Just because a drug is legal, it doesn't mean it's safe

Just because a drug is legal, it doesn't mean it's safe, as is explained in this BBC News report. "The Home Office said: "So-called legal highs can be extremely dangerous and anyone taking them is playing Russian roulette with their health. "We are building one of the most robust systems in the world to tackle this worrying trend.""

Shocking series of avoidable errors led to death of four months old baby, Abbie Jones

See Daily Mail report.

GP receptionist made out a prescription for the baby, but disregarded the warning given by the computer that the dose was too high, and then presented it to the doctor as though it was a repeat prescription, which it wasn't. The doctor signed the prescription without noticing the error. The pharmacist dispensed it without checking that his technician had spoken to the doctor about the dose. And the innocent mother therefore administered ten times the correct amount of the powerful diuretic Furosemide to her poorly baby. At every stage of this catalogue of avoidable, careless errors, there were procedures/protocols in place to prevent just such mistakes, but they were ignored/disregarded - even overridden(!) by the receptionist - and a baby died.

I believe these mistakes happen because any punishments that ensue to the professionals who make the mistakes are too light. If they knew that making a serious mistake would bring them a serious punishment they would take far more care to avoid making the mistakes and far more care to follow recommended procedures.

More bad news about cholesterol-lowering drugs

I recommend Dr Briffa's latest blog article on this subject. We read such a lot of inflated claims about statins and suchlike drugs, clearly underpinned by drug company cash and lobbying, and absurd suggestions that more and more people should take cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives as a prophylactic measure, that it's a refreshing change when a medical practitioner throws cold water on all the hyperbole.

Dr Briffa impresses me with his industrious reading of research material and by his rendering it more comprehensible for his lay readers. His blog is easy to navigate and contains a wealth of interesting articles.

Personally, although as a steroid victim my cholesterol reading is higher than it otherwise would be, I would never consider taking the drugs claimed/designed to lower it, partly because I've read so much negative stuff about them, but mainly because the best and safest measures to reduce risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke, are to avoid salt and salty food, eat good nutritious meals, avoid taking unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs and abandon dieting.

You don't need 'smart drugs' to improve your academic performance. - Just cut down on salt and salty food.

You don't need 'smart drugs' to improve your academic performance. - You really don't. - You can improve your academic performance by just cutting down on salt and salty food - and giving up dieting, of course.

Sodium in foods

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html

FDA warns of steroid dangers in some body-building products

CNN reports that the Food and Drugs Administration is warning about the use of body-building products marketed as containing steroids or steroid-like substances. The affected products are TREN-Xtreme, MASS Xtreme, ESTRO Xtreme, AH-89-Xtreme, HMG Xtreme, MMA-3 Xtreme, VNS-9 Xtreme, and TT-40-Xtreme, and "the FDA considers them to be unapproved new drugs and says they are neither effective nor safe.

Over the past two years, the agency said, it has received five adverse reports directly related to the named products, including serious liver injury. While there were no reports of acute liver failure or death, it said, there were hospitalizations.

Another 15 events were attributed to this type of product in general, it said."

Yet Another Plug for Healthy People to Take Statins...

The Telegraph reports that statins are once again in the news, with researchers again advocating that healthy people should take statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs. An extraordinary claim is made in the report:

"Cathy Ross, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: "It is well established that most people with heart and circulatory disease benefit from taking statins.

"This study brings together evidence from several clinical trials to highlight that statins can benefit people who don't have symptoms of heart and circulatory disease, termed 'primary prevention'."

I urge you to read about nnt (number needed to treat) here. There you will find that very few people actually do benefit from taking statins. The vast majority of people who take them do not benefit, despite having the bother of taking them every day for years.

Far more people experience unpleasant side-effects from statins than benefit from them. The chief benefit of statins is to the drug companies who manufacture and sell them.

The best, cheapest, and most effective way to lower your risk of heart attack, reduce heart disease, lower high cholesterol levels, lower high blood pressure, reduce excess weight and benefit your health in a host of other ways with no adverse side-effects whatsover is to reduce your intake of salt and salty food as much as you can. Salt/Sodium reduction is of especial benefit to people who already have heart and circulatory disease or high blood pressure, or are overweight, etc. Salt reduction is real 'primary prevention'.

I don't know why the British Heart Foundation persists in banging the drum for statins, instead of stressing the many huge benefits of sodium reduction. - What's in it for them? Why do they want more and more people taking drugs - even when there is nothing the matter with them? - What's in it for them?

Very often it is prescription drugs that cause heart problems, etc. in the first place...)o: - drugs like steroids, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, antipsychotics and many more that are frequently over-prescribed and frequently unmonitored. It's best to avoid prescription drugs unless you feel they are really necessary. As a whole, they do far more harm than good.

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 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

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

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

FDA Warns Again of High Risk of Liver Damage from Acetaminophen

See U.S.News & World Report

Acetaminophen is a pain-killer. It's not the only pain-killer that can cause damage to the body.

Pain is not caused by painkiller deficiency.

It's shame that people have been led to believe that the best thing to do if you have a pain is to rush and take pain-killers. It isn't - and sometimes the pain-killers don't work anyway. And all pharmaceuticals have side-effects.

I must state that my experience of great and lasting harm from pharmaceutical drugs leads me to view them with disfavour. If you are like me and would prefer to avoid taking drugs if you possibly can, then you may like to try cutting down on salt and salty food. This does help with a lot of pains, particularly chronic pain , such as that from osteo-arthritis.

It's also helpful to consider your nutrition. Many people are short of calcium, and according to a great deal of recent research probably most of us are deficient in vitamin D. Remedying these deficiencies can help reduce chronic pain and improve sleep. - But don't go from one extreme to another and overdose on these nutrients.

Patients should be given facts about pharmaceutical drugs

Pharmaceutical companies spend millions each year to market drugs to doctors and potential patients. That makes it all the more outrageous that AstraZeneca is asking an Orlando court to keep information about the performance of its lucrative antipsychotic drug Seroquel secret. The company is claiming public safety, saying it shouldn't be required to release information about the drug that could cause a panic among "a vulnerable patient population" that might stop taking the drug without a doctor's oversight. But the real public safety issue is one of public health and whether the company hid findings that Seroquel causes weight gain and diabetes. The legal system must put public health — and a patient's right to know — above a company's interest in secrecy.
Read editorial in the St. Petersburg Times (Florida/USA)

Lose weight, by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Top 11 compounds in US drinking water

This blogpost, including the Comment section, is cut and pasted from the Dr Rath Foundation newsletter.

A comprehensive survey of the drinking water for more than 28 million Americans has detected the widespread but low-level presence of pharmaceuticals and hormonally active chemicals.
Read article at newscientist.com
Comment: The drugs found include beta-blockers; drugs used to treat bipolar disorder; anti-cholesterol drugs; tranquilisers; painkiller and anti-inflammatory drugs; anticonvulsants; antibiotics; and others. Similar findings have been made in other countries. In the UK, for example, powerful cancer and psychiatric drugs have been found in tap water, leading doctors to express concern about exposing pregnant women to drugs that could harm an unborn child. For further information about how pharmaceutical drugs contaminate drinking water, click here.

Drug Maker Said to Pay Ghostwriters for Journal Articles

Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company, paid ghostwriters to produce medical journal articles favorable to its female hormone replacement therapy Prempro, according to Congressional letters seeking more information about the company’s involvement in medical ghostwriting. At least one article was published even after a federal study found the drug raised the risk of breast cancer.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

A 12-year-old girl has become paralysed from the waist down after being injected with the cervical cancer vaccine, Cervarix.

Schoolgirl, 12, paralysed after receiving cervical cancer jab
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Ashleigh Cave suffered headaches and dizziness minutes after receiving the injection, and has spent the last eight weeks in hospital having lost the strength in her legs.

Her mother Cheryl believes that her daughter's mystery illness is directly related to the vaccine, which is being administered to 300,000 12 and 13 year old girls in Britain in an effort to cut down on rates of the fatal disease.

Several girls in the US have been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, after being vaccinated by a similar product, Gardasil.

But doctors have ruled that Ashleigh's condition is not connected to the vaccination, and health experts have insisted that the vaccine is safe.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the government agency responsible for monitoring drugs, said: "Guillain-Barré syndrome naturally occurs in the population. There is no good evidence to suggest that the Cervarix vaccine can cause [it].""

Well I wouldn't believe a word the drug monitoring agency says on this matter, because so many of its members are in the pockets of drug companies...)o: - More detail here:

http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007/04/is-mhra-medicines-and-healthcare.html

and here:

http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2006/07/sleaze-in-medical-profession.html

Three patients have died after being given large doses of a commonly used sedative, a health watchdog has warned.

Three patients died 'after being given too high a dose of sedative'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) said that almost 500 patients in total have received the wrong dose of the drug, called midazolam, over the past four years.

Midazolam is used to sedate patients before minor procedures, including setting broken wrists and dentistry.

The medication hit the headlines in 2000 when a male nurse was convicted of killing a colleague after drugging her with midazolam.

As well as the three deaths another 48 patients had been "moderately" harmed by receiving large doses of the drug in the past four years, the NPSA said.

The watchdog, part of the NHS, also warned that health professionals were frequently relying on a reversing agent to bring people around after they had been over-sedated.

The drug works by slowing down both the heart and lung rate, and can cause a heart attack or lung problems if given in very high doses.

The NPSA said that it had received 498 reports of patients being given the wrong dose of midazolam between November 2004 and November 2008.

It warned that patients were being given whole containers, or ampoules, of the drug instead of just a small amount.

"The presentation of high strength midazolam as a 5mg/ml (2ml and 10ml ampoules) or 2mg/ml (5ml ampoule) exceeds the dose required for most patients," the watchdog warned in a statement.

"There is a risk that the entire contents of high strength ampoules are administered to the patient when only a fraction of this dose is required.

"There is frequent reliance on injectable flumazenil (antagonist/reversing agent) for reversal of sedation in patients that have been over-sedated."

The NPSA called for high-strength midazolam to be removed from many parts of hospitals."

Painkillers Double Risk of Second Heart Attack or Death in Study

Heart attack and heart failure patients have a higher risk of a second heart attack or death if they take painkillers including the generic drug ibuprofen and Pfizer Inc.'s Celebrex, a Danish study found. The risk doubled within the first 90 days on the painkillers Celebrex or Merck & Co.'s withdrawn Vioxx in those who had survived a heart attack or heart failure, compared with those who didn't take the medications, according to research presented today at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans. Other common painkillers, such as the generics diclofenac and ibuprofen, increased the risk between 2.1 and 1.3 times.
Read article at bloomberg.com

Drug safety reports are kept secret

Drug side-effects including deaths, birth defects and disability are the fifth biggest cause of death in European hospitals, but reports on these dangers are being kept secret.
Read article in the Irish Examiner (Ireland)

Beta-blockers linked to heart attacks after surgery

Patients who were taking drugs to lower their blood pressure before, during, and after operations unrelated to their hearts had higher rates of heart attacks and death than similar patients who were not taking the drugs, a study shows.
Read article in The Boston Globe (USA)

A new obesity wonder drug can cause twice as much weight loss as current treatments, a new study claims. - Don't fall for it! - Just eat less salt!

New obesity drug 'can double weight loss'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract: - the claim:

"The new drug works by restricting feelings of hunger in the brain.

As a result, patients eat less and their bodies start to burn off reserves of fat.

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen tested the drug, called tesofensine, on 203 patients, who each weighed an average of 15 stone.

Taking the drug at a dose of 0.5 mg just once a day for six months, at the same time as eating a healthy diet, produced an average weight loss of 11.3 kg, or 1 st 10 lb, around twice that of standard weight loss drugs."

Extract: - the warning:

"Prof Steve O’Rahilly, an expert in obesity at the University of Cambridge, said: “The results with this new drug demonstrate that, over a 6 month period, it is quite effective. However as the drug is likely to have actions on parts of the brain not involved in weight control, the risk of serious side effects on longer term administration will need to be watched very carefully.”"

The facts:

All that is necessary to reduce obesity is to give up dieting and to avoid salt and salty food in order to reduce the fluid retention which is the cause of obesity. - HUNGER AND CALORIE REDUCTION ARE ARE HARMFUL, UNNECESSARY AND INEFFECTIVE - BECAUSE CALORIES ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. - DON'T FALL FOR THE CALORIE CON!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

FAT RETENTION

Paracetamol has been linked to three-fold increased risk of asthma in children

Giving young children Calpol or other paracetamol medicines increases the risk of them developing asthma, research has shown. Children aged six and seven who had paracetamol at least once a month were at three times the risk of having asthma than those who were never given it. Babies who were given the drug under the age of one were more likely to have asthma at six or seven but the greatest risk was amongst those who were receiving high doses, defined as once a month for 12 months.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

Drinking fruit juices can prevent vital cancer, heart and blood pressure medicines from working properly, scientists have found.

Fruit juices 'stop drugs from working properly'
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Grapefruit, orange and apple juice can block the absorption of certain drugs meaning patients are not getting the full benefit of their treatment, according to new research."

"To date, grapefruit, orange and apple juices have been shown to lower the absorption of etoposide, an anticancer agent; certain beta blockers used to treat high blood pressure and prevent heart attacks; cyclosporine, a drug taken to prevent rejection of transplanted organs; and certain antibiotics."

Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says

Florida's drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit. An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

Champix, the anti-smoking drug, may have led to TV editor's suicide

Champix may have led to TV editor's suicide
Telegraph article about the death of Omer Jama