Globalization is not a word that’s in favor at the moment. In the face of this very recent economic development that seemed to be sweeping the board in the 1980s and 1990s, we now want to reassert national boundaries, hang onto “our” jobs, and keep out others – sometimes those who have done a great deal to create our prosperity in the first place.
This is understandable. There is another side to globalization as this map of over 300 PSSD, PFS and PRSD cases reported to RxISK shows. Enduring sexual dysfunctions following treatment are a global problem – Korea and Iran and the USA are in the same boat. See the Table below for a detailed breakout of countries.
The same is true for all drug wrecks (significant adverse events). What’s a drug wreck? Companies are happy to talk about side effects and adverse effects which sound minor and relatively innocuous. They are less keen to talk about Drug Wrecks – now the greatest source of death and disability on the planet – as well as events that isolate the person whose life is wrecked as much as Crusoe’s shipwreck isolated him.
Drug Wrecks are not problems arriving on our shores in boatloads. These are torpedoes being launched at America’s Cup yachts along with all boats under any flag and none. These are landmines being exported from the West to everywhere else.
See also Launching the RxISK Prize, How You Can Help, Golden Rule, No-Nos, Relationships.
The plague millennium
Health has been global for over a millennium, with disorders like the plague, and syphilis following trade routes and conquests – as both the Aztecs and the Spanish found out to their cost.
The increasing amount of contact between peoples meant this globalization picked up pace in the last two centuries first with Cholera, and Consumption (later called Tuberculosis) and then with Influenza and more recently with AIDS, SARS and the looming specter of multidrug resistant infections – especially tuberculosis. These plague are generally seen by the West as coming from unclean places “out there” to infect “us”, leading us to retreat into gated and vaccinated “communities”.
Corporate diseases
From the nineteenth century an increasing number of diseases linked to industrialization began to spread out from the West to infect others. These were linked to factories, pollution with lead, mercury and arsenic, followed later by tobacco, vinyl chloride and dioxin poisoning.
With Infective Plagues, people, politicians and doctors worked together – with the help of business. Infections were good for business. All sorts of people like plumbers installing hygienic toilets, fridge and other gadgets makers, as well as the makers of disinfectants, scientific laboratories and ultimate pharmaceutical companies stood to gain from working together. And the “final” result was like the movie Independence Day – Earth won – temporarily anyway.
With the new corporate diseases, things were different. People, doctors and scientists were up against businesses who could manufacture their own research and sow doubt, as well as intimidate, sue, and exert pressure on politicians by moving jobs elsewhere. The in movie was the Insider.
Still, there was a strong inclination to believe chemicals aren’t that good for us, and when the same disorders pop up all over the world close to the same kinds of factories, there is something of a clue, and finally doctors don’t make a living out of prescribing Marlboros and PVCs. Still it took fifty years and a bunch of Californian consumers to get to grips with the greatest corporate killer – until recently – tobacco.
The new consumption
In addition we now have a new set of diseases from hypercholesterolemia, osteoporosis and osteopenia, as well as depression, ADHD etc – conditions that measuring instruments create. If your peak flow is below this you have asthma even if you feel fine. If you’re young and male and aren’t permanently erect, you have erectile dysfunction. If you check so many boxes on a checklist you have a depression, ADHD or bipolar disorder you never new about but Good News – we have pills for that.
When the disease is real, little marketing is needed to get the product to the consumer. These new disorders are vehicles created to bring consumers to the product and need a huge marketing effort to scare people and their doctors and politicians into submission.
This marketing was in full swing by 1980, when AIDS crashed the party, confronting us with something both real and Biblical – caused by a Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
CIV disorders
The 1980s also so the emergence of a Clinical Immunodeficiency Virus (CIV), now the greatest source of death and disability on the planet.
CIV attacks clinical medicine’s immune system through ghostwritten articles, and lack of access to clinical trial data, along with intimidation of journals and doctors and anyone who mentions anything to do with any harms a drug can cause. Did someone mention harms – we don’t talk about harms here.
All medicines are combinations of chemicals and information. The chemicals are inherently dangerous. The information is supposed to reduce the risks. But the greatest hazard now lies in the information which for all on patent drugs is now essentially fraudulent.
Some Drug Wrecks are unavoidable but with a weakened clinical immune system Drug Wrecks have become the greatest source of death and disability on the planet.
Over a decade ago one of the greatest medical triumphs ever was the Access to Medicines campaign that brought treatments for HIV within reach of everyone – globally. We now need a new Access to Medicines campaign to reverse the effects of CIV.
The problems are immense. Doctors earn a living out of these viruses. The viruses caused cravings – everyone wants more just the way children in the 1850s wanted the brightly colored sweets in London, colored with lead and mercury, that killed them and led to the first Food and Drugs Act. We think the viruses are a treatment for the conditions we have, not realizing for the most part that we don’t have a condition in the first place.
And its no longer a case of pitting our research against company research – our research is run by companies who take our data and hide it and tell us none of us were injured in “their” trials. And after the trials are over, if we report conditions like PSSD, our reports get dumped into shredders labeled anecdote or hearsay.
When it comes to these disorders the BMJ, Lancet, NEJM, JAMA and all “our” journals line up on the company side. They want the ghostwritten accounts of clinical trials where no-one not even the ghostwriter has access to the data rather than an account of any harms caused by a treatment. They are scared silly about being put out of business were they to publish anything significant about the single greatest cause of death facing us at the moment.
Where have all the doctors gone?
PSSD, PFS and PRSD map onto Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) in that they often appear after the treatment stops and can last for decades. The contrast in the way to two groups of disorders are being handled is instructive. In 1960, when TD was reported there was still discussion of harms in medical journals and at medical meetings. Now…
- 1954 – General Launch of Chlorpromazine
- 1960 – First English description of TD in major journal
- 1966 – Major International Clinical Symposia feature TD
- 1968 – American Journal of Psychiatry has an issue devoted to all points of view on TD
- 1973 – FDA Task Force on TD
- 1974 – First legal settlements for TD
- 1982/97 – Launch of SSRIs, Accutane & Finasteride
- 2006 – First publication of PSSD in obscure journal
- 2011 – First publication of PFS in obscure journal
- 2014 – First publication of PRSD in obscure journal
- Major Journal?
- Major Clinical Meetings?
- Task Force?
In the case of TD, there were comparatively few patients and they were hidden away. They and their families had little political clout, and there was almost no media interest in health. While worried about compromising a much more important treatment than the SSRIs, Accutane or Finasteride, and in the face of some clinical blowback, the recognition of what was happening was driven by doctors concerned about patients.
Where are the doctors now that we have problems facing vastly more people, who are not hidden away, who are often teenagers at risk of having their lives destroyed, when health has become the second commonest feature in the media and on the web – after sex?
This is a great indication of how much the CIV virus has weakened clinical medicine.
And where are…
The updated metrics on the RxISK Prize page show we have donations from 13 countries.
Most of Europe is missing – where is France and Italy, Poland and Hungary and Russia.
Korea is at present the only Asian representative. South America is not yet on the Map.
Within the US, we have 14 States – where are the other 36? All bar Oregon lag behind Canada and Oregon is only ahead of Canada on a technicality.
Spreading the word…
Remains more important that raising money. With this in mind, we would like your thoughts on other Donate options. Would up take up the following options to donate or can you suggest others:
- Contact another person
- Contact ten others
- Contact twenty others
- Contact a doctor or pharmacist
- Contact ten doctors or pharmacists
- Contact a journalist
- Contact five journalists
The global PSSD, PFS and PRSD map
[tabcsv]
Country,Number of Reports
United States,102
United Kingdom,60
Canada,22
Australia,14
Germany,10
Poland,8
Greece,8
Italy,7
Spain,6
Ireland,6
Netherlands,5
India,5
Belgium,5
Switzerland,4
Brazil,4
Sweden,3
Lithuania,3
Hungary,3
Pakistan,2
Mexico,2
Israel,2
Iran,2
France,2
Finland,2
Zambia,1
Uruguay,1
Turkey,1
South Africa,1
Slovakia,1
Singapore,1
Portugal,1
Norway,1
New Zealand,1
Moldova,1
Denmark,1
China,1
Argentina,1
[/tabcsv]
Spruce says
What about sending out a letter about PSSD to every doctors surgery in the UK over say 5 years. Or is this ridiculously too ambitious?
I have tried to help out by trying to get people with PSSD to fill in a Rxisk report. I spend quite a bit of time on the surviving antidepressants website, and whenever i see a new person on the site with PSSD, i direct them to do a Rxisk report. I have got about 8 people with PSSD to fill out a report so far.
It says on this page that drug wrecks are the “greatest source of death and disability on the planet”. I just wanted to ask. Are drug wrecks really bigger causes of death and disability than even heart disease and cancer? I know a lot of people are killed and damaged by these drugs, but is it really that high of a number?
Dr. David Healy says
Yep. Take AIDS – the worst year of the crisis there were 50,000 deaths in the US. Every year in the US there are 50,000 opioid related deaths. In the case of cancer, a significant proportion of the deaths will be premature and linked to treatment but are never recorded as such. In mental health, a great proportion of the deaths are linked to treatment – the illnesses don’t kill – but are never recorded as such. And despite all this the 3rd biggest cause of death in inpatients services is treatment related. In the community where most deaths happen and the conditions people have are less likely to kill them the figure has to be even higher. Multiply this globally and you have the leading cause of death and disability on the planet.
D
Laurie O says
Whenever stuck viewing drug ads lately I’ve taken a change of perspective: these confident individuals in their better homes and gardens, happy couples sitting in bathtubs and riding bikes, the families on picnics and enjoying time with friends in the mountains – these don’t represent the improved lives of those who get
treatments. These cocky images show how the beneficiaries of this system (those spreading CIV) get to live when their treatments get into the common people. Viewing ads from this perspective gets my blood boiling in a good way. Their bliss deserves our revolt.
annie says
Spreading the Words .. slogans and hints
A Slogan for CIV and RxISK Prize would enhance the message
Famous slogans:
Durex – the small family car
Aids – Don’t Die of Ignorance
A Good Start would be all BLOGS which we refer to constantly putting the RxISK BOX on their WEBSITE.
The BOX on RxISK, is constantly updated and is the BOX to use
SSRI Stories does not yet have the BOX
MiA does not yet have the BOX
MiA does not yet have the article
Surviving Antidepressants does not yet have the BOX
Media has not yet written up the RxISK Prize with a Press Release from Rxisk
The Pill That Steals has not yet mentioned the Rxisk Prize
We are at the very beginning of this campaign and I just thought we should perhaps use what we’ve got first and foremost ..
Global Impact is a great article which would not be out of place in Newsweek or Time or the BMJ ..
Updates
https://rxisk.org/prize/
Rxisk Newsletter
A substantial Fund will get researchers and the media to give the problem the attention it needs. If everyone on this email newsletter list gave $10, we would have more than is needed. But donating a few minutes to spread the word is almost certainly of equal or greater importance.
David Healy
Disfunzioni Sessuali Post SSRI (PSSD)
http://disfunzionisessualipostssri.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/premio-rxisk-no-nos.html
Billiam James
Artist / Writer / Activist
https://www.billiamjames.com/tag/rxisk/
Illustration: No Sex Please! (We’re on antidepressants). Based on 17th Century Kama Sutra and Ragamala paintings. © 2014 created by Billiam James.
susanne says
Postcard size cards with RxISK logo (peolpe might put them in pockets bags rather than throw them away) saying something like
Do you have or think you might have symptoms caused by the drugs you are taking for depression or other mental heath problems.
You can get confidential help and advice for free by going to the RxISK web page,
You can help others by telling them about this too.
Not sure how to word it for people who have no access to a computer as (changing my mind about a helpline here ) there is no phone number
Dr. David Healy says
S
We have a RxISK card – I’ll see if I can find it
D
mary H. says
I have made such cards Susanne and found that people willingly took them. They are credit card size and, as you say, fit inside any pocket.- which is ideal, as long as people remember that they are there!
Mine are bilingual – one side for each language. They are simple homemade ones – nothing fancy – simply directing people to the RxISK site. They are laminated too, therefore should last a while in use. I still have the master copy for them if anyone was interested.
As for spreading the information – new ideas. Being accepted, I find, is the hardest part. I have written to local papers with no joy whatsoever. I have put comments on online editions/articles from newspapers – again no luck. I’ve a mind to send a letter to the 3 young Royals – maybe they would respond. Unless someone has already contacted them?
Spruce says
Ok, well that is a real shock. All of this is an even bigger scandal than i thought. And i already knew it was a big scandal.
Would you say prescription drugs are the biggest cause of death history has ever known?
I also wanted to ask a question about your stance on prescription drugs Dr Healy.
I remember watching the Yale symposium 2015 speech you made. While i agreed with most of what you said, one thing that you said confused me a little.
You mentioned about all the bad things that these drugs can do, but then you mention at one point in the speech that a large amount of good can come from these drugs, or something like that.
Although i accept that there might be a minority of people who benefit from psychiatric drugs, at the current time we have no way of predicting who these people are, so do you not think that because so many people are maimed and killed by these drugs, that it would be safer to just ban most of them, and only have a small minority of people who take the ones that haven’t been banned.
Also do you not think that this minority of people should only take psychiatric drugs after other treatment options have failed, and that they are closely monitored for adverse effects etc?
Apart from learning more about how the body and brain work because of the damage these drugs cause (a lot of what we know about the brain and body was discovered by noticing changes when it was damaged somehow) i dont really see the silver lining to these drugs.
It seems to me that most of these drugs should be banned, or their use severely curtailed on account of weighing up the ratio of the damage they cause, compared to the benefits.
Have i missed something here?
Dr. David Healy says
Spruce
If you go back and look at what I write the whole time you’ll see it consistently says medicines are poisons. When giving a poison the giver and the taker need to balance harms – the harms from the condition and harms from the poison. So no these drugs shouldn’t be banned. If you want no poisons you’ll have no medicine. The problem is docs have forgotten they hand out poisons in great part because companies have totally hidden the evidence about poisonous effects and threaten to sue anyone who mentions the word Poison and put out of business any medical journal who publishes evidence about poisons.
If we embraced the idea we worked with poisons, all the doctors handing out SSRIs faced with someone like you mentioning your problems would tell you this was an unfortunate risk of treatment but they were now going to get in touch with the rest of their colleagues and others around the world if need be to find out what had actually gone wrong to cause this and how to put it right. You’d have found them sympathetic and willing to work with you to make you better and their practice better.
Banning the drugs would just dump us back in the 1930s, where our infant mortality was still ridiculously high and people were dying from things they didn’t need to die from.
D
Delta says
And now in 2017 we have:
1 in 78 kids with autism in the US;
A 60% drop in sperm count since WW2
The danger of superbacteria epidemic.
Doctors: We want money…the more the better…We deserve it because we have a college degree…
But in 2017 Voltaire is still right: We put drugs we know little, in bodies we know less, to treat diseases we know nothing…
annie says
Professor David Healy: Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction. A $100,000 Prize to Find a Cure.
Monday
https://heterodox.economicblogs.org/mike-norman-economics/2017/norman-david-healy-post-ssri-dysfunction-100000-prize
Sunday
https://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/professor-david-healy-post-ssri-sexual.html
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.
mary H. says
Contrary to my comments a few mins. ago – Mirror online have (so far!) actually included my comment (on an article about over use of ADs) which is a plug for The Rxisk Prize etc. I feel better already!
annie says
Very, very, very well said Mary
MaryH
1 hour ago
I would like to draw your readers’ attention to the fact that many suffer adverse reactions to antidepressants, also withdrawal problems. The number of prescriptions is obviously a huge worry – but even more worrying is the tendency to ignore these important facts about their use for some people. Unless we take on board the reality of the possibility of these effects then we are creating and underclass of sufferers. Many will dismiss this reality for fear of the disappearance of the pills that they rely on for their ‘improved lives’. In a bid to bring an ‘improved life’ to those who are suffering,
RxISK.org is currently running a ‘Prize Campaign’. Please read about it and share its contents. With the support of all of us, an answer may be found which would transform the lives of many who suffer simply because they ingested, in good faith, pills prescribed by their doctors. As so many of us suffer mental health problems, we must accept that any one of us could suffer in this unfortunate way.
Thanks for reading and best of luck to all who do well, and those who do less well on antidepressants.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/were-still-relying-antidepressants-cope-11332808
annie says
Professor David Healy: Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction. A $100,000 Prize to Find a Cure
Aangirfan
http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/sex-and-drugs-korea-norway-missing.html
Monday, 16 October 2017
SEX AND DRUGS
Dr. David Healy says
Korea and Norway are there.
D
annie says
We have an anthem 4the movement curtesy of @jf_moore & inspired by @ReadReadj ‘Bad things happen’ -it rocks!
https://twitter.com/dropthedisorder/status/919866752791662599
Chiselled jawed, softy spoken, podcast interviewer and good all round bloke sings and plays for Activism…
May be James can sing and rock for Rxisk Prize .. or any other takers out there .. ?
Look what Bob Geldof did ..
with the Boom Town Rats ..
We need mo(o)re along the lines of ‘hidden talents’ .. surely we all have some .. to give to the Rx Prize ..
Katie B-T says
Here is an article that came out yesterday about how the drug companies have bought the US DEA and Congress–
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-low_deanarrative-hed%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.d095c5557991
annie says
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!
https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/16/trump-says-opioid-emergency-will-declared-next-week/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=de0346ca0c-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-de0346ca0c-149674737
“We’re going to be looking into Tom”
annie says
The Pharma Chronicles
tales from the sharp edge
Chrys Muirhead writes
http://pharmachronicles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/dick-dale-hava-nagila.html
other blogs
RxISK
RxISK Prize: Global Impact – Globalization is not a word that’s in favor at the moment. In the face of this very recent economic development that seemed to be sweeping the board in the…
annie says
Two important initiatives
James Moore
Caldicot, United Kingdom
18 Oct 2017 — Hello.
Since I hadn’t posted an update for a little while, I wanted to mention two important initiatives that may be of interest.
Petition to the Welsh Government.
Firstly, Stevie Lewis has started a petition aimed at the Welsh Assembly Government which seeks to raise awareness of the number of people dependent on prescribed drugs. This petition partners a recent petition to the Scottish Government and the work being undertaken by the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry.
You don’t need to be Welsh or live in Wales to sign, please consider adding your name to the list. The petition can be a little temperamental, so if it doesn’t work first time, please try again, thank you.
You can find out more and sign here:
https://www.assembly.wales/en/gethome/e-petitions/Pages/petitiondetail.aspx?PetitionID=1235
Launching the RxISK Prize.
Secondly, you may have seen that Dr David Healy’s organisation, Data Based Medicine, has launched a campaign to raise $100,000 as a Prize for finding a cure of one of the most debilitating side effects of modern medical treatments – the close to permanent obliteration of normal sexual functioning stemming from treatment with antidepressants, finasteride (Propecia) or isotretinoin (Accutane).
Since starting in September, the campaign has raised close to $11,000.
Please consider donating if you can, this is incredibly important work. You can find out more here:
https://rxisk.org/launching-the-rxisk-prize/
Thank you, as always, for your support, encouragement and signatures.
Best wishes
James
annie says
Hey, my comment is 6th on google search ..
Global impact of sexual dysfunction | RxISK
https://rxisk.org/rxisk-prize-global-impact 1 day ago
Global Impact is a great article which would not be out of place in Newsweek or Time or the BMJ .. … David Healy Disfunzioni … Blog categories. Acne drugs;
Hey, hey ..
Updates
https://rxisk.org/prize/
$24,385 USD
raised of $100,000 target by
63 supporters in 14 countries
England overtakes Scotland, Wales ahead ..
Males ahead with donations by gender ..
mary H. says
Brilliant to see the total donations leaping up to almost 25% of the total. Not quite so good to see England climbing ever-closer to our total though!
Dr. David Healy says
Mary
There is a very easy answer for that – every Welsh or Kiwi or Irish $50 equals $1000 English dollars. If they creep closer, there is an easy way to solve the problem.
D
Heather says
RxISK PRIZE:
Suggested treatment for PRSD and other related Accutane damage.
I have been trawling back through diaries to see what treatments helped our son after he suffered what appeared to be damage from RoAccutane- isotretinoin for his acne, later coupled with SSRIs and anti-psychotics.
He managed to live a reasonably bearable life, sporadically, over the 11 years since he had his first course of the acne drug, but he was extremely unwell, suffering ‘depression’, anxiety and repetitive OCD-like suicidal thoughts terrifyingly till 2004, when he first began taking a daily 2 scoops of UltraClear Sustain, (a gastrointestinal lining support system) made by Nutri. It is supposed to be on a doctor’s prescription.
When living at home I gave him a large glass of water before eating or drinking anything else each morning, sprinkled on top 2 scoops of the powder and electrically whizzed it for 2 minutes till totally dissolved. You then drink it at one through a straw. It tastes acceptable. Sometimes he added a whizzed-in banana.
I know when he got busy and no longer living with us, sometimes he forgot to take it for weeks at a time. But when living with his girlfriend’s family, her mum made sure he took it. Looking back now at diaries, it’s interesting to see how much his mood and energy improved over the periods he took it. He wasn’t consistent but he did notice the way his acne got better too when he was on it.
It is a non-allergic well balanced mix of vitamins and minerals and enzymes exactly calibrated to balance one’s needs. It has rice flour but no other ingredients apart from the above. It is not cheap, about £36.00 a large pot, but can last a month. My husband and I have taken it for almost 20 years to balance damage we had from leaky guts and liver damage from sheep dip when we were farming. We have maintained good health all through.
Looking back now I can see the periods when our son improved. I can also see in the last few months of his life that SSRIs and antipsychotics muddled his thinking and he lost interest in looking after himself. From that point on it was a downward slide and he never took the UltaClear Sustain again. I am sure that PRSD became a problem in last those months but he and his girlfriend had been together prior to that, very happily, for 9 years before then.
I have mentioned this powder before, further back in earlier posts. I wonder if your panel would like to try it? It contains in balanced amounts too, Vitamin D, and that seems to be something a lot of PRSD sufferers have low levels of. At least by taking it one is giving one’s body the best tools for good functioning, even if this is not a cure. But it must be taken with plenty of water and well mixed. I’ve often been asked how our son survived so long and had such good intervening intervals, and now, having looked it up, whilst researching for something else, I’m thinking this could have been the reason.
NB: Do NOT take either of the other products, ‘UltaClear’ and ‘UltraClear Plus’ as they are good for detoxifying the liver but can be quite strong. Only take ‘UltraClear Sustain’ which lines the gut and stops allergens crossing the blood brain barrier. Order from Nutri, Mail order and you may need an initial doctor’s prescription.
H and D.
Brian Steere says
Dear Moderator
If you consider this offering too long for your sense of ‘acceptable or relevant’, you may perhaps consider including a part and linking to the whole at:
https://willingness-to-listen.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/prescription-for-impotence.html
Dear David Healy
Thankyou for your work, your witness, and your willingness.
Irrespective of understanding or resonating with anything I said in my post. Being true to yourself invites or encourages others to do likewise – in their own particular ways.
Delta says
Isn’t it curious that 20 years after chlorpromazine entered the market there were legal settlements from tardive dyskinesia and 30 years after Prozac all we can get is a prize for a impossible cure from drug induced sexual dysfunction?
We can´t even get a warning in all SSRI’s like Prozac prescribing info about PSSD…
I guess that in 2017 Big Pharma power is so massive that now they already own the courts…
When I visit rxisk.org I always remember a quote from Vladimir Lenin: ” The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves”.
Dr. David Healy says
Its a wonderful quote from Lenin
D
Delta says
So much subtlety professor… so much subtlety…
Dr. David Healy says
Delta
In earlier comments you talked about shrinks not having tried ADs and not having PSSD and that these conditions are permanent and this Prize effort is just another attempt to dupe people into taking more drugs.
First you don’t know who you are dealing with. I may be the D behind many of the responses but there are big and growing number of people behind RxISK and many do have PSSD or related conditions and some have had far worse – they’ve lost family members to conditions as bad as or worse than PSSD.
Second, there is almost no one in the team who isn’t skeptical about pharma and cynical about medicine. But there’s a choice to be made. If there is going to be a cure or even some relief it is likely to come through pharma. Pharma may not find it, they may even try to block it but at the end of the day someone will have to distribute it. It’s romantic to think we can get by in the twenty-first century without some kind of pharmaceutical industry – it needs reforming or challenging but its never going to be abolished.
You’re welcome to be romantic but not to waste space here by just carping. The comments linked to these RxISK Prize posts are for people who want to offer a view – even a negative one – but hopefully something solid in terms of a lead on the biology or on how to spread the word or on why its getting harder to get information about adverse events out there rather than easier, but its not for scratched records.
You’re not being singled out here – except in so far as you singled yourself out ages back when you complained about a comment not being posted instantly figuring we wouldn’t dare post it. There are some other regular contributors who have made some wonderful points who have found themselves not posted when they just repeat or make points not related to the specific post.
It’s difficult to single you out given your anonymity.
I can understand that someone with PSSD might feel like someone with AIDS in the 1980s when there were stories about people trying to stab others with infected blood. But I’m not going to post your latest comment dissing another forum that I think is doing good work.
Despite you’re dissing RxISK elsewhere, I’m more than happy to set up a post for you where you can have a running set of comments, and will even post comments (they can be negative) to future RxISK posts linked to PSSD, but I’m not going to let a scratched record get in the way of others who are grappling with the issues and trying to move things forward – many of us recognising that we risk doing as much harm as good.
D
Brian Steere says
“If there is going to be a cure or even some relief it is likely to come through pharma.”
This is a limiting belief. To only look where the answer isn’t is to protect the problem while ‘fighting the good fight’. This is indicative of an outside in approach.
Pharma is not merely drug interventions. It is a captured regulatory ‘education’ or narrative control.
Weaning from Pharma is an embodiment of awakened self-responsibility. My use of that term is a conscious alignment in life rather than substitutions of guilt and punishment or blame.
Perhaps the restoring of functional health may also need to grow alongside pharma dependence. One can only work with the current belief system. I can only reflect your choice to you in invitation to consciously re-evaluate its nature.
This is not to say that biochemistry – including new understanding of the gut function – and revision of misleading and destructive dogma that threads all the way back to Pasteur and before will not open perspectives of currently unimagined benefit.
I don’t believe Pharma is about money – excepting as a captured dependency – aka ‘power’. Birds of a feather flock together.
Impotence, dependence and debt is the bequest of this ‘power’ system.
Too big to fail? Really? Does that only means it will take everything else with it rather than change. The system is a logical expression of laws and cultural beliefs or should I say cultured beliefs? But while systems may be useful, they are only as ‘good’ as the qualities of the people who use them.
I think it was Jefferson who said “Well we have a Republic’… if we can keep it! Lawyers representing powerful lobbies did what occupying forces could not. Liars of no moral compunction justify any means by their allegiance to private or personal agenda. And present ‘moral outrage’ at any who question them.
Anne-Marie says
Delta really weird how you mention pharma owning the courts because that crossed my mind and made me wonder when I appealed a conviction to hear “No press or general public allowed” at my trial in the magistrates court when I had an expert witness to say it was the SSRI medication that caused my problem. I of course lost my case with smirks from the magistrates e.t.c. It was a very creepy and frightening experience that left me extremely confused, upset, angry, paranoid and distrusting of the system.
Little do these magistrates know of the deaths and trauma caused by these drugs and if they do know why are they protecting the companies?????? It could be their child or relative next. These people need to get real and realise this is happening, it is not a joke and should not be taken lightly either.
I felt my court case was run by a bunch of uneducated imbeciles to be honest. All they seemed to care about was winning their court case not what the real issues were and of course they were going to win they had every state government agency behind them against one defendant and a legal aid solicitor.
The defendant has no chance unless true justice is practiced.
Spruce says
Sounds similar to my experience with the ombudsman.
In my last phone call to the ombudsman regarding the really unfair reasons my review had been turned down, the woman who had been assigned to my case even had the gall to take an unecessary cheap shot regarding the sexual problems i had been left with by saying “and those sexual problems”, in a mocking tone, when i was pointing out the flaws in the way the ombudsman had handled my complaint.
It was completely unecessary, and we hadn’t even been talking about my sexual problems.
I then went on to say to her about all of the problems that the patients association had pointed out about the ombudsman and how it ignores evidence and comes down in favour of the NHS in 96% of cases , and her response was “i feel we do a really good job”.
She then told me ” i am bringing this conversation to an end”, in a self satisfied tone, and that was the last i heard from them.
My advocate wrote a final letter to them pointing out for one final time all of the major flaws in their investigation, and why i felt the reasons they refused me a review was unfair. My advocate asked for an acknowledgement that they had received the letter.
She had to send them a further two emails to prompt them to even acknowledge that they had received the letter.
Out of all of the bad treatment i have had from different organisations after trying to report my PSSD, such as the MHRA, AWP etc, the way i was treated by the ombudsman was definitely the worst, and it left me feeling the most betrayed.
I am still in shock that in a first world developed country like the UK, people’s very real suffering is still being swept under the rug in such a callous, uncaring way.
annie says
I write to the Scottish Ombudsman, SPSO, seven years after my complaints had been dismissed by the Medical Practice and enclosed a lot of paperwork to justify my complaint.
During that 7 years I had collected a lot of emails from the Medical Practice, UK and Canada, referrals, letters to MHRA, MIND, MY MP. Etc. Etc.
“I have contacted the Medical Practice” was the worst possible scenario for me as it gave the Medical Practice carte blanche to throw it back to the SPSO which totally defeated my argument and totally defeated any plan I might have had for recourse ..
The SPSO sent a copy of their letter to me to the Medical Practice .. so, in essence, sabotaging any goodwill between all three parties ..
They then closed the file ..
Delta says
Anne-Marie:
Right now there’s a class action lawsuit going on against
Johnson&Johnson because of ovarian cancer causing talc powder.
It’s known since 1971.
4 jury verdicts found J&J guilty. 400 million in damages.
1 single judge dismissed the verdicts. The jury was ignorant she said…
Welcome to the real world Anne…(and Spruce…)
susanne says
For those who may not have come across it there’s a site set up by another group of activists -‘What do they know?’ Anybody can make a Freedom of Information request using the site for free..loads of advice on how to do it but very easy. Have made one requesting info about which medications are used for depot injections in prisons and hospitals where thousands are compulsorily medicated as well as dished out drugs by mouth without informed consent. Also asked which antidepressants are most used for depression and other mental health conditions. Replies can take 20 days and they are in some circumstances entitled to request payment – so will see how citizens’right to know is handled by the department of health. – from Revolting Peasant
mary H. says
As regards ‘spreading the word’, I am wondering if it might be an idea for us to know which companies/ media etc. have responded to letters/ emails and so on, so that we then know to hunt elsewhere. This came to my mind on having a word with local pharmacists whose standard reply was – “only Head Office can take new ideas on board”. I have no problem with contacting a ‘head office’ as such, but, if the said ‘head office’ has already taken the news on board through another person, isn’t it rather a waste of time for the rest of us to be targeting the same office? (If they’ve NOT responded then mass targeting may be ideal of course). I’ve no idea if such a list is possible – and I certainly don’t mean showing their donation ( if any), just simply showing the names of those who have made a positive response. Neither am I talking about personal donations of course.
annie says
We have a G I .. People’s Movement
Wales
Ireland
England
Scotland
$26,930 USD
raised of $100,000 target by
68 supporters in 15 countries
$ per 100,000 population
Wales has smallest pop followed by Ireland followed by Scotland and England
A thousand or so dollars certainly changes the picture in a marked way, based on pop.
https://rxisk.org/prize/
susanne says
Emailed MUMSNET at the start of campaign – no response. If someone else has a contact there it would be worth trying again now the campaign has really taken off.
Daryl says
Every time I tried to make a post warning mothers about PSSD on MUMSNET I was automatically slandered and hurled insults and just as quick post deleted removed and every single time I tried again to post and warn/inform them the post automatically gets deleted. This is what we are up against. From even just the ‘ordinary people’.
This step has been repeated on just about every ‘mental health’ forum or charity support group on facebook.
This is what we are up against… so insulting. However do as much as you can. Write articles, go on internet radio’s or call in radios. Hold events…
I am about to launch a marathon soon. I am going to try look in to a marathon that I do not have to give to one of these same censoring ‘mental health’ drug pusher charities as a forced option…
Dr. David Healy says
Daryl
Mumsnet for whatever reason are not keen on the idea of bad news about antidepressants. We ran some posts about this on DH back about 3 years ago.
I think we just have to accept that most people want to believe that there are things that help and they have a right to them. They will view anyone interfering as either a scaremongerer or denying women (in this case) the right to be happy and to make their own choices – but it would be the same on male forums.
I think the answer has to be to get clever. Humor would be a great help (not sarcasm) but it is going to take an extraordinary effort from people with PSSD to be humorous – a bit like asking people with AIDS to do so. But this is partly what underpins the image on the What You Can Do site page linked to the Prize.
D
susanne says
Thanks for info re mumsnet – didn’t know anything about their reputation – they don’t have a working e mail address – tried three different ones – and don’t answer the phone anyway – guess it’s another self serving group of self important ……good luck with the marathon Daryl. Have contacted Womens’ Institute but had to explain the reason over the phone before I could get a contact to e mail – it makes me anxious as the reaction is unpredictable – but will see if they respond.
Dr. David Healy says
Mumsnet and lots of other groups who will be hostile to us do great work. The Royal College of Psychiatrists do some good things. Rather than give up, or curse and swear, we need to get clever, and help them discover what they were really thinking all along.
D
mary H. says
The ‘What You Can Do’ addition is extremely worthwhile in my opinion – it gives a very clear picture of the coverage already done. I feel that it would also be helpful to have letter templates (if there are more than one) which we could use to continue with this work. I’m sure that I speak for most of us when I say that I’m running out of ‘face to face’ contact opportunities now, so it’s time for letter writing. Having a template would be so much easier – and would also mean that the same exact message is going out from us all.
Ireland – I cannot believe my eyes! You all held back, obviously, and then all donated together to give the rest of us a shock. Good on you! Good on us all I say – even the ones who are struggling to ‘get into the blue’ – for it’s TOGETHER that we’ll make it and not alone…..however much we like to see ourselves at the top!
mary H. says
Susanne – I was about to place a comment (with reference to RxISK Prize etc.) on the ‘A Disorder for Everyone’ website when I came across yours already there. We ARE being listened to in some places – like any other campaign there are many disappointments along the way which, actually, make a success sweeter! At the moment I am trying to get Welsh language institutions to accept the reality of the situation – another hard nut to crack. Has anyone else found that younger people are actually more ready to accept the situation than are the older generation ( of which I am well and truly a member myself by the way!)? Since prescriptions now seem to be given to an ever younger age group, I’m wondering if contacting youth organisations ( including secondary schools and further education colleges) may be worthwhile?