Three people who got in touch recently, one with a problem, one with an idea, and one ‘outraged’ contributed to this post. The problem and idea illustrate what happens when doctors take Probity Blockers. The outrage tells you almost everything you need to know about the Web we are enmeshed in. Using the problem, idea and outrage, this post gives a punchier version of the recent Probity Blocker and Trans Medicine post.
If you think this post goes over the top, it ends by showing you medical insurers, regulators and Pharma saying exactly the same thing.
The Problem
The person with the problem wondered whether RxISK could help with ongoing difficulties he had 5 years after being abruptly withdrawn from an antidepressant well-known to cause serious withdrawal. He had asked Britain’s General Medical Council (GMC) whether he could in some way hold his doctor responsible. The GMC blew him away. There is nothing to see here, they said, what the doctor did conformed with the Guidelines of the time.
Surely this is wrong, he thought.
This is the Probity Blocker point. We are now at greater risk from Good Doctors than ‘Bad’ Doctors who cut off your right leg when they were supposed to remove the left one. Good Doctors keep to the Guidelines and drug labels as a further post next week will make even more clear for anyone still confused at the end of this one.
The Idea
Our idea contact was struck by a recent Condoms and Rape story that got a lot of attention in Britain. Taking a condom off in mid-sex can constitute rape. Most men told this said it was news to them
Our contact thought – surely this has implications for the lack of informed consent on psych drugs leading to problems like PSSD?
The Outrage
A few days ago, some of us in RxISK’s expanding inner circle were looking at figures for the extraordinarily escalating rates of antidepressant consumption by children and adolescents. One of us appropriately shocked labelled the problem as Off-Label Prescribing. There is a sense in which this is true – companies are not licensed to say anyone should give antidepressants to teenagers of pre-teens.
But it also betrays how even someone who knows the scenes that RxISK deals in better than almost anyone else can still get tangled up in the sticky threads of the Web we have Woven. Maybe a spider’s web image, even the thick and heavy ones in Raiders of the Lost Arc is too tame for what we are caught in. A better image might be the akathisic effects of the Tunic of Nessus that led to Hercules taking his own life.
Response to the Problem
Unfortunately, the GMC are absolutely right. It may be morally wrong that they are right but legally they are.
Spitting Images was among the great creations of British TV in its glory days – up there with Monty Python and Faulty Towers. It ran in the 1980s. The United States got a snippet of it in 1986 with Spitting at Uncle Sam. US and global politics could do with being drenched in a good dose of spittle now.
The Images were puppet figures who clearly resembled senior British politicians – like Margaret Thatcher and her 1980s Cabinet, along with other dignitaries.
It was as irreverent as it was possible to be. When Margaret’s Conservatives were voted back into office in 1987, the background music to their celebration was Tomorrow Belongs to Us. Very shocking then, perhaps less so now.
In one famous snippet – Out for a Meal with her Cabinet – Margaret and her boys are at a restaurant. The waiter comes to take the order. Margaret says she’ll have her meat raw. Asked – And the Vegetables? – she responds – They’ll have the same as I’m having.
This is how Pharma view MHRA, NICE, Cochrane, the GMC and the British Government and likely all other regulators and governments.
A recent article came out about a just published new effort by the semi-discredited Cochrane Collaboration to weed out dud or zombie trials from Cochrane Systematic Reviews. This article is appearing 20 years after the event that triggered it. It outlines a bureaucratic paper-trail that will take ages to complete the end result of which will let Cochrane exclude trials from Iran, Egypt and other countries that the briefest of investigations and some common sense suggests are plagiarized.
Egypt and Iran is not where the original problem came from. It came from a series of effectively fraudulent pharma publications of their trials done on antidepressants in adolescents. Why are Cochrane now making a big deal about a paper-trail that goes nowhere near solving the real problem?
One of those involved in trying to grapple with the issues some years ago, recently hinted (probably a slip) that Cochrane had been scared of British libel laws and the consequences if they were to state publicly that pharma exercises/assays – see Health’s Illusions – aren’t real trials or real evidence and Cochrane would no longer be including them in their reviews.
As Johanna Ryan’s post on Eli Lilly and Alzheimer’s Disease must indicate, the de facto pharma view of things is that ‘we sell plant food and weed-killers, which doctors buy and water the plants’. If they must, doctors can take a leaf from King Charles’ and talk to the plants while doing the real job.
Doctors, however, risk being seen as liable for any over-watering. Just so our plant (the plant that produces the golden eggs) remains healthy, we need to make sure doctors don’t ever go on regulator or other mandated leave. So, we produce evidence that get’s built into NICE Guidelines which enable us, MHRA, NICE, GMC and the British Government to all be on the side, ensuring no doctor ever has to take a break from their important job. The template we use applies to all developed countries.
Response to the Idea
The idea seems to make sense and is appealing, but Who is the Rapist? The dickhead who takes off the condom?
Pharma? They will say we supplied a condom – the label – that regulators approved. Maybe every so often a condom leaks, but occasional leaks are inevitable. No Rape charge has ever succeeded against a Condom Maker on the basis of a leak. (Condoms sabotaged by someone you trust are a different matter). (See Footnote).
Mind you, we make sure the batch of condoms we send the regulator doesn’t have too many leaks. We don’t have to worry what happens after we are licensed to encourage dudes to go out and enjoy themselves
Regulators? They will say once in a blue moon we check the factories where the Condoms are made. This has got more difficult since the factories moved to India. We test some of the Condoms – don’t ask how. They met all the criteria we have for approval. Our job is then done and it is up to consumers to beware.
The Media? Those brave investigative journalists in either the lay or academic medical literature are scared silly to say boo to a goose – as the Cochrane scenario outlined above illustrates.
Medics? You can’t get condoms from anyone other than medics. They are prescription-only, which should give doctors huge power to insist on the products being completely foolproof. Perhaps they are distracted by the pretty girls or guys at company events.
The me-dics gave the condoms in good faith, ordering dudes to use them as often as possible for the sake of their health. They might have said these are Guideline approved – NICE – and as someone who keeps to the Guidelines I am telling you that you cannot have sex without them.
Medics are Properly Independent Medical Professionals (PIMPs). Keeping to the label is what most of us call Evidence Based Medicine.
We the public? We should know better, especially those who view themselves as the Liberal Elite, who read the New York Times, the Guardian and some of whom read the BMJ and NEJM. But the liberal elite more than anyone else queue up to swallow the goods.
Response to the Outrage
This so obvious comment using a term almost of abuse in our evidence based medicine era – off-label prescribing – to condemn the soaring rates of psychotropic use among teens that desperately needs condemning – but it lands in quicksand.
No doctor ever prescribes off-label. The labels of drugs are written by drug companies. Labels are about delineating and containing the claims companies can make about their products rather than offering any indications as to what doctors can or can’t, should or shouldn’t prescribe.
We would all be better off, and medicine would be in better shape, if doctors systematically prescribed off-label and tried to avoid on-label prescribing.
The SSRIs bring the point out beautifully. These were designed as serenics – that is a drug that rather immediately in some people can produce a calming effect that can be useful but is not a cure. Just like LSD, SSRIs work on normal serotonin systems and can cause problems for others as quickly as they produce a serenic effect for some. SSRIs became ‘antidepressants’ because of a benzodiazepine dependence crisis in the 1980s that cast all anxiolytics as a problem.
For marketing purposes depression was a better option but companies had a very difficult time showing that SSRIs were of any use for depression.
Trials to bring SSRIs on the market aimed at demonstrating a serenic effect need only have lasted a week, with much lower doses given, to generate more clear-cut results than the almost invisible effects in depression trials.
After licensing a serenic claim, nobody with a relatively brief and mild disorder would have had to be made depressed and terrified with talk of suicide risks into taking depression pills and continuing with them even after they began to feel suicidal for the first time, possibly life-long consumption like insulin for diabetes.
Everyone would have had to be told, what the desired effect was, and that if this isn’t happening to you or you don’t figure this effect is right for you, then you should stop treatment.
The problem with all these good common sense things to consent to is that companies would have had to hand over the decision to take the drugs to our doctors and to us, instead of brainwashing us into thinking we have a moral duty to correct something in the serotonin system that is broken.
Prescribing according to the company label has been disastrous for us and for our doctors. Because of the depression label companies wrote, if a doctor says he is aiming at a serenic effect – which is the medically informed thing that these drugs can do – he is prescribing off-label.
All doctors should be prescribing SSRI and related drugs as well as antipsychotics off-label. The medically informed accepted goal of drugs we call ‘antipsychotics’ is to reduce tension or agitation which they do at low doses in a matter of hours. If they don’t do this, increasing the dose or continuing with the treatment is unlikely to help and can even cause psychosis.
Prescribing on label has wrapped us up in a web politicians and medical academics devised in 1962 in the wake of thalidomide. The plan was to regulate company claims not medical practice. Some of the legislators in 1962 saw the risk of accidentally regulating medicine. Some doctors like Louis Lasagna became aware that a system they had helped put in place was badly damaging medicine.
Almost no-one in medicine can spot what is going on now – can spot what cup the coin is under.
It’s going to take some doing to rip off this Tunic of Nessus that is driving us mad. We would probably be better off lobbying to have SSRIs made over the counter. That would restore a degree of independent professionalism to doctors – they might advise us not to believe the hype and might stop gaslighting us when we are harmed.
It might take time though for the many who have been badly injured to start trusting them again. Once salt loses it’s saltiness it is useless. We might have to wait for a new generation. Perhaps even wait for A.I.
Insurers, Regulators and Pharma Agree
If you think this post has gone too far, this next section contains material from Medical Insurers about Regulators and Pharma. In different language it says the same things.
On Dec 12, the Irish branch of the Medical Protection Society sent a link to its members as insurers likely did across Europe. The link here gives you the email and a link to the new guidance which are worth looking at. The text gives you the key points:
Follow guidelines to avoid valproate complaints and claims.
Warnings to doctors over the harmful effects of the valproate medications… have been circulating for years. As a result, many health organisations have introduced guidelines to advocate appropriate prescribing of valproate…
Inevitably, medicolegal consequences have begun to emerge. Earlier this year, manufacturer Sanofi was ordered to pay over a quarter of a million euros to a mother in France whose two children were born with disabilities attributed to prenatal exposure to sodium valproate…
While most legal action is being directed toward manufacturers and healthcare providers, inevitably individual doctors are also being targeted. Medical Protection is currently supporting a number of members who are facing claims.
“Any future claim may consider the guidelines that were in operation at the time of treatment, so being aware of and referencing those guidelines within your clinical care will not only offer the optimal care for your patients, but also decrease your chances of receiving a complaint or claim.”
For those members who do find themselves facing litigation, Medical Protection has the experience and legal expertise to help.
See Probity Blockers for a Medical Protection video advert about their expertise in helping doctors caught in tricky situations.
There are a few key points in the email above added to by elements in the statement from EMA below – which can be seen in full in the guidance link in the MPS email.
- Sanofi is being sued and has lost a case. No mention of patients or doctors.
- Companies have reviewed the warnings and concluded they are not enough to keep them legally safe. No mention of patients or doctors.
- Companies have rewritten the labels telling regulators what to issue. Companies are saying previous labels are viewed as May Contain Nuts Labels and this has to stop.
- As for our complainant who figured GMC must be wrong, MPS are telling doctors that provided they kept to the guidelines at the time – a year or years ago – even though these problems have been known about for two decades – MPS feel pretty confident they can get their doctors out of any difficulty.
Forget EMA’s May Contain Nuts Labels
The full text from which this is an excerpt is in the link cited in the MPS email.
New versions of some of these [pregnancy prevention program] materials have been introduced following a review by the EMA of a study by the companies that market the medicines in the EU of healthcare professionals and patients. The recommended changes have been made to improve the understanding and usability of the materials. The conditions of the pregnancy prevention programme remain the same.
A patient guide for women and girls, which the prescriber should give to all girls and women of childbearing potential who begin treatment with valproate or are already undergoing treatment [new version].
A guide for healthcare professionals potentially involved in the care of girls and women of childbearing potential treated with valproate [new version].
An annual risk acknowledgement form, to be used by the specialist with their patient at the start of valproate treatment and during each annual review.
12/19/24, 4:52 AM Use of valproate-containing medicines by girls and women who can become pregnant https://www.hpra.ie/homepage/medicines/special-topics/valproate-(epilim)/valproate-(epilim-)—use-in-women-of-childbearing-potential-and-during-pregnancy… 1/4
A patient card is attached to the packaging of valproate to facilitate discussions between the pharmacist and the patient each time valproate is dispensed [new version]. When broken bulk dispensing cannot be avoided, a copy of the package leaflet should always be provided with a warning sticker added. Download the package leaflets for all valproate-containing medicines for more information.
A visual warning to inform healthcare professionals and patients about the risks to an unborn child if used during pregnancy, along with advice to use effective contraception, is displayed on both the inner blister and outer packaging of valproate medicines. See a sample of the outer packaging. [new version]
Pharmacy materials (A4 poster and shelf barker) to assist pharmacists in dispensing and advising patients taking Epilim. [new version]
Reduced pack size: a pack size of 30 units is now the only available authorised presentation (excluding injections and oral solutions) to mitigate against the need for broken bulk dispensing at the pharmacy level and to ensure that all patients receive a package leaflet and the outer carton with the patient card at each dispensing.
[The last point offers wonderful evidence of what happens when a pharmaceutical company is determined to avoid any adverse effects – for them. Many medicines these days, especially if someone is on a few medicines, get dispensed in daily sachets or dosset boxes. These come without patient leaflets and warnings. The Regulator is being told – you have to stop this happening. These pills can only be dispensed in a box complete with warning leaflets and linked material].
The full version of this with more links can be found in the link the MPS email above provides.
Condom Footnote
No condom manufacturer has been sued for rape. But GlaxoSmithKline have lost several SSRI legal cases – for suicide and homicide (Tobin) and birth defects (Kilker) and thousands of other cases have been settled.
This doesn’t help the situation Marilyn Lemak and likely thousands of others are in – Antidepressants and Homicide. Just as in real-life rather than metaphorically, the Raped seem more likely to end up incarcerated or dead than the Rapists.
Dr Pedro says
Butter wouldn’t melt in a psychotherapist’s mouth.
https://media.publit.io/file/h_720/Production/353/VideoAnswers/cbP5Pp56/JAAQ-CF-DP-038.mp4.mp4
see also
https://www.bupa.co.uk/newsroom/ourviews/depression-in-teens
If all else fails, read the label.
(BUPA is one of the largest private healthcare providers and guideline followers in UK.)
annie says
It was Laurie Oakley who was first with the Rape. I bought her book Crazy And It Was.
Over The Top: Tackling Medical Power
January 13, 2015 2 Comments
https://rxisk.org/over-the-top-tackling-medical-power/
When I described to doctors what had happened to me while on these medications, most stared at me as if I’d just grown a second head. My report, it seemed, was over-the-top.
Pharmaceutical Rape: Discrimination
February 15, 2016 17 Comments
https://davidhealy.org/pharmaceutical-rape-discrimination/
Internalization of pharmaceutical oppression
Internalization occurs when people who experience adverse events believe in the misdiagnoses of their symptoms and end up embracing additional labels and further treatment for their medication side-effects. Those who have internalized pharmaceutical oppression alter their attitudes, behaviors, speech, and self-concept to reflect an acceptance of a pharmaceutically-induced and medically-maintained sick role. The internalization of this manufactured reality can create low self-esteem, self-doubt, and even self-loathing as the individual continues to experience perpetual and worsening illness despite one’s commitment and efforts to become well. (Especially true with diagnoses of a stigmatizing nature, e.g. psychiatric labels). Internalization of pharmaceutical oppression can also be projected outward as fear, criticism, and distrust of survivors and others who speak out and/or challenge the systems in which they receive care.
When an individual reports a life-altering outcome, very rarely is there any kind of investigation. Pharmaceutical injuries that are not denied as such are simply regarded as flukes or mistakes. There has been no effort made for a serious and thorough investigation into the systems-wide problems that enable and encourage widespread pharmaceutical harms. No governmental task force or entity has taken responsibility for uncovering the full extent of the problem, advocated for the passing of legislation, or for any other changes to address these ongoing harms. Instead, pharmaceutical companies are occasionally found guilty of various errors, are made to pay fines, and then go on to rape again and again.
Anon says
MPT: Dr ARMSTRONG 1 (Medical Practitioners Tribunal at the GMC)
PUBLIC RECORD
Try deciphering this web spun by the GMC. I am not commenting on the nitty gritty of all of if the 49 pages as I am focusing on how his repeated attempt to tell the truth about corruption partly using his doctor status was undermined by referring to his ‘opinions’ about corruption in the pharma industry which leads to harms from vaccines. He constantly claimed that he was interested in probity . telling the truth and gave evidence of that.
What is a doctor to do if he/she is blocked from telling the truth…. the GMC can publish a publicly available document of their ‘trial’ without a corresponding document from the ‘accused ‘which makes a response to their decision .
Dates: 09/09/2024 – 13/09/2024; 27/11/2024 – 28/11/2024
Medical Practitioner’s name: Dr Daniel ARMSTRONG
GMC reference number: 6101662
Type of case Outcome on facts Outcome on impairment
New – Misconduct Facts relevant to impairment
found proved
Impaired
Summary of outcome
Erasure
Immediate order Record of Determinations –
Medical Practitioners Tribunal
MPT: Dr ARMSTRONG 1
PUBLIC RECORD
Dates: 09/09/2024 – 13/09/2024; 27/11/2024 – 28/11/2024
Medical Practitioner’s name: Dr Daniel ARMSTRONG
GMC reference number: 6101662
Primary medical qualification: MB ChB 2004 University of Liverpool
Type of case Outcome on facts Outcome on impairment
New – Misconduct Facts relevant to impairment
found proved
Impaired
Summary of outcome
Erasure
Immediate order imposed
Record of Determinations –
Medical Practitioners Tribunal
1. Dr Armstrong qualified as a doctor in 2004.
2. The allegation that has led to Dr Armstrong’s hearing can be summarised as follows:
that on 17 July 2023, he published a video online in which he identified himself as a doctor
and used his position as a doctor to promote his opinion. It is alleged that Dr Armstrong’s
conduct undermined public health information and public confidence in the medical
profession.
3. The initial concerns were raised with the GMC via an anonymous email on 21 July
2023. The email provided a link to a web address, XXX, which contained a video featuring Dr
Armstrong delivering a presentation. The GMC downloaded the video from XXX on 9 August
2023. The video appears to have been completed by Dr Armstrong on 7 July 2023. The GMC
confirmed that the video was live as at 25 January 2024.
The Allegation and the Doctor’s Response
4. The Allegation made against Dr Armstrong is as follows:
That being registered under the Medical Act 1983 (as amended):
1. On 17 July 2023 you published a video on XXX called ‘Navigating the TruthDeception Duality Brought to you by Dr Daniel Armstrong MBChB’ (‘the Video’).
Admitted and found proved
In the Video you:
a. identified yourself as a doctor;
Admitted and found proved
b. used your position as a doctor to promote your opinion;
To be determined
c. made one or more of the statements set out in Schedule 1.
Admitted and found proved (in relation to all of the statements in Schedule 1)
2. As at 25 January 2024 you have allowed the Video to remain published on
XXX.
Record of Determinations –
Medical Practitioners Tribunal
MPT: Dr ARMSTRONG 3
Admitted and found proved
3. Your conduct as set out in paragraph 1 undermines:
a. public health information;
To be determined
b. public confidence in the medical profession.
To be determined
And that by reason of the matters set out above your fitness to practise is impaired because
of your misconduct.
The Admitted Facts
5. At the outset of these proceedings, Dr Armstrong made admissions to some
paragraphs and sub-paragraphs of the Allegation, as set out above, in accordance with Rule
17(2)(d) of the General Medical Council (GMC) (Fitness to Practise) Rules 2004, as amended
(‘the Rules’). In accordance with Rule 17(2)(e) of the Rules, the Tribunal announced these
paragraphs and sub-paragraphs of the Allegation as admitted and found proved.
The Facts to be Determined
6. In light of Dr Armstrong’s response to the Allegation made against him the Tribunal is
required to determine whether or not, in the video, ‘Navigating the Truth-Deception Duality’
published online on 17 July 2023, he used his position as a doctor to promote his opinion.
The Tribunal is also required to determine whether his conduct, in identifying himself as a
doctor, using his position to promote his opinion and making the statements in Schedule 1,
undermines public health information and public confidence in the medical profession.
8. Dr Armstrong provided a skeleton argument dated 9 September 2024 and also gave
oral evidence at the hearing.
Documentary Evidence
9. The Tribunal had regard to the documentary evidence provided by the parties. This
evidence included but was not limited to:
• Video recording – “Navigating the Truth – Deception Duality”
• Transcript of the video recording – “Navigating the Truth – Deception Duality”
The Tribunal’s Approach (I believe The misuse of it is guaranteed by the cop out clause)
the European Convention on Human Rights. This states:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include
freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without
interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not
prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema
enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and
responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or
penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the
interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of
disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the
reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in
confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
12. The LQC advised the Tribunal that Article 10 is given effect in domestic law by Section
12 of the Human Rights Act 1988.
13. The LQC advised that in relation to paragraph 3 of the allegation, the Tribunal will
need to consider whether the comments made by Dr Armstrong supported legitimate
medical debate, or crossed the threshold into comments which were so far beyond that,
they were unacceptable and unprofessional.
…………..
Dr. David Healy says
Is it possible to contact Dr Armstrong and get a link to the video or find out more about what comments were at issue.
D
Anon says
re above – full transcript can be down loaded here
https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/dr-daniel-armstrong-28-nov-24.pdf
Harriet Vogt says
Can’t find the video – might have been taken down – but a transcipt is included in this tribunal doc:
https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/dr-daniel-armstrong-28-nov-24.pdf
A flavour:
“8. But it is worthwhile having a little thought for why our medical colleagues, who
are trained in medical ethics, why they went along with coercion to take a genetic
therapy, you know? A brand new, novel treatment; no effectiveness data over three
months, no safety data at all over three months, and why people thought that
coercion to take this, which everyone faced, was such a good idea”
Dr. David Healy says
There are two links now to the transcript of the hearing in the case of this doctor. It appears to have been about his views on Covid jabs. It is a tortured read and more than once I was left feeling that the doctor was likely being selectively quoted to his detriment. He was either very naive or being made to look like an idtio.
The hearing circles around distinctions between opinions, facts and knowledge I was left with doubts that either GMC or the doctor knew what they were talking about in this area.
Being kind to the GMC you could say they’d have exonerated him if he was dealing in facts – things he had worked on and brought to light. But on their account he seemed to be mainly shouting from the rooftops I’m a doctor so you can believe me and I’m telling you it was all one big act of deception. That from GMC’s point of view was opinion without evidence provided that it was fact.
In fairness to DA, Harriet has picked out one of gems in the transcript when Armstrong is reported as saying:
But it is worthwhile having a little thought for why our medical colleagues .. why they went along with coercion to take a genetic therapy, you know? A brand new, novel treatment; no effectiveness data over three months, no safety data at all over three months, and why people thought that coercion to take this, which everyone faced, was such a good idea”
Is this fact or opinion? Looks like a fact to me. I left out the phrase our medical colleagues trained in medical ethics – I doubt if any medics can be validly described as trained in medical ethics.
This post and the Web we have Woven in which it could be argued that Daniel Armstrong has got stuck – is not about Covid or its jabs or the Armstrong case.
It is about consent and off-label use and how doctors became front of house for Pharma – and the effects of this on people who are harmed by the system we now have and when harmed do not have doctors they can turn to.
D
Anon says
Dan Armstrong was not just talking about Covid but exposing the whole shoddy business including the that of GMC’s much more than just incompetence. They are part of the network which is hell bent on getting populations vaccinated . It is nearly always a paradoxical outcome for the individual who is both harmed and respected for their commitment to telling the truth. Dan knew what the outcome would be It will be used both as a warning to other doctors thinking of speaking out and a potential encouragement to some to do so themselves .The public will also have another warning bell if at least some of his message sticks. As actually did happen during covid eventually. There is much people can learn from the messy transcript if they take the trouble to read it rather than skim through the media which as does the GMC attempts to undermine him rather than tell the truth. He puts it that simply – tell the truth. Perhaps freedom from tyrany has always relied on ‘small’ people taking action to inspire others.
Dr. David Healy says
I haven’t had time to pick over this in detail yet but I don’t think your point holds up. You can’t just say its all deception etc without backing it up even if it is correct that it is all deception. The quote picked out by Harriet is striking but You have gotta make it impossible for GMC are looking to the wider public interest not to able to say – well this guy is just spouting.
Having said all that Alastair Benbow essentially offered what GMC would likely have to call opinions rather than facts in seveal panorama programs and he was billed as a doctor and medical officer and this it is now clear was deception and there are documents to show he was deceiving us or should have known he was deceiving us but when GMC were asked to look into his case, they looked the other way.
It’s certainly not what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. This point will be picked up in next weeks post.
D
ANON says
A web of lies masterfully concocted by those who do not care about those who have been injured by so-called medicines that are considered SAFE!
annie says
We should all applaud Dr. David Cartland
Pre hearing information
https://www.mpts-uk.org/hearings-and-decisions/tribunal-hearings-and-decisions/dr-david-cartland—oct-24
Dr David Cartland – NHS Silencing Whistleblowers: Is the GMC Fit for Purpose?
https://heartsofoak.substack.com/p/dr-david-cartland-nhs-silencing-whistleblowers
It’s really strange because I get a lot of feedback that I’ve kind of stuck my head above the parapet and I’m brave and I’ve got balls of steel or whatever they say, but you know I see it as simply my duty to do what I’ve done.
You know I’ve said this many times, you know, I’ve stuck my neck on the line but really not because I’ve spoke out about ethical principles of consent, bodily autonomy, not coercing patients to take medical treatments that they aren’t being fully informed about number one, but you know, that we haven’t got any safety data for, you know, defending children and pregnant moms, you know, there was never any roll out data for both cohorts. And so that’s the two easy wins, I thought I picked, you know, the ethical issues and the pregnancy safety, lack of safety data and the children and vaccine injuries and speaking out about lockdowns and masks and for doing so, you know, the NHS supposedly supports whistle blowing, they call it a learning culture, a no-blame culture, let’s talk about these things without any blame until you whistle blow.
And then, like I found out, to my detriment in a couple of arenas, really, as soon as you whistle blow about concerns that you’ve got. Concerns that still to this day remain unanswered.
That’s the other thing. You could easily shut me off with some data. Very easy to do.
Correct my blasphemous views on all of this, just sit me down and show me the error of my ways and hasn’t happened for two and a half days. It’s been a full two and a half years, should I say.
It’s been a cancel culture as other people in the arena have found, you know, you look at Andrew Bridgen, all he did was ask questions and asked to take a closer look at the data. You look at footballers, Matt Le Tissier, you know, speaking out and saying, look, we need to look at this, footballers are collapsing left, right and centre, let’s stop, let’s investigate this. Similar to me, I’m just saying like this isn’t ethically right, this isn’t safe, we’re not following evidence-based practice here, but yeah to somehow out of all of this become, I googled myself the other day because I said a third’s really let me go because they said they’d googled me, so I thought let’s.
Have five minutes and see what you can come up with when you google Dave Cartland.
One thing that comes up is internet personality, so that’s the surrealness of where we are at the moment in that for somehow doing the job, following my Hippocratic oath, following principles of safety evidence based practice and ethics and these are all GMC guidance’s as well you know I keep reminding on Twitter my fellow colleagues of the guides the guidelines that we have you know about the duty of candour whistleblowing ethics you know making sure you know we’re gaining informed consent these are all enshrined in the GMC and as we’ll talk about later on in the discussion the GMC they’ve got some slightly double standards when it comes to who to go after.
Dr David Cartland BMedSci MBChB MRCGP (2014)
@CartlandDavid
Going to spend 2025 doing what I do best: sharing data, studies, articles, narrative exposing, hosting a new podcast (coming soon), a new substack and continue to ruffle the feathers in the best way. Facts. With a side of legal retribution, beating the GMC and finally handing my licence back.
And the reason: justice, truth and for our next generation!
Patrick D Hahn says
This business of a man deliberately breaking a condom during sexual intercourse with a woman sounded to me like an urban legend, but I did a google search and apparently that really is a thing. There are also women who retrieve sperm from used condoms and try to impregnate themselves.
SMH.
Bernard says
I guess this is the problem when you spread accountability between different players and people who are harmed by the products don’t have any recourse against anyone.
I still believe that if nothing is changing now and if antidepressants keep on being prescribed so easily, it is because mainstream psychiatrists do not want to recognize some real problems such as inefficacy, withdrawal or PSSD.
chris says
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/crime/general/nhs-doctor-struck-off-for-sharing-covid-vaccine-conspiracy-theories/ar-AA1w17Pi
‘There is clear evidence he has no insight whatsoever, indeed he continues to vehemently hold the views expressed in the video in question and feels that it is the rest of the profession and the regulator who are in the wrong,’ said Kitching.
The tribunal concluded that Armstrong was ‘highly likely in future to act so as to put patients at unwarranted risk of harm’.
Oh boy I had a good laugh. I hope JJ Couey finds this guy and interviews him.
Anon says
Chris Someone has just sent me this.
The covid vaccine witch hunt continues as another dissenting doctor is punished
Anonymous
A CHILL wind passed through the dissident medical profession this week when Dr Sam White was permanently erased from the medical register. But it will not cause us at HART, a group of doctors and academic experts who came together over shared concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic, to stop speaking truth to power or more importantly being open and honest with our patients about the potential harms of mRNA vaccines.
Dr White was an experienced General Practitioner who, like many others, found himself conflicted between his NHS practice expecting him to promote Covid-19 vaccines to his patients, while seeing increasing numbers of people with vaccine injuries. After much soul-searching he resigned from his post in February 2021. A few months later, in June 2021, he recorded a short face-to-camera video explaining why he had decided to quit, which he then posted on a social media site. Perhaps to his surprise, it was viewed by millions and within a few days had come to the attention of his employer, namely NHS England. They blocked him from any NHS work, a move which he legally challenged. A General Medical Council (GMC) investigation followed and his NHS suspension was reversed,. The court upheld his challenge, as described in the BMJ here, though oddly enough the link to the actual judgement is no longer available, except via Wayback machine. Mr Justice Dove ruled that there had been ‘an error of law and a clear misdirection in the interim orders tribunal’s decision making process’. Its decision was ‘clearly wrong and cannot stand’, he added. He stressed that he was expressing no views on the merits of Dr White’s claims on social media. But he said the tribunal had failed to consider a provision in the Human Rights Act 1998. This states that a court or tribunal should not restrain somebody’s freedom of expression before a full hearing unless it was satisfied that after a full hearing the application to restrict publication was more likely than not to succeed.
At the time, the GMC clearly didn’t think that Dr White was a danger to his patients (there had been no clinical complaints against him) nor even sufficient danger to public health for them to suspend him and for the next 3 years he was entitled to work and to speak freely, medicine and decided that he would not engage with the process –….
Medical progress depends upon such debate and is littered with examples of what were thought to be heretical views becoming accepted wisdom, and vice-versa. Article 10 and the common law protect the right to express views with which most people disagree. Views contrary to widely accepted medical opinion are not sufficient to establish misconduct.’
With Dr White absent from the proceedings, the Tribunal seem to have assumed that his views on the safety of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines were ‘baseless’, whereas of course they are shared by a significant minority of doctors who have assembled a huge amount of scientific literature on vaccine harms. However, the judgement in
It was, however, made very clear that the penalty was not only intended for Dr White but also to send a clear message to other doctors considering speaking out. ‘Sanctioning doctors for comments likely to undermine public health and confidence in the medical profession so as to deter such behaviour engages the aim of the protection of public health and safety.’ Indeed, coming hard on the heels of Dr White is consultant psychiatrist Dr Daniel Armstrong, also facing the possibility of being struck off for a single online video, Navigating the Truth-deception duality. There are others with hearings in the near future. This is not about clinical complaints of patient safety. This is about doctors questioning the government about the management of the pandemic, especially the poor safety record of the vaccines.
A large group of doctors and other health professionals wrote to the GMC in June, highlighting their concerns over what appeared to be a witch hunt of doctors speaking out about covid-vaccine harms. The ongoing correspondence is published here. Several of the signatories to that letter had previously signed a fully referenced scientific letter to the Chief Medical Officer in June 2021 calling on him not to recommend covid vaccines for children, and found themselves referred by the DoHSC to the Counter Disinformation Unit.
A recent BMA survey showed that the proportion of doctors being discouraged from or even afraid of speaking out has risen significantly between 2018 and 2024, to the point where 61 per cent of those polled in 2024 said they may not raise concerns because they were ‘afraid’ that they or colleagues could be ‘unfairly blamed or suffer adverse consequences’.
The UK is not alone in its efforts to stifle free speech with eminent doctors being similarly sanctioned in Canada, Australia, and most recently the USA. Whistleblowing in academia is no easier.
If public confidence in the medical profession has fallen, rather than blaming dissenters for speaking out against the prevailing message, perhaps doctors need to take a hard look at their unquestioning acceptance of the ‘Safe and Effective’ message
Many of the doctors currently being hounded for speaking out on social media are the same doctors who are repeatedly thanked by members of the public for their honesty and integrity and especially for their efforts to support the vaccine injured, often ignored and disbelieved by others. Comments beneath an article in the Mail about Dr White’s erasure suggest that many members of the public have rather more faith in Dr White than they have in the GMC.
The current situation of self-censorship amongst doctors combined with GMC overreach, risks serious ongoing harms to patients and must not continue.
The GMC is not the right body to be making these judgements But Chris how are they – judged and taken to tasks themselves. Is there any mechanism ?
Dr. David Healy says
The comment above is probably the last comment on Covid vaccines this post will host. I must explain why. First it is only marginally relevant to the post it comments on and risks distracting from problems that need input.
The more important reason though is that it is largely – as GMC might say – opinion and not fact. Apart from Dr Armstrong’s opinion that it was very odd that so many colleagues went along with a relatively untested vaccine etc and with mandates, which many of us might recognize and agree with and perhaps even view as a fact, most of the rest of his video and case seemed to be opinions which when invoked with a ‘You can believe me because I am a doctor’ without any other underpinning head toward being dangerous.
Where is the difference between him and Elon Musk who voices opinions about Tommy Robinson’s release and statements about immigrants that put innocent lives at risk? There were / are bills before Parliament tabled by both major parties aimed, in the public interest, at controlling the voicing of opinions like these. Where is the difference between these efforts to protect the public interest that most commenters here likely support and GMC invoking a need to protect the public interest?
Most of the best doctors I know – all my children and in-laws – believed in the vaccines and were semi-hostile to anyone who didn’t. The post these comments link to is about the structural features of the system – not idiosyncratic personal views – that can lead people who are often on the same page to be on quite different pages when it comes to medicines, especially the harms that medical treatments can cause.
Using FOIA and searching for documents, Peter Selley and I have done a lot to tackle some of these issues as they relate to vaccines by attempting to establish clinical facts – and have done as much as anyone to do so. We rigorously scrutinize what either of us has written before it goes up and don’t make claims beyond the facts.
There is no invoking a vague deception – there has been a demonstration that Augusto Roux’s record has been altered and his case did not get reported to FDA.
I have never told or even hinted to anyone they should not get vaccinated – as the latest doctor noted here apparently has. It’s not my place to tell people this.
One of the curiosities of our situation is those who have been vaccinated seem almost unable to see the harms the vaccines can cause, while those who haven’t been vaccinated seemingly can see them. A linked set of 10 DH posts outlined 10 cases of people who have been vaccinated and saw the harms the vaccines caused because they suffered them. These were written up and prefaced with an invitation to the GMC, Pfizer or other vaccine makers or any pro-vaccine experts who thought the vaccines cannot cause harms to contribute, if need be by interviewing the people in question and having access to their medical record with the guarantee their comments would be published. No-one has taken up the invitation.
When two people like Brianne Dressen and a medical person interviewing her come to an agreement on her case and open it up to wider scrutiny, if there are no dissenting views it moves from being an opinion to a likely fact, especially when submitted to a peer-reviewed journal that opts to publish it.
At the moment there have been enough comments on GMC cases where the GMC views do not look particularly unreasonable to me – given that GMC have acquitted other doctors for the views they have expressed about vaccines.
Not all contributions to RxISK posts have to be new facts, although these are commonly the best – as in Annie’s finding of a GSK document that was highly pertinent to the recent posts about the Kingston case. Offering other explanations for things put forward, or creative other ways to frame issues, contributing to the imagery/artwork/ cartoons or perhaps as in the case of next week’s post coming up with a modern set of words for an old song can be helpful.
Fact-free hinting that our problems are all just deception won’t help. While there is a difference to the Armstrong situation if the view is not being offered by a doctor but RxISK still aims at being mainstream medical. It is not linked to critical psychiatry. It essentially works from the premise that you cannot establish that treatments cause harms without believing in the medical model – and the onus on anyone who thinks there are harms is to attempt to pinpoint the mechanism rather than just invoke deception.
There is of course asymmetry. Unlike a doctor attempting to establish facts about harms, a medically qualified member of parliament or one who has been ennobled or honored in some way who makes a fact-free statement promoting vaccines or medicines is unlikely to be referred to the GMC or if they are referred is unlikely to have their case prosecuted. This is the way of world. Comments on the asymmetry don’t offer much. As one Chair of the GMC once almost put it – it must be a boring life if you don’t get referred to us.
David
Chris says
My comment is dark irony – wouldn’t expect anyone who had not been through the sharp end of psychiatry to understand. It does not apply to other doctors.
Anne-Marie says
One thing I’ve learnt about the system is when people in the system don’t listen to you when you’ve tried to tell them it makes you realise people don’t care about you or what’s happened to you. You then become disillusioned with the system and end up not caring yourself anymore.
Maybe this is where most people end up when frustrated at not being heard.
Dr. David Healy says
Are you describing a version of male privilege – many women sit around in social situation listening to men offer views on this that and the other – without any effort to bring them into the conversation. Doctors, male or female, have a similar role – they don’t have to listen to us whose views don’t count as much in this world. Of course they expect us after the event is over to respond with a smile when asked – did you enjoy that darling? Did you enjoy the sound of me exercising my vocal cords?
The fact that women’s voices are literally quieter to some extent puts them at a disadvantage. We need a way to make their voices louder. But its like dealing with a policeman – which of us, male or female, is going to respond to a policeman questioning you about something in a loud strong voice
D
Anne-Marie says
The trouble is their the ones with the power just like the policeman. It’s very tiring taking on a system when your whole life has been turned upside down and you’re on the floor destroyed and dishevelled from it all. You need to recover first before you even have enough energy to take on such a mammoth task. It’s even harder when you don’t have the education or knowledge of how the system works. You have to not only learn all this you also have to learn about medicine and law all at the same time. Like you said you need facts and this takes time to learn about and collect all relevant details. Noone will even listen to you without it.
Anne-Marie says
I don’t know if I’ve answered that correctly I just get exacerberated when I still get nowhere after everything I have done. I’m still guilty. It just leaves you not caring anymore. I just get how people get to that point. It’s like an outburst of frustration.
mary H. says
Anne-Marie, I think you have explained something that has taken me years to appreciate – that NOT BEING BELIEVED results in total disillusion of both self and others.
You will know why I push for total LISTENING and BELIEVING, by doctors, of their patients. I have always seen this as something that DOCTORS need to take on board.
Towards the end of 2024, it dawned on me that actually BOTH SIDES need the ability to take this on board. Co-operation HAS TO BE the name of the game.
It was brought to my notice in discussions within our group where I noticed that a number of members just could not bring themselves round to attempt some sort of communication with their GP.
I DO NOT BLAME THE PATIENTS – they have been so damaged by “those who should have known better” that they cannot see how any doctor can help them any more. Helping each other is their way of overcoming this massive disservice which they have suffered within a system that should have CARED about them.
My hope is that those of the group, who have expressed a wish to work with us to make an attempt at closing this gap, will find the energy now early in this new year, to try a few different ways suggested to us. We will work for ALL who are suffering, not just for those of us with enough strength to push things forward. The strong MUST be there to support the weak as well as to push for change.
Anne-Marie says
Mary you are a life saver to all those people you support and help. The first person I came across was Janice Simmons from Seroxat Users Support Group. I can’t tell you the relief I felt to talk so such a lovely caring woman who had so much knowledge about ssris. She kept in touch with me towards the end of my journey checking in I was ok. She was the only person I felt that really understood me at the time, she was very concerned what was happening to me. It was equivalent to meeting a guardian angel who knew what i was going through. I know this is how people will feel about you too Mary and your group. It really is a life saver, I wish there were lots of groups like this across the whole country.
annie says
There are a lot of very angry people out there, who feel they had been fed lies Who I am sure would like to blaspheme and say words like “scumbag” but who would they say it to. Most it seems to me are extraordinarily polite, who know deep-down that to go any other way makes you look ‘off the edge of reason’.
Look how quietly and effectively people like Kim Witczak has gained in positions of power, within the FDA, and Wendy Dolin, with MISSD spreading the word about Akathisia.
Very Senior Psychiatrists totally humiliated, the then Dr. Peter Gordon, trashed his life, trashed his career, many people could not have withstood that very nasty episode. Instead, the quietly dignified Peter, has caused the Very Senior Psychiatrists to look very stupid, and while they grandstand to the rest of us, in many, many eyes they will never recover.
Katinka Newman, through direct experience, wrote her book The Pill That Steals Lives. She writes extensively in the Daily Mail about Stolen Lives, and has an increasingly growing number of unfortunate victims on her website https://www.antidepressantrisks.org/
Will Thomas Kingston’s death from prescribed medication make a difference. One would like to think so, but apart from Lady Gabriella speaking out, such is the web that is woven.
The geese that laid the golden eggs, are in charge, and behind them their legions of secret armies, and what do we do if nothing budges, and more and more become injured and die.
chris says
It would be good if Lady Gabriella could find a away forward on this but suspect it would be sometime in the future if it is at all something she wants to do, it would certainly be a fine way to honor her husband and help save countless lives in the future. It’s clearly devastating and raw at the moment and probably she requires a lot of support to get through days and nights.
For myself I have to divert my rage at the people who abused me to thinking about akathisia being a sensory disorder and at first found it difficult to associate emotional lability – a linking aspect of akathisia, also a away to identify akathisia – to this. But the more I ponder on it through my own experience, the more I realise that it probably is the case. This emotional warping is linked to our senses – what ever ones they maybe – being damaged. It seems to me easier to grasp when thinking about alcohols affects.
Dr. David Healy says
This comment from Peter Selley
Yes, our medical journals are afraid of legal action. Perhaps it’s the
cost implications.
But
The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and their Journal were
sued by Pacira Biosciences Inc because of a negative comments about
its local anaesthetic. The courts threw out the claim. Pacira appealed
and again lost in March 2023..
“Toward the end of the argument, Judge Ambro asked Pacira’s lawyer,
“If we were to rule in your favor, wouldn’t the consequences be that
people would be very afraid to come out with opinions relating to
drugs of companies that have the wherewithal to sue readily? And
wouldn’t that have a chilling effect on not only opinions, but, in
effect, science?”
Pacira’s lawyer responded, “I don’t think so.” The appellate court
judges unanimously disagreed.”
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(23)00604-3/fulltext
This story has a happy ending as in October 2023 ASA accepted a $2.5
million donation from Pacira “to advance education and innovation for
our members”.
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/02/23/medical-society-takes-millions-from-company-that-sued-it-for-defamation-and-lost/
Sic transit gloria mundi
Dr. David Healy says
This was also posted on Turning Point in History on DH.org but is good enough to be posted a second time. It shows the threat that pharma poses to any medical journal but in this case ASA – along with Prescrire in France – have had the backbone or balls to resist, unlike BMJ, NICE Guidelines, Cochrane and others
This – along with the point about medical insurance advice to doctors at inquests – are factors in the problems we now have. The answer to which might include getting doctors to prescribe everything off-label or making all meds available over the counter – I’m surprised no one is jumping in with A You Can’t be Serious type comment
David
David
David T Healy says
Perhaps a shade gross but in a post on condoms, the last comment froim Peter Selley outlines a rubber hits the road moment
DH
Peter Scott-Gordon says
Thank you for this post David.
It is indeed a big web!
In relation to the UK, I have covered some of this here [though this does not consider regulation authorities]:
The NARRATIVE CONTROLLERS: https://holeousia.com/2019/01/21/the-narrative-controllers/
Dr. David Healy says
Peter
These things need pointing out but I think are relatively superficial. According to Daniel Kahneman’s Fundamental Attributional Error We tend to look for people to blame – rather than at structural aspects of the situation we are in. The structural aspects of our situation include the availability of these drugs on prescription only which makes doctors the consumers of the meds and pharma work to ensure most doctors don’t have a thought in their head not put there by them. In so far as anyone hears of Howard or Young’s views etc, it’s because it fits into pharma’s narrative.
They can even use your views and mind to shape the narrative. For instance pharma love the idea of a Sunshine Act – they want the public to think the only problems stem from a few doctors on the take rather than lack of access to trial data etc. So the more you go on about these things – without even being paid to do so – the better pharma likely appreciate you.
Not just you – the marketing director for Prozac UK once told me that I was doing more to sell Prozac than anyone else in the UK.
David
Peter Scott-Gordon says
Thanks David.
I agree with what you say. Sunshine legislation is just one area of wider changes required to get anywhere close to the ‘disinterested’ approach to science as outlined by Robert K Merton.
You are right that this is not so much about individuals but about organisations/systems that have the power to ‘control’ the narrative.
In terms of the pictograms I have made with Paid Opinion leaders surrounded by logos and brands of the pharma companies they have worked for . . . well I felt that there needed to be a visual aspect so that the impact of pharma education could be seen. I did this most reluctantly as I do not like personalising big issues like this! When I was working, just about every psychiatrist I worked with had NO IDEA of the scale of marketing masquerading as Continuing Medical Education.
There are no straightforward answers to the Web that has been woven. But we must keep looking for ways in which we [science and medicine] do more good than harm!
aye Peter
Peter Scott-Gordon says
For the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists could do a lot more: https://holeousia.com/tag/royal-college-of-psychiatrists/
annie says
I would hazard a guess that most people out there have never heard of The Royal College of Psychiatrists or Wendy Burn or Simon Wessely, former presidents. The Patron is King Charles, so before you even start it has this ‘air’ of respectability.
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/blogs/detail/presidents-blog/2023/05/25/the-coronation-of-king-charles-patron-of-the-royal-college-of-psychiatrists
As Adrian James reaches out, including pregnant women, they try and pull them in but when it all goes wrong they push them out. More is less, we could say.
Thanks for all your years of campaigning, Peter.
Anne-Marie says
Equality, diversity and inclusion so sick of hearing that phrase when it excludes the drug harmed groups it means nothing. Their delusional if they think their including everybody. Nobody takes what they say seriously and know its all sound bite nonsense.
Brian Steere says
I allow synchronicity to prompt questioning of the themes ‘in play’.
The principle of which I see here of which is a web of deception.
Indeed a ‘self and world’ of deception – which can also be seen as masking defenses that necessarily run as masked agenda seeking gain of fictions under false claims of function.
Human conflicts have inner and outer facets, where the presentation or behavior can operate as a masking diversion, ruse or camouflage, and engaging or responding to such behaviors at face value will then reinforce the ‘issue’ as being framed in the arena of the ‘diversionary’ or scapegoating ‘solution’.
Warring narratives of staked identity seek to distribute blame and thus penalty or sacrifice.
That someone else pay (the greater cost) is the dictum of a ‘self-survival’ framed by fear in division. Existential survival invokes ingenuity for ‘creative evasion’ at a level of the mind rarely allowed consciousness as terror shapes the ‘consciousness’ that then aligns or seeks and adapts a self and world to ‘escape and avoid it’.
But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
But there’s a paradox here, because the self-honesty to being ‘mad’ is itself a light of awareness by which we are now only partially so, and with a new perspective or framing of consciousness by which to discern a self-honesty from a ‘protective’ self-illusion that carries hidden costs. The nature of which run ‘dark’ until rupturing the mask of coping an impossible situation.
Growing a ‘new consciousness’ within a mad world – and partially mad adaptations to such a world, is a step of willingness at a time, as an instant of willingness in which a prompt of desire and curiosity to heal gives welcome to a deeper recognition than the face value of shifting appearances. I cant put this into words, but it can and does align, reintegrate and heal thought, perception and response prior to the split of victim and victimizer that fragments a dissociated and dissociating grievance and conflict management system.
Synchronicity may seem mere chance or happenstance, and yet beneath all appearances are relational themes ‘playing out’ archetypal patterns of problem-driven ‘solutions’ that buy time against reliving what might be called ‘separation trauma’ – not for dramatic effect, but as the basis for a self-image set at odds with (our own) Life or Self. The alloy of love and fear that characterizes the ‘human conditioning’, such as to co-fuse both in a woven defense of controls against a deeper fear of love, of relationship, of communication – that runs (in our name) to protect the split mind from a healing it cannot conceive or imagine, but only perceives as threat and at best as of being excluded.
To live free willing self-inclusion, I have to extend a recognition of worth to my world and relationships. But ‘I’ cannot ‘do’ that as a means to get for a sense of lack, not get rid of what I hate in myself by wanting to see it in others. That is what reinforces and tightens the ‘net’.
Recognition is a grace of noticing. Our capacity to not know what we know runs on engaging the active ignorance of presuming to know – such as shortcut references that no longer actually connect to a true currency of exchange. Has not a weaponised language rendered an Orwellian reversal for the breakdown of a socially masked imposition of order? There is a true basis for growing trust, but not within the vested idols of substitution for relational honesty.
Dr. David Healy says
Brian
Many people reading these posts will read your comment with interest. Bits of it, maybe lots of it, will resonate but they will wonder who is what role. What role is Healy in? What role is anyone who has been harmed in? What role does Pharma play? What role does a Regulator play?
Can I invite you to spell these things out. Pin your colors to the mast. Outline what options someone who has been harmed has – what should they do about their own harm – a harm like PSSD – or about trying to prevent harms to others
David
Anon says
Your comments are genuinely interesting to me Brian. But would you say you are using some kind of covert messaging perhaps for fear of retaliation if you go further and spell your thesis out more plainly here ? Themes of synchronicity are mirrored in most struggles but to get bogged down in dealing with those which are the subject of many theories on group behaviour does not as far as I know lead to much change elsewhere in the attempts to make raprochment between groups happen. It needs constant vigilance and resistance as well as listening with a view to changing..This is not a total criticism , if a person does raise the idea that there are possible fraudalent relationship which assists peoples’ cause by undermining others it hints at the others being the sheep and the person who is more knowing and understanding of both inner and outer motives are above them in some way. This though risks becoming ostracised by a group with maybe vested interests to protect the group or individuals in the group -it is a very lonely place. But if this message is shared with others who are supportive it is a feature of group behaviour that splits develop . Are you speaking on your own behalf about issues raised here or more generally about how relationships are flawed and deceitful? Some knowingly and some unconsciously. Of course David H and colleagues have an agenda Is this part of your ‘argument’ No amount of relational psychology will lead to changing the agenda of those who are causing so much harm . Maybe there is a hierarchy in groups who control forums which those who participate in them choose to trust But there is a hierarchy of harm being perpetuated which needs to be dealt with collectively with shared experience and knowledge , As for using psychology to change things with respect I am not convinced it matters what our deeper inner desires are, Maybe our actions reveal them enough . It does take two to tango – but those with enormous power and control are never likely to engage in a decent relationship with those who have been and will be harmed unfortunately
Brian Steere says
I offer an articulation from my life experience. I have the deepest respect for David Healy – which is in between the lines of what I offered into his ‘domain’ (His article comments)
Negative synchronicity is not noticed as a synchronicity in most instances because the desire to NOT know ensures the experience arising from a conviction of knowing something ‘else’, other, elsewhere and elsewhen to what is truly present.
I wasn’t formulating a thesis so much enjoining a relationship.
The theme of entanglement in deceit is a growing one with the emphasis on being lied to. This is only half the story. and tends to be accusatory or mutually conflicting.
Replacing responsibility with blame is the nature of our social order to a large extent.
I sketched toward recognizing where this arises from.
Desire – knowing true desire is masked over by substitute desires. When I wrote of ‘Separation trauma’ splitting the mind, I meant that not only is love lost but made treacherous, fearful and weak.
You have no idea of the power of the mind in that your desire to give power to a ‘protector’ can and does set up the experience of treachery and betrayal.
We are all in different ways part of a mad world, some of which is in our face and some of which runs ‘dark, within subconscious patterns of learned personal/social behaviours.
A real relationship is simply honest and present. I am not speaking of idealised ‘relationships’ – as we ‘want others to be’ but of a self acceptance within what is.
Opening a fresh perspective is not ‘changing things’ and yet in an instant everything changes. Opportunities open that could not be seen before..
Entanglement in deceit or delusion has the characteristic of tightening or reinforcing from the attempt to escape it, eradicate it, fix it, or redefine it into rationalizations as if to normalize war, pain and sacrifice as ‘caring’.
The recent covid operation is a case in point – the damage running on from defenses and countermeasures is unprecedented – as is the redistribution of wealth and control.
What does it come down to?
Masking beliefs given priority for a psychic sense of existential survival?
I have no desire to violate anyone’s freedom to ‘self-medicate’ or mask their own pain in life, but insofar as we allow the movement of a desire to heal we will meet that – but on a different basis than the past that it represents and repeats.
Thankyou for engaging – we may miss each other’s meanings due to assumptions that don’t match – but my sense is that something sparks a curiosity of your own – and that is up to you as to whether to trust enough to see where it leads or ‘explain it away’. For the time being in any case..
Where there is no relationship I don’t sacrifice myself to the pretence of one. (Else I betray myself to powerlessness or ‘teach myself a lesson’.
My desire is to a focus on ‘deciphering the web of deceit we have all made – if not wittingly.
Dr. David Healy says
Doesn’t feel like you are deciphering anything. This wordiness feels obfuscating.
D
Anon says
What lurks behind the doors of deception? Maybe the much reviled J F K will do something good for USA . when Donald Trump appoints him as Health Chief. Maybe times they are a achanging It will be interesting to see when already strange things are happening over there, maybe someone will emerge to successfully challenge the MHRA over here in the UK
RFK Jr vow to purge FDA sets up collision with Big Pharma
Reuters
https://www.reuters.com › healthcare-pharmaceuticals
15 Nov 2024 — Any changes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to make will come up against a pharmaceutical industry that pays much of the U.S. Food and Drug …
Lilly Chief Says He Will Fight for the FDA,
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › Business › DealBook
4 Dec 2024 — David Ricks, the chair and chief executive of Eli Lilly, speaking at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, said his $750 billion company would fight to defend the FDA
chris says
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14270747/coroner-information-suicide-risks-antidepressants-death-lady-gabriella-kingston-husband-thomas.html
‘Despite his symptoms, the financier ‘had not expressed any suicidal ideation’ and coroner for Gloucestershire Katy Skerrett said his ‘intent remains unclear’ as he was suffering from ‘adverse effects of medications he had recently been prescribed’.
He had withdrawal akathisia and it went from bring bearable seeming to be uncomfortable anxiety to horrific very quickly – a matter of seconds and he couldn’t bear minutes because time for him was slowed down, in seconds he experienced a much longer time, it was unbearable no time for words he wanted out of it asap. I know this because it happened to me on exactly the same drugs only I didn’t have a gun.
chris says
“After having lunch with them, on February 25, he began to load his car and prepared to return to London.”
“Ms Skerrett said that between approximately 5pm to 6pm, Mr Kingston ‘removed a shotgun from his vehicle which he had recently borrowed from his father for a shoot’.
‘He then accessed an annex attached to his parent’s property,’ she continued.
He then accessed an annex attached to his parent’s property,’ she continued.”
‘Within a locked bathroom he self-inflicted a gunshot to the head, and sustained injuries incompatible with life.’
I suspect the lunch food inhibiting CYP450 drug metabolising enzyems is what made the akathisia horrifically unbearable as was the case with Stewart Dolin who had been well enough to attend a business lunch but an hour or so later threw himself into a train. Also again am referencing my own experience.
“Returning a verdict of suicide, she also questioned whether the current guidance to ‘persist’ with the drugs is ‘appropriate’ in circumstances when the individual is suffering ‘adverse side effects’.”
Not only is it not appropriate it is causing deaths. If the ssri drug is causing more anxiety it has to stop and no other SSRI’s be prescribed. The patient nor the doc know the massively important difference between anxiety and akathisia, so, repeat – it has to stop!
chris says
“when people in the system don’t listen to you when you’ve tried to tell them it makes you realise people don’t care about you or what’s happened to you. You then become disillusioned with the system and end up not caring yourself anymore.
Maybe this is where most people end up when frustrated at not being heard.”
Yes and it’s not only that they do not listen and don’t care they lie and gaslight whilst harming you because they have been given so much power over you and you are in a closed culture.
Anon says
I disagree a bit with the ‘they don’t listen’ Chris . I think some at least do listen and believe what they are told but it suits them not to act on it . That is unforgivable. There is a proposal to make it an offence to with- hold knowledge about harms being perpetuated on children an offence. This should app;y to health workers who knowingly with- hold information about harms being caused by the drugs they prescribe. And pigs might fly.
chris says
“This should app;y to health workers who knowingly with- hold information about harms being caused by the drugs they prescribe. And pigs might fly.”
It’s not going to happen as you infer, just as The Lampard Inquiry is not going to get to the root of thousands of deaths and those responsible face justice. They can’t allow the truth out.
annie says
News Coverage
10 Jan 2025
The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Express, The Irish News, BBC, Daily Mail, Sky News, etc.
Coroner issues warning about antidepressants after suicide of royal’s husband
Thomas Kingston, son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, had been prescribed SSRIs
The report was sent to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the Royal College of General Practitioners, who have 56 days to respond.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jan/10/coroner-issues-warning-about-antidepressants-after-suicide-of-royals-husband
Giving evidence to the inquest, Dr David Healy, a psychiatric medical expert, said zopiclone could also cause anxiety while sertraline and citalopram were both SSRIs, and essentially the same.
Healy said Kingston’s complaints that sertraline was continuing to make him anxious was a sign SSRIs “did not suit him” and he should not have been prescribed the same thing again.
He said the guidelines and labels for SSRIs were not clear enough about the risks of going on the drugs in the first place or what the effect could be when moving from one to another.
“We need a much more explicit statement saying that these drugs can cause people to commit suicide who wouldn’t have otherwise,” he said.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/depression-medication-warning-after-death-of-lady-gabriella-kingston-s-husband/
A NICE spokesperson said: “We will consider the issues raised by the report and respond to the coroner directly.”
The ‘nice’ people from The Royal College of Psychiatrists, don’t appear to be in receipt.
Peter Scott-Gordon says
David, you give this reply to a comment on your blog:
“Many people reading these posts will read your comment with interest. Bits of it, maybe lots of it, will resonate but they will wonder who is what role. What role is Healy in? What role is anyone who has been harmed in? What role does Pharma play? What role does a Regulator play?
Can I invite you to spell these things out. Pin your colors to the mast. Outline what options someone who has been harmed has – what should they do about their own harm”
Forgive me, but I am still not sure of the ‘options’ that you may be ‘spelling out’ to address prescribed harm.
I ask this question with nothing but kind admiration for all that you do.
aye Peter
Dr. David Healy says
Peter
I was responding to an obscure comment – which seems to me and some others to be a set of words that could mean anything. If you are hinting that the posts I’ve been involved in are rather similar – well i think we disagree. My posts may end up seeming obscure because people can’t believe that I mean when I say that as things stand now we would be better off if all prescribing was off-label but I do mean it. This is not a playing with words.
If you are asking me about things that could help the prescribed harm community there are several and these have been spelt out repeatedly in RxISK and DH posts over a decade.
Among some of the things that could help are the following:
1. Access to study data – this means the names of people in any trials so they can be contacted and we can establish what actually happened to them. People are the data in medicine – not measurements which abstract from people.
2. We need to stop claiming RCTs offer gold standard clinical evidence – they don’t. They are a gold standard way to hide adverse events
3. We need to stop BMJ and NEJM etc being hypocritical Zombie Journals – they need to have the nerve to publish reports of adverse events written by doctors. This is almost the only way people and other doctors will take reports of adverse events seriously. It is a shame that for 20 years BMJ have been cowed by lawyers into submission and horrific to have editors of BMJ and Lancet sounding off in holier than thou fashion when they are so lilly-livered when it comes to things that count.
4. We need to understand that FDA, MHRA, EMA are bureaucrats – they aren’t scientists. Their role is not one of establishing harms. They review paperwork from companies. Doctors but also the public need to stop looking for father figures.
5. We need to realise that objectivity comes from observers with different biases getting to a consensus position on what they are seeing and acting on that basis.
6. As a profession we should hang our heads in shame. For companies to be able to say openly that few doctors have a thought in their heads not put there by us (companies) suggests we are staggeringly naive and venal and people would be a lot safer if they could get their meds over-the-counter.
7. We need to see people who bring problems to us as free research assistants, especially when things go wrong, rather than heart-sink cases and appreciate that their skin in the game allied to google means they will often know more about what they are talking about on a particular issue than we do.
8. We need to help the public realise that life expectancy is falling and reproductive rates plummeting and this correlates with the number of drugs people are on – and increasingly younger people are on.
9. We need to relabel consensus judgements on problems as a wisdom that is more important than the information we are drowning in.
10. There will be a RxISK post on Monday on Who Will Make Medicine Great Again. You are going to be surprised at the case of characters who will be in the frame. The points being made overlap with those here.
11. The following week there will be a RxISK post on a Medically Informed SSRI label – aimed at drawing a contrast between what doctors and patients need and MHRA are likely to deliver with their current review.
This is not all – I am sure I am leaving out some points. There are over a 1000 posts on both sites. Perhaps I can invite you to distill from the next two posts and any others you get to read where I stand. If you think it is all just words – fine.
But actions are more important than words. Actions that led to RxISK and Taper being set up. That led to RxISK reports and now a SNOMED proforma that people can take to their doctors – the hope is that this will empower people. I don’t know that it will and I and several others linked to RxISK spend a lot of time grappling with why not.
It’s being involved as an expert witness on behalf of harmed people against the 5 biggest healthcare corporations on the planet- something that purist critics of medicine and pharma resile from. This legal work has led to documents in the public domain that shed more light on ghostwriting than any other documents. Documents that led to GSK being charged for fraud and ultimately fined $3 billion.
It’s a willingness at inquests to say this drug killed the person I was seeing – not just someone else’s patient – when advised by medical insurance lawyers to blame the illness.
David
Anon says
Regarding the SNOMED reference I did some campaigning to inform people of these Codes and the right to ask to see them. Very few even knew what they are not surprisingly as there is no formal obligation to inform on websites or information leaflets at practices . I made freedom of information request to several practices with varied responses Some were transparent and informed people another notably said no they did not but regarded an overall statement that privacy was crucial to the practice was good enough.
Extract
Is there any reference on Practice Leaflets etc to inform people who are
registered that their information is coded
The practice confirms that it holds the information. The practice does not
employ a dedicated coded, but practice staff perform clinical coding (it is actually sent to a hub elsewhere)
Repeated after months of evasion
Is there any reference on Practice Leaflets etc to inform people who are
registered that their information is coded, whether that be by GPs, other
health workers, admin staff or a specific Coder?
The practice confirms it holds the information. There is no reference in
practice leaflets specifically to clinical coding; the published practice
short privacy notice notes a variety of processing activites for
healthcare but does not specify this level of detail for transparency.
……………..Please note there is no legal
obligation to provide this level of detail in privacy notices, the full
notice is provided to give patients assurance that we are managing their
data in a suitable manner.
Peter Scott-Gordon says
That is a really helpful list of things that could make a difference. Reading back my previous
response, I didn’t mean to suggest that you had not made these clear in past posts, rather
that I had not quite picked it all up.
You know that I admire you and agree with most of what you say. Where we do disagree is
in the area of deregulation. You will also know that my focus is on transparency and I am
less able to contribute meaningfully to other areas of action. Thanks again for taking the time
to put together this list.
Dr. David Healy says
I’m not a deregulator – but there is an old Chuang Tzu quote i like a lot – if there are thieves around it is elementary common sense to lock up your goods, bolt them with bolts, chain them with chains but when a really strong thief comes along he picks up the entire lot in one go and makes off with it with only one worry that your locks, bolts and chains may give way.
This is the situation we are now in – even the Sunshine Act favors pharma. Medics have the power to sort this out – they can refuse to prescribe a company’s goods but don’t. We have come to a point where one weapon for us to think about is making these drugs non-prescription – this would make it more likely that doctors would be more transparent – tell the truth – not yield to the hype and claim there are no harms.
Sunshine Acts sound nice – but clear do not deliver the goods in the weird market that is prescription-only medicines
D
Peter Scott-Gordon says
I do understand.
I have never been of the view that sunshine legislation will ‘solve ‘ all this.
Dr. David Healy says
Peter
Its not just will Sunshine help make things better – it’s is it actually making things worse. It diverts people into thinking that the payments and apparent conflicts of interest some guys have is the source of the problem.
I’ve had links to all of the companies. I’ve also got raging conflict of interest – I want colleagues to be able to practice a job that I once thought was a privilege to practice and fun – but has become a means to gaslight people and ain’t much fun any more.
D
Peter Scott-Gordon says
That is a really helpful list of things that could make a difference. Reading back my previous response, I didn’t mean to suggest that you had not made these clear in past posts, rather that I had not quite picked it all up.
You know that I admire you and agree with most of what you say. Where we do disagree is in the area of deregulation. You will also know that my focus is on transparency and I am less able to contribute meaningfully to other areas of action. Thanks again for taking the time to put together this list.
tim says
May I please endorse the immeasurable value of RxISK Reports in re-establishing Shared Decision Making and Consent. In my experience, potentially life-saving.
In Gratitude: Thank you RxISK.
Anon says
‘one weapon for us to think about is making these drugs non-prescription – this would make it more likely that doctors would be more transparent – tell the truth – not yield to the hype and claim there are no harms’.
David – How would it work? Who would hold the information about the drugs and so on needed for a particular problem. Where would they and the public get data/information from in an understandable and trustworthy form?. Many health workers including doctors are interested in the profession because they are people-people so it is sad to see them being controlled by those who are using them as dopes.. Would pharmacists take on the role of giving consultations as well as selling drugs. I wonder if they would end up setting special relationships with pharma companies and still favour those they get paid to promote . With more and more use of AI of they as well as doctors may all be dispensed with one day. Then we would be stuffed and pharma rules the world
Dr. David Healy says
People buy over the counter SSRIs as is and don’t have half the problems because if they don’t feel right they stop it and aren’t told by a doctor to keep taking it or to double the dose. What other information do you need? In fact if people are going to take something novel they will google it and likely get a much better grasp of the things that count for them than they would get from their doctor at present. Not a good state of affairs and not going to improve by leaving things as they are now
D
Anon says
I am thinking of everyman /woman not just those who know how to research on google And can afford to pay for over the counter. It wouldn’t be safe to rely just on how you feel without knowing how to check them out -People need more information than that. Where would it come from? .I guess nobody knows except to guess AI would come into it And the same problem arises Only the well off and well informed could access it.
Dr. David Healy says
I don’t see you thinking. You are just asking questions. I could spend hours on a response and I imagine there would just be more questions.
It is not my job to detail all the things that people might figure should be put in place if we opted for a major switch like this. Lawyers for companies would insist on major statements being put into the package outlining all possible hazards – much more than now but you and most of us would be bamboozled by words that deceive – aimed at keeping companies safe – just as the label of a drug now given to doctors completely bamboozles them
But you would have a profession – medicine – through its journals like BMJ – who would want in their own interests (not yours) to tell you in plain language what the hazards are – designed to get you to consult them – especially if things begin to go wrong when the incentives for them would not involve gaslighting you.
There will hopefully be a RxISK post next week showing a brief form of what at report might look like. In response to this post and the one next week it would be better to stop asking questions and start thinking and reporting what you think any new system might feature. If you don’t have anything to offer – perhaps resign yourself to accepting the system as is and stop asking me questions. It is one thing to bring a problem into view – it is a very different mission to offer solutions.
David