Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate and Akathisia
May 26, 2023 | 5 Comments

This post came from a regular contributor to RxISK and DH posts.  An earlier comment pointed to something interesting and has developed into this post which should be of interest to anyone who has a withdrawal problem that entails some kind of akathisia. When I came out of a psychiatric hospital in Summer 2019, I […]

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DD and AA Groups Similarities and Differences
March 20, 2023 | 15 Comments

Illustration: Is There Life After Meds?, © 2014 created by Billiam James DD in this case stands for Drug Damaged.  AA for Alcoholics Anonymous.  Some of the material in this post is likely to disturb some readers.  Reading it in conjunction with Here We Stand We Can Do No Other and Dos Centavos – Veinte Euros […]

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Did My Doctor Make Me Alcoholic or Substance Abusing
February 12, 2023 | 17 Comments

AnneMarie Kelly is among the most impressive researchers I have met and I’ve met Nobel Prize winners like Arvid Carlsson and Julie Axelrod. I have told the story in many venues how she, with no background in healthcare or university research, taught me things about the serotonin system that I, who have a PhD in […]

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Everything You Want to Know about Sex *
February 1, 2023 | 8 Comments

Lost in Medication. Ask your doctor about the sexual side-effects of your meds. Based on Adam and Eve painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1526.  © Billiam James 2014 The title for the post comes from the W Allen movie Everything you Wanted to Know about Sex * But were Afraid to Ask.  Not […]

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Podcasts, YouTube Channels, Blogs and Related
January 23, 2023 | 3 Comments

In some of the comments after the last post, POGO mentioned that Josef Witt-Doerring has done two interviews with me so far and posted them on his site. The Risks of Antidepressants  and Antidepressants and Mass Shootings/Murder Suicide: An interview has also appeared on Demystifying Science podcast with  Anastasia & Michael Shilo The Podcast called […]

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Harry and Meghan and Narinder
January 9, 2023 | 19 Comments

Some weeks ago, in Antidepressants and Premature Death RxISK featured an article by Narinder Balsal and colleagues from Bristol in the British Journal of Psychiatry, which caused quite a fuss.  See below. Today we are posting about another article by her in PLoS Medicine.  This comes with an Animated Trailer – the first RxISK post to […]

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Charles Dickens and Red Tape, Alive and Well in 2023
January 1, 2023 | 15 Comments

This post is a follow up to Great Treatment, Patient Dead  and to last weeks ‘Twas the Nice before Christmas.   This image is almost unreadable but worth presenting as it’s the first mention of Red Tape – short for Red Tapeworm.  The full, readable text can be found here The Circumlocution Office. Red Tape is […]

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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, […]

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The Treatment was Great, The Patient Died
November 16, 2022 | 15 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 […]

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Is there life after meds?
Antidepressant Neuropathy and the Color of Life
October 10, 2022 | 16 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 […]

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Sensory Receptors, Small Fibres and Neuropathy
September 21, 2022 | 33 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 […]

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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 […]

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The Invisible Doctor
March 28, 2022 | 23 Comments

From her first email M seemed completely believable. Everything since has added to her believability. So why is she not believed? This post offers another example of repeated Sanctuary Trauma, outlined in last week’s post, in earlier Kidnapped Daughter posts and in all posts tagged Medical Kidnap. In The Beginning Thirteen years ago, this spring […]

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Sanctuary Trauma and Lariam Toxicity
March 21, 2022 | 7 Comments

Illustration: Lost on the Sea of Medicine, © 2014 created by Billiam James This is the first of 4 posts   on the idea of Sanctuary Trauma.  Some weeks ago, Trixie Foster got in touch.  Trixie is an extraordinary campaigner on behalf of those injured by Lariam (mefloquine) – see the Strange History and Lariam Hell. […]

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Brain Fog: What is it? How to Treat it.
March 15, 2022 | 22 Comments

Lots of people complain of cognitive problems on or after taking medications, whether psychotropic drugs, cholesterol lowering statins, asthma drugs like montelukast, or fluoroquinolone antibiotics. They often use the word “Brain Fog” to cover this.  Women get Brain Fog in pregnancy that can linger afterwards. People with Long Covid complain of Brain Fog as do […]

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Prescribed Harms and Vaccine Hesitancy
October 18, 2021 | 48 Comments

In 2015, there was a series of posts on davidhealy.org Pharmaceutical Rape, Pharmaceutical Rape is not a Metaphor, Pharmaceutical Rape: Cast of Characters, Pharmaceutical Rape: The Good Patient, Pharmaceutical Rape: Doctors Still Know Best, Pharmaceutical Rape: Discrimination, Pharmaceutical Rape: Ending our Tolerance. The following year GlaxoSmithKline lawyers deposed me in the Dolin case, spending hours […]

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A Public Service or A Lethal Scam?
July 8, 2021 | 19 Comments

RxISK was emailed about a post on SSRI Stories recently.  Julie Wood runs SSRI stories, which features newspaper or related public domain material about suicides, homicides or other events linked to SSRI or other psychotropic drug intake. The email read as follows: Your using an article about my family members suicide as a propaganda piece and […]

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Clinical Trial Fraud
June 28, 2021 | 13 Comments

This is part two of Johanna Ryan’s posts on Ghosts in the Clinical Trial Machine or Clinical Trial Fraud.  Last weeks post reported on how doctors in three states have been convicted of handing in fake clinical-trial results from fake patients.  This week we’ll examine how small-time crooks like these ended up doing world-class medical […]

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Ghosts in the Clinical Trial Machine
June 21, 2021 | 18 Comments

This is the first part of a two part series on clinical trial fraud from Johanna Ryan, with part 2 next week.  Jo is RxISK’s clinical trial and shoddy clinical practice sleuth – see The Maintenance Man.   Recently the U.S. Department of Justice called attention to a small but worrisome crime wave.  Health care fraud […]

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Farewell Marchino
April 30, 2021 | 102 Comments

Nearly a week ago a group of Italians sent this post written after one of their number gave up his struggle with PSSD and the system.  We’ve been very slow posting it – partly because of the emotions it stirs. Its quiet beginning and contained fury at the end conjured up Marc Antony’s speech after […]

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Antidepressants: Education and Disability Certificates
March 22, 2021 | 38 Comments

This post covers difficulties primarily on antidepressants that medicines can cause to people in schools or universities who end up unable to study or do course-work, as well as the difficulties people can have trying to get off medicines, a process that can be pretty disabling. The materials linked to this post are being put […]

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Functional Neurological Disorder?
October 14, 2020 | 12 Comments

A recent RxISK post on SSRI triggered Movement Disorders – My Doctor Thinks I’m Faking It – put together by Stevie Lewis, attracted less attention than we expected. This may be because it featured strange movements and few of us figure we are in a good position to make sense of strange movements. The movements […]

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Grey Hair, Rotting Teeth, Semi-Blind and Demented
September 23, 2020 | 56 Comments

The Human Body is not meant to be taking ‘stuff’ all the time, whether medicines or biohack stuff or whatever. Forget the image of a magic bullet that flies to the one spot where it is needed and causes no collateral damage, every medicine poisons. The trick is to use medicines only when the damage […]

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Starship Corona: Captain’s Log
April 26, 2020 | 22 Comments

The use of psychiatric meds in the U.S., already sky-high, is on the rise as a result of Covid-19.  That’s not surprising – it happened after the 9-11 attacks, the 2008 crash and other crises. This graph comes from “America’s State of Mind,” an April 2020 report from Express Scripts. In the month from February […]

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Covid and the Market in Research
April 13, 2020 | 20 Comments

  There are 3 bits to this post – an interview with Joan-Ramon Laporte.  An article by Ariane Denoyel and a Q and A with Laporte and Healy. Laporte Interview As part of a series for ROAR Magazine, Frank Barat has run some striking interviews about aspects of the Covid pandemic not usually mentioned. Here […]

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Medications compromising Covid Infections
April 2, 2020 | 74 Comments

IN THE MIDST OF THE SARS-CoV-2 PANDEMIA, CAUTION IS NEEDED WITH COMMONLY USED DRUGS THAT INCREASE THE RISK OF PNEUMONIA. Joan-Ramon Laporte, M.D. Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Fundació Institut Català de Farmacologia. WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Pharmacoepidemiology. jrl@icf.uab.cat David Healy […]

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Ecclesiastical and Pharmaceutical Risk Benefit Calculations
August 27, 2019 | 6 Comments

The Catholic Church has been convulsed in recent years by sexual abuse scandals. There are two aspects to this.  One has been the harm inflicted on children from the abuse but in many instances as much if not more damage has arisen from the secondary harms these children and later adults have incurred in their […]

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Montelukast, Fluoroquinolone, Psychotropic Withdrawal & Toxicity
July 1, 2019 | 44 Comments

Last week’s post on Montelukast Withdrawal Syndrome has attracted comments at a higher rate than any prior post in 7 years of RxISK posts. It followed a post on Asthma causing Suicide and Homicide two weeks previously, which had links to the QuarterWatch 2015 report of adverse events in children fingering montelukast and suicidality as […]

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Assisted Dying: Going Gentle or Not so Gentle
April 1, 2019 | 57 Comments

Assisted dying has become a hot topic. For large parts of human history when people came toward an end, they might have been left in an outhouse by relatives or consigned themselves to a hut in the woods. Children too. When born, Spartan children were taken outside and their hands placed on the eaves of […]

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Welsh and Scottish Petitions on Antidepressant Dependence
March 21, 2019 | 8 Comments

Scottish and Welsh Parliaments Debate Psychiatric Drug Dependence and Withdrawal Over the last decade, the UK has seen dramatic increases in the number of people prescribed psychiatric drugs. In the British National Formulary, the prescribers bible, Chapter 4 represents Central Nervous System drugs including antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, antiepileptics and sedatives. The total numbers prescribed have increased […]

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