RxISK blog

A Cure for PSSD, PFS and Post-Isotretinoin Syndrome
December 5, 2022 | 20 Comments

The Holy Grail © Nina Otulakowski June 2022 You need to click on the image to get the full effects. In recent months, RxISK has been working closely with Luisa Guerrini in Milan, whose background is in research on regulatory proteins like p 63 and p 53, on which Thalidomide works. This discovery led to […]

Read more ....

Our Unequal Struggle with Health Systems
November 23, 2022 | 21 Comments

This is Lacoon, a Trojan priest, and his sons being engulfed and killed by snakes from the deep as he tried to warn the Trojans about the Horse they were planning to pull inside their walls. Gordon Hughes case, outlined last week in Treatment Great, Patient Died, shares a lot in common with Evelyn, Kafka, […]

Read more ....

The Treatment was Great, The Patient Died
November 16, 2022 | 14 Comments

This post contains a letter sent on October 31, 2022 to the Minister for Mental Health in Scotland about Gordon Hughes pictured here with his mother a few weeks before the events outlined below.  Pictures and headings have been added. Kevin Stewart MSP, Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, MinisterMWSC@gov.scot Dear Mr. Stewart, I […]

Read more ....

Science, Kansas and the Wizard of Washington
November 10, 2022 | 7 Comments

This post follows on from Science, Kansas and Pancakes.  Peter is doing a good job spreading word of this article on the Prozac studies in children and featuring other aspects of this extraordinary story.  This post focusses in on one revelatory feature. Reviewer #3: A window with the view on the details of how drug […]

Read more ....

Science, Kansas and Pancakes
November 7, 2022 | 10 Comments

A long time ago, following work on the Restoration of Study 329, I was approached by Peter Goetzsche, featured above, to work on restoring the two trials that had got Prozac (fluoxetine) approved for children for depression. I may have suggested this idea to Peter in that from 2004 or so I was aware that […]

Read more ....

PSSD Patients Needed for Small Fibre Neuropathy Investigation
October 31, 2022 | 9 Comments

We recently ran a couple of blog posts about the possibility of a link between post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) and small fibre neuropathy: Sensory Receptors, Small Fibres and Neuropathy Antidepressant Neuropathy and the Color of Life The posts recapped some of the things we had previously discussed on the blog and also included new information […]

Read more ....

Remind Your Sister to get Vaccinated
October 24, 2022 | 13 Comments

The European Pharmaceutical Industry, in the guise of EFPIA, has a stranglehold on the European Commission in terms of policies for vaccination promotion and acquisition of healthcare data. Healthcare data is essential for Pharma to collect commercially useful realworld evidence of clinical illnesses and prescribing habits and trends. Both campaigns are supported directly or indirectly […]

Read more ....

Is there life after meds?
Antidepressant Neuropathy and the Color of Life
October 10, 2022 | 15 Comments

Illustration: Is There Life After Meds?, © 2014 created by Billiam James Here is a Question put to the recent RxISK post on Sensory Neuropathy. I’m a psychologist and I have made numerous attempts to discontinue antidepressants only to experience significant withdrawal symptoms. I’ve been on antidepressants for 25 years at this point and have made […]

Read more ....

Antidepressants and Premature Death
October 5, 2022 | 25 Comments

An article appeared in the British Journal of Psychiatry some weeks ago, by Narinder Bansal and colleagues from Bristol University. Having met Narinder I can tell readers she is a very impressive woman, with an impressive husband, Petros, who are both in one way or another working on population health.  She had been working in […]

Read more ....

ADHD and Polypharmacy. American Conditions?
September 27, 2022 | 7 Comments

This post tackles two RxISK themes – ADHD and Polypharmacy. While working through Pfizer’s Serious Adverse Event narrative file, see The Fog of a Special Medical Operation, the term ADHD – attention deficit hyperactive cropped up quite often. There was one predictable feature to this – all cases came from the United States with none […]

Read more ....

Sensory Receptors, Small Fibres and Neuropathy
September 21, 2022 | 32 Comments

RxISK began in 2012.  One of its main goals was to offer people an opportunity to report problems they had on treatments – any treatment – and generate a report they could take to a doctor in the hope this might get the doctor to take their problem seriously. I had seen my first cases […]

Read more ....

Marilyn Lemak: Trial or Clemency?
September 14, 2022 | 8 Comments

A few weeks ago, an original set of four posts about Marilyn Lemak – Trial and Punishment, Then and Now, Clemency, When the Music Stops elicited mostly supportive comments from those who comment regularly on RxISK. The three posts last week, Eric Zorn and Marilyn Lemak, People Respond and Janet Lagerloef responds,  drew a very […]

Read more ....

Janet Lagerloef Responds to Eric Zorn
September 9, 2022 | One Comment

The following was written by Janet Lagerloef, a writer from Sugar Grove who is finishing up a book about her 10-year friendship with Marilyn Lemak, who is serving a sentence of life without parole for killing her three children in their Naperville home in March,1999. In last week’s issue, I covered the details of that crime […]

Read more ....

People Respond to Eric Zorn and Marilyn Lemak
September 7, 2022 | 8 Comments

Does Marilyn Lemak deserve mercy? Readers weigh in These messages are in reference to items in last week’s issues of the Picayune Sentinel. On my interview with Marilyn Lemak Julie S.  Marilyn Lemak may have been a model citizen before and after her appalling crime. But the idea of “clemency” for her makes me queasy. I […]

Read more ....

Eric Zorn and Marilyn Lemak
September 6, 2022 | No Comments

Rxisk has featured four posts on Marilyn Lemak, Trial and Punishment, Then and Now, Clemency Hearing and When the Music Stops. Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His bio and contact information is here.  He now writes the Picayune Sentinel, where Marilyn Lemak speaks out about her bid for clemency first […]

Read more ....

New Sex and Drugs Research Forum
August 24, 2022 | 4 Comments

RxISK Research Forum for Enduring Sexual Dysfunction RxISK is pleased to announce a new Research Forum.  This was trailed in a recent post  Our Love Life Needs you to be Wi(c)ked. Since this post we have had a lot of input from many folk offering to help out – mostly advising us to keep it […]

Read more ....

All DRESSed Up With Nowhere To Go
August 9, 2022 | 4 Comments

This post was written by several members of the RxISK Team drawing on the work of Jorge Carrasco – see below.  There is a prior RxISK post on DRESS Syndrome – No Way to Treat a Lady. María Elisa Rangel was 38 and a mother of four children when she signed up for a phase […]

Read more ....

Our Love Life Needs You to be Wiked
August 3, 2022 | 15 Comments

Our Love Life Needs You © Nina Otulakowski August 2022 RxISK regularly gets enquiries about what can be done to find an answer to the sexual dysfunctions following SSRIs, Finasteride and Isotretinoin –  PSSD, PFS and PRSD. RxISK and Sharks outlined the likely Endgame.  This outcome would be terrible – especially as its highly likely […]

Read more ....

Marilyn Lemak: When the Music Stops
July 26, 2022 | 34 Comments

Judith and the Head of .. © Nina Otulakowski July 2022 “I’m glad I didn’t know the way it all would end.  The way it all would go.  Our lives are better left to chance.  I could have missed the pain but I’d have had to miss the dance.”  – Garth Brooks This post by […]

Read more ....

Marilyn Lemak Clemency Hearing
July 19, 2022 | 26 Comments

This post follows Janet Lagerloef’s Marilyn Lemak’s Trial and Punishment and Johanna Ryan’s Marilyn Lemak Then and Now.  Jo was the first person I ever heard talk about this case.  Janet has done more than anyone to get Marilyn’s case to a Clemency Hearing.  She prevailed on several lawyers to pick up the case and […]

Read more ....

Marilyn Lemak Then and Now
July 12, 2022 | 26 Comments

Haven, House, Horror © Nina Otulakowski July 2022 This post is by Johanna Ryan for whom, like many in Chicago in 1999, the Lemak case was like knowing where you were when Challenger blew up. It is part two of a four part series on Marilyn Lemak and follows Janet Lagerloef’s opening post last week. […]

Read more ....

Marilyn Lemak’s Trial and Punishment
July 5, 2022 | 23 Comments

In 1999 Marilyn Lemak killed her three children and tried to kill herself.  She has spent over 22 years in jail since.  People in Chicago and beyond can still remember when the news broke.  Janet Lagerloef did more.  She said there but for the grace of God go I and made it her mission to […]

Read more ....

RxISK Research Fund and Prize
June 27, 2022 | 48 Comments

We need to clarify some things about the RxISK Prize and Research Fund.  The Prize was established RxISK Prize in 2017 – see The Golden Rule, RxISK No-Nos, Relationships, Stigma and Recovery, Campaign and Challenge. Some of us in RxISK have had a difficult few months attempting to set up a Research Fund for PSSD […]

Read more ....

The Holy Grail: Searching for a Cure for PSSD
June 21, 2022 | 44 Comments

The Holy Grail © Nina Otulakowski June 2022 You need to click on the image to get the full effects. Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) is a debilitating consequence of taking serotonin reuptake inhibiting drugs (SSRIs, SNRIs, some antihistamines, some antibiotics, some analgesics and other medicines) that can leave people of all ages, and from all countries […]

Read more ....

Calling All ADHD Influencers
June 13, 2022 | 11 Comments

Obedience Pills has put Patrick Hahn, Bill James and myself in a bit of a spot.  We’ve had feedback that we might be contributing to the stigma against ADHD. Our contact gave us a Video to orient us. At the same time, the Guardian in the UK – Tik-Tok and the Rise of ADHD – […]

Read more ....

Caught in the Firing Line: Nurse Prescribers
May 30, 2022 | 6 Comments

Back in early Covid times, I was asked by Cecile aan de Stegge to talk at a meeting: Suicide and its Prevention. Contemporary and Historical Perspectives in Nursing, 1880–2020 This finally happened in May 2022.  Cecile asked me to talk on the issues around suicide and antidepressants, which seemed particularly pertinent as an increasing number […]

Read more ....

The Best Books on Medical Treatments Gone Wrong
May 23, 2022 | 12 Comments

A month ago I had an email from Ben Fox of forauthors@shepherd.com – a new venture looking to promote books in a new way. See Shepherd.com. The idea is to feature a book by an author and then get her or him to list five books that have particularly influenced them – centered on a […]

Read more ....

Obedience Pills
May 9, 2022 | 9 Comments

Samizdat has just published Patrick Hahn’s Obedience Pills, a book that reviews the ADHD scene from its origins in the US to its current bloated stimulants-in-the-drinking-water state and the extension of the ADHD franchise to other countries. Like Patrick’s Prescription for Sorrow, Obedience Pills makes no excuses for grabbing people by the throat, pinning them […]

Read more ....

The Caste System in Medicine
May 2, 2022 | 9 Comments

This post is by Spruce who has been a regular contributor to these columns.  It follows from his comments on The Invisible Doctor and it adds to that post which has had a lot of comments since.  Humans seem to have a tendency to caste systems but most people would be surprised to think you […]

Read more ....

Tsang/Shidlofsky Visual Snow Protocol
April 25, 2022 | 11 Comments

Visual snow describes the appearance of flickering dots or “static” in the field of vision. It’s thought to be a problem with visual processing rather than a structural issue within the eyes. This can cause difficulties for patients when trying to report visual snow to their doctor, as standard eye examinations typically find no abnormalities […]

Read more ....