Commonly prescribed medicines can destroy lives

Experts have called for increased awareness about the issue of adverse drug reactions after hearing how everyday prescription medicines are destroying the lives of some patients.
Read article at medicalxpress.com

Australian suspension of all seasonal flu vaccines for children under five, pending further investigation.

MORE than 250 adverse flu jab reactions have now been reported in under-fives.
See adverse flu jab reactions.

Illness after H1N1 flu jabs

The provincial health ministry is investigating 17 cases in which people fell seriously ill after the receipt of the H1N1 flu vaccine. Andrew Morrison, spokeman for the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, said the cases include four vaccine recipients who came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) — a rare neurological condition characterized by sudden weakness or parlysis. Another 13 people came down with anaphylaxis, a serious allergic reaction which can include symptoms of anaphylactic shock, rapid heartbeat, itchiness in the skin and difficulty breathing.
Read article in the Toronto Sun (Canada)

Ketamine craze among teenagers is causing serious health problems

The Guardian reported that teenagers are risking kidney failure when they use ketamine.

Extract: “Ketamine, a powerful tranquilliser used on horses, is being taken in growing number by young people in the UK, causing crippling health problems.

Some addicts have needed to have their bladders removed and must now wear catheters. Other users have suffered serious kidney problems, breathing difficulties, addiction, bouts of unconsciousness and trouble with urinating. The drug also involves a heightened risk of heart attack.“

Apparently they turn to this drug mainly because it is cheaper than cocaine. – Well, however cheap it is, cash-wise, it’s shockingly expensive in terms of health.

I urge everyone to avoid all unnecessary pharmaceuticals, whether legal prescribed drugs or illegal street drugs. – Most drugs have adverse side-effects and these can often be serious and permanent.

Good nutrition is the safest medicine and the best life-enhancer.

Cutting down on salt and salty food and avoiding dieting lifts feelings of depression and lowers excess weight.

Guard your health! – It is your most precious possession.

Soaring drugs bill 'threatens to bankrupt NHS'

I have copied and pasted the following, with the Comment paragraph, from Dr Rath's newsletter. I fully concur with Dr Rath's views on this matter. My personal strongly-held, sincere belief is that pharmaceutical drugs do far, far more harm than good and are the cause of most of the avoidable illness in the world. They are a major cause of obesity, and in particular, of morbid obesity. They have certainly done me great harm: destroyed my life, health and happiness, and I would urge caution on everyone contemplating taking prescribed medication. Check it out as thoroughly as you can before deciding whether to take it.

The NHS risks bankruptcy from a soaring drugs bill which is outstripping Britain's GDP growth according to a report. The report, by the pressure group Compass, calls for regulation of the pharmaceutical industry to curb prices. The coalition of academics, campaigners and union leaders also warns that the billions spent by big pharma on seminars and conferences gives companies undue influence over doctors.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: If the health service in the UK - where the government can still negotiate drug prices - is risking bankruptcy, what chance do other countries stand of avoiding a similar fate? In the U.S., for example, the government has already capitulated to the pharma mafia and essentially pays whatever the drug cartel wants. Meantime, whilst its annual sales now total 773 billion dollars, adverse reactions from the cartel’s drugs continue to kill and injure millions of innocent patients each and every year. In the U.S., it has been estimated that a staggering 2,216,000 hospitalized patients have serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) each year, whilst 106,000 have fatal ADRs. This means that such reactions are between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death in that country. Meantime, the drug cartel spends billions of dollars every year disingenuously marketing its drugs to doctors under the guise of "continuing medical education", whilst, at the same time, omitting to mention that most of them cause a multitude of new diseases as a result of their known long-term side effects. And, of course, as if all this were not bad enough, the cartel is holding over six-billion people hostage by doing everything it can to eliminate the non-patentable natural alternatives to its products. To learn what you can do to fight back, visit the NT-2 website and support the call for a second ‘Nuremberg’ Tribunal.

Concerns about safety of swine flu vaccine

I have copied and pasted the following from Dr Rath's newsletter.

Health officials have warned doctors of possible similarities between the new swine flu vaccine and a jab linked to 25 deaths in America in the 1970s. The government’s Health Protection Agency (HPA), said in a letter to neurologists that they needed to look out for increases in cases of a brain disorder that might follow the launch of the immunisation programme. The letter has been sent because of concerns sparked by studying of the swine flu vaccination campaign in America.
Read article in the Sunday Times (UK)
Comment: Several hundred cases of a lethal paralysing neurological disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome were reported in the United States following a mass immunisation programme against a swine flu outbreak in 1976. Mindful of this, the World Health Organisation recently admitted that “adverse events directly caused by the vaccine may also occur” from the new swine flu vaccine and that these “cannot be predicted in advance”.

More than 150 girls in Scotland have suffered adverse reactions to cervical cancer jab, Cervarix, made by Glaxo, introduced last autumn

Read article in The Scotsman (Scotland/UK)

Cervical cancer jab has caused severe reactions.

MORE than 1300 schoolgirls have experienced adverse reactions to the controversial cervical cancer jab. Doctors have reported girls aged just 12 and 13 have suffered paralysis, convulsions and sight problems after being given the vaccine. Dozens were described as having pain "in extremity" while others suffered from nausea, muscle weakness, fever, dizziness and numbness.
Read article in the Melbourne Herald Sun (Australia)

Over 800 complaints on quit-smoking aid reported to Health Canada

A drug commonly used to help people quit smoking is the focus of more than 800 complaints from Canadian users, many of them reporting mood swings, depression or suicidal thoughts. Of the 818 complaints about Champix (varenicline tartrate) Health Canada has received complaints on its adverse reaction database, 520 involved psychiatric problems.
Read article on the CBC News website (Canada)

Patients are being harmed and even killed by badly trained doctors who have not been taught how to prescribe drugs properly, leading experts warn.

Patients 'at risk because doctors not trained to prescribe drugs properly'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Medical students no longer have to prove that they understand how to use many common medicines before they graduate, said Prof David Webb, from Edinburgh University.

Teaching of the subject in medical schools has almost “disappeared”, he added.

Today’s students do not get the chance to practise prescribing under supervision, as previous generations did, and many cannot make the simple calculations needed to assign doses, he added.

Although drugs have become increasing complex over the past 15 years, the teaching of prescribing has declined in medical schools over the same period.

This has meant some nurses are now being taught more about drugs than doctors.

Students no longer have to sit exams specifically in the subject and some are not even taught the basics of how safely to use common drugs like insulin and warfarin, used to thin the blood.

A recent study of patients over the course of their stay at an Edinburgh hospital, found an average of one serious prescribing error per patient.

Although there are no official figures on how many patients have died after being given the wrong drug or the wrong dose, Prof Webb, who outlined his concerns to MPs on the Commons Select Health Committee, said: “The obvious conclusion is that if there are problems with prescribing than that is translating through to patients.”

Prof Jeffrey Aronson, president of the British Pharmacological Society, warned that the number of medical errors was on the rise, in part because of the complexity of using many newer drugs.

He added: “The number of medical errors and adverse drug reactions are on the rise and deaths are on the increase as a result.”"

It's not just the young doctors that are ill-informed; it's the majority of doctors. I've been warning people for many years about the harm done by doctors' reckless prescribing of drugs they know little about...)o: My own health has been destroyed by our overpaid, ill-informed, arrogant medical profession. - Just think of that statement above: "A recent study of patients over the course of their stay at an Edinburgh hospital, found an average of one serious prescribing error per patient"! - That's appalling! - That's just in just one hospital stay! - Indefensible!

See amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

A fit teenager, Shaun Jones, died when he suffered a suspected allergic reaction after taking acne medication for the first time, it has emerged.

Talented rugby player dies after 'reaction to acne medication'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"An inquest into the death of talented rugby player Shaun Jones, 14, of Rhydyfelin, Pontypridd, south Wales, has been opened and adjourned.

Shaun's father Graeme Jones said: "He was popular with the girls and had a couple of spots, so the doctor gave him some antibiotic acne tablets. A lot of his friends are taking them.

"It was the first time he'd taken them and he developed breathing difficulties. We called 999 and he went to hospital – but it was too late. The doctors couldn't save him.""

What a tragedy for a 14 year old to lose his life in this way! - And, in my opinion, how deplorable! - We read that he had "a couple of spots" and that "a lot of his friends" are taking the tablets. - To prescribe antibiotic tablets for "a couple of spots"! - We repeatedly read that the prescribing of antibiotics should be restricted because of increasing problems of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics and then there is nothing with which to treat more serious infections. - In my opinion, if Shaun was indeed treated with antibiotics for "a couple of spots", he shouldn't have been. And if it is correct that "a lot of his friends" are too, then this is reprehensible, reckless prescribing.

You may say to me that acne can cause great emotional distress, especially to young people, and I would agree with you. - But I also have an effective, completely safe, drug-free therapy to recommend for reducing acne. Avoid eating salt and salty food. - This does work.

See Sodium in foods

Associated health conditions

Gary Foster was about to get married but he has died in a government-funded medical trial after receiving seven overdoses of drugs.

Man dies in government cancer drug trial
Article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"Gary Foster, 27, was repeatedly given twice the amount of chemotherapy drugs he should have been prescribed.

He was due to be married this month.

Reports have said his death was caused by an error in the setting up of the trial on the computer system at University College London Hospital (UCLH).

A second patient was affected by the same mistake, but survived.

When the MRC suspected patients had been given overdoses, instead of calling the hospital immediately it wrote a letter - which a nurse at UCLH failed to open until two days after Mr Foster had died."

"UCLH has been forced to suspend the trial, called TE23, which tests whether a combination of five drugs is better at treating testicular cancer than the standard treatment of three drugs.

It has, however, being continued at other UK hospitals.

Mr Foster, a graphic designer, had just been diagnosed with testicular cancer.

He was told he had a 60 per cent chance of survival."

"Mr Foster received the drugs during visits to UCLH between June and September 2007. On seven occasions, he received 30,000 units of bleomycin - of one of the five drugs - instead of 15,000.

A third patient died at a different hospital after receiving an overdose of the same drug due to an error by a nurse or doctor. However the Medical Research Council (MRC), the government body which ran the trial, said the drug was not the direct cause of his death.

An inquest heard Mr Foster began to show signs of deterioration after taking the drugs.

Eventually he developed a dry cough, a symptom of damage to his lungs that had been caused by the overdose of bleomycin. The lung damage was eventually fatal.

The inquest heard the cough should have been recognised by doctors and nurses as a warning sign. However, he was given a final dose."

Obviously there's a degree of medical negligence here that caused avoidable suffering and the sad death of Gary Foster. It was not just bad luck or mistakes. - But I'd be very surprised if any sanctions are taken against the negligent personnel responsible. - And therein lies the most common cause of medical negligence...

Sanofi-Aventis Diet Pill Linked To Deaths

Acomplia, which was rejected last year by an FDA panel, was linked to five deaths by the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency since the pill went on sale two years ago. There were 720 reports of adverse drug reactions, some of which involved more than one side effect, bringing the total to more than 2,100. Five cases were fatal, including one suicide. The data, covering reports from the June 2006 introduction to May 9, was released on the MHRA web site.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Apart from being so harmful, as detailed above, diet pills are completely unnecessary. - Overweight and obesity are caused by fluid retention, and occur only in people who are sensitive to salt. - To lose excess weight it is necessary to cut down on salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

advice for pregnant mothers

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Calls for an investigation into the increasing numbers of UK patients dying as a result of adverse reactions to prescribed drugs.

The Government is facing calls for an investigation after it was disclosed that the number of patients dying as a result of a reaction to the drugs they were being treated with had doubled over the past 10 years. Figures released by the Department of Health in a parliamentary answer showed that 1,031 patients died last year as a result of an adverse drugs reaction (ADR) compared to 447 in 1997, a 131% increase. Over the same period, the number of ADR cases requiring prolonged hospitalisation rose from 2,484 to 4,545 - an 87% increase - while the total number of reported ADRs was up 30% from 16,627 to 21,600.
Read UK Press Association news report at google.com
Comment: These UK statistics are almost certainly a severe underestimate, as medical experts warn that as few as one in 10 deaths and other serious complications are being reported.