You Are the Reason We Are Here

We're thrilled! A few hours ago we installed a stats counter, and just went back to discover that we had had almost a hundred visitors from all over North America, Europe and as far away as Venezuela and New Zealand.

Here's what some of our visitors were looking for:

margot kidders doctor
margot kidder bipolar
gary null
botox
Grassley NAMI
brain zaps
benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms
cure mental illnesses?


You are the reason we are here. If there is something we have not got yet that you want, please leave a comment. We'll do our best to find it for you.
Thanks for coming, and please come again when you can.

Pharmaceutical Freebies on eBay

Big Pharma's used handouts to physicians are sold on eBay.
Sic transit gloria Mundi.
Link
Now that guidelines for all doctors on accepting "gifts" are going to be in place, what other such ephemera will we see? Link

Corporate Influence in Academic Science

Power-point presentation from Tufts University with input from Ralph Nader.
Link

India's "holy spice" reveals its secrets

"Let your food be your medicine" said Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine

"Scientists in Michigan are reporting discovery of the secret behind the fabled healing power of the main ingredient in turmeric — a spice revered in India as "holy powder." Their study on the ingredient, curcumin, appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

In the study, Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy and colleagues point out that turmeric has been used for centuries in folk medicine to treat wounds, infections, and other health problems. Although modern scientific research on the spice has burgeoned in recent years, scientists until now did not know exactly how curcumin works inside the body.
Using a high-tech instrument termed solid-state NMR spectroscopy, the scientists discovered that molecules of curcumin act like a biochemical disciplinarian. They insert themselves into cell membranes and make the membranes more stable and orderly in a way that increases cells' resistance to infection by disease-causing microbes."

More information: "Determining the Effects of Lipophillic Drugs on Membrane Structure by Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy -- the Case of the Antioxidant Curcumin," Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Source: American Chemical Society

Link

Tardive Dyskinesia: Jen's Story

A charming young woman with some digestive problems was given psychotropic (antipsychotic) medications. Medical decisions made for her have permanently disabled her; she has Tardive Dyskinesia - TD - and is in a wheelchair - probably for life.
Jen's Pages
"Why is this young woman in a wheelchair?"

"Tardive dyskinesia is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing of the lips, and rapid eye blinking. Rapid movements of the extremities may also occur. Impaired movements of the fingers may also appear. For comparison, patients with Parkinson's disease have difficulty moving, while patients with tardive dyskinesia have difficulty not moving.
Other closely related neurological disorders have been recognized as variants of tardive dyskinesia. Tardive dystonia is similar to standard dystonia but permanent. Tardive akathisia involves painful feelings of inner tension and anxiety and a compulsive drive to move the body. In the extreme, the individual undergoes internal torture and can no longer sit still. Tardive tourettism is a tic disorder that can closely mimic Tourette Syndrome, sometimes to the point where the two can only be distinguished by the details of their onsets. Tardive myoclonus, a rare disorder, presents as brief jerks of muscles in the face, neck, trunk, and extremities."
- Wikipedia

Antipsychotics are not the only medications that can cause TD. You can also get this condition from antidepressants. Depending on where you live, your doctor may or may not be legally bound to tell you about side effects of medications s/he prescribes for you, This information is available from drug companies - pharmacists in the US can show you in the "Big Red Book" and in Canada in the "CPS" - and on package inserts.
This information is in the Merck Manual too. Another online resource, very amusing and factual, is here.

Get good information before you make a medical decision; mistakes can be very costly.

A Culture Soaked in Alcohol and Drugs - Daily Kos

From the diary:

"How many of you have been told you were stupid, lazy, no-good, a failure who'd never amount to nothin'?" Glodoski asked the students. Easily four-fifths of the students raised their hands.

"What the thinker thinks, the prover proves," I thought to myself.

Some of these kids will be lucky enough to escape this tiny town. Some will be resilient enough to endure it mostly intact . . . but they may still pass the same pattern down to their own kids, if only in a watered-down form. Most, sadly, will repeat the cycle unless something is done to save them. And no one is doing enough to save them. The underfunded school district, where teachers with master's degrees make only $35,000 a year, can't save them. Their families aren't equipped to save them. And unlike in the inner city, where at least a drop-in center or a street outreach program can make contact with thousands of children and maybe make a difference for a few dozen, here there is no such thing, because there's no critical mass of population to make such a thing possible.

No wonder Republicans are in a panic about the state of the American family. Get outside a large or medium-size metropolitan area, and the state of the American family is apocalyptic, a confusing mess in which stability is a fantasy, violence and verbal abuse are pervasive, and everyone resents someone for something. No wonder the residents of "red" counties flee to "family values" churches for security -- out here, it seems like church is the only force that can counter the disintegration, and even church can only do so much.

With jobs drying up, without money for the schools, without the population density for recreation and enrichment activities, what is there to relieve the bleakness of life? There's TV. There are video games. There's gossip. And there are drugs and alcohol.

This is America today.

This is what the flight of jobs has done to us.

This is what underinvestment in schools does to us.

This is what violence, despair and lack of empathy do to us.

This is what the loss of our dignity does to us.

This is the peril we're in.

What are our leaders going to do about it?

What are we going to do about it?

Link

Study after study in prisons and schools have demonstrated that addictions, bad behavior, failure to learn, lack of productivity and poor social values are related to poor nutrition. So the first thing to do is - fix the food.

Drug Safety and Health Canada Going, Going… Gone?

Health Canada’s drug safety procedures lacking, says study
April 20, 2009 | National Office | Topic(s): Health, health care system, pharmacare | Publication Type: Press Release

OTTAWA—Health Canada’s drug safety procedures leave a lot to be desired, says a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Drug Safety and Health Canada: Going, Going… Gone? by Dr. Joel Lexchin says Health Canada’s priorities are skewed in favour of rapid approval of new drugs at the expense of the post-marketing pharmaco-surveillance system.

“In Canada 3-4% of drugs approved will eventually be withdrawn from the market because of safety issues and the number of people exposed to these drugs is increasing because of aggressive marketing tactics by the pharmaceutical industry,” says Dr. Lexchin.

According to the study, there are significant limitations to The Food and Drugs Act.

“Health Canada cannot force a drug company to recall drugs deemed harmful from pharmacy shelves,” says Dr. Lexchin. “Nor can they directly compel a company to revise product labels to reflect new safety information.”

In order to improve drug safety, the study makes several recommendations for Health Canada, including:

Stop the treatment safety information as confidential and make it public available promptly after approving a new drug;
Decrease dependence on industry for safety information by using progressive licensing and ensuring post-market studies are undertaken, analyzed, and reported on, independent of industry;
Reorient priorities so that post-marketing pharmaco-surveillance is on equal footing with the approval of new drugs; and
Undertake a systematic study to examine whether faster drug approvals lead to more post-marketing safety issues.
–30–

Drug Safety and Health Canada: Going, Going… Gone? is available from the CCPA website at http://www.policyalternatives.ca http://www.policyalternatives.ca

For more information contact Kerri-Anne Finn, CCPA Senior Communications Officer, at 613-563-1341 x306.


Link