AstraZeneca is to invest $405 million in Britain following our government's agreement to increase the price of their drugs

As an alternative, the next time I am sick, I will visit my homeopath, pay her fee, and be thankful to avoid expensive and harmful Pharmaceutical Medicine altogether!

AstraZeneca, the giant Swedish-British Pharmaceutical company, is to invest $405 million in Britain. So good news, then? The an outline of the deal, for anyone who wants to see, this Medscape link has summarised it.

However I want to focus on just one part of the agreement, the underlying reason for the deal.

          “The investment follows praise from drug makers, including AstraZeneca, for a US-UK agreement aimed at increasing drug prices in Britain in line with the Trump administration’s new US pricing policy”.

Pharmaceutical medicine is incredibly expensive. Drug prices are already high. Drug companies, like AstraZeneca, are incredibly wealthy. The Pharmaceutical Industry is the most wealthy sector of the world economy - bar none. There are no economic reasons to increase the cost of drugs; higher production costs; increased demand; supply issues. As the article states:

          “AstraZeneca … reported earnings that beat expectations helped by demand for its cancer and rare disease drugs”.

So this is largely a political deal between the US and UK governments.

Plus some industrial blackmail by a powerful industry, and a UK government desperate for new investment.

          “Last year AstraZeneca pulled back on a £200 million investment plan in Cambridge.…. It also scrapped plans for a £450 million vaccine manufacturing plant in Northern England after government support was cut”.

So some power politics are at play in this situation. It is clear that the UK government lost, the Drug Company won, USA patients may pay less for their drugs, and UK’s NHS, and its patients, will pay more.

The Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment has little to do with our health, and much more to do with finance and wealth creation.

Personally, the next time I am sick I will visit my homeopath again! Homeopathic remedies are cheap. I will pay the homeopath for her time, training and experience, and her fee will prevent a doctor prescribing an ineffective, expensive, and expensive drug - a consider it a good deal.

 

Diabetes and Insulin. Levemir, the 'wonder drug' is to be phased out

Why should this popular drug be withdrawn? There are both official, and the 'never to be mentioned' reasons.

Novo Nordick, the drug company producing Levemir, has announced that it is withdrawing the drug, in all forms, by the end of 2026. Levemir is a long-acting analogue insulin used in the treatment of diabetes, usually injected on a daily basis. The decision was announced in June, then August 2025 in a ‘Medicines Safety Notices’ 9 (MSC) by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), telling doctors not to start any new patient on Levemir.

So why has Levemir being discontinued? Insulin drugs have been used for just over 100 years, certainly a life-saver for many people with Type 1 Diabetes, and were considered a wonder drug. And Levemir has been one of the most widely prescribed, and most profitable pharmaceutical drugs, of the last 20 years.

The official reasons, outlined here in this Diabetes UK website, says that Novo Nordisk decision was made in September 2024, that it was a global decision made because the drug was considered to be “an older insulin and declining in use globally”.

Yet apparently doctors still have faith in it. This MIMS article suggests that the second MSC notice was issued because the first one was largely ignored - in other words, doctors continued to prescribe it for new diabetes patients.

So what was the real reason for the withdrawal of Levemir? Perhaps this can be found in the Drugs.com website that lists the serious adverse reactions known to be caused by the drug. (Note that the withdrawal has been announced via an MSN, that is a Medicines Safety Notice)!

Clearly, Levemir has serious side effects, including anxiety, blurred vision, confusion, depression, joint pain, seizures, unusual tiredness/weakness, and many, many more. Anyone taking the drug should read, and know about the harm they can cause. And remember, most of these ‘side effects’ might be expected to lead to more drug taking, to poly-pharmacy, and so yet more drug side effects. Have patients ever been consistently told this?

The government (acting in support of the pharmaceutical medical establishment) has, of course, denied that adverse drug effects has anything to do with it - “this decision is not a consequence of any safety or quality related issues” - but then they would, wouldn’t they! Insulin drugs were first introduced way back in 1921. Levemir was introduced more recently, in 2005.

• This denial by the medical establishment suggests they consider it acceptable that pharmaceutical drugs that can cause this level of harm can be proscribed to patients.

• If they were to tell the truth about Levimir now, 20 years on, it might bring into question why they have allowed it to be prescribed to patients since 2005, and about how much patient harm it has caused during this time.

So how important is this news? Sadly it is probably not very important at all! It is just one drug amongst hundreds that have been withdrawn in a similar manner. It appears to be the new preferred way that the Pharmaceutical Industry now abandons harmful and dangerous drugs.

• Once upon a time such drugs were banned by Drug Regulators: but this was bad publicity for the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment (go to this link for more detailed information).

• Then they were withdrawn, as silently as possible, for safety reasons: this was less harmful publicity, perhaps, but only marginally so.

• Now drugs are withdrawn for ‘commercial’ reasons'; it is purely a business decision; it has nothing to do with patient harm.

I have said the same thing about AstraZeneca’s withdrawal of its Covid-19 vaccine in 2024. The reasons given did not concern the harm caused to patients, or for safety reasons….

“The AstraZeneca vaccine was the one given to most British citizens in 2021. The company (fairly quietly) dropped the vaccine in 2022, they claimed on commercial grounds (the AZ vaccine was never approved in the USA and several other countries; it was effectively banned in a number of European countries, and was no longer being used in the UK). Another 'commercial' reason could be that the AZ vaccine is now subject to a large number of compensation claims by patients who have been damaged by the vaccine. Such claims, of course, will be strongly contested by government (who will have to pay any compensation awarded), and the pharmaceutical industry (who have been given immunity from any liability)”.

When any pharmaceutical drug is removed from the market “for commercial reasons” we need to be skeptical. It can certainly be assumed that the real reason is patient safety. However, they are no longer ‘banned’, or ‘withdrawn’ for the benefit of patients.

It is more important to disguise the fact that the drug has caused harm - for the sake of the ongoing credibility of the pharmaceutical industry.

Is Feeding Birds Harmful? Should we really do away with our feeding stations?

Or are RSPB's recent concern another example of our incorrect perspective on health, and how we maintain it - both in humans, other animals, and even plants?

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has recently said that their long-time recommendation to provide feeding stations to provide additional food for birds is not necessarily a good thing. This link takes you to their article, and a video, that explains their new position.

          “Research has shown a worrying decline in some of our much-loved garden birds due to a disease called trichomonosis. This is a highly contagious disease and can spread where birds gather in large numbers such as at bird feeders”.

And this is the BBC’s slant on their new policy, typical of how it has been covered in the mainstream media, warning that “putting up bird feeders in your garden may seem kind but it could be putting some species at serious risk”. And they continue with this warning.

          “Trichomonosis is caused by a parasite that affects the mouth, throat and upper digestive tracts of birds and can make it hard for them to eat, drink or breathe”.

My problem with this new guidance is that it is based on conventional medicine’s understanding of the cause of infectious disease.

Natural health therapies and conventional medicine take a different approaches to health and the causes of illness and disease. Whilst natural therapies focus on the central importance of our immune system (we all have one, humans, birds, and plants) and the way it protects us, conventional (drug based) medicine focuses of the danger of germs, the transmission illness (via germs) from one individual to another, and the need to protect ourselves from them.

• So do bird feeders cause disease? They might do.

• Do diseases picked up from feeders pass from bird to bird? They might do.

• And do we need to spend more time on the hygiene of bird stations? It would do no harm. But do we need to obsess about it?

Natural medical therapies would suggest that only those birds whose immune system is weak, or compromised, are at risk.

It is broadly accepted that there are three main reasons for the immune system to become weak or compromised.

1. Poor or inadequate nutrition.

2. Insufficient rest, too much stress.

3. A lack of exercise.

(Personally, I would add a fourth reason for humanity - the consumption of pharmaceutical drugs).

So lets consider each of these, and consider how they apply to birds.

1. Exercise

It is difficult to believe that the decline in bird populations, and any susceptibility to disease, is the result of a lack of exercise! They can fly anywhere they want, whenever they want, and they appear to do so! They do not have sedentary jobs! They do not spend hours watching television, or playing on mobile phones! Their food is not provided for them, so they have to search for, and find each and every morsel they eat. So their survival depends on exercise - not least when they are feeding their young.

2. Stress

It is likely that being a bird is stressful! They have lots of predators, ranging from hawks, to domestic cats, to motor cars, to out EMF transmission, and much more. Each day they have to be concerned about where the next meal is coming from.

Yet, on the other hand, birds probably have a lifestyle that provides them with more rest-time than we humans allow ourselves. They find a place of safety and take time to roost, that is, they spend a sizeable proportion of their time resting and sleeping.

However, the regular and ongoing loss of suitable habitats is now an increasing issue for most bird species. This is recognised as a key issue underlaying the decline in bird populations. I remember once removed a bush in my garden that had a Robin’s nest. In horror I watched the distress of the parent birds, which continued for several days.

3. Nutrition

Alongside this loss of habitat, and linked with it, nutrition is an important problem faced by many bird species. It is not just the constant need to the search for food, it is a problem exacerbated by human activity.

Flies. The fly population has been decimated in recent years, largely through the profligate human use of insecticides on farms, gardens, et al. No wonder populations of fly-eating birds are dwindling.

Seed. For many birds seeds are an important source of nutrition. Yet much seed is now grown using cultivation methods that require of herbicides? How much toxic residue do birds now consume when foraging for seed? This recent USA article highlights this threat.

So birds do face many problems that might affect their immune system, many of them man-made. Indeed, initially this is why bird feeding stations were introduced, and why so many of us spend large sums of money feeding birds in their gardens. We have been led to believe, for decades now, that this provides an important supplementary food source for them.

These problems can undoubtedly cause damage to the immune system of birds. And this would make them susceptible to germs. These germs can accumulate in feeding stations. And so some compromised birds might be susceptible to diseases like trichomonosis.

Yet for natural medicine the problem is not the germ, it is the harm being caused to the immune system that causes susceptibility to the germs.

So the solution is not to focus on bird diseases, and how bird feeding stations might generate them. We can certainly keep the feeders cleaner, as the RSPB suggest. But we should not be persuaded that our feeders are the main, or even a significant problem to the health and survival of bird populations.

Just as with humans, birds with a strong immune system will survive. We all live with ‘germs’ every moment of the day.

Yet in order to maintain a strong immune system they need our help. Not by removing our feeding stations, or not feeding them during the warmer months - but by ending pesticide use - by controlling domestic cats - by maintaining their habitat - by allowing them to get on with their lives - and yes, by augmenting their feed.

The RSPB’s new approach to feeding birds suffers from the same mistaken belief most people have about ill-health - that there are germs are out there, waiting to pounce, ready to attack us, eager to make us ill. For humans, good health does not come from a bottle of pills, or a vial of vaccine. Nor does good health for birds come from obsessively clean feeding stations!

Good health comes from within - both for us, for all other animals, including birds, and plants too. The best protection against disease for all of us is to look after our immune system - and like us birds can do this quite well for themselves! They can even be trusted to know when, and in what seasons of the year, they need to augment their diet at feeding stations.

Cancer. Why are more younger people getting this 'old age' disease?

And is the Conventional Medical Establishment really serious about looking at the reasons?

The BBC (and other mainstream media platforms) seem to be convinced that it is, as evidence in their article “11 cancers on the rise in young people - scientists find first clue why it’s happening”. So the issue is being raised, but is the conventional medical establishment seriously investigating the reasons.

The article refers to a study published in BMJ Oncology, “Temporal trends in behavioural risk factors for cancers with rising incidence in younger adults: an analysis of population-based data in England”. The objective of the study was “to assess whether changes in behavioural risk factors could explain rising cancer incidence in younger adults in England, and to evaluate the extent to which established and suspected risk factors contribute to these trends”. The study was conducted by The Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London, and the study says it looked at various life-style factors, including:

• Physical activity.

• Obesity (maintaining a healthy weight).

• Consumption of Ultra-processed foods.

• Forever chemicals (or PFAS).

• Antibiotic use.

• Consumption of sweetened drinks.

• Air pollution.

• Gut bacteria.

• Pesticides.

The study admitted that there “was a lot we don’t know”. So we must believe, then, that the study authors were not aware that cancer is a well-known side effect of most pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Antibiotic drugs were mentioned - but even this is virtually dismissed! Instead they focused on Obesity.

          “The report said the only data that aligned with the increase in cancer was levels of overweight and obesity, which has been on the rise since the 1990s.”

What this means is that we have been presented with yet another ‘scientific’ study that is “selective” about what it prepared to investigate. There is no doubt that conventional medicine is fully aware of the link between cancer and pharmaceutical drugs (for people of all ages). The knowledge is contained within their own literature. The link is routinely published in the British National Formulary, and websites such as drugs.com.

I have listed the main drugs that are know to cause cancer, here, Iatrogenic Diease. The pharmaceutical drugs known to cause cancer. They include psychiatric drugs, Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), the contraceptive pill, Statin drugs, antibiotics, Proton Pump inhibitors, ACE inhibitors, most vaccines, and many, many more. So why was this well known, well documented cause of cancer omitted from the study? I hazard a guess.

If you don’t investigate you cannot implicate.

I hazard another guess: that the organisations that set up and conducted this research are funded by the pharmaceutical industry. So it was not so much that the authors were not aware of the link - it was that they were not permitted to included pharma drugs in the study. It would be bad for business. And bad for the funding that Pharma provides to universities, and ‘medical science’!

One of the problem that arises from such studies (and there are many) is that it sends conventional medicine on a wild goose chase. Their attention becomes focused on obesity. And worse, that it leads to treatment that involves patients taking more cancer-causing drugs that target obesity.

In this case, singling out ‘obesity’ will almost undoubtedly lead to the increased prescription of Pharma’s new ‘wonder drug’, GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wygovy, et al. At the moment, as part of the promotion of these drugs, medical science is suggesting that they might actually reduce cancer. I have serious doubts about this, not least because there are already early signs that GLP-1 drugs can cause cancer, see for example here, “Can Weight-Loss Drugs Cause Cancer?

Even in these early days of GLP-1 use, the drugs.com website is already giving this warning.

          “Additionally, animal studies suggest Ozempic has the potential to cause thyroid cancer, which may lead to lumps in the throat and dysphagia”.

It is likely that the link is yet to be made!

So watch this space!

Big Pharma is allowed to sell patients harmful drugs, doctors are allowed to prescribe them, even when known to be dangerous to our health.

Drug Regulation does not work! When it discovers a harmful drug it does little/nothing. It is failing to address its primary purpose - to safeguard patients from harm

This is Medscape’s headline. “FDA Issues Alert on Liver Injuries Linked to Vasculitis Drug, Following Withdrawal Request”.

The FDA is the USA’s Drug Regulator, but its decisions are widely influential with drug regulators around the world. So its decisions affect all of us. It issued an alert about liver injury, including fatal cases, that have been linked to avacopan (Tavneos), a drug used for a rare autoimmune disease “that the agency had already asked to be voluntarily removed from the market”

Dangerous enough, you might think, for it to be withdrawn by the drug company, and/or banned by the regulator?

The Medscape article went on to say that on 31st March 2026 the FDA issued a public notice outlining their serious concerns about post-marketing cases of drug-induced liver injury that have been associated with avacopan. However, this seems to have carried little weight with Amgen, the drug’s manufacturer, who

          “..announced in January that it intended to continue to market this drug even though the FDA requested a voluntary withdrawal of avacopan. Separately, European regulators in January announced a safety review of the drug”.

The article goes on to state that the problem about this drug had been known for over 5 years.

          “In 2021, FDA staff expressed deep concern about liver risk even while approving avacopan for a serious and sometimes fatal autoimmune condition, severe active antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis. The FDA required a special safety study focused on liver risk as part of this approval.

So, 5 years on, what does the drug regulator do to fulfil its main function - to protect patients from a drug that causes patient harm, and is known to cause fatalities?

          “In the new alert, the FDA recommends that patients talk to their healthcare professional about safety risks associated with avacopan and to discuss whether to continue therapy or switch to alternative treatments” especially if “they develop any signs or symptoms of liver injury, including nausea, vomiting, unusual itching, light-colored stools, yellowing of skin or eyes, dark urine, swelling in the stomach or abdomen, or pain in the right upper abdomen. The FDA also advised clinicians who have patients taking avacopan to conduct liver panel testing every 2 weeks in the first month of treatment, monthly for the next 5 months, and thereafter as clinically indicated”.

The FDA continues to state that avacopan should be discontinued promptly, and alternative treatments considered, in certain circumstances.

So there is a difference of opinion. The company is clearly confident that avacopan is both “effective and safe”, based, it says, on “robust clinical data and real-world evidence demonstrating the effectiveness and favorable benefit-risk profile”. And it is committed to continue marketing the drug.

However, the FDA says it has identified 76 cases of drug-induced liver injury “with reasonable evidence of a causal association with avacopan use … that comes from reviews of postmarketing data, medical literature, and the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System ... Of these 76 cases, 74 reported a serious outcome, including 54 hospitalizations and eight deaths”.

These clinical outcomes might be considered adequate grounds for taking more robust protective action for patients in addition to “discussing” the issues with a doctor. But no. One comment outlined in the Medscape article states that:

          “The FDA’s Drug Safety Communication about avacopan highlighting the eight fatal cases of drug-induced liver injury is important, but insufficient”.

So, a drug that causes 8 deaths is not sufficient reason to withdraw, or ban it. How many more drugs are drug regulators approving, drug companies selling, and doctors prescribing, that are causing this level of patient harm?

Even Medscape raises this question. It asks why, if the FDA has requested the drug be voluntarily withdrawn from the US market, the agency not making this request publicly, and pushing back against the company for not having already withdrawn the drug? Why does the prescribing information for avacopan not include a boxed warning for the risk of fatal liver disease?

These are urgent questions for the FDA to answer. Yet the FDA has failed to do so, and so confirms that no pharmaceutical drug should be considered “safe and effective”, that drug regulators are failing to act decisively to protect patients, that doctors will therefore continue to prescribe harmful drugs to patients.

Avacopan is a small drug. But it represents a good example of how conventional medicine now treats the issue of patient safety. It demonstrates a medical system that is prepared to “discuss” how many patients it is allowed to kill, how much chronic disease it is allowed to cause, before any robust action is taken to protect us. It shows h

ow patient safety takes second place to pharmaceutical profits.

I would suggest that the only sensible solution for everyone is to develop a healthy mistrust, and to studiously avoid a medical system that is clearly failing to protect us.

Vaccination. Why do we need Religioius Exemptions?

Are religious exemptions a good thing? Or should the right to refuse vaccination be open to everyone, regardless of their religious belief?

The right to refuse vaccination on the basis of religious beliefs has been around for a very long time. The idea that everyone needs to be vaccinated, and if necessary forced to be vaccinated, has become more important since the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment, supported by Government and Mainstream Media around the world, tried to mandate/force Covid-19 vaccines on entire populations.

I pose a simple question. If my religion was opposed to vaccination should this be sufficient reason for me to be excused from a mandated vaccine?

I would wholeheartedly agree with this proposal! Religious objections for vaccination should be more than sufficient. My problem, however, is that I am not religious. I hold no strong religious views on any topic, including vaccination.

So does this mean that my personal views about vaccines (that they are largely ineffective, unnecessary, and a risk to my personal health) can be discounted? Does the fact that my objections are medical rather than religious, mean that the Government, in support of a powerful pharmaceutical lobby, can forcibly vaccinate me - against my will?

The argument for religious exemptions is therefore a partial one. There is another problem too. Permitting someone to remain vaccine free on purely religious grounds deals only with specific religious grounds. It tacitly accepts (or does not challenge) the medical argument that vaccines are “good” for us, that everyone should be vaccinated as they are “safe and effective”, and that contrary health-based arguments are remain unacceptable.

Moreover, religious exemptions do not challenge the nonsense argument used by the Pharmaceutical Industry (supported by Government and the Mainstream Media) that there is such a thing as “herd immunity” - that everyone must be vaccinated before anyone is protected. In other words, ‘your’ vaccination does not protect you; but my vaccination does!

What this would mean is that unless I have a religious reason for refusing a vaccination my ‘right to remain vaccine-free, my informed personal choice, my personal freedom, can be over-ridden - for the general public good.

Vaccine exemptions on purely medical grounds should be supported and argued strongly. The Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment is not just strong and powerful; it is also grossly arrogant. It believes it knows best, and is prepared to use its influence over Government and the Mainstream Media to force us to accept their medical views.

Natural medical therapies, like homeopathy, have a different view - that we can all stay well, free from illness, as long as we support and maintain our individual immune systems. What this means is that our natural immunity that protects us from contracting the (generally mild) diseases for which we are offered vaccines.

And as a result, it is not just religious exceptions we should be supporting, it is medical and personal reasons too.

 

PS. Just for information.... Blogger deleted this post! I appealed. And it was almost instantly reinstated. Goodness know why Blogger considered it to be 'suspect'! Or what is going on in the censorship media.Go to https://safemedicine.substack.com/p/vaccines-why-do-we-need-religious - to see the blog on my new forum.

Pharmaceutical Drugs CAN Cause Dementia

Is this Medscape article the first recognition from within the Medical Establishment that pharmaceutical drugs can, and do, cause Dementia? Will anyone take notice? Or act to protect patients?

          “Drug-related cognitive impairment is common in routine practice and should be considered in any individual receiving drug therapy who presents with cognitive symptoms. These effects can occur at any age and are associated with a wide range of medications. The long-term use of benzodiazepines, antidepressants with anticholinergic properties, and antipsychotics has been associated with cognitive decline, particularly in older adults. Although these impairments may be preventable through baseline cognitive assessment and regular monitoring, they are often mistaken for age-related or neurodegenerative conditions and therefore remain underrecognized”.

This is how the Medscape article introduces the causal link between drugs and dementia in its article “When Medications May Contribute to Cognitive Decline.

I have been making the link between dementia and pharmaceutical drugs for the last 20+. This is my article, dating back to 2009, “Is Dementia Caused by Pharmaceutical Drugs?. The rise and rise of dementia has, after all, been mirrored almost exactly by the rise and rise of the consumption of prescribed drugs. And, as I have often pointed out, the known side effects of many drugs include memory loss, attention deficits, confusion, disorientation in time or space, and other well-known symptoms of dementia.

So here I will do little more than to repeat what the Medscape article says. Medscape, after all, is part of the Conventional Medical Establishment. It is not usually critical of it. And it describes itself as “the leading online global destination for physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide, offering the latest medical news and expert perspectives; essential point-of-care drug and disease information; and relevant professional education and CME”.

The Medscape article says that it undertook a literature review that examined “the clinical features and drug classes involved, highlighting the potential long-term consequences when these effects are not identified and managed”.

It discovered that“medication-related cognitive impairment is more prevalent than often assumed. Drugs are the leading cause of delirium and may account for up to 30% of cases in hospitalized older adults. Thus, polypharmacy doubles the risk”.

It said that “medication-related dementia accounts for an estimated 2.7%-10% of dementia cases”, and that “earlier studies have suggested that medications may represent the most common cause of reversible dementia, contributing to 28.2% of the cases. With increasing prescriptions and a higher number of medications per person, the burden is likely to be greater”.

It went on to say that “the risk increases sharply with the number of medications prescribed, increasing ninefold in individuals receiving four or more drugs. Polypharmacy affects approximately 29% of individuals aged 65 years or older and nearly 42% of those aged 85 years or older”.

It says that “the severity ranges from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. In some cases, symptoms present acutely as delirium with hallucinations, illusions, or altered perception” and that “these impairments can appear shortly after drug initiation or may develop gradually. Severity often correlates with plasma drug concentration. Symptoms typically improve after dose reduction or discontinuation, although persistence for months or longer has been reported”.

So what pharmaceutical drugs does it implicate as contributing to the ongoing epidemic of dementia? They are exactly the same drugs that I previously outlines, 25+ years ago, here.

“Multiple drug classes have been associated with an increased risk for cognitive impairment, including antiepileptics, antidepressants, antiparkinsonian agents, antipsychotics, lithium, benzodiazepines, opioids, first-generation antihistamines, anticholinergics used for urinary incontinence, proton pump inhibitors, glucocorticoids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, statins, antihypertensives, and anticancer therapies”.

It gives me little pleasure to say “I told you so”. I am not gloating. After all, it is not something to celebrate. In the intervening years, many millions of people have suffered dementia, in all its many forms. Their suffering has been caused by a medical system that regularly, and routinely, discounts/denies the harm that it does through the drugs it prescribes.

Medscape also refers to a 2023 literature review that assessed the cognitive safety of psychotropic medications in older adults. It “found that individuals with depression who had no baseline cognitive impairment were at greater risk for cognitive decline when treated with tricyclic antidepressants or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, particularly paroxetine, for at least 6 months compared with those not receiving these medications. These findings suggest that medications, rather than depression itself, may contribute to the decline, potentially through their anticholinergic effects”.

It continues. “Benzodiazepines, especially those with a long half-life of at least 20 hours, have also been associated with cognitive decline” and that “most studies have reported significant cognitive decline in older adults treated with antipsychotics, with a risk approximately double that of healthy individuals or equivalent to 1 year of neurodegenerative disease progression. This association has been observed for both conventional and atypical antipsychotics. The combination of antipsychotics with other psychotropic medications has also been linked to cognitive decline in older adults.

So what is Medscapes conclusion? What does it recommend? They suggest a response that appears to be a weak - to the point of being dismissive of the full implications.

“Experts recommend systematic cognitive assessment before prescribing these medications and then regularly throughout treatment. Comprehensive evaluation across multiple domains, ideally conducted by a neuropsychologist, is preferable, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination or the Montreal Cognitive Assessment”.

So drugs that even the conventional medical profession know cause dementia are still to be prescribed - but with more ‘evaluation’ and ‘assessment’! And I suspect that the medical establishment will do even less than this meagre suggestion. All pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause serious patient harm - not just dementia - and rarely if ever is anything done that would avoid future patient harm - other than taking “more care”. This is usually defended by using the (unproven) equation that a drug “does less harm than good”.

The Medscape article was published in 23 March 2026. I expect it to be ignored, forgotten, or even withdrawn! I do not expect Governments, the Mainstream Media, Patient Support Grounds (funded by Big Pharma), or the Conventional Medical Establishment, to take any notice of it. I predict that it will not be drawn to patients, and their families, attention, and that drugs known to cause dementia will continue to be prescribed by doctors.

Life will continue, as before, except perhaps for those people who will be unfortunate enough to suffer from drug-induced dementia.

Such is the power and control exercised by the Pharmaceutical Industry within society.

 

PS. This article is clearly very critical of the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment. So it is likely to be censored/deleted by Blogger. However, it will still be on my new Substack forum. 

https://safemedicine.substack.com/p/pharmaceutical-drugs-can-cause-dementia.

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