I have written this blog many times! Same words, same arguments, just another pharmaceutical drug! The story goes like this:
- a drug is approved by drug regulators as 'safe' and 'effective',
- thereafter it is prescribed to 1,000's of patients, who suffer harm because it is not safe,
- the drug regulators know but do nothing, they permit doctors to continue prescribing it,
- the patients are not told about the harm the drug causes, and more patients are harmed,
- only after many years, often many decades, is action taken against the drug to protect patients.
This story has be repeated time and time again during the past 70 years. The latest is the allergy/asthma drug, Singulair (montelukast) is not unique, just another drug in a long line of drugs to slowly progress to withdrawal, or a ban. Here are the facts.
Singulair was first approved 1998. The approval of any drug by any drug regulator (whose primary task is to protect patients) means that the regulators consider the drug to be both safe and effective.
Singulair obtained further approval as treatment for "exercise induced asthma" in 2008. So presumably drug regulators still considered the drug to be "safe" and "effective".
However, Singulair has been known to cause very serious adverse health reactions for a very long time, as outlined in this Drugs.com website. The 'side effects' listed here show just how dangerous this drug is - a drug that is still approved by drug regulators around the world.
Yet these adverse drug reactions, known for over 20 years now, have made little difference. As usual, dangerous drugs are allowed to be prescribed by the conventional medical establishment to patients even when they know perfectly that the drug is causing serious patient harm throughout the world.
It was not until March 2020 that the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added a 'black box' warning, the agency’s strongest label warning, for "serious mental health side effects".
This means that patients have been allowed by the conventional medical establishment to take Singulair for over 20 years before any serious attempt was made to inform patients of its dangers. During this time many thousands of patients have been seriously harmed - most of them believing that the drug doctors had prescribed for them were be safe and effective.And the situation continues. Singulair remains in use. Doctors were 'warned' by the Black Box, but the drug was neither withdrawn, or banned; doctors can still prescribe it.
So now lawsuits have been filed in USA.
"... plaintiffs, including the parents of children who suffered psychiatric disorders after taking Singulair, are filing lawsuits that accuse Merck of designing a defective drug, negligence and failure to warn about the risk of mental problems."
As I have said many times before, the implications of this situation are important for us all to consider.
No-one can assume, at any time, that any prescribed pharmaceutical drug, or any vaccine, is safe.
I will no doubt be writing this blog again, many times in the future! Same words, same arguments, another pharmaceutical drug!
