I was asked by Shepherd Books to list my 3 favorite books for 2023.
My list is Here – Freeing Teresa came top, followed by Wonder Drug and Escape from Model Land.
The overall Shepherd Best Books for 2023 List Is Here.
Freeing Teresa is different to anything else. It’s uplifting as well as dramatic. In 2024, the world desperately needs more of us to follow the lead Teresa Franke and Bill have set.
Wonder Drug in contrast is reminder of just how bad things can get.
Escape from Model Land is technical but covers a real life issue – the judgement calls we make rather than the models we appeal to shape our lives and living our life or even living a real life means making our judgements. Nowhere is this more true than in health, where models have had a disastrous influence.
Reviews of Freeing Teresa
These reviews have appeared on the web. I’ve left in the names of people I know who I’m sure will be happy to have their names noted.
Courageous journey of a couple facing a family crisis handling the best choice for a disabled loved one
Canadian author/artist and environmental activist Franke James was brought up in a loving supportive family with her five other siblings. Her youngest sister, Teresa, born with Down syndrome, lived her entire life with the abundant support of her progressive parents. Life changes when her mother passes, and she is then in the care of her aging father. What ensues is a heart-wrenching power struggle among the siblings to determine where Teresa will live. Franke draws on her activist training and documents each step in finding the best situation for her sister, in the face of painful confrontations with her siblings. The story illuminates the current climate towards those with intellectual disabilities and charts a path worth exploring.
An inspiring record of activism meets ableism
Franke James’s writing and way with words are stunning. I was hooked from the heart. A jubilant and tumultuous record of joy, heartbreak, family betrayal, pissing off government, art, activism and ableism.
Having somebody with special needs in my family truly made this ring true, and I can’t recommend it enough.
A beautiful read
Fighting for Independence
In Freeing Teresa, Franke James describes the great lengths she goes to keep her forty-nine-year-old sister, Teresa, who has Down’s syndrome, from spending the rest of her life in a nursing home. With fierce honesty, Ms. James details the bitter struggle that ensues between herself, her husband, her aging father, and Teresa on one side and her four siblings and their spouses on the other. It is a struggle of one vision of individuals with intellectual disabilities living independently in the community with supports against an archaic view that sees them as helpless and unable to be trusted in making their own decisions. The book is a powerfully written and intimate account of an unresolvable family conflict over the best future for one of their own, a must-read for friends, family and supporters of individuals with intellectual disabilities.
I am a fan of Teresa, Franke and Bill!
Yoko
Bill wears glasses bigger than his sharp face, sings the song of a strange(!) title, makes vivid collage artworks, and has a trustworthy attitude. Bill is a really nice person. So it was Bill who I was interested in this book for the first time.
Then through it, I am now a fan of his wife Franke and his sister-in-law Teresa. The book is full of issues that concern everyone but they just face all the joys and difficulties in such a natural way. I wish I could be a member of the family.
I recommend everyone read it
Everyone Should be Franke James
Jim Gottstein
Franke James lives by and stands up for her principles. Freeing Teresa is a beautiful story of a sister’s love and standing up for what is right. It also exposes the ugly underbelly of mistreatment of the mentally disabled, in this instance Teresa who has Down Syndrome. Even though one knows at the beginning that Teresa is freed, the story, particularly at the end is riveting, and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next; how did they get out of this, how did they get out of that.
A Quarrel That Tore a Family Apart
Patrick D Hahn
Franke James is an artist and activist. Her sister Theresa Heartchild was born with Down’s syndrome but still managed to have a good life. But all this was imperiled when she reached the end of her forties, and the father who had cared for her all her life reached his nineties. Franke’s brother and sisters wanted to put Theresa in a nursing home, where, in James’s words, she would be literally “bored to death.” Initially, none of the siblings (Franke included) was prepared to take in Theresa for the rest of her life, and all of them were well aware of tales of neglect and abuse in state-run care homes, but only Franke was determined to find a better alternative.
Author James is careful not to demonize her now-estranged brother and sisters, who for most of the book come across as decent human beings trying to do the right thing in a situation where there are no good choices. But events take a sinister turn when Franke and her husband generously offer to take in Theresa for the rest of her life – and incidentally endangering their brother’s and sisters’ inheritance.
This is a poignant story of a quarrel that tore a family apart, but there is a wider message here. The elephant in the room is a care industry that has less to do with providing care for society’s most vulnerable members and more to do with maximizing profits for the pharmaceutical industry. What if we took ninety-five percent of the money we spend on polydrugging the residents of these places and used it to hire more attendants and pay them more? Would placing a loved in in a care home still seem like such a dire choice?
A Story of Persevering for What Is Right
Finding Teresa is a powerful account of helping people who experience disability to lead good lives and supporting them to advocate for themselves. It reminds us all to think in a way that assumes people are capable of more and act in ways that create the conditions for that capability to flourish.
The way the story is written makes you feel as if you were there, experiencing the mounting conflict, the family dynamics, the 11th-hour desperation, and the resolution that the reader hoped for all along. It’s hard to read about the impact these events have on a whole family, yet in the end one can easily understand that it was the right decision for Teresa.
For anyone who wants to learn more about activism, self-advocacy, rights, supporting people who experience disability, or just to read a story about what is possible with a commitment to an ideal and perseverance in achieving it, read this book.
A gripping true story combating ableism
Freeing Teresa is a story that truly grips your heart. The book’s writing style fully engages the reader causing an instinctive reaction of compassion and empathy for the people who lived out this true story.
Furthermore, this story describes, by telling of one’s lived experience, what ableism looked like for her. The world is full of ableism and deception, but this story is a testament that proper respect and truth will win!
Incredible!
Amazing book filled with heartache, strength, love, family and advocacy. If you are interested in reading about a journey that showcases some of the harsh realities of how people with disabilities are treated within the community and how we can advocate for better education and care, I highly recommend this book. It is beautiful to see how Teresa, Franke and Bill all stayed together and built a beautiful life in the face of injustice.
A timely and important story
This compelling family saga elegantly mirrors broader questions of self-determination, autonomy, and the rights of disabled and vulnerable people to control their own destinies. Disabled people in Canada and elsewhere may have full human rights on paper. The reality, as James eloquently demonstrates, is often more complicated and disturbing. Without spoiling the ending too much, it’s safe to say that this remarkable book is first and foremost an uplifting success story, a testament to the healing and liberatory power of love.
“Freeing Teresa” could be summed up in this quote by Thomas Merton: “Love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil but by resisting and overcoming it anew every day.”
A heart-wrenching and riveting read
A heart-wrenching and riveting read. It is difficult to read the unfolding of this story and the unravelling of a family. The story ends, and we are left asking for more. A great read.
A very brave book
This is a very brave book. It reveals a catastrophic breakdown in family relations when the youngest sibling of a well-to-do Toronto family needs a safe and loving home, a place where her specific needs as a functioning Down Syndrome adult can be met, a place where she can thrive. When her father approaches the end of his life, he believes that all will be well, but before that day he wants her to either stay with him or with one of her brothers or sisters. Franke and Bill are shocked to find out that there is a plan to put her sister Teresa in a nursing home, and that, more or less is where things begin in this book. It is the story of Teresa and of Franke’s determination and capacity to respond to her siblings and protect Teresa.
It’s really compelling story, and beautifully told. I learned a lot about how easily a person’s rights can be taken away, and how, even people with privilege and money, will ‘use the system’ to throw a family member in an institution where their ability to thrive and to live their own life will be quickly compromised.
This is the first part of a longer saga about Teresa’s journey to becoming an artist, and to living the life that her parents set in motion when she was a small child — someone who is not treated as “disabled”, someone who can speak for herself.
There is more below but first Teresa has just made the Community Living cover. The inside story is here: Teresa Finds a Home :
Here she is reacting to being in the news with word circulating on Instagram. Here is a video of her reactions : Teresa is wowed by the story about her in Community Living Magazine.
ADVANCE PRAISE for Freeing Teresa
“Gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring. This story will break your heart and then fill it up again.”
Catherine McKercher, author of Shut Away
“A gripping story about courage, love, and an unshakeable belief in human potential.”
Marty Seldman, Ph.D. author of Survival of the Savvy
“A courageous, personal account of fighting the system—and family—to free Teresa from forced care.”
Alanna Hendren, Executive Director, Developmental Disabilities Assoc.
“Full of insight, heartbreak and inspiration. This no-holds-barred story is a must-read for anyone who cares about disability rights.”
Karla Verschoor, Executive Director, Inclusion BC
“A must-read for anyone who cares about human dignity and equal rights. A truly amazing story.”
George Melnyk, Professor Emeritus, Communication, Media and Film, University of Calgary
“We chart the prevalence of injustice in numbers, but it’s stories like this that lead us to a deeper understanding of the magnitude of its impact on human lives.”
Gabrielle Peters, disabled writer, community activist
“Authentic, raw and riveting. It was an emotional rollercoaster—one that will be very real for many disabled people. At its core, it’s about hope for a better life and resilience.”
Isabel Mavrides-Calderon @Powerfullyissa, Disability Advocate
What a rip-roaring success for Teresa, the Heartchild; to whom Franke and Bill have put all their love, in to giving Teresa now every opportunity to allow her talents to flow.
The Book was written.
Let’s take another situation, where a tv series was made in four parts.
An almighty clamour ensued because people witnessed an historical fraud told in all it’s parts.
A similar situation happened with the first four Panorama programmes on Seroxat.
Except that it didn’t lead to a Government hastily led inquiry and possible immediate conclusion.
Who knew what, when and the other.
Of, course there should have been UK litigation; you can’t have a $3 Billion fine in the US for Paxil wrongdoing and not let it lean on UK Courts.
But, no, it all went under the radar.
The Seroxat Panorama programmes did not ruffle the feathers of the Government, and, in fact, A Prescription for Murder?, ruffled quite a few feathers of the psychiatric establishment.
Andrew Witty, Patrick Vallance picked up the knighthoods for Services to Science in Government.
Bill’s support for Teresa and Franke shows what a decent human being he is.
Bill of the Akathisia song, Bill of the achingly glorious artwork, which put more in to illustrations than any words could ever say.
https://www.billiamjames.com/
Franke’s book has hit a chord.
Freeing Teresa.
Without a tv mini-series.
So what do you think, are books the answer, or are the general populace steered more by popular tv, when so much is at stake at systematic fraud level?
Freeing…
It’s Health’s Illusions I Recall, I Really Don’t Know Health at All
By David Healy, MD & Harriet Vogt
January 9, 2024
https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/01/its-healths-illusions-i-recall-i-really-dont-know-health-at-all/
In 2001, a GSK paroxetine Assay in depressed children (Study 329), was published in the best journal in child psychopharmacology, trumpeting paroxetine’s benefits and safety. Doctors rushed to put children on Paxil.
In 2002, applying to the FDA to license Paxil as an antidepressant for children, GSK submitted 3 assays, one being Study 329, stating all 3 were negative. Agreeing the 3 Assays were negative, the FDA agreed to license Paxil for children and not to mention the negative assays in the Paxil label.
A few years later Erick Turner, ex-FDA, published a paper on antidepressant assays done in adults. Almost half of these were negative but like Study 329 many of these negative assays had been published as positive. If the FDA know a significant amount of the published medical literature is fraudulent, why don’t they say anything?
Valuable reference, thank you Annie,
Re ‘TV series in four parts’:
The panorama programs were courageous, exemplary documentaries which increased awareness of the potentially life-destroying adverse reactions (ADRs) to SSRIs and other psychotropic drugs.
It appeared to me that they were vociferously contested by Key/’Paid’? Opinion Leaders (KOLs)* and as a result, prescribers were powerfully influenced to maintain their belief that these drugs were safe and effective.
* (Academic Psychiatry’s ‘Republican Guard’?)
I believe that the public may relate to and empathise with a television drama series where such skilful actors could make real; make palpable, make nationally unacceptable, and make politically unacceptable: the absolute devastation of individuals and their families over years and decades caused by:
1) ADRs to these drugs.
2) The psychiatric misdiagnosis of these ADRs as ‘Serious Mental Illness.
3) Serial Incarceration, serial further misdiagnoses, and maltreatment of those with misdiagnosed ADRs.
4) The Emotional, Psychological ,Social Rejection, Economic, Multi-Systems Irreversible Injuries – (exacerbated by enforced, inappropriate and unnecessary psychotropic polypharmacy).
5) The loss of a child/adult-child/sibling’s joyous and enchanting company and companionship as a result of iatrogenic transformation of their thoughts, feelings, emotions and personality.
6) The understandable loss of all future trust in the medical/health care systems leading to justifiable dread of ever seeing a doctor; and the risk of further health detriment via rejection and disbelief that psychiatry/psychotropic drugs could be the cause of such overwhelming injury.
7) The refusal of those responsible to apologise.
8) The hopelessness of any possibility of financial compensation; especially needed when their aging parents are no longer here.
The above are believed to be hidden, unrecognised miscarriages of justice on a scale beyond belief.
For these families, the above is a life sentence without parole.
Really Great Comment, Tim
I am putting this article up, and then a rather lengthy scrutiny by Peter Gordon.
I felt it important to hone in on Simon Wessely, who in his usual obsequious way, does a highlight on Panorama and then goes full, praise, then denigrate, mode, and then a summary by Joel Kauffman
The uplift –
Drugs inquiry thrown into doubt over members’ links with manufacturers
Drugs inquiry links to makers
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Mon 17 Mar 2003
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/mar/17/mentalhealth.politics
The credibility of a government inquiry intended to settle the controversy surrounding widely prescribed anti-depressant drugs was thrown into question yesterday by revelations that most of the members have shareholdings or other links to the manufacturers.
The “intensive review” of the side effects of Seroxat, Prozac and other antidepressants of the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) class was announced in the House of Commons by health minister Hazel Blears in December last year. It was a response to mounting concern from large numbers of patients who say they have been unable to come off Seroxat because of severe withdrawal symptoms.
It is also looking at allegations that the SSRIs have caused a small number of people who were previously not in a severely depressed state to kill themselves. Last week a coroner in Wales called for Seroxat to be withdrawn pending an investigation after returning an open verdict on a retired headteacher who killed himself shortly after starting the drug.
But campaigners and patients say they are deeply unhappy with the membership of the review team, drawn from the committee on the safety of medicines, which is part of the Department of Health’s medicines control agency, and with one of the expert witnesses.
Two of the four CSM scientists, Michael Donaghy, a reader in clinical neurology from Oxford University, and David Nutt, professor of psychopharmacology at Bristol University, hold shares in GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturers of Seroxat. They have to leave the room when Seroxat is discussed, although they stay for debate on the SSRI drugs as a class.
Prof Nutt and the invited expert, David Baldwin, senior lecturer in psychiatry at Southampton University, jointly fronted the promotional press launch of Seroxat after it won a licence to be prescribed for social anxiety disorder and was popularly dubbed the “shyness pill”.
Charles Medawar, of the watchdog organisation Social Audit, is seeking a reference to the ombudsman over the composition of the review.
He is also unhappy with the choice of chairman. Angus Mackay, director of mental health services in Lomond and Argyle, Scotland, was one of the signatories to an influential paper produced by the CSM in 1996 which concluded that withdrawal symptoms from SSRIs are rare, “relatively mild and do not have features of a physical drug dependency syndrome”.
Mr Medawar said the review must be impartial and seen to be impartial. The Seroxat users group, which has 4,000 members who have experienced problems with the drug personally or through relatives, is equally concerned. “We’re not at all happy,” said Sarah Venn of the group.
Their Cardiff-based lawyer, Mark Harvey, said he was concerned that two of the review members had shareholdings in GSK. “The review could go two ways,” he said. “If it says the drug is beneficial, the share price goes up and you make a profit. If it says the drug is dreadful, the price goes down and you make a loss. I do not see any way at all that you can be expected to give an impartial judgment. This is absolutely unacceptable.”
Mr Harvey was also unhappy that the review has not undertaken to consider the first-hand evidence of patients on the side effects they say they have suffered – only the reports from their doctors will be considered – although it has invited representatives of the Seroxat users group to a meeting.
The medicines control agency and the committee on the safety of medicines have always maintained that it is sufficient for members to declare their interests in drug companies before meetings and to leave the room if they have personal interests such as shareholdings.
At the meeting of the review group on November 21, Prof Nutt and Dr Donaghy declared personal interests in GSK and left the room for two items on the agenda that dealt with Seroxat, although they remained for discussions on the SSRIs as a class of drug.
Dr Baldwin declared a personal interest in Lundbeck, manufacturers of the drug Citalopram. According to the minutes, however, he did not declare his connections with five other companies, including Seroxat manufacturers SmithKline Beecham, which is now GlaxoSmithKline.
Questioned by the Guardian, he said that although it was hard to remember the detail, he did declare participating in advisory boards for SmithKline Beecham, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Organon, and Pharmacia. His department had also been funded for studies by the same five companies and he had been paid by them for speaking at symposia to other doctors about the drugs. “I mentioned all this at the meeting,” he said.
A spokesman for the MCA said the minutes would not have omitted anything. “The minutes containing the declared interests would contain everything, including studies declared,” he said.
The MCA insists, however, that the system for preventing conflicts of interests works well. “All members of committees and associated working groups are professionals of the highest standing in their fields and there has never been any evidence that members have acted other than with the highest integrity,” it said.
From Peter Gordon
https://holeousia.com/in-the-world/a-sunshine-act-for-scotland/british-psychiatry-marketing-as-education/paid-opinion-leaders/
JAMA Editorial – Simon Wessely
“Panorama Team generated the largest audience response they had ever known”
“Depression is unequivocally and substantially associated with suicide and self-harm”
This full transparency helped Joel Kauffman consider the 2004 JAMA Editorial and this can be read in full here.
https://www.jpands.org/vol14no1/kauffman.pdf
A2004 editorial in by Simon Wessely, M.D., a spokesman for Eli Lilly, and Robert Kerwin, Ph.D, cited only a single paper by Healy as a source of claims of suicidality that have found a receptive media audience. Tellingly, the only study described at length is by Jick et al. on the correlation of SSRI use and “attempted suicide,” in which the rates on dothiepin, amitriptyline, fluoxetine and paroxetine were not statistically different.Actual suicides in this study (seven on SSRIs) were not mentioned byWessely and Kerwin, nor were the 143 suicides in Jick’s earlier paper. Jick et al. have been supported partially by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer. No study that reported actual suicides on SSRIs was described in detail, let alone refuted. Wessely and Kerwin wrote: “The problem is that depression is unequivocally and substantially associated with suicide and self-harm. ” True, but this not the whole truth.”
Perhaps such considerations led David Healy, M.D., an SSRI expert, to his conclusion that “…these drugs do not convincingly work….” His evidence came from early unpublished clinical trials whose results were revealed to him at FDA hearings. For fluoxetine, Healy noted four trials with a positive result and four without. For sertraline, only one of five early studies showed benefit. Because of the huge placebo effect, 32–75%, most physicians unfamiliar with the studies revealing this effect are likely, in my opinion, to say that one-third to two-thirds of their patients are improved on SSRIs. This would also explain Dr. Jay S. Cohen’s findings on lower doses of fluoxetine.
Which leads us back to, It’s Health’s Illusions I Recall…
guys would be great if we could focus on Freeing Teresa and perhaps Wonder Drug. The biggest deal at the moment is humanising CEOs – read the Deloitte reference – so you get Andrew Witty and Emer Cooke’s reading lists which creates trust.
Well I am copying them and giving you my reading list
David
Strong leaders should showcase their humanity by telling stories,
Deloitte Insights
Scientific experts are regularly featured on various media channels to help explain how the biology works and how to interpret clinical trial data. The major vaccine developers have also pledged not to profit from the vaccines—at least during the pandemic emergency—which may be helpful in improving consumers’ perception of the industry.
But one expert noted that the pandemic might stimulate much deeper and sustained interest in the clinical trial process and new technologies such as mRNA platform therapies, and that scientific experts—including those in the mass media—can help in breaking down scientific information for consumers.
Feature leaders—especially CEOs: People connect with other people, not with companies. Strong leaders should showcase their humanity by telling stories, share their personal reasons for working in the industry, and be vocal about the value their products bring to patients. Experts said that consumers haven’t historically heard strong stories or vision, or seen much of a presence from biopharma leaders and/or scientists—unlike those from big tech companies, for example—but that trend is beginning to change, particularly as consumers pay more attention to innovation in science.
Strong stories or vision
Freeing Teresa shows that people are not powerless against groups or systems. Franke shows the need to document everything, tread carefully, assemble a team. This book’s message will inspire you with its heart, empathy, and never-give-up spirit.
Or seen much of a presence
It is difficult to know whether we learnt anything from Thalidomide, other than the amazing spirit the children affected have since displayed.
Pay more attention to innovation
The title Escape from Model Land tells you she’s on our side rather than the side of the experts.
Box-office treats, telling stories, says it all…
I suspect David’s reading list was inspired by Emer Cooke’s publicity team who suggested she would have a more touchy-feely public profile if she shared her reading list and I guess her favorite recipes etc..
Emer Cooke is of course Executive Director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and has a delusion of grandeur if she believes anyone is in the slightest way interested in what she gets up to in her spare time.
It’s worth noting that the excellent book “Wonder Drug” David refers to is the one subtitled “The Hidden Victims of America’s Secret Thalidomide Scandal”.
David – please can we have a recipe?
Model Landing, Wonder Drugging, Freeing Teresa – for the foodies…
Offers a contemplative, densely encapsulated summary of her reflection and research . . . it’s up to us to learn from models without being drawn in by their seductive elegance, and to ensure that the lessons from Model Land find substantive expression where it actually matters: in our messy, material, magnificent world — Wall Street Journal
Interests and hobbies*
The UK’s chief scientific adviser loves good food, enjoys a Scandi drama – and has been called ‘the richest civil servant in history’
The man who dreamed of being a chef, who has a taste for Mimolette cheese and Scandi noir dramas, was unexpectedly in the spotlight.
When Vallance was a child his ambition was to be a palaeontologist or, as he put it in an interview with the British Medical Journal, a “dinosaur hunter”.
Then one night the head of research and development at GSK took him out for dinner. (Vallance is quite the foodie, and once said his fantasy last meal would be “langoustine in shellfish broth with peas; pigeon with figs; Saint-Marcellin and vieux Mimolette cheeses; and Seville oranges with caramelised sugar”.)
The R&D boss asked Vallance to join GSK as head of drug discovery
Asked what he would have become in a different life, Vallance said he would have been a chef. He listed his hobbies in Who’s Who as “mushrooming, gardening and playing tennis badly”.
He says he copes with the stress by taking the government’s advice to exercise regularly (he cycles to work) and curling up on the sofa with his wife to watch foreign TV dramas. Scandi hits such as The Bridge and Borgen were favourites, but the current boxset in the Vallance household is the knotty Parisian crime drama Spiral.
*He forgot his other hobby; writing a Secret Diary every day for his ‘mental health’, most of which has been allowed to stay under wraps. (a flour and water circle, filled with tasty morsels).
In April 2020, Witty took a one-year leave of absence from Optum to assist the World Health Organization in developing a vaccine for COVID-19.[24] In May 2020, he was appointed to the expert advisory group for the UK Government’s Vaccine Task Force, chaired by Patrick Vallance.
For ‘fun’ he runs marathons. On leaving as CEO GSK ‘I think I might take up farming.’
Shepherding in to Nordic Noir….
Ralph Edwards: RARE EVENTS: The Inside Story of a Worldwide Quest for Safer Medicines (Springer Biographies)
Read sample for free on Amazon and available on other outlets for those who can afford it
Ralph Edwards: RARE EVENTS: The Inside Story of a Worldwide Quest for Safer Medicines (Springer Biographies) Hardcover – 21 Jan. 2023
by Ian Hembrow (Author)
Medical treatments designed to help people can also be harmful or fatal. Around 2.5 million people die this way each year. So if any kind of medicine makes someone unwell, they or their doctor should report it. Those reports, from nearly every country in the world, go to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) in Sweden.
As the Centre’s first director, Professor Ivor Ralph Edwards transformed it from a tiny operation with limited horizons into an internationally acclaimed scientific organization at the heart of the World Health Organization’s Programme for International Drug Monitoring. He was then succeeded by his wife, Dr Marie Lindquist.
This is the story of how a new science developed and a passionate and dedicated pursuit of worldwide medicines safety, with an unerring focus on the welfare of patients. The pioneering work of Ralph, Marie and their collaborators on every continent protected the lives of millions of people. It may yet improve the lives of billions more.
(It would have been realy useful if a reference to his involvement with Rxisk had been included )
Review
‘To describe Ralph Edwards as a scientist, a doctor, a drug safety leader or an entrepreneur would be to undervalue the man. For he is all of these and more. This fascinating book reveals Ralph’s huge impact on the development and use of drugs, and how he built the Uppsala Monitoring Centre into the jewel in the crown of the World Health Organization’s Programme for International Drug Monitoring. It’s a colourful and compelling account of one man’s legacy delivered through his intelligence, determination, clarity of vision and an unfaltering passion for human health.’
Peter Arlett, Head of Pharmacovigilance and Epidemiology, European Medicines Agency
From the Back Cover
Medical treatments designed to help people can also be harmful or fatal. Around 2.5 million people die this way each year. So if any kind of medicine makes someone unwell, they or their doctor should report it. Those reports, from nearly every country in the world, go to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) in Sweden.
As the Centre’s first director, Professor Ivor Ralph Edwards transformed it from a tiny operation with limited horizons into an internationally acclaimed scientific organization at the heart of the World Health Organization’s
This is the story of how a new science developed and a passionate and dedicated pursuit of worldwide medicines safety, with an unerring focus on the welfare of patients. The pioneering work of Ralph, Marie and their collaborators on every continent protected the lives of millions of people. It may yet improve the lives of billions more.
I haven’t found any reference to his involvement with Rxisk which seems a golden opportunity missed It would have been useful for readers of the book to be directed to it -But I haven’t read the whole book and am not qualified to comment on the UMC
I think RxISK was too small a fish to include in this book
D
it is possible to add a ref to rxisk by making a review for free on Amazon if anybody is inclined. Just need to have made a purchase of anything at all for £40 or more.
Good idea but as you say expensive
David
Tip for those who don’t know.No need to buy the book(s) certainly not worth the cost of many of them. As long as customers of Amazon have spent £40 on anything at all it is possible to read the sample and make a review.