.. The RxISK post on Medications Compromising Covid Infections resonated with many. Its basic premise that many of the drugs we are on might compromise our ability to fight the infection seems close to self-evident. It made a call to the powers that be to ensure that data was collected on the meds that people […]

Editorial: James Moore on his Let’s Talk Withdrawal site has recently posted the following.  The reason to reproduce here is that it seems to overlap so much with the Peter Goetzsche Affair – see below.  In both instances we have an ex-Collaboration in one case and almost ex-College in another more concerned with their brand […]

The news today in the UK is that nearly a quarter of young women have mental health problems – Here. A similar message appeared in this article from New Zealand a few days ago – Demand for university counselling services grows 25 per cent in two years – the text without photos and videos is below. […]

Editorial: There is a wonderful listserve Essential Drugs on E-Drugs@healthnet.org. It’s an information service rather than a discussion forum. Recent mail E-DRUG: Swedish essential medicines list now in English This is an interesting development having a Swedish document translated to English! The list “Kloka listan” is a list of essential medicines for common diseases. When […]

By Joanna Le Noury Saving Grace is the latest romantic novel by Jane Green. It tells the story of the perfect life of the beautiful, elegant Grace Chapman, married for 25 years to the very successful and respected author, Ted. Graces juggles stylish literary events, glamorous magazine galas, helps run Harmont House, a refuge for […]

Editorial Note: This post continues from Better to Die RxISKing It. This plea for a Peoples’ Movement with those suffering adverse effects on drugs reporting them was the substance of a talk given a month ago to the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry in Los Angeles. Venus in furs Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus […]

Editorial Note: For the past two months while there have been a series of authors on RxISK posts, David Healy has run a Persecution of Heretics series on davidhealy.org. The heresy is that drugs come with side effects – that they are poisons that can be put to close to magical use if both doctor […]

Editorial Note: One of us had a very successful colleague who over time became more and more anxious and sought advice. It was difficult to see why this person should become anxious suggesting there was a physical factor involved. Repeated physical investigations showed nothing, except low magnesium. The only possibility left seemed to be the […]

Editorial Note: This is not a RxISK Story – it’s about preventing RxISK Stories. Those who read RxISK Stories are well aware of the economic might of the pharmaceutical industry (and the medical device industry) and their growing political clout with the government agencies that are supposed to regulate them. Their capture of the U.S. FDA, […]

Editorial Note: This post by John Scheel follow on his Sticks in the Throat and Sticks in the Throat: Boxology posts. The driving force behind these posts – a demand that people should be accountable – can be seen in greater detail in his book Someone gives a S**t (www.johnscheel.com). What John outlines here can […]

Editorial Note: This is a Coda to the four posts on davidhealy.org about Sense about Science and AllTrials – Follow the Rhetoric, First Admit no Harm, Follow the Lawsuit and Follow the Patient. It’s running here because it attempts to lay out some of the principles behind RxISK. The last post ended on this note: Over 18 months ago, RxISK […]

Could you be on too many drugs? by Dr. Derelie (Dee) Mangin David Braley and Nancy Gordon Chair in Family Medicine, McMaster University The scenario is familiar: you or your mother or father has multiple pills to take at multiple times of the day. A pillbox called a dosette may be used to try and reduce the […]

RxISK is not all about bad news. We ask anyone who is having a problem on a drug to think of a possible use to which this problem could be put. We also want people to keep alert to anything they notice after starting a new treatment. It is entirely possible that the right set […]

Author: Johanna Ryan, Labor Activist with Illinois Workers Compensation Lawyers (Chicago) & RxISK Community Advisory Board Member, April 15, 2014 Within hours of Spec. Ivan Lopez’ deadly shooting spree and subsequent suicide in Fort Hood, Texas, the denials started to flow. We learned that yes, he had been to Iraq, but only for four months. […]

Editorial: There have been some high profile cases recently that may reflect the effects of drugs. A classic modus operandi On March 17th L’Wren Scott hung herself in her Manhattan apartment. She hung herself from a door handle. Hanging with your feet or body on the ground is a classic antidepressant MO when it comes to suicide. […]

This post is written by Dr Richard A. Lawhern Ph.D., site moderator, content author and Resident Research Analyst with “Living With TN”, an online community among Ben’s Friends. He is the spouse of a trigeminal neuralgia (TN) patient who has symptoms of both typical and atypical forms of this disorder, with pain on both sides of her […]

Editorial Note: No one outside the UK may be paying any heed to the all-consuming debate within Britain about the referendum on the future of Scotland. Everything comes back to this. Corporations have been saying they’ll pull out if Scotland leaves the UK (Standard Life) or that they’d prefer if Scotland left (British Airways). The […]

Editorial Note: There will be a post next week on RxISK and DavidHealy.org challenging you to take ‘The Macbeth Test‘ and see whether you should stay in the United Kingdom or not. This is a prequel. Is there a drug for this? Do you need a Statin? Is your heart still beating? Does your child […]

From Johanna Ryan: Last week, RxISK joined with forty-one other organizations from across the U.S. and Canada to urge the FDA to withdraw its approval for a new drug. Zohydro ER is actually not so “new” – it’s pure hydrocodone, a synthetic opiate which has been widely prescribed for many years in the U.S. However, Zohydro will […]

Editorial Note: The Low Dose Naltrexone post from Osama Mustafa earlier this week is quite striking. Many will read it and be persuaded. Others will read it and think such low doses of a drug cannot do anything. And yet others will read the following few words and begin to doubt where they may have […]

Editorial Note: RxISK can sometimes seem to be all about the horrors of treatment. It’s not. It’s about people making the best use of drugs to make their lives better. Central to this is finding a doctor who will believe you when you tell him that something good or bad is happening. The horror arises when people are not […]

Editorial Note: This is a follow up post from John Scheel to his Sticks in the Throat piece earlier in the week. The theme here fits very well with two posts in the last week on davidhealy.org – Guilty and Psychiatry Gone Astray by Peter Gøtzsche. Often in life it is the very simple things we […]

Editorial Note: This post by John Scheel from Ontario brings out how medication and devices can lead to what we’ve lately been calling Drug Traffic Accidents. The concept seems a better fit to what happened here than either side effects or adverse reactions. John has a wider ranging book “Someone Gives a S**t” (see www.johnscheel.com) which gives […]

Editorial Note: Ken Spriggs is one of our regular contributors. This is cross-posted from his blog where he takes on all issues Crohns. The original post comes complete with all references mentioned here. [It’s no longer available at http://diyehr.com/e-patient-boundaries-and-the-publishing-profiteers/] In recent months, the BMJ have trumpeted the patient power revolution and featured a contribution from e-Patient […]

Slightly over three months ago, the idea of an AbbVie was born. She was named after the pharmaceutical company AbbVie – until recently Abbott Laboratories. She was born from the union of a legal action taken by AbbVie in the European Court against the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) data access policy. As a result of Peter Gøtzsche’s efforts in […]

Five weeks ago Johanna Ryan and Kim Witczak wrote a letter to Stacy London. It covered Stacy’s role in AbbVie’s Humiraverse. It wasn’t a critical letter. People in Humiraverses can’t throw stones – the company will always win. Stacy is probably better placed than anyone to make a difference to AbbVie and Pharma’s current campaign […]

Editorial Note: Below is the press release for a potentially significant development in clinical trial publishing – the RIAT Act. Doshi and colleagues are aiming to publish studies that companies have buried or to correct studies that are published but grossly misleading. The main reason for non-publication or misleading publication is that companies do not […]

All of a sudden, regulators seem to be trying to step up their game. The Canadian regulator, Health Canada, is placing notices in 22 professional journals explaining the process of and the importance of adverse event reporting. They claim to be hoping to develop a reporting standard among healthcare professionals rather than make reporting mandatory. Are they […]

Crusoe was called to see Lisbeth. The girl – young woman was mute and catatonic by day but after she fell asleep she had nightmares when she wailed piteously, rent her nightdress, walked in her sleep muttering ‘the children, the children’ or other such phrases. It was a similar pattern each night, the parents said. […]