Monsanto's Roundup herbicide link to birth defects and child cancer?

Monsanto's Roundup herbicide link to birth defects and child cancer? Intimidatory mob seeks to stifle criticism and discussion. Read article and comments at truth-out.org

Glaxo Payments in Paxil Suits

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has paid almost $1 billion to resolve lawsuits over Paxil since it introduced the antidepressant in 1993, including about $390 million for suicides or attempted suicides said to be linked to the drug, according to court records and people familiar with the cases. As part of the total, Glaxo, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, so far has paid $200 million to settle Paxil addiction and birth-defect cases and $400 million to end antitrust, fraud and design claims, according to the people and court records.
Read article at bloomberg.com

Sodium Valproate (Epilim) Poses Risk of Major Birth Defects if Taken During Pregnancy

WARNING!
The FDA is updating the warning for the antimigraine and antiepileptic drug valproate sodium and related drugs, which include Depacon, Depakote, Depakene and Stavzor. Use during pregnancy can cause neural tube defects and other major birth defects. The agency released information for healthcare professionals on December 3, alerting them that women of childbearing age should be informed that the use of these drugs could cause a wide variety of birth defects.
Read article at aboutlawsuits.com (USA)

GlaxoSmithKline Executive’s Memo Suggested Burying Drug Studies

Glaxo Executive’s Memo Suggested Burying Drug Studies
An executive of GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world’s second-biggest drugmaker, talked about burying negative studies linking its antidepressant drug Paxil to birth defects, according to a company memo introduced at a trial.
Read article at bloomberg.com

SSRI antidepressants taken in early pregnancy linked to birth defects in the babies

The Guardian reports that there is a link between women taking certain anti-depressants in the early weeks of pregnancy and birth defects in a small proportion of the babies born to the women.

These SSRI antidepressants include Prozac and Seroxat aka Paxil. Doctors have been warned against prescribing these drugs to pregnant women by the FDA, by the MHRA (UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority) and by NICE, nonetheless British GPs have prescibed these pills to pregnant women and other women of childbearing age without warning of the potential dangers. (Seroxat is made by GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug company.)

I urge you to read the whole of the Guardian article. Clearly there have been grave faults by the doctors and by the drug companies. In my opinion, so many drugs are teratogenic (i.e. able to disturb the growth and development of an embryo or fetus) that drugs should be completely avoided during pregnancy unless there is a very good reason for them.

Actually there is no good reason to prescribe anti-depressants to anyone. - See Anti-depressants 'no better than dummy pills' about research by a Hull University team led by Prof Irving Kirsch. Not very often doctors seek to reduce pill-taking! - I fervently hope this will save a lot of people having their lives/health damaged by these harmful, useless drugs.

As far as depression goes, a major cause of 'depression' is inadequate nutrition or dieting. Many women attempt to diet, especially during pregnancy, as they fear gaining a lot of weight because of the pregnancy. Dieting by pregnant women should be actively discouraged. It is harmful for both the woman and for the unborn baby. Weight gain is not caused by eating too many calories or not taking enough exercise. It is caused by fluid retention/sodium retention/salt sensitivity and is preventable by minimising salt intake and avoiding salty food.
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
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

And see Sodium in foods and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers
Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions
and FAT RETENTION

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

Corby Borough Council found guilty of negligence in the toxic waste/birth defects case.

Victory for the families damaged by Corby Borough Council's negligence between 1985 and 1999: BBC News reports that "Families who claim their children were born with defects caused by exposure to toxic waste in Northamptonshire have won a legal battle at the High Court."

The judgement was that 16 children had been born with birth defects because of the Council's negligence. - And this was not the only harm done to those children and their families by the Council's negligence. - The Council made the children and their families suffer ten years of legal fight, needlessly. - I heard the Corby Borough Council chief executive Chris Mallender on TV and on radio today trying to excuse the inexcusable by playing with words, while I wondered how he could live with himself at the harm done by him and his Council to innocent children, living lives of constant and permanent pain and disability .

There is another BBC News report on the same news item here: 'Constant pain from a young age'. Both of these BBC reports carry details of the harm done to some of the individual children. I hope that Chris Mallender reads all the reports and thinks about the suffering negligently inflicted, instead of thinking how to twist the meaning of words in an effort to wriggle out of the Council's responsibility for that suffering and to try to avoid paying appropriate financial compensation to that Council's victims. The Council should be leaning over backwards to help the children and their families, not trying to do the least they can get away with.

"Chemical cosh" administered to teenage girls in 1980s Church of England children's home has caused birth defects in their own children

This Telegraph article draws attention to a scandalous practice in the 1970s and 1980s in which teenage girls were forcibly and inappropriately dosed with powerful psychotropic drugs as a method of behaviour control. As well as the harm and indignity perpetrated on these girls at the time, further dreadful harm has resulted in later years.

When these girls as adults gave birth to babies, the babies were born with serious disabilities. We read that "One of the women, Teresa Cooper, had three children, all with birth defects, after leaving the home in 1984 at the age of 16" and that she had been "given medication at least 1,248 times over a 32-month period."

On this BBC News webpage we read that "evidence shows the girls were, for years, given drugs which had been strongly criticised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Teresa, for instance, was given major tranquillisers: Haloperidol, Droleptan and Depixol. She was also given valium, diazepam up to 10 times the current recommended dose and Sparine, another major tranquilliser.

Jeffrey Aronson, professor of clinical pharmacology at Oxford University, says he has not seen a situation to compare and that the amounts and types of drugs given to Teresa were "unacceptable"."

I urge you to read the whole of the BBC news article. The 1980s are not very long ago. This appalling cruelty on defenceless children should never have been considered acceptible.

Birth brain defect - hydrocephalus - could be treated with vitamin supplement

Research suggests that a vitamin supplement taken during pregnancy could prevent hydrocephalus - one of the common forms of birth brain defect. Scientists at The University of Manchester and Lancaster University say laboratory tests have shown that administering a combination of vitamins (tetrahydrofolate and folinic acid), dramatically reduces the risk of hydrocephalus.
Read article at physorg.com

The babies of women who take topiramate, an epilepsy drug, while pregnant are at increased risk of birth defects, scientists warn.

Warning over epilepsy drug topiramate linked to birth defects
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The drug topiramate, which is also used to treat migraines in some people, was linked to a significantly higher risk of cleft palate or lip and genital deformities.

Experts say that epilepsy drugs should be used with caution in pregnant women due to the risks.

However, epileptic seizures can also harm the unborn child and lead to miscarriages so women with epilepsy are advised to consult their doctor when trying to become pregnant.

A new study published in the journal Neurology, examined 178 babies born to women who fell pregnant while taking topiramate alone or in combination with other drugs.

Sixteen babies had major birth defects, three of them were born to women only taking topiramate and the others were born to women taking it in combination with other drugs."

Obese women who become pregnant are more likely to give birth to babies with deformities

Birth defects more common with fat mothers - Telegraph

Extract:

"Obese women who become pregnant are more likely to give birth to babies with deformities, new research has shown.

Seven of the 16 most common birth defects occurred in babies born to women who were obese or overweight before they conceived, according to an American study published yesterday.

The results are worrying as Britain’s obesity epidemic continues to grow. One quarter of women are currently classed as obese and this is expected to rise over the next five years.

Overweight and obese women are known to be at risk of infertility, complications during pregnancy and high blood pressure as well as chronic diseases such as diabetes.

A team at the University of Texas, in Houston, interviewed 10,249 women in eight states whose babies were born with birth defects between 1997 and 2002.

The women were contacted between six weeks and 24 months after the baby’s birth and asked for their height and weight before pregnancy and compared them with 4,065 women who had babies without birth defects during the same time period.

Obese women were more likely to have babies suffering from spina bifida, heart defects, malformations connected to the genitals and bowels, missing toes, fingers, arms or legs, a hole in a diaphragm, navel defects and a condition called gastroschisis where organs protrude through the abdominal wall.

The study was published in the August issue of Archives of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
The authors of the research paper said the mechanism which causes the defects to occur more in children of obese women is unknown.

I suspect that one of the causes of the birth defects is likely to be that the obese mother was 'dieting'/'slimming' to try to lose weight or limit weight gain during the pregnancy and that the foetus therefore received inadequate nutrition. - Pregnant women should be told the truth - that the safe, reliable way to limit weight gain during pregnancy is to keep salt intake to a minimum and forget about dieting! - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pregnant_mothers.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

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

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

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

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.