Pharmaceutical Drug "Side Effects:differentiating between symptoms of an illness and 'side effects' caused by drugs taken to treat illness.

The term “side effects” seems such an innocuous one, something quite minor, unimportant, nothing to worry about, a mere inconvenience. An alternative term “adverse drug effects” is little better at describing the seriousness of drug ‘side effects’.

So why do so many patients not realise that they suffer from drug ‘side effects’? Or that they can be serious? There are many reasons.

First, the medical profession does not tell patients about the ‘side effects’ of drugs they prescribe, certainly not the full extent of the harm they are known to cause, or the serious impact they can have on our health. Patient Information Leaflets usually stay, unread, within the packaging. Usually doctors tell their patients little more than that side effects are ‘minor’ or ‘rare’ or are ‘well-tolerated’.

Second, when patients develop ‘side effects’ they tend to dismiss them as just another sign of their original illness; the fact that they are unwell, and that any new health issue is merely another manifestation of being sick.

A third reason, perhaps not so well known, is that drug ‘side effects’ are often so similar to the illness for which were prescribed that it is difficult to differentiate the two. If so, an assumption is usually made that new symptoms are just an extension of the original illness which is getting worse. After all, they have been told that ‘side effects; are ‘minor’, ‘rare’ and ‘well tolerated’ and too often an assumption is made that their doctor would not give them anything that might be harmful.

So let’s see how this third factor works by looking at ADHD and the known ‘side effects’ of ADHD drugs.

ADHD, or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has been described by the NHS Inform website as “a group of behavioural symptoms that include difficulty concentrating and paying attention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness”. It describes the main symptoms of ADHD in children and teenagers as:

Inattentiveness: having a short attention span, being easily distracted, making careless mistakes, appearing forgetful, losing things, being unable to stick at tedious or time-consuming tasks, appearing to be unable to listen to or carry out instructions, constantly changing activity or task, having difficulty organising tasks

Hyperactivity and Impulsiveness: being unable to sit still, especially in quiet surroundings, constantly fidgeting, being unable to concentrate on tasks, excessive physical movement, excessive talking, being unable to wait their turn, acting without thinking, interrupting conversations, little or no sense of danger.

NHS Inform goes on to say that symptoms of ADHD “tend to be noticed at an early age” and that “they may become more noticeable when a child’s circumstances change, like when they start school”. Indeed, I (and many other people sceptical of conventional medicine) would say that sometimes many children who diagnosed with ADHD who are little more that normal, but active, inquisitive, perhaps mischievous youngsters (who often have a bad diet that contributes to the problem).

But then they are given ADHD drugs……

There has been an ever-increasing number of children who have been prescribed ADHD drugs, like Ritalin, Adderral, Concerta, Vyvanse, Strattera, Focalin (and many others). These drugs can, and often do, have serious ‘side effects’. (For a full list of the known/accepted ‘side effects’ of each of these ADHD drugs click on each of them above (although they all have ‘side effects’ that are remarkably similar).

Going through the horrendous ‘side effects’ of Ritalin, perhaps the best known and most used of all ADHD drugs, the following can be picked out as conditions quite similar to ADHD itself. The NHS website mentions side effects such as “struggling to get to sleep”, and “becoming irritable, aggressive, tearful, and depressed”.

• agitation

• talking or acting with excitement you cannot control

• uncontrolled vocal outbursts or tics (uncontrolled and repeated body movements)

• anxiety

• confusion as to time, place, or person

• false or unusual sense of well-being

• inability to speak

• loss of consciousness

• nervousness

• overactive reflexes

• seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there

• talking or acting with excitement you cannot control

• unusual excitement, nervousness, or restlessness

• Anger

• Fear

• Aggression

These ‘side effects’ can be confused with ADHD itself. In other words, Ritalin and other ADHD drugs are known to cause the same, or similar ‘side effects’ to the symptoms of the (so called) illness. But the ‘side effects’ are not recognised because nothing has changed, except that their condition has got gradually worse. So they need more of the drug, or the drug in a stronger potency.

But what is important to note is that ‘side effects’ such as anger, fear and aggression are not normally present in children who have been diagnosed with ADHD!

Vernon Coleman, a highly cynical (but honest) former doctor-GP, tells this apocryphal story that I fear many people could tell, if only they realised what was happening to them as the result of taking pharmaceutical drugs.

“I take the red pill to stop the indigestion,’ says a man. ‘I get the indigestion from the blue bill and I take the blue pill for the headaches I get with the green pill and I take the green pill to stop the itching the red pill causes’”

This is not an uncommon situation. In another place Coleman outlines his “1st Law of Medicine” which is as follows:

“If you are receiving treatment for an existing disease and you develop new symptoms then, until proved otherwise, you should assume that the new symptoms are caused by the treatment you are receiving”.

Good advice, perhaps, but most people would not be able to take it as they would not be inclined to differentiate between symptoms of the illness, and other symptoms that have contracted since taking the drugs they have been given for the original or first illness!

As a homeopath I have spoken to many patients where it was difficult to differentiate between the symptoms of an illness and a drug ‘side effect’. And if anyone asks their doctor, the message most patients would receive is that the new symptoms are not drug ‘side effects’ because the drug does not have ‘side effects’!

But when the patient decided to stop taking the offending drug, regardless of the condition, their health would invariably improve, and for many it was the start of them getting entirely well. The best medicine, sometimes, is no medicine - especially if it is pharmaceutical medicine!

The Reason for Blogger Becoming a Censorship Organisation

As most of you will know by now, I no longer write my articles for Blogger, which now seems opposed to freedom of speech, at least when it comes to patient choice and health freedom.

I do transfer my Blogs from Substack to Blogger - unless what I have written is too critical about pharmaceutical medicine for Blogger (a Google company) to accept.

But Blogger is no longer my primary platform.

The reason for the censorship of my articles is now becoming clearer, and it was the pressure of government (no doubt allied to pharmaceutical lobbying) that I was offending. Please read about the unfolding revelations about internet platforms caving into government pressure in this Racket News website.

Then do join me on my new Substack platform, you would be most welcome. Thanks, see you there!

Patient Choice and Health Freedom

     “If you have to be persuaded, reminded, pressured, lied to, incentivised, coerced, bullied, socially shamed, guilt-tripped, threatened, punished and criminalised… 

     "If all of this is considered necessary to gain your compliance you can be absolutely certain that what is being promoted is not in your best interest”.

Ian Watson (Homeopath)

Health, Politics and Patient Choice

Our health has nothing to do with politics! But politics can seriously damage our health unless we can all look objectively at the safety/effectiveness of medical treatment.

In most countries of the world health becomes a political issue only when there is an argument/discussion about how much more money should be spent on conventional medical treatment! For instance, in Britain the only ‘political’ issue about health ever discussed is how much additional money should be spent on pharmaceutical medical care in order to support the allegedly underfunded, and ‘broken’ National Health Service (NHS).

It is now very different in the USA. The Democratic Party unquestioningly supports pharmaceutical medical care; whilst the Republican Party is now questioning its safety and effectiveness, and particularly the quality of the medical ‘science’ on which it is based. The foolishness of such a political divide over health issues can quickly be outlined.

If Republicans refuse vaccination on the basis of an unsubstantiated political stance (that vaccines are unsafe and ineffective) they would be denying themselves medical treatment which might benefit their health, even save their lives.

If Democratic supporters are prepared to get vaccinated on the basis of bad medical ‘science’, and vested interests that insists that vaccines are safe and effective they would be putting their health, even their lives, in serious danger.

Whether to take pharmaceutical drugs is not political. In Britain there is no health debate, political or otherwise. We either accept what we are told by the powerful Conventional Medical Establishment (the pharmaceutical industry, the NHS, the mainstream media, and our Government) and take the risk. Or we examine the medical evidence and either accept pharmaceutical medicine.

USA citizens have to make a decision about which political stance they want to to believe. Who do they believe? What is the evidence? I am following the medical debate in the USA with much interest, as I believe that pharmaceutical drugs are largely ineffective, and certainly dangerous to our health. In Britain there is no political party to argue my case, but when I practiced homeopathy I saw so many people who had been damaged by pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines (and were helped by taking the offending drug in homeopathic potency on the basis of “like curing like”) that I needed no further convincing.

So how should citizens of the USA make their decision? First and foremost they should not do so through their party political affiliations! If I was an American citizen I would not be a Trump supporter. But I would support his policy on health.

Second, I would look at the arguments that are being made to support the policies of the two main political parties. JF Kennedy is raising important issues about the quality and honesty of the ‘science’ that ‘confirms’ the safety and effectiveness of drugs and vaccine. He argues that the pharmaceutical industry has effectively ‘captured’ drug regulation, and that as a result patients are no longer effectively protected from dangerous pharmaceutical ‘medicines’. And much more (I won’t rehearse all the arguments here).

Third, Kennedy highlights the rise and rise of chronic disease (allergy, arthritis, autism, dementia, diabetes, heart, kidney, liver, lung disease, et al) over the last 70+ years, and asks why this has almost exactly mirrored the massive increase in pharmaceutical drug taking. Many of the “safe and effective” drugs and vaccines that drug regulators have encouraged us to take have, after many years (sometimes decades) have been withdrawn or banned because they have been belatedly found to be too dangerous to prescribe. Can this correlation be accepted as causal? No, perhaps not. But whilst Kennedy asks the question, and seeks to find an answer, his opponents seem unprepared even to ask the question. They appear to be in denial.

Fourth, I would look at the vested interests that supports each side of the political debate, not least when health and medicine are involved. Who is likely to benefit from a particular policy? Several years ago I read (somewhere) that every federal politician in the USA was financed by the pharmaceutical industry. I believe this is why governments have allowed their citizens to be poisoned by drug-based medicine, and have taken little or no effective action despite regular medical scandals.

So who gains and who loses from Kennedy’s policies? The pharmaceutical industry would undoubtedly be the main loser if there was greater regulation (more insistence on proper and honest science) on drugs and vaccines. So Kennedy’s policies would provide little advantage to them. The Democrats seem to favour the status quo, that is, the dominance of pharmaceutical medicine in health care. Drug companies will obviously want to enforce their ‘medications’, with mandated vaccines, et al, as this maximises their sales and their profits.

Indeed, what company would not want government to mandate their products? I can see no similar beneficiaries of Kennedy’s policies, which in the main appear to be based on the need for patients to (i) have accurate information about the drugs/vaccines they are being asked to take, and (ii) the importance of health freedom, and patient choice, in making a decision.

Many people will not have the time or inclination to examine these arguments. But my fifth reason for taking my decision is that at least Kennedy is arguing his case. I would recommend that everyone takes this as his/her baseline. We should all want to hear the case for an against any policy! Yet in response Kennedy is being castigated and abused, often at a personal level; his position and arguments are not being refuted through investigation and evidence.

If one side of any argument is resorting to abuse, and refusing to engage, to provide evidence for their stance, their arguments are invariably weak.

Personal abuse is not an argument for anything in politics, or indeed, life generally. Nor is straightforward dismissal of an idea. When the conventional medical establishment uses terms like “disinformation”, “fake news”, or “conspiracy theory” I suspect it stems from a failure to engage in discussion. (I have written about this in more detail here).

There is one final argument, one that relates to health freedom, and patient choice. When we are ill we all have choices, although we are really told this. Mandating any one of these choices (for example, forcing vaccines on those who wish to remain vaccine free) deprives us of this choice. Pharmaceutical drugs are not our only option to ill-health. Over 50 years ago I decided that when I was ill I wanted to be treated with homeopathy. Yet I would no more want to force other people to make that decision than I would accept being forced to take a vaccine myself!

In this respect USA citizens are actually very lucky! There is, at least, a political debate going on there. In Britain, and most other countries, there is no such debate. For instance, would anyone in the USA believe me if I said that we hear little about this important health debate here? There is virtual silence from the UK media, the pharmaceutical-dominated NHS, and the Government - and any other mainstream source of information available to patients. And the health issues now being debated in America are ones that are equally important to us here in Britain.

So we should all ask - WHY? Surely if a drug, or a vaccine is (or even might be) unsafe, we should all be informed, the issue should be thoroughly investigated by people without a vested interest, so that each one of us can make up our own minds. This is not a party political issue. Politicians should not be making our decision for us. This is not about ‘the left’ or ‘the right’. It is about our health, and what we, each one of us, choose to do about it.

(This article was first published on my new forum, at 

https://safemedicine.substack.com/p/health-politics-and-patient-choice)