Editorial Note: This is the final part of Laurie Oakley’s series on Pharmaceutical Rape. All six parts with better imagery (no-one is enthusiastic about the Martin Shkreli images) and extra text are available here as a PDF Download.
Pharmaceutical violence
Pharmaceutical violence is a social issue as well as medical problem that demands a social response and medical intervention. To address what is now an ongoing human rights catastrophe and to help survivors recover from what has happened to them, it is important that we shift all of our focus to the systems that perpetrate pharmaceutical rape. We need to ensure that full responsibility is taken for the practices that lead to these iatrogenic harms. The essential way of assuring systemic change is to have an organized community response. This can occur through petitioning for a governmental task force, the enactment of new legislation, remedial actions through the courts, the initiation of comprehensive educational programs, new training protocols for health care providers, and various community-based efforts. Government officials, the courts, educational systems, medical professionals, and the public need to work together in order to bring about systems accountability. As we begin to fully recognize how pharmaceutical violence affects all parts of society, we can develop comprehensive responses as well as individual approaches to end all forms of pharmaceutical violation. Patients along with supportive doctors can come together to make this happen.
Medical allies
A medical ally is someone who commits to working toward ending the systemic practices that perpetuate pharmaceutical violence. An ally becomes willing to:
- Educate oneself on the full scope of corporate pharmaceutical influence in government, academia, healthcare (including front groups), and the media;
- Listen to and learn from the stories of people who have experienced harms;
- Examine one’s own beliefs, prejudices, and assumptions about medical and mental healthcare systems, and the role of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical companies in healthcare;
- Recognize potential feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness and work toward understanding what might lay beneath them, taking time to grieve/heal as part of the process;
- Learn strategies for challenging the speech, behaviors, policies, and institutional structures that perpetuate iatrogenic outcomes via pharmaceutical influence;
- Act collaboratively with survivors to change the systems that support pharmaceutical rape and pharmaceutical rape culture.
Hubs for support and activism
The RxISK Community
RxISK is an organization committed to breaking the silence around the social injustice of pharmaceutical violation. It is a go-to website for reporting and researching the adverse effects of medicines for patients, healthcare providers, and pharmacists. It is also a place where people can tell their stories, find support, and learn from the stories of others. The Data Based Medicine organization that sponsors RxISK was formed by an international team of medical experts who recognize the dangers inherent in medicine when public access to clinical trial data has not been granted by the multinational pharmaceutical companies. RxISK is a free, independent drug safety website where prescription drugs can be researched to see what side-effects have been reported in the 5.9 million reports submitted to the FDA, Health Canada, and RxISK. Users are able to download a RxISK Report to take to their doctors to discuss whether the effects they are experiencing might be linked to the prescriptions they are taking.
Mad In America
The Mad In America (MIA) Online Forum was launched in 2012 and is a growing international community of people interested in a plethora of topics surrounding the rethinking of psychiatry, including psychiatry’s embrace of medication prescribing. Central to MIA’s mission is to provide a platform for the voices of those with lived experience within psychiatry, voices that have historically been stifled. MIA offers professional continuing education (CEUs) and continuing medical education (CME) courses that are based on research that is free from commercial interests. Topic areas include psychiatric medications, long-term effects, and alternatives that promote long-term recovery and better overall outcomes. The project operates under the non-profit umbrella of The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care.
Grief Recovery Institute Educational Foundation
The Grief Recovery Institute Educational Foundation (GRIEF) is a 501(c)(3) organization specializing in helping people who are dealing with grief. The organization is headquartered in Sherman Oaks, California, with locations in Canada, England and Sweden. Its mission focuses on disseminating accurate and helpful information about grief and the possibility of recovery from the impact of death, divorce, and other significant emotional losses. Grief Recovery outreach programs are facilitated by individuals who become certified specialists in this particular method and groups can be made available in all parts of the world.
Because the Institute’s founders, John James and Russell Friedman, recognize that sadness and grief are predictable and natural human responses to loss, they have spoken out against the medicalization of grief that often leads to the use of pharmacological treatments soon after a loss.
I include Grief Recovery here because of the significant losses many of us have experienced as a result of taking prescribed medications: the loss of health, loved ones, careers, dreams, trust, sense of safety, and more. Whether through the Grief Recovery Institute or some other method, it’s important that we take time to grieve. By joining with others who are also grieving we break our isolation and, not insignificantly, our sharing may inform others of risks in medicine everyone deserves to know about.
Very good post Laurie, I thought it important to leave this link to as these Dr’s are calling for an urgent public inquiry into drug firms ‘Murky’ Practices.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3460321/How-Big-Pharma-greed-killing-tens-thousands-world-Patients-medicated-given-profitable-drugs-little-proven-benefits-leading-doctors-warn.html
That is a great article. As David said once ‘The Daily Mail is really rather wonderful on health matters’. It often is. Trouble is it’s utterly ghastly on most other issues: rabidly right wing and chauvinist and unpleasant. An online survey recently showed that GPs biggest peeve, above everything else is – the Daily Mail. So asking your doc or in my case friends to read something in the Daily Wail instantly demolishes credibility. I’m not sure why the so called quality press seems uninterested – and sometimes wonder if our only left-ish, liberal paper The Guardian has ties to Big Parma. Sorry to pick up on this here but I’ve been wanting to point out the big problem with citing the Daily M for ages…
Sally,
You make a good point. Doctors are as good at dismissing various literature as they are at dismissing what you report a drug has done to you.
Several good articles came rolling in with the restoration of Study 329 although the doctor I last spoke with didn’t know what Study 329 was, let alone what it could have to do with her practicing medicine. I should have printed something out to leave with her, but didn’t think of it at the time.
Still, I would think the most convincing materials that a doctor might half-way pay attention to might come from medical journals or something like the New York Times. Any bills up for a vote or passed in legislature might also add credibility. Here is one going to a vote in Massachusetts on Tuesday concerning benzodiazepines: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/BillHtml/152753?generalCourtId=12
Maybe doctors aren’t enemies, just unwitting (yet obstinate) tools of pharma. It’s hard to have this conversation with them when you’re also, sometimes desperately, trying to get your needs met. I don’t advocate anyone alienating themselves from medical providers, but when that happens with a practitioner who doesn’t hear or like what you’re saying, it may be time to look for a more compassionate provider.
Putting credible documents before them and letting them know you will make their response public or grade them on doctor rating websites like Healthgrades.com and Vitals.com may be a way to get them to take this seriously. Not just complaints, but something stating what information you provided and the response, good or bad. Their harmful behavior needs consequences to change. The consequences of this type of response are small compared to those paid by patients whose adverse effects are denied.
I guess the biggest problem is getting people in power to LISTEN, the second is getting the very same people to be TRUTHFUL about what they’ve been told.
Here in North Wales, we are in dire straits as regards GP services – some are closing down as of March 31st and many others are running on locum cover only. All the problems seem to stem from an ageing GP population and an inability to replace them as they reach retirement age. Our Health Board will run the cover directly themselves where the practices are closing down – they report in the press that everything is going well YET, WE, THE PATIENTS haven’t a clue how things will be from April onwards!
Now, the Leader of the Welsh assembly – who are responsible for Health – has come out and said that there is ‘no problem with GPs in North Wales’. Are these people living in the real world or in ‘cloud cuckoo land’? Certainly not living in the reality of N. Wales where at the moment you need to know 2 weeks beforehand if you are going to be unwell and need a GP appointment!
Its almost as bad here Mary in Croydon, cant get an appointment until the 8th March and that attempt was made middle of last week. I thought the daily mail article was promising and thought it was good to see a top Dr calling for a public inquiry because that’s exactly what is needed. We should be all backing him.
That’s a good idea, Laurie. (The matter of fact feedback about reactions to credible sources on important stuff.)
Sally, the left-leaning papers in the US tend not to be appropriately critical of pharmaceuticals either. Ny Times pretends, sometimes, but there’s no stance.
The right doesn’t find the topic very interesting. The Libertarians, who are “borderline fringe,” are most likely to take up the topic. Their philosophy allows for unfettered profit-making in free markets, so they don’t go on about prices, but they despise the idea of drugging people into conformity, particularly when it’s bad for the person and for everyone else. Libertarians are the only ones who talk about the mass shootings. And that is why there are exactly none in the federal government? We did have Dr. Ron Paul, an ob/gyn, for a while. He was a figure of fun for left and right but astute about a lot of things.
I just found something interesting, seemingly tailor-made for this thread. It’s a thread on a Ron Paul fan site, that leads off with
By Fiona Macrae Science Editor For The Daily Mail
15 September 2015
Popular antidepressant pills make young people violent, it is feared.
There’s some partially informed and not very energetic discussion among these who don’t believe ADs can cause anything bad, and people in command of the facts. Eventually, someone posted the Daily Mail on Study 329, and that killed the thread.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?482075-Could-antidepressants-make-you-violent-Young-people-who-take-drugs-including-Prozac-are-50
Sounds like a bit of snobbery to me.
The Daily Mail has the largest listening audience out of all the newspapers.
See Readership.
The Guardian…….Sarah Boseley has been talking about a-ds ‘til the cows come home.
http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/Drug-firm-issues-addiction-warning.htm
Whatever Agenda the Daily Mail has on a=d, it doesn’t have one.
You need to be a Guardian Reader to realise how much suck up comes in to play..
It has been the Daily Mail who has published David Healy/Rxisk.org
http://rxisk.org/daily-mail-online-why-randomised-controlled-trials-dont-tell-you-what-you-want-to-know/
So let’s get our facts correct.
And, the bit about patients struggling and asking their doctor about any article in any newspaper will always set doctors teeth on edge……………..
I picked up the phone c. 2003 and spoke to Sarah Boseley about Seroxat and although a bit brusque she did say to me that there was nothing she could say about my particular situation..re Seroxat and so it writes on……
This is a brilliant vision and of ways forward.
To digest so much as lay people so deeply immersed in this culture, I wonder if Laurie and/or Rxisk could create an RSA style animated lecture on how the present system was created, the problems, the subsequent crisis, and on those ways we can change it.
On the paradigm shifts in Education, this particular RSA video has 13, 691, 463 views…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
What a great series of posts Laurie – thanks. And really good to end on a practical note – suggestions about what we can do. I’ve spent so much time thinking about that – and thinking whatever happens, it has to be done in the real world, not the internet. My problem has always been that I couldn’t think of ‘where next’ in a way that was possible for me, as an individual. Great ideas of mine about storming GSK’s HQ and so on were all stumped by the physical problems I have, personally, in travelling and getting extremely tired. It did strike me that maybe the most vital thing is – each of us does what we can, in the many different ways you’ve suggested. Some will be happy to go on demos, burn the DSM (that one really appeals), run blogs, challenge our doctors, meet up with others if we can, develop online friendships, write to MPs and medical bodies, research, gather information, talk to family and friends who don’t understand what’s happened to us, be open, refuse to be beaten……maybe if we all do what is possible for us, as individuals, then it adds to the groundswell of opposition? It’s so easy to feel defeated by the enormity of the battle.
It also struck me that the seemingly intractable war in Northern Ireland was in the end brought to a halt (for the time being…) by each side being willing to sit at the same table and put aside what seemed completely insuperable differences…and I think of Nelson Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation movement in post apartheid South Africa. Just a thought – possibly we shouldn’t rule out talking to the enemy?
Clarifying the use of the word “Enemy” is an important term used here.
Talking to the Enemy.
May be some of us went the whole nine yards.
Prodding the doctors, prodding the MHRA, prodding our MP, prodding David’s Blog, and so on.
May be useful to read an International Paper which may enlighten some as to how talking with an ‘Enemy’ can be a long and difficult process..
http://ul.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/17648/CEJ%20Summer%202015%20Fox.pdf
Thanks for the Hat Tip..T30
Anne- Marie, I fully agree with you that we should all back the doctor’s call for a public inquiry. I feel that if we start to divide over which newspaper does/doesn’t throw a good light on our plight then we shall play right into the hands of the ‘enemy’ – we must stay united if we are to be believed. Can’t remember now if the article gave any follow-up tips on how we should show our support? Group support of some sort should warrant more notice than a single call would you suggest?
Mary Dr Aseem Malhotra who is going to run a campaign has his own website.
http://doctoraseem.com/
Maybe someone could contact him there to find out about the campaign?
Newspapers and Magazines carry the weight of public opinion from the FT to the NYT to the BMJ and are not to be lightly regarded.
Most of our “quotes” and “highlighted” articles we put up for show come from these sources.
Most of these sources have let us down in one way or another although to be fair over the years the Press have told a few ssri stories.
The Press cannot over reach themselves and risk a lawsuit from a Pharmaceutical Company which is one of the reasons why they are sometimes economical with the truth and sometimes puritanical.
So, although I take the spirit of Mary, I think it is important to realise which papers are more inclined towards us, particularly from the point of view of Rxisk.org as this is the coverage which means most to all of us and is primarily the reason we are here.
Nobody should split hairs over being United.
I take this as a Given.
Healthy, harmonious dialogue did not always win wars and it is important that everyone has a voice and an opinion on such weighty matters which we can discuss between us, knowing that we have Team Spirit and are looking out for each other.
Although, saying that sometimes a Singular Individual can create Waves from his Windows..and this is where notorious psychiatrists come in….they have clout.
So, in a way we need to be chipping away at some of the more unsuitable International figures with their doubtful stuff about diseases..?
I could give you examples, but this is not the time or the place to do revenge tactics…
We are treading an extra ordinary fine line between defamation and dedication.
As are the Newspapers..the lawyers..the defenders and the offenders.
Absolutely on your own is just pointless! maybe organising a petition for one. I’m sure there would be a huge backing for a public inquiry. Maybe someone could get someone like ‘Time for a change’ involved in a petition? (not sure if that’s their correct name but I think you get my point).
‘Time to change’ – the one supported by MIND and Rethink MH charities is the one you mean isn’t I? Will get my son on to that good idea of yours as he attends a MIND drop-in – we’ll see what’s possible.
Oh dear I’m wondering if I have mentioned the wrong group, it was a similar name but does what 38 degrees does. I’m on Mirtazapine and this is exactly what one of the side effects does it makes your memory terrible. I know what I want to say but cant think of the word or name. I get it all the time so I am very sorry Mary. Maybe 38 degrees would be better?
Don’t worry about the group name Anne-Marie, – be it right or wrong, it seems to have been the ‘right’ thing to do as he’s mentioned it to staff in drop-in this morning and they’re VERY keen to read the article ( of which they had no knowledge!) and will give him some feedback when they’ve done that. So, you see – some good has come out of it already; your ‘mistake’ was meant to be!
That’s really good Mary! lets hope they get involved and help to move mountains.
This is a snip it from the article but I’m not sure yet what the campaign is will have to do some research into it.
Dr Malhotra, who is launching the campaign in a personal capacity, is a trustee of the King’s Fund health think tank, a member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and advisor to the National Obesity Forum.
Since Dr. Malhotra is calling on the Public Accounts Committee to take this issue up … maybe petitions and letters to them would be a good focus? Here is the committee’s membership:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/membership/
UK residents would know better than I how reliable (or susceptible to pressure) these folks are. I reckon you could also let your own MP know you’re backing this call. The revelation about NHS officials who have paid “consulting” arrangements with Pharma making decisions on what drugs to recommend should turn up the heat on this issue a bit.
Looks like this is kind-of new territory for Dr. Malhotra … and kind-of not. He’s a cardiologist who has been pretty outspoken in saying that statins do more harm than good for the majority of people who take them (those not at high risk for a heart attack). He has also taken on the processed food industry around sugar content, and the medical establishment for playing along with their endorsement of “low-fat” products. Twitter aficionados can connect with him here: https://twitter.com/DrAseemMalhotra
Last but not least: for those who can’t stomach the Daily Mail, here’s some coverage from the Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pharmaceutical-companies-cause-doctors-to-receive-biased-information-about-drugs-costing-hundreds-of-a6893601.html
This is ‘David Healy’ territory…..
“People with mental disorders – just like those with physical disorders – deserve the best minds to find new treatments and provide the best care.”
He will launch the campaign on Saturday 27 February at the National Student Psychiatry Conference 2016 in Edinburgh.
Bash campaign ….
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases2016/bashcampaign.aspx
Our goal is to try and fit as much of the diversity of psychiatry as we can into this one fantastic weekend.
http://edinpsychsoc.wix.com/nspc2016
past tense.
Just read a blog post by a man who is clearly suffering from a form of DPS (“Delusion Persecutory Syndrome”):
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/discoverpsychiatry/thepresidentsblog/stigmatisingattitudes.aspx
The trouble is, all of the evidence which he presents is just anecdotal, and cannot possibly be taken seriously, such as a colleague from a rival speciality telling students: “If you lot don’t shut up right now, I will make it my business that you will all only be able to get jobs in psychiatry”. All quite amusing stuff, assuming he actually heard correctly, but hardly scientific evidence to demonstrate what he is claiming…
I’d suggest instead he needs to obtain funding to undertake a multivariate, longitudinal RCT, with a placebo arm, in order to determine if chemical psychiatry actually is the butt of most medical jokes…but he shouldn’t accept drug company money for this, because he will then be expected to hide data, exclude patients who don’t respond, change endpoints, recode adverse events as beneficial ones, etc, etc.
Really, Simon, if you so desperately want to dine at the high table of medicine, then just maybe you should start paying attention to the contents of blogs such as this one. And while you are at it, don’t make the mistake of crusading on behalf of those of us with ‘mental disorders’ (1 in 4 of us now, apparently) – the RCPsych is their biggest bête noir.
Walter
2 thoughts on ““Royal College Calls for an End to ‘Bashing’ Psychiatrists
kim on February 29, 2016 at 2:35 pm said:
Psychiatry is the only medical specialty that routinely imprisons, drugs and tortures people it doesn’t like, which appears to be the bulk of its “patients” who are left accused of being dangerous and stripped of their human rights without access to real legal process.
Additionally, its “illnesses” are voted in and out of existence, the drugs and other “first line medical interventions” it uses have limited, if any, efficacy, and its research methods and practices have long been shown to be utterly reprehensible and corrupted, which means the possibility of finding humane approaches that actually work is minimized.
Many of these “treatments” actually harm people in distress and create long term untreatable health problems that lead to a lifespan between 20 and 25 years less than non-psychiatric patients.
These facts are glossed over/covered up by mainstream academic psychiatry, while students have their minds filled with pharma-funded garbage.
The few psychiatrists who see through the ruse and speak up against widespread abuses (thank you MIA contributors) have had to re-educate themselves, after having already paid massively for their medical training. And on top of that, they face criticism and abuse from their fellow psychiatrists and drug companies.
So…what’s not to like? Why wouldn’t ethical practitioners from other specialisations try to dissuade bright and promising students from entering such a field?
….and the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Professor Sir Simon Wessely, can’t understand this?
Lack of insight is an understatement.
Drtim on March 1, 2016 at 11:44 am said:
When it comes to the fundamental failure of psychiatry, it is the inability to differentiate the injurious effects of their “prescription medications” – (upon which they have built their fantasies of specific “medication “efficacy) – from serious mental illness, which is the primary cause of growing contempt for the “mainstream”.
It is from this abandonment of both the ethics and empathy of sincere medical practice that other physicians and “colleagues” may perceive a duty to alert potential psychiatry trainees to consider that the harms they will be called upon to inflict on fellow human beings are truly appalling.
Might a wider commitment to critical self vigilance, a return to scientific credibility, and the re-discovery of humility within psychiatry contribute to a necessary conflict resolution?
During 40 years of clinical and academic medicine I encouraged all trainees to believe: –
“there are no non-prestigious specialities, only non-prestigious doctors”. –
With the caveat: – Prestige may only be attributed by those (patients) whose care has been found to be acceptable, appropriate and of benefit to themselves and those who love and care for and about them.
Bleating about “Bashing” beggars belief. Physician – (if indeed that is still what you aspire to be?) heal thyself.
Enjoying, as usual, reading the comments.
Also, having recently thought it would great to have TED as a platform for anyone who has shared or posted their story on Rxisk or made comment (most of whom have a story) or, more importantly, for Dr Healy, Robert Whitaker, Dr Marcia Angall…, I just came across this TED talk by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin when seeking help for low stress tolerance in withdrawal.
From 5.55, Levitan also talks about GSK and about the (crazy) risk/benefit ratios for statins (something else I know bugger all about).
I know Ben Goldacre already made a (highly viewed) TED Talk on how, in terms of drug trials, much of the time, negative or inconclusive findings go unreported, leaving doctors and researchers in the dark and on how these unreported instances of negative data are especially misleading and dangerous.
But little, for the disaffected viewer, on the nature of adverse effects, just how dangerous they can be and prevalent they are. Time bound as Goldacre will have been, much about the cause when people need to know the effect pharmaceutical corruption and greed can have on a single human being (hundreds of thousands…): beyond how difficult it is for doctors and statistical numbing.
TED, where the mainstream still ain’t (absurd at this stage, criminal even as history may also consider it), may be warm now to hearing from well educated victim’s/survivors; warm even, perhaps, to providing a respected mass platform for the well documented link between SSRIS with violence (or agitated/aggressive behaviour on the lower end of the continuum some may recognise); on the science and difficulties of withdrawal – and how protracted, for some patients, it can be.
And Laurie has so brilliantly outlined the system and the ways forward.
I like to have seen David Healy’s factors leading to Pharmageddon or his entertaining analogies here – or his great lecture, as more crimes linked with SSRIs roll in, on SSRIs and Violence.
And sure the man has nothing but time on his hands?
We may have to clone David at this stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jPQjjsBbIc
Bringing it back back to the flesh.
NIGHTMARE (in my heart) yesterday. My 80+ dad couldn’t find my 80+ mother and believed she had left the house. Neither has a diagnosis, but changes are happening. I placed a discreet ad on craiglist and re-joined the neighborhood group on Facebook and start looking for a search dog handler because that should have been a piece of cake for a tracking dog. But my dad had been looking for her by calling her name, which only works on conscious people. I got him to locate her purse, wallet and keys, and a third search found her in a little carpeted room, on the floor, with a scalp laceration. Knowing my parents, they’d have stayed home, but my officious sister had called the cops and paramedics from 1000 miles away. This has been happening a lot and clearly has to be dealt with, but it wasn’t a stroke. She trips over feet because her legs are weak…okay, anyway, paramedics take her to a university hospital. X-ray, stitches, and a few questions she didn’t answer, concerning what city she was in and when her birthday is.
It was upsetting that she was impaired, it could be temporary, and I don’t care if she’s impaired, I just want her alive and happy, if that turns out to be possible.
THEN. Early this morning, this from my sister. It’s second-hand via my dad, who was there. I sense the pharmapology starting already. She knows what happened to me; she prefers to show me that she does doesn’t think it meant that much, and takes seroquel to sleep, Celexa to face her job, and a PPI to destroy her kidneys.
“Mom was very loud and obstreperous yesterday morning when they tried to get he to eat and drink. So they gave her an anti-psychotic med, haloperidol. I guess if she refuses to eat they give you IV or force feed? Don’t know. She was out of it.
I wished I were there but I would have been arrested. Honestly.
I called the hospital today and got the nursing station and I meant to be calm, but I ended up saying that if they ever forced a drug on her or give her Haldol again, I would “sue the pants off all of them.” If you’v seen Pineapple Express I was so upset. Remember the Russian gut who got like one shot? He must have killed himself. So I told my sister it has a black box warning for elderly dementia patients and in not approved. She said “well, they didn’t know she had dementia.” BS! She didn’t know what city she was in or when her birthday was. Then my sister said “well she has to eat.” Perfect Stalinist statist slave mind. No, she doesn’t have to eat. She was just roused from a concussion, taken to ER, and had stitches. It would take some real provocation to make my mom “obstreperous.”
GODSH DAMNG THEM. I want a full report. I want names. I”m reporting it to the state medical board. I feel better but I read a whole 3 long pages of self-reports, what an evil drug.
I just watched with additional horror to see that I posted that without finishing the edit.
Resuming:
I called the hospital today and got the nursing station. I meant to be calm, but I ended up saying that if they ever forced a drug on her or give her Haldol again, I would “sue the pants off all of them.” If you’v seen Pineapple Express, think of Gary Cole(man?), the middle-aged white pot dealer, negotiating with the Korean crime boss and slipping into desperate threats and the end and knowing he’d blown it the moment he set down the phone.
And I was thinking of a man on SA who’d been put into an unearthly state of being and posted in despair for quite a while, and then just wasn’t there. It was one jab, as I recalled. I can’t tell my sister an anecdote, so I went with the black box warning for elderly dementia patients. She said “Well, they didn’t know she had dementia.” Baloney. She didn’t know what city she was in or when her birthday was. Then my sister said “She has to eat.” Perfect Stalinist statist slave mind. No, she doesn’t have to eat. She was just roused from a concussion, taken to ER, and had stitches. She wasn’t hungry. There’s hardly a more compelling urge than thirst, and she had assess to water, so I think they could have left that alone, too.
It would take some real provocation to make my mom “obstreperous.”They might have been condescending or tried “elderspeak,” that babytalk people use with old people, or maybe just really ugly scrubs with Winnie the Pooh on them. Mom was president of her class in nursing school in the early 1950s and their class portrait is beautiful. Like a 3 rows of egrets in with dark cardigans over their snow white dresses. If I might strike a low blow, these scrubs-sporters are mostly shaped like Winnie the Pooh.
I want a full report. I want names. I’m reporting it to the state medical board. I feel better because I hear she was in good cheer today and going home tomorrow, but I read 3 long pages of self-reports that were sobering. Link at bottom, but I don’t recomend
I don’t know how they “gave” her the Haldol. If I find out they restrained and injected her, which is typical, there are going to be some CLC letters written and delivered all the way to the top of the food chain. But that’s minor compared to the gravity of administering Haldol to her in her condition, at her age.
Haldol is a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, archaic, worse-than-lethal, potentially life wrecking, drug.
Haldol is officially not approved for the demented elderly.
Haldol carries a black box warning because it increases the risk of death in elderly dementia patients.
And I just assumed that you’d never give it to someone who’d just hit their head. Sure enough, impedes recovery in rodents.
access, not assess, and link:
https://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=15922&name=HALDOL
You might welcome RIAT Author making strikes at Brintellix.
A gifted statistician and bloggist writes to the FDA…
http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2016/03/03/the-empty-pipeline/
http://us.brintellix.com/
http://rxisk.org/drug/2678/vortioxetine/86375/brintellix/
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/UCM370633.pdf
http://ppm.rxisk.org/MedGuides/Brintellix/Brintellix.html
Some of my best friends are……..G ay S mith K line..:)
Paul Newby, GSK, comes out of the closet……
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/role_models_0.pdf
Paul is a senior pharmaceutical microbiologist at GlaxoSmithKline.
His career at GSK spans 22 years and he now manages a team in
drug development putting new medicines out to market
GSK @GSK 15 hrs15 hours ago
We celebrate UK LGBT History Month & are still making history w/ scientists like Paul Newby: http://gsk.to/1oTmSlL
Stonewall
The March Hare..
‘touching’ on cases…
She earned her doctorate from Brown University in Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, where she discovered a novel third subtype of photoreceptor.
http://cnyskeptics.org/
**A Famous Grouse**
David Healy 4th September Final Cut v1.mp4
https://vimeo.com/115681495
CLC
So sorry to hear that horror story. But it sounds like your mother is very lucky to have you (and brilliant rage writer btw).
My mum was locked in with MS. They failed to give her her SSRI when I brought her into the hospital once.
Having gone through cold turkey withdrawal from Seroxat (and imagining no greater hell than going through a severe withdrawal when locked-in), nurses couldn’t get what the big deal was….
Hope your Mum recovers. I’d be ‘obstreporous’ as hell.
After The Famous Grouse, The Famous Grease…
News & Politics
The FDA Now Officially Belongs to Big Pharma
Robert Califf’s ties to Big Pharma run deep and the Obama nominee just sailed through the U.S. Senate.
By Martha Rosenberg / AlterNet
February 24, 2016
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/fda-now-officially-belongs-big-pharma
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/11/fda-commissioner-hamburg-appointed-who-deputy/
Xolair (omalizumab), developed from humanized rodent cells
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/major-pharma-scandal-whistleblowers-claim-popular-asthma-drug-was-marketed-illegally
Robert Califf, the newly appointed FDA Commissioner, served as “director, officer, partner, employee, advisor, consultant or trustee” for Genentech according to Medscape—a fact that has disappeared from both the Medscape and Genentech sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/business/document-claims-drug-makers-deceived-a-top-medical-journal.html?_r=0
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/business/GSK-Consumer-Healthcare-dives-deep-in-the-China-market/shdaily.shtml
Annie, I think it’s marvellous the way that you keep finding these interesting snippets that you share with us. I was wondering if you find that there is more and more reporting of these ‘tales of corruption’ appearing in the press these days? It feels to me, at the moment, as if the floodgate is being opened ever so slowly – or maybe the sluice gate would be a better comparison, as it’s still merely a trickle; either that or I’ve given in to wishful thinking!
Mary, you are a marvel.
Although, I was unquestionably trampled on, it gives my “morality engine” and “general creative juices” something to work on.
You are not so bad yourself…..high five
Mostly, it’s not about the Press.
Mostly, it’s about from whom we get our info from…….as most of them dig themselves in to a bigger hole than that from which they spaded….
I have been in Englandland for four months, thirty years in Scoootish villages, giving my moral support daily to my Mothers Day, Mum, and, sometimes I get the heebie jeebies thinking about going back to a caravan on the water and so today I went to wit stable, a south of England, tuck away. It was great. I wondered on the beach, with the pebbles, and looked at all the Oyster bars and generally enjoyed a day away from a nursing home.
I just thought stuff the guilt, stuff the doctors, stuff the old pharma stuff and can I for one day just feel a bit of sea surf and cold beaches.
I have a child living in Nanaimo, BC, and I miss her as I miss my recent demised labradoria.
To all extents and purposes I am footloose and fancy free, would you recommend I transfer myself to Wales?
I am not smitten with Surgeries; it’s the landscape I am after…….
Annie, I can certainly recommend Wales to you – especially the North. Us northwalians are a very friendly lot – and quite accepting of those from over the borders, especially fellow Celts!!!
Just one or two tips though, before you start packing :-
. make sure you are in tip-top good health and likely to remain so for quite a while, since GPs are getting to be rather a rare breed in this neck of the woods
. make sure you have a good , strong pair of wellies, a thick raincoat, a sou’wester and one of those brollies that won’t blow insideout in the wind – as we are very fond of long spells of very wet weather – actually, the better the scenery the heavier the rainfall
You have been warned! Hoping for a whole lot of fine weather soon though as I’m sure we’ve had more than our fair share of the wet stuff. We must be fair and share it around!
Revealing the runners…
Andrew Witty of GSK: ‘Big firms have allowed themselves to be seen as detached from society’
“Call me old-fashioned, but I think you have to be something,” says Witty.
“But he is scornful, to the point of contempt, of
“A lean figure with short hair who runs five miles a day, Witty acknowledges GSK has learned the hard way the effects of being dislocated from the public.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/mar/20/andrew-witty-glaxosmithkline-big-firms-detached-society
GlaxoSmithKline starts hunt for successor to CEO Witty
“Witty himself will play a role…His reputation..
http://www.reuters.com/article/gsk-ceo-idUSL8N1670WH
ben goldacre
✔ @bengoldacre
Job ad: campaigns manager on #AllTrials. Active role at the heart of addressing structural problems in medicine. http://www.alltrials.net/news/were-recruiting-for-a-campaigns-manager/
http://www.alltrials.net/news/were-recruiting-for-a-campaigns-manager/
Ben goldacre @bengoldacre 22 hrs22 hours ago
yuh-huh yeah
What is the point of this ‘Big Cheese’ exemplifying 50% of Clinical Trials Not Reported and yet #Alltrials and #Sense about Science has Not Investigated Even One Clinical Trial with the Outfit.
http://study329.org/the-data/
Will GlaxoSmithKline Feature in the Up and Coming, Fundraised, US Video?
GSK Pharmacy Business
“you believe every word”
http://www.pharmacy.biz/features/The+Big+Interview:+Andy+Gill/3271
Has the whole world of pharmaceuticals and pressure groups gone mad?
It appears it has.
I was going to apply for that job, I have experience in healthcare and research. I have also been harmed by medication so know the damage that can be done and the importance of transparency and honesty. Trouble is I have a criminal record gained by taking medication but I’m sure this will not be too much of a problem once I explain everything to them and show them the research, I’m sure they will understand. I’m all for research, transparency, honesty and campaigning for a better system.
But unfortunately that’s just a dream in reality they don’t give a fig about us, we don’t fit into their bubble.
Sick of reading about all these great things that are happening but it doesn’t make a jot of difference to the people being harmed.
Anne-Marie, I would love to see you fill in an application form and send it to them. You form and CV would tell the whole truth of your background, of course, as all would be so relevant to such an admirable position within a wholesome company. Of course, if you were not called for interview, you would throw the book at them on “disability” grounds … and they would be thrown into turmoil (of their own making) and , eventually, after much head-scratching, would find you to be “the best person for the job”.
Just imagine your utter pleasure in replying to their offer – along the lines of giving them your permission to “stuff it where the sun don’t shine” and that you wouldn’t “touch it with a barge pole”. Oh what joy!
Yeah nice thought Mary lol but I’m sure they would find something wrong with me or find some excuse to show me the door. The real reason would be, Your toooo honest for us!
Lord Montagu who successfully sued and a case of Beauty and the ‘Beast’….
“stemmed from the catastrophic consequences of Luke being mistreated with prescription drugs.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-3470982/Julie-Montagu-talks-husband-Luke-s-addiction-prescription-drugs.html
Its not just Lords who spent months in bed….with ‘some assorted drugs’ on the bedside table…
What an interesting story. Although you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy, it is good to see that these drugs attack Lords in exactly the same way as they attack the ordinary folk. What a difference it makes when you stand up for your rights though – that’s when money sure does talk!
This is becoming ridiculous now if you read the two following Releases:
A helpline as I have said before and then what?
In what direction will this Helpline point all these millions of people
Will they all batter a path to David Healy’s door or who else do they go to…….?
Probably most of us rang The Helpline after the seeing the first Panorama Programme (67,000) and where did that get us…..?
That was nigh on ‘unlucky thirteen’ years ago…..how slow does the tortoise walk and how slow to react to something that is killing millions….and at the end of the day, who cares enough to do Something.
Why aren’t the Prescriber’s Listening and All the Associations, as listed, should be Ashamed of being Part of the Parcel who were complicit and did Nothing
http://cepuk.org/2016/03/07/british-medical-association-commits-various-actions-tackling-prescribed-drug-dependence/
http://cepuk.org/2016/03/07/cep-co-founder-luke-montagu-gives-talk-bma-meeting-prescribed-drug-dependence/
The BMA has allocated responsibility for following up these actions to relevant attendees and intends to hold a second meeting in June to assess progress.
More
http://moretrials.net/
Trish Groves @trished
Interested in making clinical trials better? Follow @more_trials @opentrials and #AllTrials @senseaboutsci 3 campaigns w different aims…
12h
More *4*…w different aims…
Get away……:00
Lou Fairlie @moppous
Just seen a fantastic talk by the brilliant @bengoldacre #CRN_PTP @NIHRCRN_nencumb easily the best part of the day #AllTrials #BadTrials
49m
https://twitter.com/hashtag/BadTrials?src=hash
http://www.alltrials.net/news/will-the-emas-guidance-usher-in-a-new-era-of-trial-transparency/
http://www.alltrials.net/news/how-institutions-can-audit-registration-and-publication-of-clinical-trials/
“Shopping could make men impotent”
https://twitter.com/hashtag/CRN_PTP?src=hash
Super hyper diaper dipper…
Peter Doshi, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, and Associate Editor of The BMJ, said:
“There is a lot to like about the EMA’s new guidance to industry. The document confirms EMA’s commitment to the publication of important sections of CSRs such as the main body report, the protocol and amendments, statistical analysis plan, and sample case report forms. Having these documents publicly available a short time after regulatory decision making concludes could very well be the beginning of a new era in regulatory transparency and accountability. But readers need to be aware of the scope. CSR appendices containing individual participant data are considered outside the scope of this guidance and are slated to be handled in a future Phase of the policy. It remains unclear where EMA will land in terms of acceptable anonymization standards and I remain wary that some approaches may render individual participant data useless.”
Press Play…..for a silver fox..
2 new results
1. GSK Australia @GSK_AU Feb 21
Prof John Hamilton @unimelb describes what led him to join GSK’s #immunology network #leadingscience
Hello John
(Leading science)
https://twitter.com/hashtag/leadingscience?src=hash
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdNCZBbW8AAtGci.jpg
http://www.smh.com.au/national/glaxosmithkline-to-face-class-action-over-antidepressant-used-on-children-20160311-gngt7n.html
Here is a social justice action that is directly linked to the RIAT team’s restored Paxil 329 study.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/glaxosmithkline-to-face-class-action-over-antidepressant-used-on-children-20160311-gngt7n.html
Hope there is follow up, or rather reporting that adds the necessary dimension . the human element linked to *promoting Paxil as safe/effective *treatment of depression* for children.
The stories are potentially more valuable than the settlement of this case.
Sharing and caring….
A year is a long time in the Anti De Pressant World and in the Baltimore Sun David Healy shone, again….in 2003
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-antidepressants-violence-20150411-story.html
…………………where do I get an owl onesie, is it from owl twosie..?
ben goldacre @bengoldacre 1 hr1 hour ago
after productive morning working from home i regretfully take off the owl onesie, shave, and head out to achieve less while looking credible
By Peter Hitchens for The Mail on Sunday
Published: 01:51, 13 March 2016 | Updated: 08:43, 13 March 2016
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3489701/PETER-HITCHENS-s-entire-EU-debate-9-words-want-servant-Brussels.html#ixzz42tNJonzC
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
A year ago we were all fascinated by the horrible crash of a Germanwings A320 jet, brought about by its suicidal pilot.
But now that the likely explanation has come out, there’s almost total silence. Could this be because that pilot, Andreas Lubitz, turns out to have been taking a gigantic dose of ‘antidepressant’ pills, among whose known side effects are terrifying dreams, suicidal behaviour and ‘severe thoughts of suicide’?
Just as nobody pays any attention to the presence of benzodiazepines and amphetamines in the flat of the San Bernardino mass murderers, or the use of ‘antidepressants’ by at least one of the Columbine school killers (the other shooter’s medical records, absurdly, are sealed), nobody wants to know about this either. Time we did.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3489701/PETER-HITCHENS-s-entire-EU-debate-9-words-want-servant-Brussels.html#ixzz42tN0ZWhu
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Read more~from PH..
14 March 2016 10:50 AM
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/03/an-exchange-on-correlation-and-the-possible-dangers-of-some-drugslegal-and-illegal.html#comments
Alltrials 1.13..in
Changing the face of healthcare | GSK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk0_s-RfY7E&ebc=ANyPxKreUuOvDJ80Wll_uDvMOzouw2jQLG5tYbgUE1bM6htSCG-khR578F1YpW_1_BzBCr1BFjqb_Qhx2Zmq8zeXoDhMXZwyqw
THE YOUNG TURKS
**WATCH IT**
A Gsk Exposée
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiq4AUj7w5U
Thanks, annie for Young Turks link–
And recently another marginalized group who works diligently and responsibly on raising public awareness, staged this creative protest–. Note: the article is NOT in mainstream media…
http://patch.com/massachusetts/backbay/leaders-child-psychiatry-protested-crimes-against-humanity
Find it interesting that CRIMES like these are reported in tandem with increasing evidence of *greater* criminal activity in both Pharma and child psychiatry in America??
Where’s the disconnect??
Back to the drawing board..
A perspicacity to see the wood for the trees…..
Enter Boston..
http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2016/03/15/april-fools-day-2016/
http://www.hms-cme.net/734280/
To(r)onto and Lone Rangers..
Here is IAI and Tonto frequently says, “Git-um up, Scout!”
http://iai.tv/video/positive-thinking-and-the-name-game?utm_source=Institute+of+Art+and+Ideas&utm_campaign=1274bbd4ed-IAI+Weekly+Newsletter+15%2F03%2F16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_33593fe9fa-1274bbd4ed-47027401
The Paxil Ranger….
David Healy @DrDavidHealy 4 hrs4 hours ago
Thurs I’ll speak at @RyersonU Toronto on lessons of #Study329: Can med reseach be trusted if its authors are ghosts? http://www.ryerson.ca/fcad/news-events/fcad-events/DavidHealyDiscussion.html …
Greetings Mary. I can get an appointment within a day or two should I wish to consult a doctor for opinion or diagnosis. This is of little benefit since they prove to be about as useful as tits on a bull and, rather than addressing causes, seem intent on treating symptoms for which they can write a prescription. In the past I accepted such a course of treatment that subsequently left me with a chronic and disabling depression and after which I became much more circumspect.
I was treated for a hormone imbalance. I mention this because there is a huge constituency of depressives out there who are suffering needlessly for the same reason. Very tricky and complicated, hormones, and if one is out of balance – so are the others because they are all linked. When this happened to me it was pre computers so I read up on it in a book and why endocrinologists can’t make this connection I am at a loss to comprehend.
In the past, before drug companies offered easy remedies, a doctor would diagnose and treat conditions by observing and eliminating symptoms. Now the protocol is to rely on lab tests. I can’t comment on how valuable these tests might be for other conditions but for endocrine problems they appear deeply flawed, not least because no treatment is offered unless readings fall within accepted parameters. This is like saying that water which makes you ill is not poisoned unless it kills you.
I’m reading these posts and what do I see? A lot of people who would plead with those who have already injured or let them down to raise their game? They would like doctors either ‘to do good or to do no harm’ as advised in the Hippocratic Corpus, doctors who are trained in establishments subsidised by the Pharmaceutical industry. They want Pharma to instigate reliable testing and to do this are ready to combat or petition endless authorities and committees, many members of which will lack any relevant academic knowledge but are nevertheless amply rewarded for taking years to reach decisions. I am aware from experience that such a course can only exacerbate depression and could be likened to David facing Goliath armed with only a peashooter.
Once bitten, twice shy. Medication for my initial condition had such dreadful side effects that I avoided antidepressants and eventually, after about twelve years, resolved the problem with diet, vitamins and much reading of psychiatric journals. I can highly recommend taking some responsibility for one’s own well being, so empowering after feeling so helpless, but Oh how much easier it became with the internet. There are so many mental conditions that arise from inadequacies of diet and physicians who treat only the symptoms rather than the whole person do the patient no favour. It’s like treating measles by putting a Band Aid on each spot but, as David Healy points out in ‘Psychiatric Drugs’, when they are prescribed a degree of clinical judgement is assumed. Illness does not occur in isolation; it’s within the environment of the body so that seems a reasonable place to start and then there are many, many herbs and supplements that can help without putting further stress upon the body as pharmaceutical drugs do.
Drug companies are way too big to fight. They have their agenda. Money. It greases the wheels of the Agencies that dictate what can be prescribed and of the politicians that mandate them and it suborns doctors to prescribe the product. Before disillusion set in I handed out many brown envelopes full of crisp notes in the course of marketing research. I logged into David Healy’s site and now notice at the foot of the page – Data Based Medicines. Please know that the FDA does no independent testing and that all licenses are granted on the basis of data from the manufacturers who pay handsomely for favourable independent monitoring, according to whistleblowers. In the UK medicines are supposedly researched using tissue culture, computer analysis and testing on two species of animals before use on humans. Since computers and mice don’t normally complain of depression the humans get to be guinea pigs.
Albert Einstein noted that ‘Propositions arrived at purely by logical means are completely empty as regards reality’. While waiting for efficient Data Based Medicine it might be more profitable to investigate some evidence based remedies. If they don’t help at least they won’t hurt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvIBx9QYMHI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-AItVwmJb8
http://orthomolecular.org/library/articles/ocdepression.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n11.shtml
No-one is selling anything on these links.