Suppression and Manipulation of Pharmaceutical Drug Research

One of the blessings of the internet is that one comes across blogposts like this one Health Care Renewal post about the suppression and manipulation of pharmaceutical drug research, ghost-writing, institutional conflicts of interest, and attempts to silence a whistle blower.

I urge you to read this well-supported indictment of venal doctors, a corrupt drug industry and the lack of anything approaching an adequate regulatory authority. – The GMC, of course, is notoriously lenient in its treatment of erring doctors and should be abolished as a waste of time and money and a source of further distress to patients who have already been harmed by members of the medical profession.

Whistleblowing Gastroenterologist Alleges Intimidation at Stafford Hospital

The Telegraph reports that a whistle-blowing consultant, Pradip Singh, has told the House of Commons all-party Health Committee about "the medical practices that may have led to hundreds of deaths at a scandal-hit NHS hospital."

Whistleblowers are not welcome in the NHS.

Another example, from before the big scandal broke, of Stafford Hospital managers covering up abuse and neglect of patients.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that a nurse provided senior managers with details of her concerns in November 2007 - 16 months before the scandal was revealed - and that her report said that doctors and nurses were being ordered to discharge people who were critically ill and to lie about how long others were waiting.

There will be a debate in parliament on Monday, which will hear demands for a public inquiry into the deaths of hundreds of patients at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, where standards of care were appalling.

I recommend you read the Sunday Telegraph report. It has a wealth of detail.

Whistleblowers in hospitals are still being ignored.

The Telegraph reports that hospitals are still disregarding whistleblowing members of staff with concerns for the safety of their patients. "More than one in five (21 per cent) said that they had been actively persuaded not to report problems."

It is a similar situation for patients who draw attention to problems - i.e. people who make a justifiable complaint about the way they are treated or have been treated. They often experience, or fear that they will experience, victimisation or reprisals.

Publish Post

When I was speaking to the orthopaedic surgeon earlier this year at my final meeting with him after an operation on my arm that had resulted in a worsening of the problems it had been expected to remediate, I asked him if it would do any good for me to write a letter of complaint to the manager of the hospital. It was a little difficult to get him to commit himself to an answer, but he did eventually say that in his opinion it would do no good whatsoever and would result in no change.

NHS beds crisis is resulting in great suffering.

See Whistleblower: Surgeon breaks cover over NHS beds crisis - Independent on Sunday

I was horrified to see on TV the poor hygiene and the falsifying of the dates on out-of-date food in two Tesco and Sainsbury's supermarkets...)o:

I watched the BBC TV whistleblower programme last evening. It was about unhygienic practices in a Tesco supermarket and a Sainsbury's supermarket, and also unhygienic practices at a Ready Meals supplier. The bad practice was observed and recorded by undercover reporters working as supermarket staff.

I already do not buy/eat ready meals (because they are high in salt), but if I did, this programme would have put me off forever, 'cos I'm not keen on catching salmonella...)o: - But also, the 'fresh' meat and 'fresh' fish being sold in these particular supermarkets could clearly not be trusted actually to be fresh, because sell by dates were being falsified...

You can read an account by one of the undercover journalists here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6676345.stm and you can view the programme online from a link on that webpage for a week following programme transmission, which was Tuesday 22nd May.


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
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