There is no intention in this piece to cause offence. But there seems to be no point in being anything other than blunt.
Two thousand years ago, Aristotle could argue that politics should be moral – that we should govern the polis in a manner that fostered virtue in its citizens. There wasn’t then the split between public and private morality there is now. The polis was still small enough that other than in a tyranny (of the type Plato thought might be necessary) a family member (the man) from every family (well the lead families at least) could come and debate in the square what everyone knew was going on.
Things are different now. Pinning down what drove the split between politics and morality we now have is difficult. Was it the printing press that brought news from parts so distant it was difficult to feel responsible for the people who lived there or to know what was really going on? Was it industrialization and urbanization that concentrated people in a megalo-polis that called for a different kind of politics? Was it the Reformation that fractured the community of believers to the point they were willing to exterminate the “others” in their midst?
Machiavelli’s The Prince marked the transition. In politics the ends now justified the means. Kant and others attempted to restore a universal secular morality against which politicians might be held to account. But in the new world of homo economicus, self-made men followed the data, especially the data on money, rather than any universal code. The idea that if you did well, God obviously favoured you, offered a convenient cover, along with the invisible hand that ensured the more you prioritised your self-interest the better it would be for the community.
While still claiming universality, just as women were being relegated to the morality of a domestic sphere, philosophers and religious retreated to a private morality. A private world where caring was celebrated rather than expediency – except in the case of the many clerics who were more obsessed with the private vice of others.
Health was the key realm where caring remained the central public virtue – until around the year 2000, since when it seems continuity of data has become more important than continuity of care, in what is becoming a service industry rather than a site of care. (A case can also be made for education being an important location of care – similarly transformed into a service industry).
Aside from the occasional questioning of the private lives of some politicians, little seemed capable of disturbing the comforts that this split offered both politicians and churchmen. Global wars, Auschwitz, and Hiroshima might as well have been Hollywood movies. And ministers of health are now impervious to the degradation of care happening in health.
Until – despite efforts by Hollywood to rewrite the script – evidence from Ireland of priests sexually abusing children led to a disintegration of the empire of private morality that was almost as rapid and comprehensive as the disintegration of whatever it was that occupied Eastern Europe – was it an Empire, was it totalitarianism?
These were the background musings against which the following striking reminder of how dangerous our planet can be caught my attention.
Suicide is Painful
A recent BBC article was entitled Catholic priest at teenager’s funeral condemns suicide
Parents of a teenage boy who took his own life have complained after their Catholic priest criticised him at the funeral for killing himself.
Father Don LaCuesta in the service questioned whether Maison Hullibarger, 18, would enter heaven, horrifying his parents and family. The Archdiocese of Detroit have relieved Father LaCuesta from funeral duties, but the family want him fired.
Catholicism has traditionally taught that suicide is an unforgiveable sin. Only recently has the church said that extreme psychological stress could mean forgiveness for those who take their own lives.
Maison, from Temperance, Michigan, took his own life on 4 December. His parents Jeff and Linda Hullibarger sought the help of their priest, Father LaCuesta, before the funeral.
“We wanted him to celebrate how Maison lived, not how he died,” Ms Hullibarger told the Detroit Free Press.
But the priest used the service at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic church to attack their child.
“He was up there condemning our son, pretty much calling him a sinner,” Mr Hullibarger said. “He wondered if he had repented enough to make it to heaven. He said ‘suicide’ upwards of six times.”
The appearance at the funeral against their wishes of their son’s football coach, who reportedly bullied Maison and his brothers, added to their pain.
A statement released by the Archdiocese of Detroit said Father LaCuesta would not preach at funerals “for the foreseeable future” and apologised for what happened, but the family want him removed from his post to stop him upsetting others.
“We’re afraid that, like the Catholic Church does, they’ll send him off and he’ll do it to somebody else,” Mr Hullibarger said.
The Cardinals
I know nothing about this case beyond what is here. The details might make a huge difference.
On one level we have a priest doing his job. Until recently suicides could not be buried in a church cemetery or with the services for others who die. Suicide was close to the ultimate private sin. Its easy to imagine a priest figuring that going soft on this further cuts the ground out from under private morality. Is there anything left that Churches stand for?
But here’s the rub. What is the Catholic Church doing about the marketing of psychotropic drugs which cause suicide? These suicides aren’t just accidents. They don’t happen without company personnel or senior figures in the medical establishment knowing what is going on. What would Don LaCuesta say at the funeral of a senior company executive who had stood in the way of warnings about these hazards?
Many years back Leonie Fennell’s son Shane Clancy killed himself and others in horrific fashion. He had been put on citalopram, and encouraged by his doctor to continue with it despite reporting problems, A jury of people from a rural part of Ireland, with an ethos not far removed from that of Aristotle’s polis, decided his death was not suicide.
Irish psychiatry in contrast, particularly it’s members most closely linked with the Catholic Church, declared Leonie’s efforts to raise awareness of the suicide inducing effects of SSRIs to be ungodly. Some years later, the same psychiatrists campaigned vigorously against the introduction of greater access to abortion in Ireland, while being completely unwilling to look at the evidence that antidepressants double rates of miscarriages, and birth defects, and increase rates at which women seek abortions.
As part of her efforts to raise awareness of the profound problems opened up by Shane’s death and the deaths of others at his hand, in early 2014 Leonie organised for me to meet the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin. We laid the issues out for him and put it to him that the Catholic Church was one of the few organizations with the credibility to ask the right questions. They didn’t have to provide the answers but if they asked the questions someone would have to respond. He was pleasant. He was a politician – a public issue like this was not one for the Church.
Getting no answer, Leonie wrote to Jose Mario Bergoglio, who had just taken over from a previous Pontiff. Bergoglio was widely reported in the press as just picking up the phone and chatting to women about their concerns – even divorced women – as well as advocating for the need for us to care for the planet – a rather public concern.
Claiming to act on behalf of Bergoglio, a Peter Wells washed some pleasant words over the boss’s hands. My sympathies dear woman – it must have been difficult to see your son up on a Cross.
A year earlier, the Church, under a German patriarch, had convened a Vatican meeting to consider issues surrounding psychotropic drugs in young people. The organizers were advised they should have Healy. They opted not to – seemingly on the basis that a year earlier Healy had designated the senior figures in medicine and psychiatry who have presided over the ghostwriting of the medical literature and sequestration of clinical trial data as Bishops and Cardinals.
The comparison was triggered by the striking image above of the 2001 Pontiff with cardinals from the US whom he had called to Rome after the sexual abuse crisis had blown up.
Did the Vatican think this was a slur on decent medical people or a slur on the leaders of the faithful by comparing them to medical people operating on the basis of a ghost written literature and tolerating a total lack of transparency on matters of abuse? Who knows.
For Cardinals – see Here.
Silent Night
Drug (and device) wrecks – the injuries treatment causes – are the key site where the personal becomes political in our world. This is the point where there is the greatest silencing of what everyone knows is going on.
This silencing is more profound that the silencing surrounding the sexual abuse of children. Patients trying to tell doctors about a problem they are having or have had on a medicine cannot get a hearing.
Psychologists, nurses and a host of others who have all kinds of reasons to speak up about the failings of doctors and drug companies, and who have no problems accusing authority figures of sexual abuse that might have happened their patients on spaceships when the patients were less than a year old, aren’t prepared to support people suffering from side effects right in front of them in speaking up about problems happening in real time.
We now face a first ever drop in the data for life expectancy. This silencing of anyone who attempts to raise awareness about possible harms has to be one contributor to this drop, facilitating as it has done, the entry of a service cuckoo into the healthcare nest who is pushing any fledgling carers out of the nest.
Somewhere around 40% of the population over the age of 10 in many developed countries are on 3 are more drugs every single day, which means that something of the order of 75% of those doctors see are on 3 or more drugs every single day.
The academic literature on these drugs is almost totally ghostwritten and there is a total lack of transparency on the clinical trial data, especially the data on harms, and especially as regards our children.
If Churches or philosophers want to become relevant again, this is the point where they need to Woman Up. While the global climate is getting slowly poisoned, the sea-levels aren’t obviously rising just yet. The climate in healthcare though has become remarkably toxic remarkably quickly and life expectancy is now clearly falling. If we can’t care for each other, if people don’t count, why care for the planet Jose?
All kinds of people are turning away from single use plastics, buying electric cars. What about reporting an adverse event and leaving your name on it – and if your doctor doesn’t co-sign, what about changing your doctor? Anyone who does this will do more for global climate change than they will do by buying an electric car or avoiding plastic.
On Christmas Eve 1914, combatants on either side apparently joined in singing Silent Night. Its difficult to listen to this now and think about that night without wondering what the fuck was anyone doing continuing to fight on after that or wondering why on earth did religious leaders not exhort people to just go home.
In the silence of every night between now and this time next year, there will likely be a baby born to a woman who has been on antidepressants throughout her pregnancy, even though she knows the risks but can’t get off them. There will be a baby born with birth defects or behavioural defects, possibly including permanent asexuality. Some pharmaceutical company general will have precipitated someone into a “suicide” or sent someone out to shoot or otherwise kill someone else. And this is just the antidepressants.
You don’t have to have a position on antidepressants or any other drug or vaccine Jose – if you talked about the hazards you would like just increase sales of the drugs in addition to harming yourself and your institution.
You just have to ask for the private to be public. Science is supposed to be the place where everything is public – data we can all scrutinise. And then trust the people.
Fiachra says
If I was on Psychotropic medication tomorrow and Attempted Suicide, and felt the same way as I did when I previously attempted suicide, I would not be responsible.
If the young catholic mentioned in this article was on psychotropic medication and afflicted the same way as I was (when he attempted suicide) he would NOT be responsible.
If my first cousin who took his own life, was on psychotropic medications and was similarly afflicted (with AKATHISIA), he would NOT be responsible:-
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/04/aisling-bea-my-fathers-death-has-given-me-a-love-of-men-of-their-vulnerability-and-tenderness
The Characteristics of Psychotropic Drug induced Suicide are Behaviour which is :-
1. Out of Character
2. Extreme
3. Without Reasonable Explanation
AKATHISIA
It’s very difficult for a normal person to identify with Drug Induced Psychotropic Suicide (or Homicide) as the TERROR of a person behaving like this, does not fall within the spectrum of normal human experience.
Leonie Fennell says
Thanks for telling Shane’s story .. next year it will be a decade, one that I can’t believe I survived. Who knew, a broken heart can be patched up and although permanently bleeding, can be survivable – just. Despite all else, such as Irish psychiatry and the usual idiocy/snobbery of GPs who continue to justify ‘antidepressants’ as wholly deserving of their label, Dr Healy believed in Shane (and by inference in me). No words can ever explain how that felt – thus, what others said never mattered one iota. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was perfectly nice – and perfectly f*cking useless, as was the Pope. Sticking one’s neck out, like David Healy did, goes beyond religion. However, it seems Judas is alive and kicking – and Shane and the numerous iatrogenic victims, have the boot marks to prove it.
Johanna says
A few years ago I stumbled across a list of coroner’s verdicts from the 1840’s in West Tipperary, where my father’s family hails from. I forwarded it to David because he’s a historian, after all – and because it included a half-dozen suicides.
About half of these specified a suicide “while the balance of his/her mind was disturbed,” while the rest simply stated the means: “jumped from her window,” “threw himself in the river,” etc.
I thought the verdicts noting a “disturbed mind” might well have been issued for religious reasons, so the deceased could be buried in a Catholic cemetery and need not be condemned by the parish priest. If so, it’s clear that the Church recognized certain suicides might be victims of forces beyond their control. For example, if a person jumped because she hallucinated devils chasing her, anyone might agree it was not a freely-chosen “sinful” act.
Certainly a drug-induced death like the one that befell Leonie’s son Shane (and so many more like him) deserves at least as much compassion as one brought on by a psychotic illness of whatever cause. And not just compassion, but ACTION – to stop an act of murder by indifference. JC, after all, did not just comfort those robbed by money-changers at the Temple or stoned to death by a mob of hypocrites. He intervened.
Maybe Pope Francis could be shaken into action by the forced drugging of immigrant children at the US-Mexican border, locked up at the “Shiloh Treatment Center” for illnesses such as trying to run away. I can’t help having just a wee bit of faith in him, and in a few honest Catholics who have confronted the monstrous “care” dished out to kids seized from their parents at the border.
But the Church hierarchy as a whole (like the psychiatric establishment) looks like just another brick in the wall. Certain Mortal Sins have always been more Mortal than others. The US church has never hesitated to come down with both feet on Catholic politicians who slack off in their anti-abortion crusades, even denying them Communion from time to time. Supposedly, opposing the death penalty is part of the same “seamless garment” of reverence for life. But the church stays on the politest terms with the legions of “law-and-order” Catholic politicians who campaign for the death penalty and the Catholic prosecutors who dish it out …
Of course I have no idea how priests in 1840’s Ireland (or now!) were supposed to tell the difference between a suicide caused by a “disordered mind” and a sinful one rooted in lack of faith. But I’m willing to bet it had more to do with the social station and clout of the family than any medical or theological mysteries.
Heather R says
An attitude of condemnatory judgement amongst clerics after a suicide, or should I say, ‘a prescripticide’ as so many of us parents know it to be, is not only the preserve of the Catholic Church. Our own vicar was away in Greece on holiday when our son died. We went through the procedures, like in a nightmare dream, with the undertaker, who recommended a local vicar to take the cremation service for us, and arranged for us to go to see him straightaway. He took us into his sittingroom like the spider capturing two trusting flies, sat down with his hands together and said, looking utterly cross and compassionless, “Well, this is all very harrowing, isn’t it…”. We perched speechless on his sofa like two shamed children. In the normal way I would never make a fuss, but something made me leap up at once and rush out of his house saying, ‘I can’t do this.’ With him staring in shock, and then calling after me. But I didn’t stop. We eventually found a local lady vicar who came to our home and we talked of our son, how he had been driven to leave this world. She had been a lawyer but then became a vicar. She was wonderful. She understood. She has remained a friend till this day, writes at Christmas to ask how we are.
Like Stephanie Lynch says, there is no pain like that which all we parents feel, and we are driven to make the world realise that these youngsters were effectively murdered by the prescribed medications that messed up their young brains. They committed no crime. The crime was committed against THEM. This is why we formed our Facebook ‘Olly’s Friendship Foundation’ where we can remember and laud the ones we know about, and the hell they bravely battled, till it all became too much to bear. But no doctor (and there have been plenty of ‘em) we’ve engaged in conversation about these suicides, has ever done more than looked away in embarrassment when we cite the problem of AKATHISIA from these meds, leading so often to these suicides. Are they afraid to openly speak about what they must suspect is correct? Or have they signed gagging orders on pain of being struck off? I’d dearly love to know.
Spruce says
This is an analogy that sums up how people damaged by prescription drugs are treated when they try to report the harms they have experienced to the MHRA, and also the PHSO (Parlimentary health service ombudsman).
Imagine if you came back from doing some shopping and you found some smoke coming from your house. Concerned you run to the front door and open it, to find that inside your kitchen is on fire.
Frantically you dial 999 from your mobile phone, and ask for the fire brigade.
When you get through to the fire brigade, you tell them in a distressed state that there is smoke coming from your house and you have opened the front door, and there is a fire in your kitchen.
To your shock their response is “are you sure”?
Slightly baffled by their response you almost implore them that “Yes of course I am sure, I can see it with my own eyes”.
To your further shock their response is ” well that is interesting that you feel that, we will note it down, but just because you feel you can see it, doesn’t mean it is definitely happening”.
You then become exasperated telling them “look my house is on fire, I need some immediate assistance, otherwise my whole house is going to burn down”.
Their response continues “well it costs a lot of money and resources to deploy a fire engine, and there haven’t been many other people reporting a fire at your house, so for the moment we will wait to see if anyone else reports a fire at your house, before we are sure this is actually happening to your house”.
By now you are almost incredulous at their response, and have lost your patience and you almost scream “LOOK I NEED HELP RIGHT NOW, MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE”.
The operator then takes on a condescending tone, and states “look you seem very emotional and stressed, are you sure this is not affecting your judgement of what is happening”.
You then completely lose it with them screaming “NO I DONT THINK THIS IS CAUSED BY STRESS OR OTHER FACTORS, THERE IS A FIRE IN MY HOUSE, I CAN SEE IT WITH MY OWN FRIKKIN EYES, NOW PLEASE SEND SOME HELP, I NEED IT VERY BADLY”
The tone from the operator remains condescending, as they go onto tell you “we appreciate that you feel that your house is on fire, but there is insufficient evidence to confirm your story of what you feel is happening to your house, so for the moment it would be inappropriate for us to take any action”. They then state “if we get any other reports of a fire coming from your house we may look into this further”.
By this time you are worn down with trying to reason with them and simply state in an almost accepting tone “but what about all the damage being done to my property and the potential risk to people’s lives?”.
The operator ignores your question and then tells you that if you feel the fire has changed in any way, to give them a call back and they will note down how it has changed on your call log.They then tell you they are “bringing the phone call to an end” and hang up.
As time goes by you watch as the fire moves from room to room, burning your entire house down, along with all your possessions, until your whole house is gutted out. The fire narrowly misses spreading to the next house.
In the ensuing weeks you find out that not only did you report that your house was burning down, but so did both of your neighbours on both sides to you, two other people from over the road from you, and even a few people not even living in the same street, who saw the smoke rising from a distance.
All had called the fire brigade, and asked them to send out a fire engine. All had got a similar response as you had, about insufficient evidence in regards to the fire actually happening.
Feeling infuriated you call the fire brigade back, explaining that others had also phoned up asking for assistance with the fire at your house.
The caller listens to what you say, and then calmly states that at the time you reported the fire, the fire brigade could not say with complete certainty that there was a fire at your house, and therefore it took the reasonable and understandable action at the time, not to take action, until it was completely certain a fire was happening.
You respond back by saying that they could have sent a fire engine around to check for themselves. Their response is that at the time, the evidence wasn’t strong enough to justify the resources or time, looking into whether the fire was actually happening.
You state that it is their job, to check whether the fire is happening, and that is what they are payed for. You also say that if only they had believed you, a lot of the harm and damage could have been avoided.
They respond by saying they are sorry you feel that way, and that if you would like to make an official complaint about how you feel you were treated, you can make one through the Fire service ombudsman.
After the phone call has come to an end, you gaze on at your burnt down house, all your possessions gone.The damage is done.
After a while you finally decide to write to the Fire service ombudsman hoping they will see the common sense, and logical argument you have, about how unreasonable the fire service have behaved towards you, and that if only they had listened and believed you, a lot of the damage you have suffered could have been avoided.
If only you knew that by writing the letter to the Fire service ombudsman, you were opening up a whole new chapter of disappointment and frustration, that is even worse than the one you have just left.
Heather R says
Brilliantly explained Spruce. And there’s a follow up to this. Once the Fire ombudsman gets your complaint, as you imply, nothing apart from an exchange of paperwork and a phone call or two, will happen. Leaving you, as you say, with a burnt out house and an inner disbelief coupled with fury. So then you feel driven to go to the court of public opinion…
But what happens if you DO start to go more high profile, get into the media with your Fire Report, raise the issue of what has happened to you. Especially if someone you loved actually died in such a fire? You become a Nuisance. You need to be silenced, from spreading your message because it may worry people. They may think the Establishment, (doctors, pharmacies, Government) are not doing all they can to keep us all safe. So you need to be silenced.
‘The greatest benefit for the greatest number.’ This must be kept as the priority, we mustn’t let the truth get out there, it wouldn’t help to keep order in the population. So they feel justified in doing that by undermining your credibility using every means possible. The two most effective are: infiltrating your finances to try to ruin you, and spreading lies about your sanity.
The idea is to make you give up your crusade to be a Fire Alarm. To shut you down and shut you up. This can indeed wear you down. But there is a whole phalanx of others standing with you, all fighting too, to be Fire Alarmists. And somehow you decide to keep going to the death, however tired you feel. Lots of these other Fire Alarmists have lost young, burnt to death in the fires, and sadly, many of these Fire reporting parents, whose story is the same as yours, become ill with the strain. But they struggle on. Why? Because these fires are the biggest travesty of human rights of our age.
The lack of fire fighters’ listening and acting, is worse than all the madness of Hitler and his silent supporters threw at the world. This enormous lie of SILENCE MUST END. It’s like a volcanic movement growing under the earth, and boy, when the volcano erupts with its all-consuming Fire, it will take all the nay sayers with it, into the hell they truly deserve. But we need some help to speed this up. One heck of a lot of help, from somewhere or some others with clout and courage and belief. And, unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to be conventional religionthat initiates this. I’m afraid, like the Pharisees, they are going to keep looking the other way. Till too late.
susanne says
Absolutely brilliant analogy Spruce thanks
Anne says
When I was under 10 I was sexually assaulted by a priest and a teacher…..who wasn’t in the 1960’s ?
Decades later I told a Minister I trusted.
He was not very helpful telling me to pray to the Magdalene.
In 2007 I wanted off anti-depressants as I could not have sex with my husband.
I was told basically to put up and shut up as I had a chemical imbalance.
I stopped going to church ….the administering of the sacraments seemed a tad hypocritical..
I lost faith in the medical profession….the administering of medicine was not in my best interest…..
Woman up ….I wish……..
annie says
Does everyone want to be ‘Comfortably Numb’
Is it Comfortable to be Numb.
On Antidepressants or not on Antidepressants – The Status Quo or Queen?
Actually, it’s Pink Freud..
Life is not a barrel of laughs at this stage in our politics or ‘our’ place in your politics …
Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone home?
Come on, now
I hear you’re feeling down
I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again
Relax
I’ll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I’ve got that feeling once again
I can’t explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
O. K.
Just a little pin prick
There’ll be no more aaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it’s working, good
That’ll keep you going through the show
Come on it’s time to go.
There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look, but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb.
So now everyone is Comfortably Numb.
The Pharma Plan worked, Comfortably Numb.
The Side with the Power decided to Worship the Pharma Plan and Hello, Is There Anybody in There?
Just Nod If You Can Hear Me?
OK..
Carla says
Aristotle could argue that politics should be moral.
Well, well, well ~ that we should govern the polis in a manner that fostered virtue in its citizens ~ This is an understatement of the century!
Poor Aristotle had good intentions however, in theory politics and religion just don’t mix.
Who has enough courage, conviction and grit to say it as it is!
Politics and religion, sadly, utilize fear tactics, to prevent the TRUTH from coming to the fore.
When people pay the price for speaking up against corruption, what is this universe trying to do to the people who are only trying to bring forth the truth.
Yes, you undermine, discredit us, destroy our intellect, throw us to the wolves, gas light our good name. tarnish our reputation, perceive us as trouble makers and the list goes on and on and on…………………. There are so many sheep in wolves clothing, They say they want to help however, their intentions are malicious and somewhat devious and perverse!
In actual fact, there will be a day when we shall receive justice for all your wrong doing.
All involved, need to be held accountable for all the hell you have put us through.
As the saying goes:
Hell hath no fury for people who have been harmed.
Like Spruce and Heather, so eloquently put forward:
When they create the fire who is there to put out their fires ~ No one!
The perpetrators who lie and gather their flock to feather their nests, will indeed, one day pay the price for all their reckless and shameful behaviour and NO God, religion or dirty politics will side with them once their dirty laundry is exposed!
You have all played your part in trying to keep the dirty secrets from being exposed and when we all unite, one by one, we shall destroy the very thing that cost us everything!
When you refused to CARE, you threw us into the pits of HELL and when we survived, we were chastised and maltreated for seeking the TRUTH.
Hitler, is alive and well, in many religious and government organization.
You destroy people who highlight the truth and do everything to undermine our mental integrity.
We shall see who has the last say!
Do all good heroes have to die a tragic death?
You have silenced us for way too long and if we have a duty to the universe, it is because we bothered to care.
For those who have blemished my good name, to hell with all of you!
‘She wants to save the world!’ ~ Perhaps, I am exposing the corruption that goes on and needs to come to the fore so the tyranny of harming innocent people comes to light.
Keep feathering your nests because once us ‘eagles’ come swooping over those well adorned nests, we shall make your lives unbearable just like you have made ours intolerable.
I don’t fear religion or politics!
I know that there is an omnipresent power watching over all those who do wrong to mankind ~ this I know!
Perhaps Aristotle shall have the last say, in the end and there will be no more silent nights as the TRUTH shall set us all free.
“All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again”.
To Hell with those who put us down all in the name of BAD MEDICINE.
Carla says
Remove the restrictions or controls which for a long time have prevented a lot of people from doing something they want to do: If the case is successful, it may open the floodgates to more damages claims against the medicine that has caused so much harm.
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2012/03/02/how_antianxiety_meds_are_killing_celebrities.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3234334/Prescription-pills-Britain-s-biggest-killer-effects-drugs-taken-insomnia-anxiety-kill-thousands-doctors-hand-like-Smarties.html
The case could open the floodgates for thousands of similar claims worldwide. Any change in the law could open the floodgates to increased harm and killing of many innocent people.
Bless the deceased, for they are our voice, also!
Spruce says
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fottawacitizen.com%2Fnews%2Flocal-news%2Fprozac-passes-on-altered-behaviour-to-next-three-generations-in-fish-researchers-find%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2_iyh7ndW-Msk2UPC6rfKyaVr8tEMyI1QOsh-N-A71bPP9e5rna9qga0s&h=AT1kvRn4N898PQapSGLQdnmR3ETsevF2j3XTpO9FTMnebSj3Z8kE9IWZ34BUkcAHMgJhrF0-YdpUHkTdMGQFN2LyQ9krWu-gJKmFfobac0C9ybqDpJg1W9y21QzG3KhK7Ss4bafc6_U-r-UwrjlY0lxUcL1iPyTDZ7Yp5QaL6JYjQjKhzdJOV06AYNEq-WrgZY4eiyHlLeqyBhVhiZz740-nkx4vmE0TQ1Xnhilpj1B4tWJ73qhX7DI1udaoWwII54l73s4l5hBpDaQ0R5-ppXS8VOeFVK6rJ2LL639F1I1oW4cGDtOpw2R3qDVFNwdBqCcQTvWgICAU7nMiua6GrXGOZvR4Hq-QltWUQpmG69NLj83O6kGv7Bc3rUmILrwAnCk-0TnJPCwAtMvxcaimDRchcZHCjFTEmGL5iMYP
So now not only have SSRI’s given me PSSD, but they have potentially affected the health of any unborn children I might have. Great!
Not much chance of me having children anyway at this rate because of the PSSD, but still.
Carla says
The drug company involved has received many letters and correspondence from me regarding the med that nearly cost me my life.
They want me to get reports from the medical professionals regarding the damages these meds have induced.
They did not HELP/SUPPORT me back then when I needed their ASSISTANCE, so with all honesty, they will leave me in a lurch again and this is very problematic, not just for myself, including others who have been maimed and died as a result of ingesting these meds.
How can there be any changes or how can a med be taken off the shelf, if those who are meant to care don’t defend or create an uproar of the dangers involving these meds?
They covered up everything and downplayed everything and I had to stand back and shake my head in dismay after they damaged my GOOD HEALTH!
If there are flawed batches, we want to know about it!
This is not about CARING!
Everyone involved should hang their head in shame.
Everything about these meds, some of the people in power who should be dedicated to take care of our safety and all organizations who are meant to be our ‘gatekeepers’ are indeed, scandalous.
I dedicate this song to those all those who failed to do their jobs with dignity and respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMO3YNoNyTY&index=13&list=RDW2vtslO2iNw
John Stone says
I could never understand why environmentalists who held up their hands in horror at releasing mercury into the environment failed to bat an eyelid at it being injected into babies – it became an environmental problem if there was an unused batch to be disposed of. Did it even occur to them it might enter the wider environment via the baby? Perhaps it was that medical products were believed to be magical, or was it that environmentalists were in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry, and having thought about for 5 seconds decided to hold their tongues.
As to the Catholic Church, senior members in Kenya did become exercised recently of the possibility a tetanus vaccine might be laced with a contraceptive substance (no doubt to the embarrassment of the Vatican) but otherwise no religious cleric or politician will stick their necks out to question “science” these days: they have become truly abject.
Rachel says
American Protestant churches are just as bad. When suicide happens they don’t condemn the dead–and that at least is good. Instead they tell everyone that the person was killed by the disease of depression. “A proven brain disease caused by chemical imbalances in the brain.”
My anger comes not just in their lazy ignorance in refusing to read and mindlessly accepting TV commercials. Many religious people dislike dealing with those in pain. Psychiatry is an easy way to write them off as “crazy” and accuse them of not taking their “meds” when they suffer loneliness, poverty, or the peculiar Hell-on-earth only these drugs can create.
Heather R says
John,
A relative of mine, born in 1951, was diagnosed in 1952 when very near death, with Pinks Disease, a reaction in the body to mercury which was used in ‘teething powders’, something given to very young babies I assume to help them with the discomfort of teething. I remember my mother telling me that these powders were withdrawn at around that time once their lethal connection was made.
My relation survived but to this day has suffered constant undiagnosed ill health. He has had the flu jab, as he did last year, but has straightway developed a chest infection, coughing up nasty phlegm in massive amounts, just like last year. He also constantly has bad stomach pains, fibromyalgia, and a degree of depression as well as a plethora of other ailments. Doctors are sick of him mentioning them, so he’s stopped doing so, saying “what’s the point”. I have never known him to be completely well. I do wonder about the effect the mercury may have had on his neurology right from the beginning. He struggled academically. . Doctors, needless to say, rubbish this theory, as does he now, because they do.
If there was concern in the 1950s about mercury for babies, then why, as John says, is there seemingly no interest in it now? Was science better in those days, or was their less Pharma financial vested interest?
annie says
Odd, how ‘furious’ doctors, turn up; recorded for posterity …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMjFluo4Az4
Dan Olmsted
https://www.ageofautism.com/2007/12/dr-insel-the-tr.html?p=2
and “whoa”…
Carla says
Very informative information, Annie.
We all need to be well informed and weigh up the pros and cons, when it comes to anything that we have very little information about.
Yes, we need all the biological evidence and all the information pertaining to side effects and adverse reactions.
Please view this video: ‘shots in the dark’
It is very educational and thought provoking. If your child has not been harmed by vaccines, you are very fortunate.
However, on the other side of the spectrum, you have parents who have had their poor children damaged by these vaccines.
They all have the same stories to tell.
There must be something in the vaccines (thimerosal) that harm some children and there should be mandatory tests done to all children, including adults, to evaluate who is an unsuitable candidate. If the digestive system is not well developed in some children, it may deposit itself in some parts of the brain instead of being excreted.
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/shots-in-the-dark/
Unless, one has never been harmed by these vaccines, one can never judge or point the finger at those poor innocent victims who have been harmed by these vaccines.
Carla says
I believe that technology gives us valuable information, at our fingertips.
AHRP (Alliance For Human Protection Research) exposes so many medical controversies, which are now coming to light.
http://ahrp.org/uk-doctors-told-to-stop-giving-antidepressants-to-children-glaxo-warns-of-paxil-birth-defects/
Times of silence, are slowly being banished.
My concern, is when organizations don’t take complaints seriously and sweep them under the carpet.
This is a travesty of justice, not only for the ones that put in a complaint but for the people who have to tolerate injustice of being maltreated.
For people to lie, stand back or display apathy, is not only sad but dangerous to not creating the necessary changes of a corrupt culture.
If POSITIVE CHANGES do not take place, the vicious cycle of ongoing abuse/neglect and negligence, festers as a ‘normal’ expectation of unsatisfactory
outcomes.
We are creating a culture of people who are too scared to speak up because the consequences of doing so costs you your reputation, your career and finances.
There are a few who have spoken up and have now been vindicated.
What would we do without these brave souls who stand up for the human race?
susanne says
Expelled Cochrane Director with others is setting up an independant new Institute for Integrity in Science . Peter Gotzche has issued a welcome to all to attend on 9th March 2009 in Denmark.
Carla says
Big Pharma has corrupted Health care.
What are we going to do about it?
Dr Peter Gotzche has the courage to say it as it is.
It takes a few amazing souls to expose the TRUTH.
I wish I had the opportunity to meet these brave souls.
When crime pays, we will have more crime! This is how CAPITALISM works!
~ Peter Gotzche
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dozpAshvtsA
Mia culpa ~ Does not exist :’ (
Carla says
What are you doing, Big Pharma?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/25/pharmaceutical-industry-donates-millions-to-both-australian-political-parties
Who would want to go against the hand that feeds?