessely about to be skewered – and in a puff, your career can be gone…
NHS treatment for ME patients to be examined
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/nhs-treatment-for-me-patients-to-be-examined/ar-BB1qhLYW?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f60a0b8b178847d0b053495ebc8fb881&ei=43
“One of the things that has always puzzled me is why so many doctors are wedded to the idea that ME is not a real illness, that it’s all in the patients’ head,” Mr O’Neill continued.
recovery&renewal reposted
The Times and The Sunday Times@thetimesJul 18
A faulty cell function in veterans suffering from “Gulf War syndrome” is likely to be caused by intense exposure to hazardous biological and chemical agents during the war, scientists have found in a “world-first discovery”
https://archive.ph/pAAd8
Will BBC R4 Today, get him on the programme, which is where he was bolstered – the blind leading the blind…
Going a Pace…
The GP felt attending the hearing would “trigger a mental health breakdown” and Dr Shenton’s own GP said she was suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, the coroner said.
“This case was urgent then and it is very urgent now.”
Woman died after begging GP for help – inquest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2q03ppzzz0o
Father of woman, 27, who died after being ‘left bedridden and unable to move due to ME’ claims NHS has ‘absolutely no specialist service’ for the condition
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13661199/Father-woman-left-bedridden-unable-just-months-died-blasts-NHS-poor-treatment.html
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday: ‘I think that there’s a lack of specialist provision for care for severe ME.
‘We know from admissions, very constructive admissions that the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital has made, that there is absolutely no specialist service for people with severe ME anywhere in the NHS. There’s no guidance for severe ME, no drugs, no treatment, no, just no.’
ME Association
Guardian Article
Video
Further Media Coverage
https://meassociation.org.uk/2024/07/the-guardian-devon-woman-with-me-asked-gp-to-help-her-get-enough-food-to-live-inquest-hears/
‘According to medical notes, by July she was unable to read, watch TV or engage in conversations, having spent the majority of her time horizontal. She was only getting out of bed to use the toilet.
This horrific state of affairs can also be the result of severe antidepressant withdrawal.
Simon Wessely@WesselySJul 17
‘the sunshine of Twitter’ …
Robert Howard@ProfRobHoward5h
His is a very sad story and I am sorry about his illness, his difficulties at work before he retired and with medications. But nothing excuses his aggressive harassment of colleagues and the lengths he goes with his silly website, making trouble with the GMC, our employers, etc.
Robert Howard@ProfRobHoward
Dr Gordon claims not to be on Twitter (although he has an uncanny gift for seeing everything his victims post) so his misleading commentaries on colleagues aren’t subject to such quality checks and controls. Ironically, he operates in the shadows, shunning the sunshine of Twitter
Wessely, Appleby, Howard –
Peter Gordon –
Speaks for all; a violent death from Paroxetine, in particular, is something they ridicule, have no understanding of, and diminish wholeheartedly –
Let’s prefer the Press:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7202413/I-hope-spared-hell-went-depression-pills-says-NHS-psychiatrist.html
Not their Press –
The odious onslaught on Peter, particularly, from Simon Wessely, makes Peter a Champion; if they carry on like this; who are in the ‘shadows’ ?
It takes unique courage and self sacrifice to speak truth to power.
“Making trouble with the GMC” —. Really?
GMC: Good Medical Practice. (Reads as follows): –
Important
“If patients are. or may be, at risk of death or serious harm, don’t delay. Act as best you can to make the situation safe and report your concerns immediately”
(This guidance is highlighted in a green box).
“Organisations who can support you”.
“Support from the GMC”.
Katinka Steals the Show…
recovery&renewal@recover2renew7h
Stolen Lives Picnic on Prescribed Harm Awareness Day – July 29th 2024 https://madintheuk.com/2024/07/prescribed-drug-harm/… via @MITUKTeam
https://x.com/recover2renew/status/1818762605219266912
Stolen Lives Picnic on Prescribed Harm Awareness Day – July 29th 2024
https://www.madintheuk.com/2024/07/prescribed-drug-harm/
This event was organised by ‘Antidepressant Risks’ in memory of those who have been lost as a direct result of taking antidepressants and other prescribed drugs which have the propensity to induce suicide. Amongst those of us who attended this very sunny day in Hyde Park, there were parents who despite their unimaginably painful grief at the untimely death of their children, continue to campaign for change.
Media happy to disclose as the NHS think Tanks roll into action.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vaccine-update-issue-347-july-2024-rsv-special/vaccine-update-issue-347-july-2024-rsv-special
“RSV has been described as “maybe the most common virus you have never heard of” by GP and journalist Dr Mark Porter.”
and
“So, it is fantastic to be introducing life-saving RSV vaccines to the routine immunisation schedule:”
Market not looking particularly buoyant for RSV Seniors’ Vaccines – reduced by 44%.
Not so rosy – (link from BioSpace)
RSV Vaccines – Maternal/Pediatric
Real-world data on vaccine safety and effectiveness were discussed at ACIP for the first time after a maternal vaccine and a long-acting monoclonal antibody to protect infants from RSV were launched for the 2023-2024 season.
CDC continues to recommend RSV immunizations to protect all babies from severe RSV.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/s-0627-immunization-practices-meeting.html
RSV Vaccine Makers Hit Hard by New CDC Guidelines
https://www.biospace.com/business/rsv-vaccine-makers-hit-hard-by-new-cdc-guidelines
GSK, Moderna and Pfizer are all looking at potential respiratory syncytial virus vaccine sales slumps thanks to recently updated CDC guidelines regarding the use of RSV shots in seniors.
This was a decidedly bad week for vaccine makers, not just for those in the COVID-19 business but for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and other vaccines as well. GSK, Moderna and Pfizer all reported disappointing second-quarter earnings this week. Moderna was by far the hardest hit, cutting its full-year 2024 revenue guidance from $4 billion to a range of $3 billion to $3.5 billion, citing lower Q2 sales in Europe for both its COVID-19 and RSV vaccines. Investors were not happy, and Moderna’s stock price dropped 20%.
The dynamic at work for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is plain to see as the market continues to transition to an endemic environment with lower than expected vaccination rates. However, the RSV vaccine market is an entirely different animal. Moderna’s mResvia, approved by the FDA in late May, is the company’s second-ever product and the third RSV vaccine to enter the market behind shots developed by GSK and Pfizer.
Jefferies analysts in a Thursday note to investors said Moderna’s management “walked back confidence” for RSV and now anticipate a “slower ramp due to competition and fewer contracts,” adding that the company expects “modest” revenues this year.
Moderna desperately needs another revenue source as COVID-19 demand continues to wane. At the same time, Pfizer’s RSV vaccine Abrysvo is moving in the wrong direction as it generated sales of $56 million in Q2, compared to $145 million in the previous quarter. GSK is the clear RSV market leader with its Arexvy shot but the company’s shingles vaccine Shingrix disappointed in Q2, posting a surprise year-over-year 5.5% decline.
Still among the big news this week: GSK was forced to lower its 2024 outlook for its vaccines business after revenue from Arexvy missed expectations, due in part to updated CDC guidelines regarding the use of RSV shots in seniors. The company now expects its vaccines revenue to grow by a low- to mid-single-digit percentage this year, down from its previous guidance of a high-single-digit to low-double-digit percentage.
The problem for all three companies when it comes to RSV is that in late June, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) reviewed data on the RSV vaccines from GSK, Moderna and Pfizer, passing a unanimous motion recommending a single dose of RSV vaccine for adults aged 75 and older as well as for those who are 60 to 74 years old with an increased risk of severe RSV.
Last week, data and analytics company Airfinity slashed its sales projections by 64% for RSV vaccines for older adults in the U.S., from $4.7 billion annually to $1.7 billion by 2030. The firm blamed the drastic reduction on the ACIP’s recommendation that the vaccines be offered only as a single lifetime dose for older adults.
According to Airfinity, prior to the new ACIP recommendations, everyone aged 60 and older was offered the RSV vaccine in the U.S. However, with the guidelines narrowed to all those over 75 years of age and individuals deemed to be at high risk over 60, the firm contends the estimated eligible population has been reduced by 44%.
“The ACIP recommendations will likely stunt revenue growth in the U.S. market unless new data can support the benefit of booster shots,” Airfinity’s RSV lead Isabella Huettner said in a statement. While the global RSV rollout will offer additional revenue opportunities for GSK, Moderna and Pfizer, she noted that “the trend appears to be for a single lifetime vaccine recommendation for those over 75 year olds, as was recently confirmed by the UK.”
GSK, Moderna and Pfizer are all looking at a potential RSV vaccine sales slump, thanks to the CDC. Making matters worse, the ACIP delayed its anticipated recommendation for high risk 50- to 59-year-olds. For GSK, Airfinity estimates that the delay in the ACIP recommendation amounts to approximately $300 million in lost revenue this year.
Speaking with media on Wednesday, GSK CEO Emma Walmsley called the decision “surprising” and said the company would share additional data with U.S. agencies by the end of this year. For now, market share estimates remain up in the air.
Looks like the bird flu stuff is ramping up:
https://thl.fi/en/-/avian-influenza-vaccinations-begin-vaccine-to-be-offered-to-persons-at-increased-risk-of-infection
Also visited a few large ponds full of ducks today there are now notices up telling visitors not to feed them due to H5N1 in the local bird population.
Worth considering a recent Sasha Latypova substack post:
Samsung Biologics – $1B contract from a secret buyer to run until 2030.
“On June 27, Samsung Biologics, based in South Korea, signed a manufacturing contract worth $1 billion with an unnamed “large” US pharmaceutical company, making this at least the fourth major contract the manufacturer has signed this year.
The new contract is massive – it accounts for nearly 40% of Samsung Bio’s total sales for 2023, which was about $2.8 billion. To add further context, the company’s 2023 revenue was already considered “exceptional” as it was one of the few contract manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) that was able to report gains despite last year’s biopharma downturn.
The contract with an unnamed large US company is running until the end of 2030. The company and the type of manufacturing involved are undisclosed due to “business confidentiality.” This is interesting.”
Scot Gov Health@scotgovhealth
First Minister @JohnSwinneywill highlight the importance of a new maternal vaccine in protecting infants from serious lung disease at a clinic visit later today.
@ScotGov
invested £4.2 million in supply of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine https://bit.ly/RSV_VACCINE
Protecting infants from severe lung disease
Published
12 August 2024
https://www.gov.scot/news/protecting-infants-from-severe-lung-disease/
First Minister welcomes start of new vaccination programme.
First Minister John Swinney will highlight the importance of a new maternal vaccine in protecting infants from serious lung disease at a visit to a clinic in Clydebank.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the leading cause of emergency respiratory admissions to hospital in infants. The common and highly infectious virus affects the breathing system and generally causes mild symptoms, but can lead to severe illness in babies and the more vulnerable, including older people.
The First Minister will see some of the first jabs administered in an immunisation programme to protect infants and those aged 75-79, which will prevent hospital admissions every year.
The Scottish Government has invested £4.2 million in the supply of the vaccine and Scotland is the first of the four nations to administer the vaccines, acting on expert scientific advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
First Minister John Swinney said:
“I encourage pregnant women to take up their vaccination appointments to protect their babies against the leading cause of hospitalisation in infants during the first weeks and months of life.
“Ensuring a healthy childhood is every parent’s first priority, however, it is equally important that those aged 75-79 take up their offer of this vaccine.
“We have acted quickly with partners to introduce this vaccine in time to maximise the benefit to the more vulnerable ahead of winter. This programme will reduce the numbers seriously ill or hospitalised, helping to manage the significant winter pressures on our NHS.”
Head of Immunisation and Vaccination at Public Health Scotland Dr Sam Ghebrehewet said:
“Vaccinations have played a major role in protecting the health of people across the globe over the last 50 years. Today’s launch of the new RSV vaccination programme marks another significant step in protecting the population of Scotland against preventable diseases.
“RSV can be very serious for those who are more vulnerable, such as newborns, infants and older adults. If you are eligible, getting vaccinated is the best and simplest thing you can do to protect yourself or your newborn baby from RSV.
“Public Health Scotland continues to work closely with all health boards to ensure as many people as possible receive their vaccine and protect themselves against the more serious complications of an RSV infection.”
Background
RSV vaccine during pregnancy | NHS inform
RSV vaccine for adults | NHS inform
Doses are being offered to women from 28 weeks into their pregnancies, to protect newborns, as well as those aged 75 and a one-off catch up for those aged 75 to 79.
In 2022-23, more than 500 people aged 75 and over and more than 1,500 infants under the age of one were hospitalised with RSV, according to Public
Health Scotland.
The Scottish Government funded the supply of vaccines, which Public Health Scotland and health boards are delivering from within existing resources. The RSV programme is in addition to other vaccines that will be offered this winter, such as flu, Covid-19 and pneumococcal.