The University of British Columbia in Vancouver hosts The Therapeutics Initiative an independent group who evaluate all medicines for effectiveness, harms and value in a regular series of Drugs Bulletins dealing with new drugs or emerging problems with older drugs.
They were set up in 1994 just when evaluations of this type and Drugs Bulletins were falling out of favour. When we were only going to be allowed Good News about drugs in Guidelines with major medical journals increasingly scared to publish about the harms. We would all be in trouble without T.I. who do the world a favour not just people in British Columbia.
Alan Cassels, who will be known to many as the author of Selling Sickness, Seeking Sickness and many other ahead of their time books is a key member of the T.I. group producing many of the Drugs Bulletins. Alan became aware of Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) and related sexual problems through the efforts and bravery of Canadian sufferers like Emily Gray, who has helped set up a network of Canadian PSSD sufferers, whose efforts helped prompt Health Canada to recognize the condition.
On the back of this, Alan invited me to talk at one of the regular educational sessions T.I. run. The talk happened on February 10th and the video will be on the T.I. site imminently.
It is also here and on the Shipwreck of the Singular site
Sex and Evidence Based Medicine.
The Text for the talk that contains a little bit more than appeared in the lecture is here – Life is a Bidet Old Chum.
The Talk Slides are here – Evidence Based Medicine Shipwrecked.
Sex and Evidence Based Medicine is an element of the broader Shipwreck of the Singular argument, which is that Evidence Based Medicine is leading us astray.
It would be great if any readers having listened to the lecture can disseminate the material as far and wide as possible. Better again, disseminate everything and then listen.
David Healy
Was interested to read about the eels. My friend’s father used to be fascinated, we thought them repulsive but equally mysterious as they were seen crawling over land and swimmming – over 3000mls to the Sargasso sea then die after reproducing elvers who swam back to where the mature eels . More to the point Freud did research into the mystery of their repoduction eventually found tested and ovaries. Shame his interests strayed into the more bizarre psychoanalytical theories of sexual dysfunction which it seems have been absorbed into medical thinking ever since.
As someone who doesn’t have the problems discussed will anyway disseminate as much as possible . I live in Wales so wonder why their Yellow Card scheme isn’t being challenged by campaigners – or maybe they have given that up as useless.
Notice the increasing number of adverts on evening TV are being more and more targeted at men’s sexual problems such as erectile dysfuntion , but nothing specific to women except a shortlived campaign on sanitary pads and pads /products for urinary problems. Male virility and attracts more cash from drugs companies but nobody is warning them about the potential harms.
David What do you think of Prescrire? The information they publish is free and open access.
ISSUE CONTENTS
TOPICS
ABOUT PRESCRIRE
english.prescrire.org > About Prescrire > Who are we?
Who are we?
Prescrire is a non-profit continuing education organisation, committed to better patient care
Prescrire and Prescrire International provide independent information, by and for healthcare professionals.
Since 1981, Prescrire has provided healthcare professionals – and via them, patients – with the clear, comprehensive and reliable information they need about drugs and therapeutic and diagnostic strategies.
Susanne
Its a pity you asked me about Prescrire. They do some great work and there are some wonderful people there whom I like a lot but fundamentally Prescrire buy into the Shower approach to Medicine and even though much of what they do is great, they cause Bidet folk like me real problems.
They also won’t engage on the Shower or Bidet issue. I gave a lecture several yeas ago where I first used the Shower and Bidet slide with someone from Prescrire sitting in the front row and I made the point that Prescrire wonderful though it was is part of the problem. Most of the audience were French speaking and you’d get a better hearing from Catholics if you complained about the Pope than you would get from French speakers if you say Prescrire is anything less than perfect. There was no verbal response but there was an emotional response.
I’ve since sent Prescrire material such as the material on RCTs that ended up in recent posts – the Fault Lies in our Stars and Faulty Star – but they have been unwilling to engage.
I wish it were different. There was an old joke, perhaps politically incorrect now, about an Afican American thrown out of a Christian Church in the American South – everyone inside was white. Lying in the dust, he looks up to Heaven and asks God, when will I ever be able to get into your House. A voice responds from Heaven – I’ve been trying to get in their for centuries. We have a similar problem.
David
‘Bones’ go down the Bidet…
Paul John Scott@pauljohnscott
So, in an effort to cleave akathisia from SSRI’s and put the side effect in a drug with no baggage , I wrote a novel (Malcharist) where this happened. Now it’s not fictional I guess. SSRI’s for bone health, what could wrong.
https://amazon.com/dp/1989963005
Common anti-depressant may be first-ever treatment for osteoarthritis
A disease of the joints, osteoarthritis affects more than 30 million adults and is the fifth-leading cause of disability in the United States. In a new study, scientists have discovered the cellular pathway that leads to osteoarthritis and have identified a commonly used anti-depressant—paroxetine—that inhibits this pathway. The team found that Paroxetine not only slows down cartilage degeneration, but also promotes cartilage health in both mice and human cartilage in vitro. The drug may be the first-ever treatment for this debilitating, degenerative disease.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-common-anti-depressant-first-ever-treatment-osteoarthritis.html
Slide 7: There is a great thriller Malcharist about akathisia leading to suicide and the role of ghostwriting and data sequestration.
The published literature of course isn’t negative.
Come to the Cabaret…
Operation Warp Speed’s former science chief Moncef Slaoui is to lead research at a new mega-biotech called Centessa, formed by the merger of 10 privately-held life science startups.
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/slaoui-launches/
While he was at GSK the company favoured an approach to research where specialist teams were organised into “mini biotechs” focused on their projects with oversight led by president of R&D Patrick Vallance.
Prognosis
UnitedHealth Names Witty CEO as Wichmann Retires Abruptly
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/unitedhealth-names-andrew-witty-ceo-as-dave-wichmann-retires
“I am deeply honored to help guide one of the most consequential organizations in health care,” Witty said in a statement.
Witty, 56, was knighted by the British crown in 2012 for his services to the U.K. economy. As a former public company CEO who led GSK for a decade, Witty was an obvious choice to succeed Wichmann.
Slide 14:
People are the trial data – the figures put into statistical sausage machines are not the data nor are the statistical outputs.
For instance in a 15-year-old boy in Study 329 went on Paxil in Dallas and dropped out with intercurrent illness. This code means the company don’t have to submit any adverse event data or narratives on him. The 80,000 pages on this trial tell you nothing about him.
An internal company email says he was picked up by the police because he was outside waving a gun around and threatening to kill people. Holy Shit he’s on our drug. You’d like to ask the kid what happened. If he and his mother say nothing like that ever happened before he entered the trial you have a very different story to company efforts to pass him off as bipolar – without using the word. This happens a lot in drug and vaccine trials. He is the data.
This lecture would be brilliant for college students and possibly school years 12 and 13 pupils BUT there is no chance of it being allowed anywhere near them, that’s for sure. If information about a group which supported withdrawal from ADs was “too much information” for schools and colleges to deal with, I’m sure that anything to do with sex would freak them out!
However, my plan is to find out school nurses. They may not be called that these days but every school has to have a link to Health Services in one way or another. If I can get to that sort of information, I will share all of this with them. Through them it could get to Health Visitors (don’t think that’s their name anymore either actually) and in that way we could end up with this lecture being shared in a way that teenagers finally get to see it. They would love it, of that I am sure!
Can’t beat that view of the Menai Bridge showing Snowdon in its winter cloak can you!
Sent post to Humanists UK
and to Movember Foundation website –
MEN’S HEALTH
STORIES
GLOBALLY, ON AVERAGE, 1 MAN DIES BY SUICIDE EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY
The rate of male suicide is alarmingly high: 3 out of 4 suicides in the UK are by men.
WE CAN’T SIT BACK AND ACCEPT THIS.
Movember looks at mental health through a male lens, focusing on prevention, early intervention and health promotion.
We’re working towards a world where men take action to be mentally well, and are supported by those around them.
BY 2030 WE’LL REDUCE THE RATE OF MALE SUICIDES BY 25%.
HELP US GET THERE.
SUPPORT US
ABOUT US
MEN’S HEALTH
STORIES
OWAIN DOULL
25TH NOVEMBER 2020
OWAIN DOULL OPENS UP ABOUT LOSING HIS BEST FRIEND TO SUICIDE
Mo Bro
Owain Doull
1 minute read time
Owain Doull MBE is a Welsh road cyclist and Olympic gold medallist.
Earlier this year, his best mate Siôn took his own life.
“I think Siôn struggled a lot when the lockdown started. That face to face contact, that’s the really important stuff in life for people and for that to be taken away is dangerous.”
In the UK, 84 men a week take their own life. In celebration of Siôn’s life, Owain and his friends have been running 84km during Movember.
“It’s been a hard year. We wanted to find something to focus our energy and our efforts on, and Movember came round and we thought we’d get involved.
Of all the years to donate this is the year because with the impact of COVID and the lockdown on people’s mental health people need the support more than ever. It makes a difference; you can save lives.”
” It makes a difference; you can save lives. “
The Humnists totally ignored my nore plus post instead sent a standard letter with lecture about need for all to have vaccine – and a request for donation. Unsubscribed obviously
This was a brilliant talk, so much packed into an hour. I watched it at 8pm live, and was expecting to get tired, not keep up etc. It was so so engaging, I laughed out loud at slide 9.Years 12,13 would especially find this ‘memorable’… So what if it ‘Offends’ Were those ‘Offended’ prudes or Trump supporters or feminists… We are indeed living in PC times…. The overall message made me sad and angry. Beneath the bluff and bravado there is a huge amount of pain, suffering, humiliation impotence, disempowerment. To not have a libido is utterly crushing. The 90% of those on ADs unable to get off have been told literally to put up and shut up… ‘Depression, and the pills prescribed for it, cause sexual dysfunction, if you complain about it.. We don’ t care, we will try to tell you it’s all in your head (When it clearly is in the body) As Dr’s generally are reluctant to accept this why then would your sexual partner accept this. Frankie, from the Saturdays said publically, that she suffered sexual dysfunction on SSRIs, also that she had to reassure her footballer husband that it wasn’t him. Frankie also publically stated she envisaged being on these pills for Life, as they ‘Saved her life’ so in effect the same result as a PSSD sufferer. A life time without a proper lovelife? Where is the outrage? Now if an ‘Attractive young person like Frankie thinks this… What hope is there for all the other bright young things? Totally agree Mary if 16-24 year olds knew this, they would be very wary of blindly taking these pills… Happy Valentines Day, especially you Professor Healy. And Thank You for your searing determination, honesty, and courage. X
Why bother when obviously they cannot learn from the mistakes they make themselves..The way they collect incidents is similar to the useless MHRA ,which they share info with…. ‘Please note: these reports are only used to support national learning. We do not investigate individual reports and you will not receive a reply. ‘
NHS England
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Electric Eels are interesting as they are able to store bioelectricity, scientists have made biobatteries after thinking about Electric Eels.
https://youtu.be/MNctvU0LZ9M
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2001/riis/electriceel3.htm