This image is widely viewed as a symbol of medicine. Many, particularly in America, owing to a bad mistake by the American Medical Association, would identify it as the Rod of Aesclepius, a healer in Ancient Greece. But its not a symbol of medicine - as it used to be at least - its the Caduceus of Hermes / Mercury - a symbol of commerce. The Rod of Aesclepius is down … [Read more...] about Snakes in a Love Drug 2
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Snakes in a Love Drug on St Patricks Day
IJME In recent years the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics has been to the forefront in grappling with tricky issues in medical ethics and politics - topics that the best known medical journals and authorities should deal with but steer clear of. One of us (DH) had a growing awareness of IJME's lead on tricky issues, but became even more aware of it at the time of the … [Read more...] about Snakes in a Love Drug on St Patricks Day
Causes Sexual Dysfunction, Suicide and Birth Defects?
Everyone who reads RxISK posts will know that SSRI and related drugs (some antibiotics, painkillers, antihistamines and most antidepressants) can cause sexual dysfunction. This has been known since 1961. And that they can cause suicide. This has been known since 1959. And that they can cause birth defects. The first publication by an Australian obstetrician, William … [Read more...] about Causes Sexual Dysfunction, Suicide and Birth Defects?
The Politics of PSSD
Members of the British parliament In October 2019, we were contacted by a British PSSD sufferer who had done some excellent work in getting his Member of Parliament (MP), Steve McCabe, interested in the condition. We were informed that Mr. McCabe wanted to get a large group of MPs together to try and get some support for sufferers and hopefully stimulate interest in finding … [Read more...] about The Politics of PSSD
Gateway to the Soul
Read the accompanying Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries post first. We are looking for anyone interested in the material raised there to comment on or add to the set of questions below. We are so insensitive to the fact that our skin and gut principally, but also bladder and maybe the inner linings of our lungs, our boundary, likely sees, hears, tastes, smells and encounter … [Read more...] about Gateway to the Soul
Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries
“Do you think studying monolayers of cells will tell you why you fall in love with a girl?" The quote comes from Rudolf Hess, who won the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1949. His students remembered him as telling them never to study a neurotransmitter or even a cell without thinking about where this bit of the body comes from and what it is supposed to do. This is one of … [Read more...] about Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries
What’s Sex Got to Do with It
This post gives the text of an article that has just been published online in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine - see Here. Another version of the material is in video form - Antidepressants and Sex: a Strange Story. Background In June 2019, in response to a petition, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) asked pharmaceutical companies to warn that sexual … [Read more...] about What’s Sex Got to Do with It
The Banality of Health Service Evil
In the early 1960s, the American social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, ran now famous experiments using university students - then largely white and middle-class - as his subjects . His research interest lay in the Nazi concentration camps and the defence used by Adolf Eichmann (featured image) in his trial in Israel in 1962 - that he was only following orders. The … [Read more...] about The Banality of Health Service Evil
Everything’s in Hand: Isotretinoin and the Usual Guff
Niks aan de Hand - Nothing out of hand. This item has just appeared in the BMJ: An expert group has been reconvened to review recent safety data relating to the acne drug isotretinoin (Roaccutane) and evaluate the risk of sexual and psychiatric adverse effects, including suicide. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’s isotretinoin expert working group … [Read more...] about Everything’s in Hand: Isotretinoin and the Usual Guff
Healthcare or Health Service?
Up to 1800, no-one went near a doctor if they could avoid it. At best doctors might amuse the patient while nature cured the disease - the doctor's business was to take as much of the credit and the money as possible. The best was rare. In an effort to get the money, doctors liked to pump us as full of stuff as possible, commonly in the process, as most people recognised, … [Read more...] about Healthcare or Health Service?