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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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. […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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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Mentally Hijacked by Doxycycline
November 22, 2021 | 16 Comments

There are several previous posts on this topic – Doxycycline causes Suicide and Suicide is Painless  and becoming suicidal on an antibiotic.  None of them give as compelling a picture of what the problem is like from the inside as this letter that came to RxISK some months ago. A Life in Good Shape I […]

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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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Regula(to)r Woman or Mother: Wright as Raine
October 11, 2021 | 8 Comments

This post needs to be read in conjunction with Companies and Mothers on davidhealy.org. Most people think pharmaceutical companies are evil and regulators are on our side.  Both are intensely bureaucratic.  They hide behind procedures.  Judge for yourself which has the most humanity. June Raine CEO, MHRA 10 South Colonnade Canary Wharf  London E14 4PU […]

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Once We Were Warriors Tackling Prescription Drugs
August 16, 2021 | 6 Comments

The title of this echoes We Were Warriors but also Once Were Warriors. The post dovetails with What’s a Life Worth, Morgan vs Morgan, and next weeks Escaping the Prescription Drug Maze. All will be on the Politics of Care Forum. The post copies a letter sent to J Mercer MP last week, with images […]

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What’s a life worth? Is anyone listening?
August 9, 2021 | 19 Comments

This post is by Tracey G.  Tracey approached me and as you’ll see others in October 2020 for materials on antidepressants to give her Member of Parliament, Johnny Mercer.  She had been in touch in 2018 – “lost in the world of not being taken seriously or believed with regards to a possible protracted withdrawal”.  […]

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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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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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Heather Roberts: Heroine for our Times
November 17, 2020 | 13 Comments

This post is to honor the life, work, and words of our dear friend and regular blog contributor, Heather Roberts, who sadly we have learned died peacefully at her home on 20th October after a short illness. Heather campaigned alongside us in memory of her son, Olly, who had a severe adverse reaction to the […]

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Children of the Cure: Fear of Lying
May 27, 2020 | 16 Comments

Samizdat has just published Children of the Cure – the Preface of which is here  This Book is not a Game. Quotes from the text are in Hand of History on davidhealy.org. Most of the first chapter is below. Flying to Philadelphia Shelley Jofre was 32 when she got on a plane to Philadelphia in […]

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Montelukast: Beyond the Black Box
May 20, 2020 | 29 Comments

Dozens of these buttons flooded the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) headquarters at a meeting for the widely prescribed asthma/allergy medication, montelukast (brand name, Singulair).  The message was simple: “The benefits did not outweigh the risks.” As each button approached the podium, the panel of experts heard gut-wrenching testimonials about the unimaginable psychiatric […]

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Causes Sexual Dysfunction, Suicide and Birth Defects?
March 3, 2020 | 35 Comments

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, […]

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Everything’s in Hand: Isotretinoin and the Usual Guff
January 4, 2020 | 32 Comments

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 […]

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Extinction Revolt?
July 22, 2019 | 49 Comments

Editorial Note: Following the Montelukast, Fluoroquinolone and Psychotropic post, there is a comment from Heather Roberts to which David Healy responded.  The edited comments are here.  This led to an email exchange between HR and DH which follows.  Along with Wendy Dolin and her MISSD website (see above) and Billiam James’ Akathisia Anthem, Heather and […]

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Montelukast, Fluoroquinolone, Psychotropic Withdrawal & Toxicity
July 1, 2019 | 43 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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Montelukast Withdrawal Syndrome
June 24, 2019 | 186 Comments

When my happy, full-of-life, adventure-seeking 11-year-old son experienced severe, debilitating neuropsychiatric symptoms after stopping his asthma medication, I embarked on a journey in a desperate search for answers. How could a medication that acts on the respiratory system reduce my healthy child to a lifeless shell? How could our beloved doctor not discuss the potential […]

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When Asthma leads to Suicide or Homicide
June 3, 2019 | 17 Comments

  It seems like it’s all happening in Wales at the moment.  Wales Online last week reported on two children who developed suicidal behaviour and change of personalities on montelukast – Singulair. It was two mother who pieced the story together in the case of their children and confirmed the link to the drug by […]

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RxISK Rorschach: Do not Go Gentle
April 9, 2019 | 47 Comments

Last week’s RxISK post on Assisted Dying proved something of a Rorschach test.  People read diametrically opposite messages into it. It was written at the same time as Something Stupid This Way Comes and cross-referenced this.  This I thought made it clear that there is no such thing as Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD).  TRD is […]

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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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Encountering Doctors
March 18, 2019 | 9 Comments

Editorial Note: The image goes with a study headlined Doctors stop listening to patients several seconds into a conversation.  This post is from one of the many PSSD sufferers who behind the scenes has been helping push research on this awful condition forward.  It would be a lot easier if doctors did listen. Just as […]

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Silent Night – in the Vatican
December 24, 2018 | 22 Comments

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 […]

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Stop suicide
Akathisia, Depression & Suicide: The List
September 27, 2018 | 36 Comments

This post closes our series on akathisia. Along with posts on davidhealy.org, the other posts were: Akathisia Anthem 500+ Drugs that Cause Depression and Suicide – AKA Akathisia Akathisia Challenge Even Politicians get killed by Akathisia In 500 drugs that cause depression and suicide, we mentioned building a new list of drugs that can cause […]

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Even Politicians get killed by Akathisia
September 18, 2018 | 11 Comments

Editorial Note: – This continues our series of the lethal effects of akathisia running on RxISK and davidhealy.org – with special reference to Little Red SSRIding Hood and Even Docs get killed by Akathisia. Akathisia and treatment induced suicide took a political turn over the weekend, along with the issue of whether teenagers should be informed […]

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