Johanna Moncrief "Lasting damage from prescribed drugs"

https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/04/lasting-damage-from-prescribed-drugs/

Thanks for posting, it is good that this subject continues to be highlighted in the press and other mass media. 

 

We are waiting for the outcome of Public Health England review, report due to be published in July, we will see then whether there is any political will to do something about the prescribing disasters of antidepressants, benzodiazepines and other drugs of dependence in the UK. 

Yeah, well.

 

Thanks Fiona for taking the 'fight' to the powers that be.

 

Do you think that folks just don't know what's happening to them when they experience withdrawal effects after quitting bzs?  Do they just then get drugged more?  Why has this crime remained under the radar?

 

It is a crime.

 

What a world we live in.

 

 

Thank you so much for posting!

Thank you so much for sharing this important article. Having read a number of articles by Dr. Moncrieff, I have much respect for her work and for her voice in speaking up about psychiatric meds.

Yeah, well.

 

Thanks Fiona for taking the 'fight' to the powers that be.

 

Do you think that folks just don't know what's happening to them when they experience withdrawal effects after quitting bzs?  Do they just then get drugged more?  Why has this crime remained under the radar?

 

It is a crime.

 

What a world we live in.

 

Just as importantly, are people being adequately informed of what they may expect before they consider withdrawing from benzos & many other drugs?

Yeah, well.

 

Thanks Fiona for taking the 'fight' to the powers that be.

 

Do you think that folks just don't know what's happening to them when they experience withdrawal effects after quitting bzs?  Do they just then get drugged more?  Why has this crime remained under the radar?

 

It is a crime.

 

What a world we live in.

 

I am not so sure about benzos, I would have thought folks would know they were experiencing withdrawal, doctors in the UK should know about benzo withdrawal.  With SSRIs, it seems withdrawal is often mistaken for relapse and then patients are advised to go back onto the drugs and more drugs may be added. 

 

It is a crime, I totally agree.

 

 

Jo Moncrieff has done 4 y tube videos now, and her book the bitterest pill is worth a real.

I think all work a look and compulsory reading for all docs/psychs

Dick

 

Pregabalin in BBC news today--class c drug now

D

Thank you for finding and sharing!

Yeah, well.

 

Thanks Fiona for taking the 'fight' to the powers that be.

 

Do you think that folks just don't know what's happening to them when they experience withdrawal effects after quitting bzs?  Do they just then get drugged more?  Why has this crime remained under the radar?

 

It is a crime.

 

What a world we live in.

 

I am not so sure about benzos, I would have thought folks would know they were experiencing withdrawal, doctors in the UK should know about benzo withdrawal.  With SSRIs, it seems withdrawal is often mistaken for relapse and then patients are advised to go back onto the drugs and more drugs may be added. 

 

It is a crime, I totally agree.

 

Doctors are essentially outside the law, a perk they earned by virtue of their profession. I think they have abused this privilege enough to result in some level of restriction or discipline by regulators, but in my country doctors essentially regulate themselves, so it's unclear how things will change unless it comes from within the profession. What's fairly certain is that there will be few - if any - consequences for creating a mass of people who are involuntarily dependent on psych drugs.

Yeah, well.

 

Thanks Fiona for taking the 'fight' to the powers that be.

 

Do you think that folks just don't know what's happening to them when they experience withdrawal effects after quitting bzs?  Do they just then get drugged more?  Why has this crime remained under the radar?

 

It is a crime.

 

What a world we live in.

 

I am not so sure about benzos, I would have thought folks would know they were experiencing withdrawal, doctors in the UK should know about benzo withdrawal.  With SSRIs, it seems withdrawal is often mistaken for relapse and then patients are advised to go back onto the drugs and more drugs may be added. 

 

It is a crime, I totally agree.

 

Doctors are essentially outside the law, a perk they earned by virtue of their profession. I think they have abused this privilege enough to result in some level of restriction or discipline by regulators, but in my country doctors essentially regulate themselves, so it's unclear how things will change unless it comes from within the profession. What's fairly certain is that there will be few - if any - consequences for creating a mass of people who are involuntarily dependent on psych drugs.

 

Doctors are most certainly NOT outside the law. Medicine is a VERY regulated activity already and technologies, pharmacology and regulations are changing at an increasing rate.   

Yeah, well.

 

Thanks Fiona for taking the 'fight' to the powers that be.

 

Do you think that folks just don't know what's happening to them when they experience withdrawal effects after quitting bzs?  Do they just then get drugged more?  Why has this crime remained under the radar?

 

It is a crime.

 

What a world we live in.

 

I am not so sure about benzos, I would have thought folks would know they were experiencing withdrawal, doctors in the UK should know about benzo withdrawal.  With SSRIs, it seems withdrawal is often mistaken for relapse and then patients are advised to go back onto the drugs and more drugs may be added. 

 

It is a crime, I totally agree.

 

Doctors are essentially outside the law, a perk they earned by virtue of their profession. I think they have abused this privilege enough to result in some level of restriction or discipline by regulators, but in my country doctors essentially regulate themselves, so it's unclear how things will change unless it comes from within the profession. What's fairly certain is that there will be few - if any - consequences for creating a mass of people who are involuntarily dependent on psych drugs.

 

Doctors are most certainly NOT outside the law. Medicine is a VERY regulated activity already and technologies, pharmacology and regulations are changing at an increasing rate. 

 

Maybe not theoretically, but as a practical matter they are. What would you call it when someone is killed through negligence and there is no attempt at investigation? Or when someone is disabled as a result of treatment, and this occurs on a consistent basis and there is no attempt made to stop it despite the research having been publicly available for decades? Is that appropriate regulation?

I did not say that the regulations were or are appropriate but, most doctors abide by them while most doctors also try their best to treat their patients' symptoms and provide them with the best care that they can give. That is often a very difficult task to perform.

I did not say that the regulations were or are appropriate but, most doctors abide by them while most doctors also try their best to treat their patients' symptoms and provide them with the best care that they can give. That is often a very difficult task to perform.

 

Right, you asserted that doctors were not outside the law, fairly emphatically. But I think when 400k+ people are killed by medical error in the US per year with only cursory investigation at best, it is safe to say that doctors are outside the law. I also think doctors' ability to prescribe almost any medication they want "off-label" despite a lack of expertise, with few consequences or without regard for the fact they may be paid by a pharmaceutical company who makes the medications in question contradicts your assertion that medicine is "very heavily regulated".

I did not say that the regulations were or are appropriate but, most doctors abide by them while most doctors also try their best to treat their patients' symptoms and provide them with the best care that they can give. That is often a very difficult task to perform.

 

Right, you asserted that doctors were not outside the law, fairly emphatically. But I think when 400k+ people are killed by medical error in the US per year with only cursory investigation at best, it is safe to say that doctors are outside the law. I also think doctors' ability to prescribe almost any medication they want "off-label" despite a lack of expertise, with few consequences or without regard for the fact they may be paid by a pharmaceutical company who makes the medications in question contradicts your assertion that medicine is "very heavily regulated".

 

https://www.aha.org/system/files/2018-02/regulatory-overload-report.pdf

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.

Conclusions:

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.

"Regulations are important and essential to ensure that health

systems, hospitals and PAC providers are environments that

support the safe delivery of care. However, the outsized growth

of staff and resources devoted to regulatory and compliance related functions illustrates that a step back is needed; federal

agencies should review and streamline requirements to reduce

the overhead cost of health care and allow providers to focus on their mission of caring for patients."

 

I guess one can choose to seek the services of faith healers, internet grief counselors and similar persons if one chooses, I don't think they are very heavily regulated? But, in my opinion science based medicine is a better choice in most instances of health care.

Both of your arguments have merit.  The regulations you're pointing to Fi, are mostly at the organizational provider level (i.e., systems, hospitals, and post-acute care facilities).  And while they do trickle down and affect individual provider-level practice, the focus is usually on quality outcomes such as organizational provider level mortality and readmission rates and IT adoption.  Some of the IT adoption regulations include "meaningful use" criteria which governs some aspects of care but also pertain to safety and care coordination among other things (https://www.cdc.gov/ehrmeaningfuluse/introduction.html).  At the individual provider practice level, care is often governed by medical sub-discipline guidelines.  In this way, doctors self-govern with regard to many aspects of their care.  Errors are not commonly reported or addressed by many professional guidelines and this is where Data_Guy's argument makes sense to some degree but not nearly the degree to which he's professing in my opinion.  It's a complex, multi-faceted topic that is opaque to many including those it governs.  I was a health care policy researcher and statistician before the benzo disaster hit so I'm speaking from that experience.

I did not say that the regulations were or are appropriate but, most doctors abide by them while most doctors also try their best to treat their patients' symptoms and provide them with the best care that they can give. That is often a very difficult task to perform.

 

Right, you asserted that doctors were not outside the law, fairly emphatically. But I think when 400k+ people are killed by medical error in the US per year with only cursory investigation at best, it is safe to say that doctors are outside the law. I also think doctors' ability to prescribe almost any medication they want "off-label" despite a lack of expertise, with few consequences or without regard for the fact they may be paid by a pharmaceutical company who makes the medications in question contradicts your assertion that medicine is "very heavily regulated".

 

https://www.aha.org/system/files/2018-02/regulatory-overload-report.pdf

.

.

Conclusions:

.

.

"Regulations are important and essential to ensure that health

systems, hospitals and PAC providers are environments that

support the safe delivery of care. However, the outsized growth

of staff and resources devoted to regulatory and compliance related functions illustrates that a step back is needed; federal

agencies should review and streamline requirements to reduce

the overhead cost of health care and allow providers to focus on their mission of caring for patients."

 

I guess one can choose to seek the services of faith healers, internet grief counselors and similar persons if one chooses, I don't think they are very heavily regulated? But, in my opinion science based medicine is a better choice in most instances of health care.

 

Hi Fi,

 

I'm not sure if you realize the AHA is a professional lobby group and not a provider or unbiased, scientific information? Not a surprise that they want less regulation. I would also like less regulation as I squeeze every last dollar I can out of sick and vulnerable people. I promise it will be for the good of society! Also, I believe the oil and pharmaceutical industries would like less regulation. Would you like me to provide you with reports from their professional lobby groups to "prove" that it would be beneficial?

 

I agree it would be ideal to have science-based medicine. Call me when we have some, and not when we have doctors who believe every word of studies on the efficacy and safety of drugs produced by the companies who make and profit from them. Does "science-based" medicine produce an opioid epidemic that kills 100K+ people per year? Does it produce a legion of drug addicts, many of whom eventually die of overdose? Is that consistent with a profession that holds itself to account and is "doing their best?" Objectively, to any rational person, no. It isn't.

 

 

You go, data-guy!!

Data guy

I can assure you that the Uk general physicians are pretty well regulated and have to be accountable to their patients and the GMC and defence unions alike. It is very onerous to have to justify ones prescribing to area pharmacists every year and have a questionnaire filled in by patients yearly.

Psychiatry is somewhat different.  It’s often an ongoing mental health battle with ill patients and exhausted carers.  So I would suggest loosely some psychs blur the margins when prescribing and I suffer still from such an off label situation and also from benzo addiction before it was highlighted.

However off label prescribing has been of some use from anticonvulsants relieving pain(but watch for pregabalin as the next serious addiction)——to Dr Jenner who immunised with cowpox 200 years ago to free the world finally of smallpox.

Best wishes

Dick

If doctors and medicine is so regulated how come we can't get economic relief by sueing their asses off...for compensations of LOSSES most of us suffer here from no *informed consent*.

 

My dad was a doctor

 

It had to be pretty bad for the medicos to not cover for their fellow docs.  Just like the cops.

 

Too bad the ' regulations' aren't being enforced, huh?

In the Uk the patient has the “BUT FOR” way of getting compensation. 

So if patient A walks into a doctor’s office and insists on a proceedure but is unhappy with the result they sue .  I know as in 40 years I only had only minor complaint made against me - for injecting a wrist for arthritis and she lost a days work allegedly. She had signed a consent form.

I was forced after three years to settle because “BUT FOR” her entering the room she would not have been out of pocket.

Ho hum

Dickie.

In the Uk the patient has the “BUT FOR” way of getting compensation. 

So if patient A walks into a doctor’s office and insists on a proceedure but is unhappy with the result they sue .  I know as in 40 years I only had only minor complaint made against me - for injecting a wrist for arthritis and she lost a days work allegedly. She had signed a consent form.

I was forced after three years to settle because “BUT FOR” her entering the room she would not have been out of pocket.

Ho hum

Dickie.

 

Dick,

 

I trust your explanation of the situation of the UK. I have no experience there. I can really only speak of the situation in Canada, where patients have very little power or choice, and no reasonable avenue to seek compensation. I don't think all physicians are malevolent or anything, but their collective lobbying has left patients, who are uninformed and often cannot give appropriate consent, in an impossible situation.

I am from Germany.

 

There is NO way to sue your doctor.

 

Even in a very easy case like I had 2 years ago. A dentist put plastic in my tooth, I nearly died cause I reacted on that. End of it - its my fault - because no one else nearly died. I could have sued and spend lots of money with the result that the same doctor would have to re-do his work. Can you believe that?

 

And them imagine I would sue my psychiatrist or the hospital in which I was polydrugged.

Thank you for posting this accurate, concise and timely article.

The article laments the lack of research into the incredible damage these drugs can do.  Unfortunately, it seems all research monies come from the pharmaceutical industry itself.  Now I ask you very intelligent, albeit wounded BB's...why would the pharmaceutical industry pay to research the damage caused by their own drugs?  Never going to happen.  That leaves it to government monies.  That ain't gonna happen either.