Harold Shipman was a doctor in Britain, who was arrested for murder in 1998. He turned out to be a true Angel of Death, the most prolific known serial killer, who killed it is thought between two and three hundred of his patients by prescribing opioids in large doses.
After his trial and conviction and jailing, he committed suicide in jail with no-one any the wiser as to why he had behaved the way he did.
His killing spree led to a change in medicine’s regulatory apparatus, ostensibly to ensure this couldn’t happen again. Boxes were put in place, and mandatory courses on a range of issues from consent to continuing education. All of this takes time away from seeing people. But if Shipman’s case held any lesson it is that he was assiduous at ticking the boxes that registration bodies like the General Medical Council in Britain put in place. The system probably makes a future Shipman more rather than less likely.
Short of doctors who have been struck off for proven cases of negligent care or abuse of patients, we might all on average be safer with doctors the regulator is having problems with, who for the most part are more keen on seeing patients than spending time ticking boxes, rather than with the doctors who are in good standing with the regulator. But what can the system do? We, the public, won’t let it do nothing.
While Shipman’s killing spree with opiods was unfolding, North America was sinking into a prescribed opioid epidemic that now accounts for 100 deaths per day, over 30,000 per year, over half a million since the epidemic began, perhaps the single greatest cause of death in America today.
The way in to the epidemic was laid during the 1980s with the marketing of Oxycontin by Purdue Pharma, supported by Abbott, and later Janssen pushing Fentanyl. There was an astute marketing of an idea – that people with real pain do not become addicted to opioids – a myth equivalent to the myth of lowered serotonin in depression. This was allied to new standards of care for pain management which hinged on RCTs, all of which demonstrated that opioids were effective – again exactly the same dynamic exploited by companies marketing SSRIs. The result was mass prescription of opioids by doctors, many whom felt trapped between clinical wisdom and the risk of being sued. But clinical wisdom never makes it into guidelines or standards of care, and since standards of care emerged in the 1980s managers sack doctors who don’t stick to the guidelines – or refer them to their registration body.
Prescription-only status is another part of the regulatory apparatus. It was introduced in America in 1914 in response to escalating concerns about one of the first opioids – heroin.
Purdue’s marketing of Oxycontin exploited this deftly. Companies and doctors were in the clear provided all prescriptions were for physical conditions causing pain. Patients and doctors on cue, to a background tune being piped by Purdue and Janssen, engaged in a dance about the management of pain. There were no problems for doctors prescribing for pain but if they had been prescribing the same drugs for addiction they would have been struck off.
Faced with the horrific consequences of this dance, FDA intervened in extraordinary fashion two years ago. In 2014, a century after the introduction of prescription-only status, FDA made a potent opioid, naloxone, available over the counter in US States who were willing to endorse this option. Given intravenously or nasally, naloxone can save lives by reversing the effects of an overdose by other opioids.
To murder is human. To mass murder needs a regulatory apparatus. We have no problem viewing Shipman as a murderer. But what about Purdue or Janssen? And what about the role of regulators from FDA to the GMC?
Fiddaman Blog
7 mins ·
@TheBMA – Making a mockery of @MHRAgovuk and @MHRAmedicines – #Embarrassment #Inexcusable
https://www.bma.org.uk/…/prescribed-drugs-dependence-and-wi…
https://www.bma.org.uk/collective-voice/policy-and-research/public-and-population-health/prescribed-drugs-dependence-and-withdrawal?imgdoctors
Great blog – gets right to the CRUX of the matter……
Murder or Accident? Surely it wouldn’t take a jury long to decide on this?
Jury’s Out? I think not ……. Murder MOST FOUL! It’s SO obvious, and all the evidence stands up, doesn’t it?
BUT, of course, silly me, no doubt the clutches of BigP corruption will reach out and do with the jurors just what it has done with: ‘regulatory’ bodies; medical ‘Key Opinion Leaders”; governments; media; medical profession (with just a few exceptions) and Mr Joe Public, himself – bribe and brainwash.
So, sadly, the verdict I predict is ‘Accident’
BUT I, for one, would love to be on that jury!
‘The system probably makes a future Shipman more, rather than less, likely’…. DH.
‘Suicide, when goaded into it by another, becomes murder’…..Chief Inspector Morse.
If a patient is manifesting akathisia from a medication, and suffers terrible withdrawal symptoms, but the doctor treating him denies the withdrawal symptoms are what they clearly are, and at the same time tells him he has caused his own pain etc, and is doomed to a life of hopelessness, so the patient commits suicide, is this murder? Allowing for the fact that the doctor has instructed the patient to stop Venlafaxine and Zopiclone immediately, with no mention of tailing off. And then if when the unsuspecting patient reports extreme anxiety and suicidal thoughts, he is told he is being uncooperative and believes he is indeed hopeless and confused, as he trusts the doctor, can we blame him for his demise? After the death, if the case is put to the GMC regulator, and they decide not to bother to interview the doctor, even though he has been reported to them due to another similar death on his watch before, is this good practice? Are both parties not implicated, one in driving a patient to their death, and one in covering up the crime.
A very handy way to cut down the numbers of mentally unwell patients on psychiatrists’ lists, surely perfect for box ticking, saving money, and pleasing managers.
APPG for Prescribed Drug Dependence joins BMA call for a national helpline
By admin on October 24, 2016 in News
http://prescribeddrug.org/appg-for-prescribed-drug-dependence-joins-bma-call-for-a-national-helpline/
The telephone…?
See your doctor…?
Panorama was deluged..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/2982797.stm
Panorama: Seroxat: E-mails from the edge, was broadcast on Sunday, 11 May 2003 at 22:15 BST on BBC One.
Dr Alistair Benbow says Seroxat is not addictive
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3012377.stm
May 2002, I was cold turkey……in two hospitals..
Not directly relevant to the acute problem with opioid addiction – but maybe does signal a slight shift in thinking amongst GPs around, in this case, polypharmacy. (I keep thinking about unsubscribing from Pulse because it’s mostly too depressing but then something like this comes along). It’s a blog piece on NICE’s recent guidelines on drugs for patients with multiple conditions. NNT is ‘number needed to treat’ with a drug to save one life over a year: the quote is re statins not opioids
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/views/blogs/copperfield/heres-an-nnt-for-your-thoughts/20033058.blog
“And guess what? For primary prevention with statins, we suffer these interactions and patients suffer this anxiety all for an NNT of – wait for it – 595.
And that’s why I fell off my chair. I repeat, we treat 595 patients for one year to prevent one death. Yes, 594 patients needlessly medicalised, pointlessly popping pills, having cholesterols, using up appointments and causing me unnecessary arseache. No wonder the NHS is burnt out, broke and batshit bonkers. This is, by any sane judgement, insane.
So thanks, NICE. I see what you mean in your multimorbidity guidance when you tell us to think about what we’re trying to achieve, and to rationalise treatment when we can. But how about we do that by preventing doctor-initiated multimorbidity in the first place? After all, it’s all about prevention, isn’t it?
Number needed to stop? All of us.”
Tucked away in the blog is a link to the guidelines – and a link to the database which gives the NNTs…a mass of info which I haven’t had time to look at properly. But if one GP, Copperfield, has fallen off his chair then maybe more will also topple over with shock
Beaten down by Pharma, I am left with no self-worth…Psychiatry is good at taking away people’s emotions and self esteem..they do it at a whim or a stroke of the pen as they question “How are your thoughts now on Doctors and Police”…Should I tell him the words that are to the forefront of my mind whilst I bow in my submissive State to the Pharma Invested cowboy before me…..Patient Whistleblowers are treated like terrorists just like all Whistleblowers in the HSE/NHS…I pray for someway out of this Albatross of Shame that is Pharma owned Psychiatry whilst GPs genuflect in silence to obey the Satanic Evil that has gripped Healthcare throughout our Lands.
Teri, I really like your description of ‘the situation’ – please, do not feel you are left with no self worth ….. you have summarised ‘things’ so well, you have a gift with words, for sure!
I too, pray that one day, one day, the Albatross around the neck will fall into the sea and the world will be aware of ‘the story’. Keep hopeful, One ‘n All ….. in time, things must change.
The Accident WILL BE re-defined as Murder.
Accident, or murder? On this one, I vote for murder. Especially after learning what the clinical trials DID show about OxyContin – but Purdue Pharma covered up.
In May, 20 years after OxyContin’s release, the LA Times broke a story that goes a long way to explain the disaster this drug unleashed on communities across the U.S.:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
The great selling point for OxyContin – both in terms of pain relief and patient safety – was Twelve-Hour Sustained Relief. Supposedly this would let patients go through the day and sleep through the night without their meds wearing off. Supposedly, also, patients on Oxy would be less vulnerable to addiction than those taking short-acting opioids.
Both were false. In fact, in a large percentage of users, OxyContin wears off hours early, making them more vulnerable to both drug cravings and uncontrolled pain. Far from being a safer opiate, OxyContin was (and is) a supersonic jet ride to addiction for many people.
Purdue knew about this before the drug even hit the market, but actively hid it from doctors and patients. As for the FDA? In order to label Oxy for 12-hour dosing, they required only one study showing the drug met that goal at least half the time. Purdue came up with one finagled study showing this result – and canned the rest. Meanwhile they continued to tell doctors that if OxyContin wasn’t controlling their patients’ pain, they should up the dose – NOT switch to more frequent dosing.
“You want a description of hell? I can give it to you,” said one woman prescribed OxyContin after a back injury … Maybe we should add a charge of Torture.
The second part of the LA Times investigation showed what Purdue knew – but kept to itself – about massive diversions of OxyContin from pharmacies and pain clinics onto the black market. It’s just as bad:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-oxycontin-part2/
My thoughts exactly Johanna – this is ‘torture’. ‘Murder’ implies an action with a quick result – doesn’t quite fit the bill here in my opinion. ‘Torture’ on the other hand implies a sustained, pre-planned, secretive onslaught – far nearer to the truths uncovered in this post and your comment.
Thinking of Dr. Harold Shipman; as stated, we will never know the answer to the question ‘Why?’ but I like to think that his conduct may have been out of concern for his elderly patients who may have been confiding in him their despair in dealing with the ‘pains of old age’. On the other hand, could he have been self-medicating to deal with his own work-related stresses and committed the offences whilst ‘under the influence’ of medications? Of course, in law, he was a murderer. In newspaper reports – a ‘monster’, despite many patients coming forward to praise him as a doctor. We will never know for sure – but it was the actions of one man, that much we do know.
Moving on to the ‘opioids’ problem – this seems to be a different case altogether. Not one man’s actions for whatever reason but the compilation of ideas, suggestions and wily ways of damaging thousands of unsuspecting people. Mass murder, planned torture, we can call it what we will – it won’t change the fact that one man’s shared idea became a nation’s curse.
Where do we then place ‘our struggle’? I can think of a couple of individuals whose work principles seem to be very much at odds with ‘do not harm’ – by verbal comments (pushing their patient to the limits of ‘feeling safe’ as an in-patient) suggesting that he was free to leave and carry out the command of his ‘voices’ and by the pushing of increased doses of medication but I stop short of seeing this as anything beyond an incident of possible use of bullying tactics. What then of pharma companies or parliament with their denials of the possibility of ‘harm’? These are planned denials, designed to deceive the public for their own personal/corporate gain. Surely this goes way beyond bullying? The violent suffering of thousands, including many suicides surely takes us to yet a different level. We hear of the many cases of ‘war crimes’ trials – of men who thought they were ‘beyond the wrath of men’ and untouchable, being brought to their knees many years later and paying the price for their wrongs. The description of ‘war crimes’ is often that a whole generation has been ‘wiped out’ or there has been ‘ethnic cleansing’. What can we say of the SSRI horrors, for example? – they have ‘wiped out’ many unsuspecting sections of our communities by leaving individuals unable to lead fulfilling, independent lives. They have also ‘cleared out’ a section of our society (by causing them to become mentally unstable/ commit suicide) which may not be comparable in numbers to a ‘war crime’ but most definitely has the same devastating effect on thousands of families.
Yes Johanna, torture – of those no longer with us, of those suffering life-long problems, of the families of all of these and I feel, the few professionals who have dedicated their lives – since realising the injustice – to getting the truth out into the open air for all to see and judge for themselves. The ‘case’ against these ‘wrongdoers’ is long over-due.
Britain’s’ David Healy on Opioids
https://www.madinamerica.com/
America’s John Oliver on Opioids
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=john+oliver++opioids&view=detail&mid=7E6C0745CF3B0BF878DD7E6C0745CF3B0BF878DD&FORM=VIRE
The 1% Addiction Rate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-oliver-opioid-crisis-statistic_us_580e2bd8e4b000d0b157993a
http://time.com/4542105/john-oliver-opioids-last-week-tonight/
I have always been puzzled about someone I know well who suffers endless strange reactions, like panic attacks, fatigue, sweating, and other weird symptoms. He gets a lot of backache. So does his sister, who lives in another county. She seems to have had, over years, (and still does) an endless supply of diazepam (Valium) and apparently has them purely for her back. She works outdoors with livestock. Anxiety or mental problems don’t seem to be in the frame. Her brother used to get Valium from his GP, for HIS back pain, and when recently they started refusing him more, his sister passed him some. He also has a high alcohol tolerance.
He has always (like for 20 years) suffered from insomnia, for which he has taken ‘Z’ category sleeping pills for almost as many years. He is a crop sprayer, by the way, and does tough physical outdoor work, self employed and uncomplaining. A tough sort of guy, who doesn’t like being fussed over. A ‘keep battling on’ sort of guy.
He’s reported the physical pain, which moves round his body, for years, to the GP. He’s been told he has IBS now. He tells me he thinks he must have depression cos they can’t seem to label him with anything else. But he functions with his work, he socialises, he does not hide away under a duvet, unable to get up. We were out in his car with him recently and his head kept involuntarily jerking down, forwards towards the wheel, and then sideways, like he was twisting his neck. I thought it was a nervous twitch, now I’m beginning to wonder…..no one mentioned it at the time, I almost wonder if he knows he does it.
He has now seen a psychiatrist (privately), who gave him a CBT therapist, and citalopram. He told the psychiatrist he still drinks, although he tries not to. She apparently said it ‘wasn’t a very good idea’ with the pills. But he says it helps the pain. So he carries on. The CBT he finds useless to him, and hardly engaged with it at all. He thinks it’s rubbish.
He was then referred to a very pleasant Pain Specialist. His verdict was, keep taking the Citalopram, it’s brilliant for pain.
Now, putting all these factors together, a picture of what maybe has for many years been causing his ‘mystery’ illnesses begins to form in my head. Was it all the years of Valium, for physical pain, plus the sleeping pills for insomnia, that eventually caused the panic attack type stuff, and led him to finally believe he has depression, when he doesn’t really look like he’s depressed. He hasn’t really got anything to be depressed about except the physical pain, which no one seems to understand. So far he seems ok on the citalopram some of the time, but then has awful bouts of the old symptoms every few weeks. He is trying to keep his work going, and he is frustrated by never being able to know why he feels so ill intermittently.
My point is – why are SSRIs and Valium offered for pain at all? Valium is a muscle relaxant, yes, but surely all the time its relaxing his back muscles, it is busy doing stuff to his mind? Why would it not be? I have tried suggesting these things but the standard reply is that doctors wouldn’t give them out if they were a problem, (SSRIs now for him) so, not to worry about him. I do worry. But what the doctors say, for him, is gospel. And they seem to be going round and round but maybe missing the obvious…..
A correct and crucial observation:
“to mass murder needs a regulatory apparatus.” Purdue and Janssen do not control regulatory apparatus, governments do. They determine whether physicians will be allowed to be completely self-regulating which, thanks to Dr Shipman, they no longer are in the U.K. But they are in Canada and the US, and mass murder with pain killers and antidepressants (and other drugs) continues apace. The mechanisms for protecting the physician status quo in Canada are Colleges (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc) who supposedly protect the public by ensuring their members comply with the rules for Regulated Health Professionals. Unfortunately the rules are way too lax and the Colleges interpret them to the benefit of their members at the expense of the public. The mechanism for protecting the public from unsafe drugs is Health Canada, and like the FDA their concern for public safety is “mitigated” by their mandate to assist industry, and by conflicts of interest.
What we have in the case of drug safety is a massive failure of regulation, and the finger of blame should be pointed at the government departments responsible for protecting citizen health. These departments should not be letting the Purdues and Janssens, or the Harold Shipmans, away with abusing the public for profit. It’s a failure of regulation and a failure of democracy.
Anonymous comment sent by email:
I’m so glad that this particular story is in the main stream media!
A colleague and I gave a talk to family docs this year and we discussed all of this, including the 1% risk of addiction myth in Letters to the Editor at NEJM. One Key Opinion Leader (KOL) is now acknowledging that he may have overstated the safety of opioids but maintains that they still have a role in chronic pain, see Dr Russell Portenoy here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324478304578173342657044604
He strikes a controversial chord with others involved in treating the outcomes of chronic pain killer addictions, like Dr A. Kolodny, see here: http://www.medpagetoday.com/painmanagement/painmanagement/47855
Other KOLs like Dr Jane Ballantyne, have made 180 degree turns regarding opioid use in chronic pain, this article is well worth the read: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/health/opioid-painkiller-prescriptions-pose-danger-without-oversight.html?_r=0
Challenging myths that have so much resources poured into them to maintain is very difficult. We were all taught that pain was the “fifth vital sign” by the American Pain Society (around the same time OxyContin approval occurred). You can see the sordid history, including how patient satisfaction scores may have a role in this epidemic, here: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/04/the-opioid-epidemic-its-time-to-place-blame-where-it-belongs.html
The US Docs probably had some scare put into them by the successful legal case brought against a doctor (Dr Chin) in 1998 who was charged for not treating pain adequately. Incidentally, the same time that the heavy marketing machine was revving up for Purdue. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jun/15/news/mn-10726
The appalling story about Purdue/Abbott’s role in this public health disaster is outlined nicely here:
https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/22/abbott-oxycontin-crusade/
There has been very vocal opposition from pain advocacy groups and physicians when British Columbia adopted the March 2016 CDC pain guidelines that discuss opioids are not effective and should not be used for chronic pain and that doses should not exceed 50 mg equivalents of morphine.
Pain BC is encouraging patients who have been affected by these new regulations to complain to the College! https://www.painbc.ca/news/howdothesenewopioidguidelinesaffectyou. Nothing strikes fear into physicians quite like a good old College complaint!
Although the evidence of harm is abundantly clearly (lack of efficacy in chronic pain, massive overdose deaths, lives in ruin, 80% of heroin users report starting drug use with physician prescriptions), people/doctors choose to ignore this and some fear College investigators. Sounds a lot like Dr Chin all over again…
Big Pharma’s influence in Canada continues. See here for Purdue’s lobbying of the Federal Government: http://canadians.org/blog/who-behind-canadas-opioid-epidemic. A coalition of chronic pain and addiction specialists signed a letter earlier this year, requesting that Federal Health Minister Philpott consider making oxycodone only available as a tamper resistant formulation (of which Purdue holds the patent). Sixty percent of those signatories have ties to industry. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottawa-urged-to-reconsider-tamper-resistant-oxycodone/article29813367/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links
Dr Juurlink may have said it best in the Globe and Mail piece referenced above:
“It’s time we stopped listening to pain specialists. Their messages, which were wrong, got us into this mess in the first place,” “Many of these physicians are deeply in the pockets of the companies that make opioids and that stand to profit immensely from the sale of these new products.”
Ontario released their “Strategy to Prevent Opioid Addiction and Overdose” on October 12, 2016. This milquetoast framework to our public health crisis makes several vague recommendations, one of which is to make more substitution therapy available, specifically access to buprenorphine/naloxone (Suboxone). The document fails to provide suggestions for how to carry this out nor does it make mention of the potential public health risks. Studies have shown that Suboxone is ten times more likely to be diverted than methadone (ie not taken by the intended person and diverted to illicit market). We may want to ask Finland for some advice (buprenorphine, has been at the top of drugs misused in this country): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154701/
The provision of methadone (the other substitution treatment available) in the province received well-deserved criticism from the “Methadone Treatment and Services Advisory Committee”. http://health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/drugs/ons/docs/methadone_advisory_committee_report.pdf. Page 11 details some of the most egregious concerns: “Lack of access to comprehensive care in stand-alone fee for service clinics: Many of these clinics provide little more than urine drug screening and methadone prescribing and dispensing, leaving patients without access to primary care, mental health and addiction screening, brief intervention or counselling, and management of acute and chronic illnesses. Variation in the quality of clinical services: Some clinics require frequent attendance for urine drug screening and a brief office visit regardless of the state of recovery demonstrated by the patient. This is wasteful and can be harmful to patients’ recovery as attendance can be inconvenient and at times very challenging, particularly for those in rural and geographically isolated areas.”
Profit driven care has clearly moved the patient far way from being in the centre.
Some are sounding the clarion call of “another epidemic” happening where over 50,000 patients in Ontario are now on methadone https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-016-0055-4
Perhaps the most astonishing elephant in the room is “why are so many people in pain?” As a society we must look at the root drivers of this epidemic and that must also focus on prevention. We need to do some serious soul searching as a nation, as a community of peoples. We will need to address poverty, hopelessness, dislocation, safe housing, disintegration of community, lack of meaningful employment, adverse childhood experiences, resiliency, etc. if we have any hope of bringing this epidemic under control.
“And a “white wall of silence.” It’s a shame the FDA, APA, big Pharma, malpractice insurance companies, and AMA have turned today’s medical community into a bunch of unrepentant blasphemers, murderers, and thieves.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/go-figure-murder-accident/#comments
“thanks for speaking out, Dr. Healy. It’s a shame more doctors are not as wise as you. “Murder or Accident?” Murder, and in my case, thank you Jesus, only attempted murders. Opioids and antidepressants are not “safe … meds,” they are dangerous, mind altering, addictive drugs. How embarrassing the majority of doctors today are not intelligent or ethical enough to confess to this reality.
On the theme of murder by medication:- we have an obesity crisis in Uk, and the USA were ahead of us in this but we are catching up fast.
We are told that diabetes is now so common that the NHS is buckling under the strain. We know (from Victoria Derbyshire’s recent programme) how many millions of psychotropic medications are being consumed in UK, we also know that side effects are weight gain and in some cases this leads to diabetes. We can all see so many overweight people everywhere now, and they can’t all be over eating to the extent that they have become so huge. And there are so many people everywhere now taking anti-depressants and in particular, the biggest weight influencers of all, anti-psychotics. The brain’s system of saying “I’m full thanks” has been highjacked. And as many know to their cost, this abnormal weight does not easily come off with standard dieting and exercise. You could call it chemical weight. It was uninvited, unexpected, and very much unwanted by those who struggle with trying to get rid of it.
So why, when the food industry is being, to some extent rightly, castigated for not cutting sugar down, why does no one on the Media EVER mention the drugs industry and the extraordinary way their products are causing people to carry so much new weight? Is this an elephant in the room and does it show us that Big Pharma have better lobbyists than United Biscuits?
This means by a roundabout route, but never discussed, that Big Pharma are causing the murder by diabetes of thousands and thousands of patients, and financial ruin of the NHS.
Heather ,,,,, you have expressed so well, what have been my thoughts exactly.
It was my personal experience of gaining 3 stone in 3 months which prompted my internet research which led me to loads of horrific information about the diabetes pathway and the whole corrupt story (just cannot believe how very naive and gullible I’d been up to this point- I’d had a classic case of SSRI induced Akathisia, unrecognised by my GP and consultant Psych and was mis-diagnosed and mis-medicated with yet more serious a poison).
I feel so very lucky that I ‘saw the light’ after only months, not years, and was able to stop the meds without too much problem.
And I feel so very sorry for those who have been understandably duped for years and years and struggle so hard to withdraw; for those many, many more still unknowingly stuck in the dangerous clutches of the murdering ‘mental health’ medics and of course, worse still, for those who have paid the ultimate price and their grieving families left behind.
And, yes, it was “uninvited, unexpected, and very much unwanted” and I do continue to struggle, rather unsuccessfully I’m afraid, to get rid of it. It haunts me every day ………. but I try to rationalise it and turn it to a positive thought – because, if it hadn’t been for the weight gain, which prompted my research, I would most likely still have been on this mind numbing medication – I was told I’d need to take it for the rest of my life, so severe was my newly diagnosed serious mental health disorder – such a load of BS!
But I had never actually considered the differential influence of United Biscuits vis a vis GSK, Astrazeneca et al. and why the media makes no reference to the obvious connection between the increase in prescribed medication and the increase in obesity.
Does the answer lies, maybe, in politicians share portfolios?
Does it correlate somehow with the numbers of politicians who own shares in pharmaceutical companies vis a vis the number who have shares in processed sugar dominated, snack producing companies?
I guess it boils down to the $$$$s and the ££££s …….profits made by pushing the poisons bigger than those from pushing the un-nutricious, sugar ladden ‘food’ and drinks hence the influence over political worlds and media being significantly greater.
And is it all part of the murderous grand plan to cause the weight gain and hence the diabetes which results in more prescribed drug consumption and hence more profits?
Should we try alerting the likes of Victoria Derbyshire, Stephen Nolan of this curiosity and test out whether or not the BBC is, indeed, an ‘independent’ broadcaster?
We couldn’t agree more Heather.
We need a follow-up to the Victoria Derbyshire program addressing an entirely, or very largely, avoidable cause of massive obesity, misery and premature death.
This apparently is due to the metabolic and endocrine, as well as neurotoxic effects of cavalier and ruthless, long term anti-psychotic prescribing and it’s enforcement.
This is iatrogenic – extreme obesity.
It is accompanied by tardive dyskinesia and progressive irreversible intellectual impairment as well as diabetes.
A triumph of pharmaceutical marketing masquerading as
medicine-of-the-mind.
With Risperidone the massive gynaecomastia adds to the pain and misery.
Tim.
Tim, you have read my thoughts. I emailed Victoria Derbyshire today to express my surprise and enormous disappointment with Dr Sarah Jarvis’ patronising attitude, having found out to my horror about her accolades from Big Pharma, and the same with Prof Linda Gask, also Pharma funded, from University of Manchester.
I said I felt the graphics used, the nice little picture of the head and brain with the happy twinkling serotonin working away inside, re-adjusting itself thanks to SSRIs, must surely have subtly convinced viewers of the truth of what we all know is, and has always been, a myth. Privately, I felt sure Big Pharma must have supplied it, I can’t believe the BBC made it themselves. A picture is worth a thousand words.
I ended by saying please can they put the record straight on these three issues, as the public deserve to know who is Big Pharma funded when the BBC bring in experts, and at the same time look at the influence the weight gain side effect of all these psychotropic drugs is having on the obesity and diabetes epidemic, which threatens to bankrupt the NHS. I asked her why she thought the food producers were held responsible for this but the Big Pharma connexion is never mentioned.
So we shall see! If anyone else feels like emailing her, to raise the same issues with the additional details you’ve described, it might drive this home. Jane’s got some excellent insights on this too.
Be assured, Heather, that some of us will contact her without saying so here – too easy for her to track us all to this site and dismiss the seriousness of these important issues!
Good point Mary. Maybe I should not have written it here. I just felt so disappointed, well, that we were cheated really, by the BBC who are normally always so hot on being even handed and impartial. To use a GP who wasn’t just a straightforward one but one with strong links to Big Pharma, was shocking.
Mary, Heather,
Intense discomfort results from the pronouncements of these media “expert” primary care physicians who do appear to be completely without understanding of SSRI induced AKATHISIA.
Their over-confident and unjustified SSRI advocacy reveals that they are particularly ill-informed re the validated evidence base of psychotropic drug toxicity.
More specifically, this is with regard to the absence of a comprehensive pharmacological understanding of what these casually prescribed “medications” can, and frequently do cause as serious ADRs.
“This Morning” program’s, resident primary care expert
re-visited depression 26th October 2016.
“How Can I stop Depression Ruining My Marriage”?
Dr. Zoe Williams assured us: –
“What we know about depression – there is biochemical changes in the brain that are linked to depression.
There’s a hormone called serotonin that needs to pass from one nerve to the next and in depression people aren’t getting enough of that across – and what the tablets do – they just help facilitate it”.
(I believe verbatim).
If these words represent physician belief and not pharmaceutical propaganda, how can any patient receive appropriate guidance about drug treatment of depression?
Critically, how can there be valid consent to take such strongly “pushed” SSRIs which can so devastate, destroy and terminate lives?
When will they ever learn, or is it simply that they refuse to do so?
Tim.
New York Times reporter wants to talk to UK sufferers of antidepressant withdrawal
By admin on 27/10/2016 in News
CEP has received the following request from Ben Carey, a reporter for the New York Times:
“My name is Ben Carey, and I cover psychiatry for the New York Times. I have covered the field for over a decade, and one of the biggest emerging stories is drug withdrawal – particularly from antidepressant drugs. Tens of millions of people in the UK, US and elsewhere have had trouble going off these drugs. Now, in the UK, there are efforts to study the problem and help people: the first such efforts I know of. I am going to write about this withdrawal movement, and I am hoping to find people who’ve struggled with this problem to tell the story. I’d love to meet in person, but I am open to any arrangement; the important thing is to put the story out. I will be in the London area all next week, through Nov. 5; and the tag end of the following week. Anyone interested who cares to ask me questions about the story before deciding is welcome to do so: 00 1 914-330-3847 or bencarey@nytimes.com“
The Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry
24 mins
The elephant tranquilizer in the living room (or, ripple effect):
“We’re seeing carfentanil…tied to many, many overdose deaths,” Fallon said. “This is like nothing we’ve ever seen. It hit like a Mack truck. It took a problem that was described as an epidemic and made it much, much worse.”
Law enforcement and health officials believe most users do not know they are ingesting carfentanil, which apparently is often mistakenly thought to be heroin or a mixture of heroin and fentanyl, a weaker but still lethal synthetic opioid.
…its strength means that naloxone might not reverse an overdose. Instead of a single 2-milligram dose of naloxone, an anti-overdose drug often marketed as Narcan, six or more doses might be needed to prevent death, medical workers said.
Hamilton County officials are baffled by the marketing strategy behind such a lethal drug. “It doesn’t really make sense that you would want to kill your customers,” Fallon said.
Containing that impact to Ohio and neighboring Appalachian areas where the drug has been reported — including Kentucky, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania — will be difficult if not impossible.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/10/16/region-braces-for-arrival-new-more-powerful-synthetic-opioid/uLdoivGZdopm468poRzU3J/story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/by/benedict-carey
New York Times Reporter Ben Carey to Receive Award from The Linehan Institute at the Linehan Institute Award Benefit
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/04/prweb12623690.htm
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/go-figure-murder-accident/
ebl October 27, 2016 at 3:31 pm
When the Obama Administration gave large fines to various pharmaceutical companies for civil/criminal behavior, off-label marketing, and so on, for such drugs as Zyprexa, there were a number of people calling for criminal prosecution of the executives who made the decisions that lead to many deaths and permanent ruined health states of those given the drugs. Even the FDA made some noises about prosecuting pharma executives whose behavior resulted in death/disability.
But absolutely nothing happened, nor has anything happened to the opioid-pushing companies. This is despite all evidence and good investigative journalism.
So much for the “hopey changey” thing (as Sarah Palin would say).
Data Sharing — Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1610336
Beginning in May 2013, GlaxoSmithKline made available to investigators the patient-level data and study documents from more than 200 trials that had started since January 1, 2007; the later addition of others resulted in access to data from more than 1500 trials sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, including all their global intervention trials since the formation of GlaxoSmithKline in 2000. Beginning in January 2014, requests for data could be made through a public website, clinicalstudydatarequest.com (CSDR), and were subject to approval by an independent review panel.4 Other trial sponsors joined CSDR.
ANDREA FERRAIOLO @ANDREAFERRAIOLO
In May 2013 GSK (the first Pharma) made available more 200 1500 trials #opendata #alltrials @NEJM http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1610336
One for the Hallowe’en..section:)
Lunch with the FT: ‘the drug guy’ Martin Shkreli
The Financial Times
David Crow13 hrs ago
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/careersandeducation/lunch-with-the-ft-%E2%80%98the-drug-guy%E2%80%99-martin-shkreli/ar-AAjuKWj?li=AAdeCd7&ocid=spartandhp
“I see a psychiatrist. I have done since I was 18. I started having panic attacks and they were pretty bad. Then I took this one drug and I’ve been taking it for 15 years. One of the reasons I love pharma is my experience of that drug.”
The drug in question is a version of Effexor, an antidepressant that was discovered around 30 years after Daraprim. Later I look up the price — as little as 17 cents a pill. The medicine, he says, is a miracle. “It has made me invincible in some ways.”
David Crow is the FT’s senior US business correspondent
Science VS
http://podplayer.net/#/?id=23898640
Kirsch v Kramer..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irving-kirsch-phd/antidepressants-the-emper_b_442205.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/books/review-in-ordinarily-well-peter-d-kramer-goes-once-more-to-the-antidepressant-ramparts.html
BBC bias..
Lets not talk about Cliff Richard..Sir, Cliff Richard..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/25/revealed-the-remarkable-texts-between-the-police-and-the-bbc-bef/
Science v.
Lets not be naïve..
BIAS
Our psychiatrist were biased, our doctors were biased, our hospitals are biased, our journals are biased, our pharma are biased..the philosophy of bias..
noun: a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation
http://brentstrickland.net/Strickland%20%26%20Suben%20Experimenter%20Bias.pdf
1 Experimenter Bias in Psychology
The social and professional pressures in the sciences incentivize discovering positive, novel results. This incentive structure often has the desired effect of producing compelling and important research, but it also often has the unintended consequence of producing high rates of false positives (Ioannidis 2005).1 Many mechanisms can bring about these false positives. At one extreme is simple and straightforward academic fraud where researchers intentionally alter their data to obtain a desired result. In contrast to conscious cheating, there are also more subtle ways in which a research community with otherwise good intentions can unwittingly produce systematically unreliable results. These include “publication bias” (Dickersin 1990) which is the disposition of journals to prioritize publication of positive over null results and the related “file drawer” problem (Rosenthal 1979), which is the tendency for null results never to be submitted for publication in the first place.
Uh huh..
Thank you, James
https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-state-for-health-jeremy-hunt-make-pharmaceutical-firms-help-users-who-want-to-stop-taking-anxiety-depression-drugs/u/18305480?tk=axvkCoxvyPXhTDC5zWTb8IT60G5BlY2xE2B7TGxkGGg&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email
Thank you, Terry
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/psychiatry-rock-hard-place/
The bias in favour of biology that pertains within psychiatry is linked to psychiatry’s desire to stand out in the public mind as the experts on mental health.
Pumpkins:)
There is no bias to biology in psychiatry. Drug companies and most doctors are allergic to biology -its not good for business. What there is is an endorsement of biobabble – sounds like biology but can be shaped and moulded like Play-Doh to fit the needs of a brand. This is a marketing dictated use of bio-words. The expertise in how to do this comes from the social sciences not biology
DH
‘Around half of medical researchers don’t reveal a conflict of interest with the pharmaceutical company whose drug they are assessing. The conflict might involve direct payments or some other benefit in kind, which could influence the outcome of the study, say researchers.
In fact, many researchers have even denied having any links with a drug company, say an international team of researchers (from Canada, Lebanon, Brazil and the US) who analysed previously published medical trials, most of which were testing the efficacy and safety of drugs.’ From BMJ Open, 2016;6:eoii997.
How’s that for bias?
Thank you Jane for your kind words. Forced psychiatry is, of course, MURDER. Just home from appointment with Psychiatrist – told that I need to take some drugs such as Abilify or other. Out of surprise I blurted “Have you read the Rxisk/Dr David Healy’s blog on Abilify”. I was rebuffed instantly with a throw of the hand “That is an anti-psychiatric Movement”. I tried to further protest that I would go down the Benzo route, such as Valium. The answer was that he could prescribe Valium with Abilify or other anti-psychotic drug. I humbly told him that I respect him but how is such medication going to change my thoughts on what general medical doctors have done to my body under anaesthetic.
Forced Psychiatry came about because I wrote a letter to the CEO of HSE asking for accountability as to how two Consultants names were removed from a Garda File to the DPP. The fact that there is evidence of Medical crime does not seem to matter to Psychiatry. Instead of supporting me for safety, for justice, I am the one being told that I have a Mental Illness – for writing letters about doctors/Pharma and for writing what has happened to me on Social Media.
In the closing months of the 1916 Centenary who says Ireland is Free?