The images, which are a wonderful metaphor for the coming back to life, the restoration of emotions and senses that stopping an antidepressant can bring, comes from this news item – its worth clicking on the video link
There have probably been more posts about withdrawal from antidepressants – especially if PSSD is included as a legacy effect of these drugs – and certainly more comments on these posts about withdrawal from hundreds, perhaps thousands who are affected, than there are about anything else on RxISK. See Complex Withdrawal.
Trouble is while some come back to life, finding their emotions and senses restored, which can bring its own problems, many others, maybe even most have a terrible time with withdrawal.
Falling over Backwards
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, NICE and the NHS are now falling over themselves to acknowledge the issue of dependence on and withdrawal from antidepressants. See An Enemy of the People.
But it’s still a minor problem you realise. Most people can get off these drugs no problem – and will have the wonder of having a hearing aid turned on for the first time – but there might just perhaps be a very few people who end up having more problems than we figured. You can’t blame us though for missing these if most people don’t have much of a problem. And it would have been a mistake to put a lot of people off good treatments just because a small minority have problems.
Let’s not mention the fact that we had no problem putting a lot of people off good treatments when a small minority had problems coming off benzodiazepines – and the patents on these drugs had coincidentally run out – and there was no risk of a legal actions from pharmaceutical companies desperate to replace the now to them worthless benzodiazepines with a set of SSRI goldmines.
Right at the front of the campaign were the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK and the American Psychiatric Association in the US running campaigns for industry like the Defeat Depression campaign telling doctors they really needed to stop treating the superficial symptoms of anxiety with dependence producing benzodiazepines and treat the real disorder, depression, with antidepressants which didn’t cause dependence.
Malcolm Lader was to the forefront of these campaigns – telling doctors that benzodiazepines were a worse problem than almost anything else, while Buspar and later SSRIs were wonderful. His platforms were provided by the makers of Buspar – very similar to the SSRIs – and later the makers of the SSRIs.
It was easy to get youngsters like me swearing that, unlike the benzodiazepines, there was no risk of addiction from antidepressants when we put people on them.
Neither I nor any of the other youngsters knew that within 3 years of being on the market, there were more reports of dependence on or withdrawal from paroxetine than there had been in the previous 20 years from all benzodiazepines combined. We didn’t have the gumption or interest to check.
If I had known then what I know about regulators now, I’d have been rightly alarmed at the British regulator’s circulars noting they were getting reports of dependence on paroxetine – which SmithKline were later able to pass off as the cause of the reports. Yes you read that right.
It took a non-doctor, Charles Medawar, to outline the scale of the problem in The Antidepressant Web. In 1997, the other people trying hard to raise the profile of the problem – when doctors weren’t – were those good folk in Eli Lilly who were running adverts about the dependence producing effects of paroxetine and sertraline – citalopram and venlafaxine were not much competition at that point.
Still Guideline Bodies and professional organisations denied there was a problem.
By 2004 there had been a class action about dependence on paroxetine – in the United States – that GlaxoSmithKline “resolved”.
The Guideline Bodies and professional organisations continued to deny there was a problem.
There were regulatory hearings in the UK triggered by a series of Panorama programs and the US legal actions. The language in the labelling of the SSRIs changed from claiming these drugs were not addictive to mentioning discontinuation reactions.
The Guideline Bodies and professional organisations insisted there was a problem.
Back in 2005, a man with no background in health, Graham Aldred produced a model that made it clear that by then 90% of those taking antidepressants were taking them chronically. This had to be primarily because those who stay on antidepressants over a month or so can’t get off them,
The only thing that has changed since then is that a growing proportion of people are on antidepressants – close to 15% of the population now. This is not because we are putting more and more people on these drugs – we aren’t. The same number go on them each year. The figures come from the fact that a growing number of the population can’t stop the medicines they are on.
When they try they feel terrible and for years they ended up being quoted in newspapers as people who believe that antidepressants have saved their lives.
We now have young people seeking assisted dying for Treatment Resistant Depression – see Do not go Gently – which is code for dependence on antidepressants.
By 2019, the BMJ were featuring studies about Declining Sex in Britain – and blaming depression for this. Severe depression does get in the way of us making love but this is a rare condition and very few of the people put on SSRIs should be having any problem making love – if it weren’t for the SSRI. This group of people never had any problems when they were on Benzodiazepines. If over 10% of the population are taking SSRIs, then 20% are likely not making love the way they would like to.
Breakthrough or Heartbreaking?
So is the recent turnaround because of some marvellous campaigning efforts? Is it because someone up there has realised we have a public health crisis or that when youngsters seek assisted dying that something needs to be done? Nope and nope.
There is nothing being done now by anyone that is better or more effective than what was being done 20 years ago. The difference now may be that the companies want to get rid of the SSRIs the way they once wanted to get rid of the benzodiazepines.
The worry is that the SSRIs will end up so effectively demonised, that just as with the benzodiazepines it will become difficult to give them to the (few) people who may be helped by then. Not much of a worry to those who have been injured by them – except if we don’t get to grips with this dynamic we are just going to repeat it.
We Get on the Train
Trust may be the most important thing in healthcare. While we have grounds to distrust individual doctors or others we meet in a hospital, and might end up distrusting doctors as a body when faced with White Coats closing ranks, we are in a very difficult situation if we end up distrusting the system completely.
One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that right to the end we get on the trains, figuring that someone somewhere in the system will recognise that a mistake has been made and will put things right. Life wouldn’t be possible if the System were completely out of control.
Rather than face the truth about SSRIs, for the most part over the last 30 years people have accepted there must be something wrong with them as people, they must need antidepressants the way a person with diabetes needs insulin. The media have forced us into these corners by spinning myths and refusing to acknowledge problems and on this front the media are getting worse not better – being increasingly willing to brand any talk of treatment hazards as Fake News.
In Germany and Poland and Ukraine in the 1940s it was still possible to take to the woods. There are no woods to take to now when something goes wrong after you’ve been injured by a drug or a vaccine – when you need help from some part of the System. There are few options other than staying on the train. Once put on a drug and things go wrong, particularly an antidepressant, your medical records are marked and anything you say will be viewed through the prism of the number tatooed there – it might as well be on your wrist.
The only answer to this problem has to come from the people who have a duty to be trustworthy but who have been anything but. Its pointless to insist on our rights. The Schindler question is whether they can still be shamed by their duties to us or will they figure their duties to the System come first.
As Behind the Scenes lays out, most decent doctors are simply not aware how utterly compromised is the evidence they depend on and so are unlikely to take our side. Medical Schindlers are probably just as rare as they were Schindlers were in the 1940s.
Enemy of the People
When a youngster, likely a decent one, who has knowledge born from experience, Thomas Stockman, thanks the Royal College and NICE and others for all they have done to raise awareness of the hazards of dependence on antidepressants, it really does feel as there is little to be gained from working with the system. The next generation of decent young medics are as likely to be hoodwinked as we were 30 years ago.
Last week I got given out to by someone for not jumping to and writing a legal report on a nasty adverse event on treatment this person had – one that can definitely be caused by the drug in question and likely was in this person’s case but there was no input from a lawyer telling me what the case was and even if there had been in this case a legal action would be almost impossible to win. A lawyer’s input is critical to know if there is any realistic legal avenue and also to assess whether they are one of the 9 out of 10 lawyers who are just in the business of taking someone’s money rather then actually getting somewhere – in which case my time would be better spent with people wondering about seeking referrals to Dignitas.
The person ended up accusing me of a lack of empathy and asked whether I was advocating they go down an illegal rather than a legal route.
An illegal route is definitely the way forward. English was not this person’s first language – by illegal I do not mean breaking the law but rather taking a route other than the legal one.
John Gill came to the same conclusion a while ago after a bad encounter with the health services in California. He seems to have known from the start that a legal action was pointless – other than to provide material for a book that would be a very public shame to all those involved. The book is overlong partly because he tries to explain the lunacies of the mental health system to people who’ve never encountered it. But it does provide some very satisfying moments that readers of these posts will enjoy – probably feeling a touch guilty at the enjoyment.
Return to Eden?
Medicine is supposed to be about providing hearing aids to a baby like the one who opened this post. Supposed to be about bringing as much joy out of difficult situations as possible.
It shouldn’t have to be about the Black Joy that comes from reading The Mind Doctor or another book that featured here some time back This Present Madness.
We will soon be opening up Samizdat Health Writers Co-operative for anyone who wants to turn to illegality or illicit joy.
susanne says
Illegality And Illicit Joy! Spliffing great idea. Are the songs you were collecting going to be included?
annie says
All this, warms the cockles of the heart..
‘Part of the reason we don’t buy the professional line is because withdrawal can be so severe and can endure for so long. If the discontinuation syndrome were quick and tolerable – as with rebound to beta-blockers or anticholinergics – there would be much less argument, but when ex-heroin users can say it’s harder to get off SSRIs than off heroin, the professionals have lost the argument.’
Samizdat (Russian: Самизда́т, lit. “self-publishing”) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade official Soviet censorship was fraught with danger, as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials. Vladimir Bukovsky summarized it as follows: “Samizdat: I write it myself, edit it myself, censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend time in prison for it myself.”[1]
Because California’s medicolegal authorities were not responsive to medical malpractice complaints, seven of the friends and family of the deceased patients banded together to extract justice on their own.
The Mind Doctor was in for a big dose of his own medicine.
https://fiddaman.blogspot.com/2019/05/royal-college-of-psychiatrists-in.html
The Evidence, However, Is Clear: The Seroxat Scandal Paperback – 31 Mar 2011
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evidence-However-Clear-Seroxat-Scandal/dp/1849914141
My ‘illicit’ joy … Convict 99..
Anne-Marie says
Deaf-loss of one of the five main bodily senses needed for survival.
Pssd- loss of joy, relationships, children, future family.
Emotional numbness- loss of joy, relationships, children, future family, job losses, friends and social connections.
Detachment- same as above.
Akathisia- loss of sanity, loss of life.
Life surviving bodily Senses all lost thanks to SSRIS.
Kevin g says
why family or future family ?
Will pssd affect your ability to reproduce or even in men ?
Please let me know thanks
Bob Fiddaman says
So much to say about this, it’s something, as you know, that I’ve been echoing for many years.
Only yesterday we had the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Wendy Burn, announced on Twitter that one of her patients “stopped paroxetine suddenly after taking it for 20 years, no withdrawal at all.”
It’s an irrelevant argument designed to deflect the withdrawal issue.
It seems like a game of anecdotes, doesn’t it?, although I suspect, at times, Burn tweets like this to keep her peers and drug companies happy.
I mean did every mother who took thalidomide give birth to a deformed child?
Was the argument used back then, “I had a patient who took thalidomide and they gave birth to a healthy baby”?
What would she tell a grieving parent whose child had died by touching an electric fence?
“It’s okay, there’s a High Voltage sign in place now”
What Burn’s tweet doesn’t tell us needs challenging. What she tells us isn’t of any relevance.
Why was this patient taking paroxetine for 20 years?
Had this patient previously tried to stop taking it, if so, did they struggle?
Why, after 20 years, did this patient decide to stop taking it?
What dose was the patient on?
More importantly, Can Burn differentiate between relapse and withdrawal?
Of course, Burn, would, more than likely, scurry off and tweet about cats or train timetables rather than answer the above. This is the norm on Twitter. It’s a ‘dine & dash’ version of drug reps. Put something positive out there then dash before tricky questions are asked.
This isn’t a witch-hunt against Burn but it highlights how someone in authority, who is often quoted in the media, is doing more harm than good.
She claimes to have listened to those who have been harmed by psychiatric drugs, she claims that RCPsych are doing this and that. She claims a lot but I see very little action.
Sections of the prescribed harm community thank her for this. This baffles me, particularly when she ‘dines & dashes” on Twitter, opting instead to tackle issues relating to ‘Larry the Cat’ and not calls for help off those suffering withdrawal effects.
It appears that now they know about the adverse effects of these group of drugs, that’s, um, good enough. Truth is, they’ve known about this problem for years, they’ve known the NICE guidelines were poor yet they still quoted them in the past.
In any event, just who is going to help those suffering withdrawal effects? The same people that have denied this problem for years?
Referring those suffering withdrawal back to the very same people who ignored the suffering is like asking relatives of those killed by Harold Shipman to seek help from him to overcome their grief!
Excellent post, David!
A screen capture of Burn’s tweet can be found here – https://twitter.com/Fiddaman/status/1204390860672122882
annie says
Tip-Top
It wouldn’t be Samizdat, without a repetition –
The incredible story of Paroxetine, redactions, pompous innuendos, sleights, digs and this is the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists, at it’s finest…
Royal College of Psychiatrists: “Necessary redactions have been made”
There was not a single page where material had not been redacted, and this from 2015, is an example demonstrating communications about me by the most senior Fellows of the College [Professor Sir Simon Wessely was then President. Professor Wendy Burn has since succeeded him]:
A month before I resigned from the Royal College of Psychiatrists I made a Subject Access Request asking for College communications that involved me to be released. At the beginning of this month I recieved a large bundle of printed material from the College that exceeded 300 sides of A4.
Of this material supplied by the College 93 A4 sides had been COMPLETELY redacted and another 94 sides had everything redacted other than a subject heading, date, and/or partial address list [in other words NO content was provided].
Of the remaining material 32 A4 sides were full copies of my communications over the years with the College in relation to ethics, transparency of competing interests, and realistic medicine.
This is an example of one of the pages that was not fully redacted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists:
https://holeousia.com/2019/02/08/royal-college-of-psychiatrists-necessary-redactions-have-been-made/
Psychiatrist Peter Gordon claims Royal College ‘gaslighted’ him in antidepressant row
Dr Gordon, who works at St John’s Hospital in West Lothian, has been an outspoken campaigner for greater transparency around antidepressants after trying to take his own life in 2004 as a result of severe withdrawal symptoms when he attempted to wean himself off Seroxat.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17692699.psychiatrist-peter-gordon-claims-royal-college-gaslighted-him-in-antidepressant-row/
The married father-of-two had been originally prescribed the medication to alleviate anxiety and later spent more than a year very slowly reducing his dose.
Despite this, stopping Seroxat triggered his only episode of depression and left him feeling suicidal.
Dr Gordon, an NHS doctor for 26 years, resumed taking the antidepressant and said he is too scared to try stopping again.
He said: “I am absolutely certain that this was an effort to marginalise me and question my credibility, maybe even to silence me.
Marion Brown, a psychotherapist from Helensburgh who has been petitioning MSPs on prescription pill harm, said: “This is happening to people who raise issues – they’re silenced.
“But Peter Gordon, because of who he is, I’m sure he has been seen as a threat.”
22.10.18
“He can use that on his blog if he likes”
There is no doubt, in my mind, who said that …
susanne says
Wendy Burns does a clinic once a week on a Monday because she enjoys consulting. How often did she check on the lady’s health? During 20years?!For How long after she had stopped taking the drug was the lady followed up? Can we hear from her rather than just what Wendy claims. Can anybody who has been consulting Wendy give us some authentic feedback about treatments in that particular clinic?. There is a massive problem about the way ‘cases’ anecdotes vignettes are published without being corroborated Can Wendy give us some examples of adverse effects experienced by those she treated over many years. None Wendy? Come off it .
Karl says
Spot on Bob I’ve been off seven years never fully recovered. Someone stopping after twenty years with no symptoms either that’s some big steaming pile off horse s@@te there superhuman or they should definitely do the lottery 🤣 I’ve caught and heard some whoppers in my time but that ones a whale 🤣🤣🤣
Karl says
Also when they say a patient has had no withdrawal often they forget to mention that they have given the patient another brain pellet (ssri/anti psychotic etc) which has masked the withdrawal effects. Most people can’t tolerate this but if the patient can take another dug in withdrawal and there body excepts it all your doing is masking the issue it’s like swapping crack for heroin
Carla says
What a joy is must be for child to experience hearing his mother voice for the first time! : )
I can just imagine how the child’s loved ones must have felt when child was given the gift of hearing.
We are informed, that only a few experience devastating effects from withdrawal of these SSRI’s. I find this very hard to acknowledge.
Globally, it all adds up. It is not just a handful of people like the officials have stated.
A lot of people may be suffering or have died as a result of ingesting these SSRI’s but it is not documented as a result of SSR’s inducing these health problems: It is diagnosed as another health condition that is not correlated to these meds.
The reality of these meds, is that a lot of people have been harmed and they should be eradicated.
The only dilemma I have is if they benefit many, why are others being harmed?
Are the people who are harmed by these SSRI’s, ingesting: flawed, contaminated, highly concentrated or mixed with other meds to induce many maladies in many patients? This is the one million dollar question that is never addressed in any forums, BMJ journals or doctors medical/pharmaceutical literature.
So how can they only state that a few are harmed? ~ This does not accurately account for why so many people are being harmed!
The reality of these medicines are not taken seriously and to downplay that there are only a few who suffer is very nonsensical.
The problems with these SSRI’s was bought to the attention of many in the field, many decades ago and sadly the harms were ignored/dismissed. As far as I am concerned, this is outrageously negligent.
From my understanding, these SSRI’s impact areas of the brain and induce a whole array of medical disorders. The brain is a very delicate area of the body and there is no knowing what harm these SSRI’s induce.
Cognitive impairment, memory loss, mood swing disorders, PSSD, induced suicidal ideation, diabetes, heart conditions, aggressive behaviour, amplified OCD, brain fog, seizures, black outs are just to name a few however, no one would ever correlate it to the SSRI’s they are ingesting. The long term side effects of ingesting these medicines, will never be known?
All the clinical data trials pertaining to each and every medicine is not disclosed for the public to view and if poor lab animals are experimented on with these meds, I am very certain that the results researchers accomplish is not the same as the ones that humans experience. There are too many variables with every individual ingesting these SSRI’s and many clinical statistical data results that are not privy for all to see. This is a real worry!
Wouldn’t it be grand if we all experienced the gift of happiness with a pill that promises so much! Just like the baby, in the picture above.
It would absolutely be a sheer joy to experience the benefits of what a pill promises to give you.
Sadly, this is not the case for many!
Let’s just take a few minutes to reflect on those who have had their life ruined by these SSRI’s.
If they benefit many we also have to pose the question why they are harming many?
We can’t pretend that everything is hunky-dory in the area of SSRI’s and say that nothing will ever happen to us! We just cannot afford to generalize!
If it benefits some people, medical advances which have come a long way, should be mindful of coming up with a test that determines who are suitable candidates.
These SSRI’s are not a ‘one glove size’ fits all. Like I said there are so many variables that come into the equation that should be examined with a fine tooth comb.
Acknowledgement, a deeper understanding and an insight into the concerns that have been repeatedly dismissed for decades upon decades, is what many are seeking, especially those who have been harmed or those who have passed away unexpectedly, as a result of ingesting SSRI’s.
It has already been out in the open sometime and it is about time that those who have known about it, come forward and make the necessary changes.
We, who have been harmed, don’t need to have it tattooed on our wrists or medical records, that we were the ones who were on Schindler’s list.
We don’t have to be constantly reminded of our past.
We need to be remembered for what we are doing because if the necessary changes never take place, the ongoing perpetual harm to the human race just keeps repeating itself over and over again.
Trust is a two way street.
It has to be earnt and from what I see there are many sheep’s in wolves clothing all playing their part in deceiving the majority.
Sadly, the enemy is within the system and the people who highlight major issues are considered the enemy.
When we uphold doctors as Gods what are we saying?
Doctors are not Gods and if the tools or procedures they are using are harming people, we should not have to sit in silence and accept everything they do to us!
Mistakes are made and they should be acknowledged.
The gift of forgiveness and acknowledgement, may be the remedy to move forward.
susanne says
GPs ‘not required to share sensitive records’ despite contract requirements. GPs do not have to allow patients to access their full records if they contain sensitive information that can’t be redacted, despite contractual requirements, NHS England has said.2 days ago
All the more reason to make regular requests to access medical notes
The people who run the website at ‘WhatDoTheyKnow’ are great – the site’s a good way way of making Freedom of Information Requests
(note from ‘what do they know’)We don’t know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are susanne stevens please sign in and let everyone know. I made the request in Oct – they are obliged to give a response within 28 days – UCH still haven’t given me the info. re:-
FOI Request for
Documentation Used to gain Permission for Use of Individual Patient Information Passed to Google
susanne stevens made this Freedom of Information request to University College London
On the other hand unredacted medical information can be sent to google and amazon a. After being ‘pseudoanonymised.’
Millions of GP patients data are sold to US companies for research, it has been revealed.
service/20039832.articlehttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/19/nhs-patient-data-available-companies-buy#maincontent
https://www.bmj.com/content/367/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/documentation_used_to_gain_https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6901
The Guardian –
This article is more than 5 years old
NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms
This article is more than 5 years old
Privacy experts warn there will be no way for public to work out who has their medical records or how they are using it
Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editor
Sun 19 Jan 2014 21.34 GMTFirst published on Sun 19 Jan
NHS branding
Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients – including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits – once a single English database of medical data has been created.
Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in onoe place
Government hands Amazon free access to NHS information
BMJ 2019; 367 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l6901 (Published 09 December 2019)
Responses
Elisabeth Mahase
Author affiliations
Amazon has been given access to all “healthcare information” of the NHS in England except patients’ records, shows a government contract obtained through freedom of information legislation.
The technology company, which has an estimated market value of $900bn (£685bn), has access to all the information free of charge, despite the data being gathered at taxpayers’ expense.
The contract, obtained by the charity Privacy International and revealed by the Sunday Times,1 specifies that Amazon has access to “symptoms, causes and definitions” and to “all related copyrightable content and data and other materials.” It can use the data to develop, advertise, and sell “new products, applications, cloud-based services and/or distributed software.”
Amazon told The BMJ that all the information provided through this deal was …you can fill in the rest which is behind a pay wall..
susanne says
ITV
The Dirty War on the NHS
Yesterday 10.45pm
John Pilger’s new documentary, The Dirty War on the NHS, is a powerful and timely investigation into the National Health Service. Is time running out to save this institution?
mary H says
My feeling is that money will be spent to get the NHS to get it to a state that will suit Trump’s deal – in other words, we’ll pay for the honour of being bought out! Are we REALLY that stupid?
Anne-Marie says
Mary H, unfortunately people really are that stupid. Brexit means the world to them. The whole thing is depressing me beyond belief I have come to the point that the people will have to suffer first before they wake up and realise how they have been conned.
I have also been reading about healthcare in America, one of the richest country’s in the world and even middleclass people are being made bankrupt because of medical bills.
I also read new trade agreements with this new government will be done in secret.
Democracy gone.
I don’t blame Scotland for wanting out or NI wanting to join the south. You would have to be mad to want to stay in this shit hole where no one in the government gives a damn about you.
By rights we should still be in the EU because two thirds of the country wanted to remain but the corrupt deceitful government made sure that wouldn’t happen.
The EU taught us equality, respect for one another and honesty but the right wing took advantage of that and saw it as a weakness. They basically deceived, lied and robbed people of their lives.
If a criminal done that they would be locked up for years.
I’m going to shut up now because I could go on and on.
My last message is this, the present government wants to divide you but don’t fall for their tricks., Carry on like you were in the EU then fight them back as decent human beings. Don’t ever stoop to their low level because then they win.
annie says
Well worth watching, Susanne
He received “silence” …
The Misinformation Virus
Tuesday at 8.00 pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c9sm
Angela Saini investigates the lethal spread of alternative facts and discovers that the very architecture of the web amplifies dangerous pseudoscience online
Wakefield, Larson and Bots … in the first few minutes ..
Carla says
People who have been impacted by bad medicine seem to have an awareness that is second to none. The truth is also distorted and flawed by those in their chosen profession. The truth is swept under the carpet by those who do not want the TRUTH exposed.
People cannot give an informed consent if we do not have all the information about a medicine.
Many who have been harmed have a right to scrutinise.
What motivates people to discredit those who have been harmed by bad medicine?
The virus is spread by those who are misinformed by those who believe in science that are not based on reputable facts.
Flawed information = misinformation
Therefore, the minority will always be discredited because many question scientific content.
susanne says
The Cobham firm was involved in the Falkland war . Remember Maggie PM riding on a tank ?
The government has approved a US private equity firm’s takeover of UK defence and aerospace company Cobham.
Advent International made a £4bn offer to buy Cobham in July, but it was delayed when the government intervened over national security concerns.
The government announced its approval of the deal late on Friday night – which the firm’s founding family said was “timed to avoid scrutiny”.Sir Ed Davey, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the announcement was “deeply concerning” and said “we have yet to see evidence” that concerns over national security had been mitigated.
(who knows what Ed would do if he was in government though)
“If Boris Johnson’s government are happy to sell off a leading UK defence and aerospace company to Trump’s America, how can we expect his government to protect our defence and manufacturing sectors,
not to mention every other sector of our economy, as they negotiate trade deals after Brexit?” he added.
(Surely not – Trump said he ‘wouldn’t want the NHS if handed to (him) me on a silver platter’) Let’s see how much gets carved of the starving goose when Trump offers lots of silver to ‘save our NHS’ Another Boris promise not worth the hot air he blows all over us
susanne says
Court sees GSK patent deal as ‘contrary to EU competition law’
22-01-2020 Print
A European Court of Justice judge has found that a deal between UK pharma major GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) and generics companies can be deemed a breach of competition law.
The agreement, which relates to GSK’s patent for the active ingredient of the anti-depressant paroxetine and secondary patents protecting particular manufacturing processes of that active ingredient, may be regarded as a restriction of competition and as an abuse of a dominant position, found Advocate General Juliane Kokott.
Generics firms ‘paid not to enter the market’
When the main patent for paroxetine, which had the brand names Paxil, Seroxat and others, expired in 1999, several generics manufacturers planned to enter the UK market with copies, according to court papers.
Disputes arose between GSK and those generic manufacturers, in which the validity of the London-based company’s secondary patents was contested.
The papers reveal that GSK entered into agreements in settlement of those disputes, in which it paid generic manufacturers not to enter the market for an agreed period.
Supporting position of UK authority
A ruling by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority found that the agreements were anti-competitive and an abuse of GSK’s dominant position, and fines were imposed on the companies involved.
The companies appealed that ruling to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which sought the view of the European Court of Justice, and that authority in turn has now found that the companies’ actions could be deemed anti-competitive.