Antidepressant Drugs. Why is the Mainstream Media an Echo Chamber for the Pharmaceutical Industry?

BBC News is promoting pharmaceutical drugs, yet again! Today, it is Antidepressant Drugs. And in doing so it is failing to provide the public with full and accurate information about these drugs.

The study they having been referring to is 'Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis', published in the Lancet. BBC News has featured this study throughout the day (22nd February 2018). The headlines provided  are

• The study provides 'compelling evidence' that antidepressant drugs work, and are effective.
• The arguments about the drugs "have been settled".
• This is good news for patients and clinicians.
• More people should be taking the drugs.
• One person is quoted saying that there was a stigma, a reluctance to take the drug, which was unnecessary, and that 'talking therapies' did not work for him.

All this is 'compelling evidence' that has 'settled the argument' is taken from the study, and the BBC article covering the study can be found here. Other mainstream news agencies have also covered the study in much the same way, regarding it as authoritative, and all reporting it without question or reservation. So what are the questions that should have been asked?

Who funded the study?

BBC News never asked! But the study itself provides a large list of pharmaceutical companies who paid for the study. In the 'declaration of interest' at the end of the study the companies mentioned include:

• Eli Lilly, Janssen, Meiji, Mitsubishi-Tanabe, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Pfizer, Takeda Science Foundation, LB Pharma, Lundbeck, Otsuka, TEVA, Geodon Richter, Recordati, LTS Lohmann, and Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, Lilly, Lundbeck, Otsuka, SanofiAventis, Servier, Otsuka and Meiji, Yoshitomi.

It is well known (except perhaps by the mainstream media) that research funded by pharmaceutical companies routinely produces more positive and favourable results than research that is funded independently.

How effective were antidepressant drugs found to be?

BBC News never asked, although it did say that each drug was tested against "dummy pills" (or placebo). What this means is that antidepressant drugs are better than nothing! Did the drugs cure the condition? If so, in how many patients? If not, to what extent was the depression relieved?

And how effective are antidepressant drugs compared to 'talking therapies'? Other than producing one person who said that talking therapies did not help, but drugs did, the BBC did not bother to ask!

Were antidepressant drugs found to be more or less effective than herbal treatments, homeopathy, acupuncture, etc. BBC News did not ask, perhaps because they never acknowledge the existence of any of these alternative medical therapies!

What are the side effects of antidepressant drugs?

BBC News never asked and never mentioned these either. Whenever they report the benefits of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines they rarely do, and if they do they only ask conventional doctors (so called 'experts') who, of course, have no vested interest in providing their answer!

Yet the answer is well known to the conventional medical establishment because it is published in the doctor's drug bibles, the British National Formulary (BNF), MIMS and similar. These include serious withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, irritability, sleep disturbance, nightmares, psychosis, and seizures. In many parts of the world, including Britain, all antidepressants come with a warning about their use in children and adolescents. They also increase the risk of suicidal thinking, suicidal behaviour and violence. 

These side effects are available online on websites such as Drugs.com, Rxlist.com, and others, although the pharmaceutical industry is now buying into these too! So I have outlined the serious side effects of the many kinds of antidepressant drugs in this article.

BBC News presumably is presumably not aware of these side effects, perhaps thought that their recommendation for more people to take them should not be qualified in any way!

Why is this evidence reported when other evidence is ignored?

Other studies, including many published by the Lancet, have not been reported. Why is this? Is it because they are more critical, more questioning of the value of antidepressant drugs?

• Comparative efficacy and tolerability of antidepressants for major depressive disorder in children and adolescents: a network meta-analysis, published in August 2016.
• Most antidepressant drugs ineffective for children and teens, published in June 2016.
• Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 12 new-generation antidepressants: a multiple-treatments meta-analysis, published in February 2009.

Many similar studies are ignored by the mainstream media. So the reason for highlighting this research seems clear - it is about the rehabilitation of antidepressant drugs.

Drug Rehabilitation. How will this study be used?

The BBC article makes it clear that this is an important study for the pharmaceutical industry. Here are some of the comments that can be found in it.

• "Scientists say they have settled one of medicine's biggest debates after a huge study found that anti-depressants work". (My emphasis).
• The authors of the report ... said it showed many more people could benefit from the drugs.
• The Royal College of Psychiatrists said the study "finally puts to bed the controversy on anti-depressants". (My Emphasis).
• The lead researcher is quoted as saying "This study is the final answer to a long-standing controversy about whether anti-depressants work for depression". (My emphasis).
• A Royal College of Psychiatrists spokesperson said: "This meta-analysis finally puts to bed the controversy on anti-depressants, clearly showing that these drugs do work in lifting mood and helping most people with depression". (My emphasis).

All these statements indicate that medical science has decided that the concerns and controversy surrounding these drugs are matters no longer to be discussed. Medical science is telling us that it has given its final decision. There is to be no more examination, no more questioning. And the mainstream media will no doubt go along with this too. It has done so before!

The MMR Vaccine and the Thompson Debacle

Take-up of the MMR vaccine plummeted following links with the Autism epidemic. It was a matter of concern for the conventional medical establishment so the pharmaceutical industry funded several 'scientific' research projects in the early 2000's which determined that no such link existed. Since that time the issue has never been discussed in the mainstream media, including the BBC. It is out-of-bounds. I suspect that this study will be used in the same way - to stifle discussion, to censor information, to keep the public misinformed.

The censorship has continued. In September 2014 Dr William Thompson, one of the co-authors of one of these 'conclusive' studies, admitted that the researchers had destroyed evidence that would have led to the conclusion that there was, indeed, a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. I have blogged about this situation several times. The information regarding this situation was clear then, and it remains clear now. What Thompson revealed concerns corruption throughout the conventional medical establishment, including bogus medical science and crooked drug regulators.

 

But the information has never been published by the mainstream media.

I made a formal complaint to the BBC about their failure to report this, but was informed that it was not a matter of public concern, and that BBC editors had lots of other stories to cover!

Why do I focus on BBC News reporting?

The BBC is a public service broadcaster. It is paid for by licence fee payers. Other news organisations are funded by advertisers, and it has been calculated that the pharmaceutical industry provides as much as 70% of this advertising revenue. This not an excuse, the public have a right to full and honest information about the drugs they are prescribed. But it is a reason. The BBC has neither reason nor excuse.

Antidepressant drugs are failing, but just as with the MMR vaccine, they are highly profitable for the pharmaceutical industry. As the BBC article states,

               "There were 64.7 million prescriptions for the drugs in England in 2016 - more than double the 31 million in 2006 - but there has been a debate about how effective they are, with some trials suggesting they are no better than placebos."

Perhaps this is the only piece of honesty in the entire article, although to be fair, the BBC has engaged in the antidepressant debate in the recent past.

• The 'extreme' side-effects of antidepressants was based on a Victoria Derbyshire programme in October 2016, in which several people said their lives have been ruined by SSRI antidepressant drugs, with some users saying they made them suicidal.
• A BBC Panorama programme 'Prescription for Murder', broadcast in July 2017, which examined the link between antidepressant drugs and violent behaviour. The programme was heavily criticised for being 'irresponsible, verging on dangerous' by the conventional medical establishment.
• Earlier this month the BBC reported that "Teenage antidepressants 'doing more harm than good'", stating that the number of children under 18 being prescribed antidepressants doubled from 2,748 in 2009/10 to 5,572 in 2016.

I suspect that this research may be intended to end this critical debate - certainly as far as the conventional medical establishment is concerned, and most likely our mainstream media too. Whether the BBC will also draw back into the safety of conformity remains to be seen.

Health Freedom, Informed Consent and Patient Choice

The debate does matter. No-one should be expected to accept any form of medication or treatment without being fully aware of both the potential benefits and the possible dangers. In caving in to the conventional medical establishment over the Autism, MMR vaccine link, the mainstream media, including the BBC, has allowed parents to put their children in danger with the vaccine for the last 15 years or more.

They now have to decide if their viewers, listeners, readers and licence payers deserve to be given full and honest information about antidepressant drugs.

 

BBC News. A statement on vaccine policy.

BBC News covered the Vaccine-Autism link this morning (11th April) on 'its Today' programme, and no doubt thereafter on news bulletins for the rest of the day. It started this morning by an unequivocal statement from Nick Robinson.

               "Doctors in the US say they are worried about the number of families in some communities who are choosing not to vaccinate their children. The World Health Organisation has already warned that measles is spreading through parts of Europe because of falling immunisation rates."

Nothing wrong with that, Robinson was merely informing us about the views of conventional doctors, and the WHO view about falling immunisation rates. But then a 'Global Health Correspondent', Tulip Mazumdar was introduced, and she gave us her views in no uncertain terms, presumably views reflecting the views of the BBC. I am repeating her words in full, but the emphasis highlight the opinions she was allowed to enunciate, completely unchallenged.

               "When Donald Trump was a candidate in the US presidential campaign he wrongly suggested that there was a link between vaccines and autism, a theory that has long been debunked. The American Society of Paediatrics said it is alarmed by suggestions that President Trump is to set up a vaccine safety committee headed by a prominent vaccine skeptic. Vaccination rates across the US are high but there are pockets where rates are well below the 95% recommended to best protect communities against potentially deadly viruses. There are currently large measles outbreaks in Europe (Italy and Rumania) mainly because immunisation coverage there has dropped".

So here we have a BBC correspondent who is not reporting 'news', but giving us her opinion and presenting it as news.

• Trump was 'wrong' to suggest a link between vaccines and autism? It is not something that should be discussed an debated? The vaccine skeptics are just wrong?

• The 'theory' linking vaccines and autism has been 'debunked'. Really? Where? And is the BBC not forgetting that they themselves are ignoring key evidence in this debate?

• Clearly Tulip and the BBC also supports the (absurd?) theory of 'herd immunity', where the vaccinated are not protected by the vaccine - unless 95% of other people are also vaccinated.

• And they also support the theory that vaccines protect us from 'potentially deadly viruses' when most of them in the modern world are no longer 'deadly'!

None of this was up for discussion. Nor was it discussed in a later piece, where the issues could have been discussed, but instead continued to outline the BBC's full and uncompromising support for the conventional medical establishment. Tulip Mazumdar visited a part of the US, Baffin Island, near Seattle, where vaccination rates "were at their lowest". Two mums were allowed to mention that their objections to vaccination were that, too often, 'profit' is put before health, that it was about 'listening to mums experiences', and that 'there was a huge amount of evidence that vaccines were harmful, even if we weren't able to scientifically prove it'. Tulip immediately sprang to the defence of vaccines.

               "The concerns you raise ..... these things have been looked into, and we know vaccines save lives, not just your own children, but children in the community" (again, my emphasis).

The mum was allowed one more comment, that she did not know whether anyone can trust what has been put into vaccines. This was the end of any discussion, as far as Tulip was concerned.

               "The scientific consensus is clear. They are safe, effective and saved lives. Like any medication they can cause mild, and in a very few cases, serious side effects, but before big vaccination campaigns, measles, for example, killed hundreds of people a year in the US, and unvaccinated communities are still as risk of deadly outbreaks".

Several points to mention about this sentence. The 'scientific consensus' is clear only if evidence to the contrary is ignored. The parents who say that they had normal children until a vaccination... The $millions paid out in compensation to parents of vaccine damaged children by the US Vaccine courts... The fact that science has produced little of no evidence that vaccines are safe...

Tulip's statement stands only if the statistics show that measles has killed any more than a handful of children in the US in recent decades, and that where measles outbreaks have occurred, vaccinated children have been found to  be more at risk of serious infection than unvaccinated children.

The assertion that it was 'big vaccination programmes' that reduced the incidence of measles, or any other infection, can only be made if the evidence is ignored that these infections were reducing, rapidly, long before vaccines were introduced, and that after their introduction, the graph of reduced incidence shows little or no change!

The evidence that Tulip presented this morning as 'fact' exactly mirrors the evidence of the conventional medical establishment, and the propaganda of the pharmaceutical industry. The BBC shows itself regularly to be entirely happy with doing so, to the extent that it will allow no debate on the vaccine-autism issue, or indeed the vaccine-paralysis argument, and every other argument about that harm that vaccines are known to cause. Big Pharma policy is BBC policy!

Immediately, the discussion was moved to two children, twins, receiving their vaccinations, and talking to the children's mother. Nothing wrong with this - balance even! Then a doctor was asked to give his views on 'vaccine hesitancy', which of course, he did in favour of vaccines, emphasising 'the great dangers' we faced without them. Tulip then repeated her charges against those who are skeptical, or opposed to vaccines.

               "Donald Trump has WRONGLY suggested a link between immunisation and autism in the past...."

               "The DEBUNKED THEORY came from a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who was struck off after HIS FRAUDULENT STUDY linking the MMR vaccine with autism...."

Yet another conventional doctor was brought in to offer more support for vaccines, and to oppose Donald Trump's proposal to investigate the safety of vaccine. The investigation seemed to be a matter of concern for the BBC, not least because a 'vaccine skeptic' had been asked to lead it. For some reason, this skeptic was not named. It is Robert Kennedy, Jn!

Tulip continued, talking about the "well established science of vaccines", and the threat of "deterring family's from accepting vaccines", all of which is, of course, a statement of opinion not news, and a statement that failed to present the debate about vaccine safety in a fair, balanced and unbiased way. She finishes with an emotionally-charged statement.

               "Communities are best protected against outbreaks of diseases if everyone who can be vaccinated is vaccinated. So, despite their sore arms, the twins have done their bit to keep themselves,  and their communities, from potentially damaging viruses".

Yet the BBC were not finished there. Nick Robinson introduced Professor Adam Finn, Consultant in Paediatric Immunology, to comment on what he had heard. It is what the BBC always does when dealing with health issues. If there is an issue, like vaccine safety, bring in someone from the conventional medical establishment to provide their expertise. Is this, Robinson asked him, the same period of anxiety in the US that Britain went through in the late 1990's? An open invitation for Finn to talk about the 'complacency' and 'misinformation' that existed about vaccines,  and 'more and more vulnerable children', and 'getting to a place when there might be serious outbreaks!

Robinson then presented evidence that 1 in 10 people in the USA felt that vaccines were unsafe. This was not an issue he raised about why so many people felt like this, but whether more attention should not be paid to how the message (that vaccines were effective and safe) was communicated, and "how parents trust was gained"! No chance, then, that the concerns of 10% of the population were genuine, the result of an informed decision or choice. No possibility that the views of the minority, the 10%, might be fairly and impartially presented to us by the BBC!

Finn is then allowed to talk about 'false news' and 'false information' about vaccines, and how to combat it, the implication being that this 'false' information consists of anything that is not being put forward by the conventional medical establishment! Robinson was quite happy about this, and sought to feed him another open goal.

               "You get this anacdotalism, don't you (sic), Donald Trump was quoted on Fox News in 2012, about a child getting a 'monster shot', did you ever see the size of it, he said, its like they are pumping it in, its terrible, he says, and goes on... Somehow you have to counter that with hard facts, don't you, but with an equal emotional appeal to keeping children alive".

Clearly, this is not so much an 'interview' as a party political broadcast on behalf of the conventional medical establishment! Robinson clearly had no questions for Finn that in any way represented the views of the 10%. And certainly, there was no-one, no expert, to put forward the case against vaccines. There was no balance, and no attempt at balance, whatsoever!

I am disappointed with Robinson. I expected better of him, As the former BBC's Economics Editor I always felt he showed good balance in putting forward the views of different sides of an economic issue. Clearly, he is unable or unwilling to provide the same measure of balance to the important vaccine-autism debate - which is alive and growing, and will not go away, regardless of the BBC lack of balance and objectivity.

In 2016 I complained to the BBC about their failure to share the important news that the 2004 'scientific' study (that had 'proven' there was no link between vaccines and autism) was a fraudulent study. I have written about it here.

               Autism IS caused by MMR vaccine. Evidence of 'no connection' was fraudulent medical science

               The MMR Vaccine, Autism, and the silence and culpability of the Political, Medical and Media Establishment

The BBC has continued to ignore this important news story, made by one of the study's lead scientists, namely, that vital evidence, that would have proven the vaccine-autism link, was destroyed. To this day it remains a censored news story. Yet this is fraudulent 'science'. It is the very science that allowed the BBC to say, today, that there is no proven link between vaccines and autism! So let me try to help Robinson, and the BBC!

Perhaps the 10% are aware of the fraudulent activity of the CDC in respect of this vaccine-autism link. Perhaps the 10% are aware of the regular revelations that drug companies have provided false information, or withheld important information, about their drugs and vaccines.  Perhaps the 10% are aware of the heavy fines that pharmaceutical companies have paid in US courts as a result of this. Perhaps the 10% know children who have been damaged by vaccines. Perhaps the 10% even know families who have been compensated by vaccine courts for the damage caused to their children by vaccines.

So there you have it, a clear indication that the BBC is fully supportive of the conventional medical establishment, in everything it does and says, supportive to the extent that it will not even discuss health issues in a way that is fair to the growing number of people who have concerns about the damage done to our health by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. If anyone wants to know what conventional medicine thinks, just tune into the BBC.!If anyone wants to hear a balanced debate, one in which the opposing views of an important and growing number of people are represented, we have to look outside our 'public service' broadcaster, and certainly look outside our mainstream media, financed as it is by the pharmaceutical companies. They no longer tell us the whole truth.

There is a bigger problem here. Robinson talked about 'trust' in relation to convincing patients to accept vaccines. Yet surely trust arises from honesty, from fairness in how issues are covered, from informed discussions that involve both sides of an argument. The conventional medical establishment has been proven to be, time and time again, dishonest if not fraudulent, not least in the vaccine-autism controversy. Yet by attaching itself so firmly to conventional medicine the BBC is now associating with their dishonesty and fraud. It is presenting partial, biased news about health. As a result, I no longer believe anything the BBC says about health issues. Lots of my friends and colleagues feel the same way.

And if the BBC cannot tell the truth, or the whole truth about health issues, can it tell the truth about politics, about economics, and about other social issues.

BBC News refuses to report on MMR vaccine - Autism link

Any link between the MMR vaccine and the raging epidemic of Autism has to be a matter of serious concern, not least for parents who have to decide whether their children should have the vaccination. When a former Chief Scientific Officer makes these comments, it surely becomes a matter for national, indeed international concern.

• that there has been "utterly inexplicable complacency" over the MMR vaccine,
• that there are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere, who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves,
• that if it is proven that the vaccine causes autism "the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history".
• that he has seen a "steady accumulation of evidence" from around the world that the MMR vaccine is causing brain damage, and the parents had a right to see the thousands of documents in had seen over the years pointing to this."
• that he has had concerns about the MMR vaccine since 2001, stating that safety trials prior to the vaccine's introduction in Britain were inadequate,
• when he points to the "explosive worldwide increase in regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease in children", and to the growing scientific understanding of autism-related bowel disease, which have convinced him that the MMR vaccine may be to blame.
• that "clinical and scientific data is steadily accumulating that the live measles virus in MMR can cause brain, gut and immune system damage in a subset of vulnerable children."

These are just some of the statements made by Dr Peter Fletcher, formerly Chief Scientific Officer at the UK's Department of Health (see Daily Mail Online article, published 29th March 2016). I wrote about his comments in more detail in my blog, MMR and Autism. "One of the greatest scandals in medical history".

Well, I can now confirm that BBC News does not believe that these comments are sufficiently newsworthy to comment on. When I wrote the above blog, I made a complaint to the BBC that they had not covered his story. They have not upheld my complaint. The story is not sufficiently current, unusual, or of public interest!

That is no really surprise. During the last 15 years, the BBC has been at the forefront of British journalism that has refused to look at the performance of conventional medicine, at the reasons for the epidemics of chronic disease (including autism), in the harm that can be cause by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Instead, it is happy to toe the line of the conventional medical establishment - that all is well with the health services that dominate our NHS, and that good health is obtainable within the pills and potions we are being offered. Conventional medicine, they are keen to tell us, in winning the battle against illness and disease.

Yet it is not just the denial of the BBC that is worrying. It is the fact that they are not prepared to investigate the concerns that exist about conventional medicine, and the damage it can cause to patients. Therefore, I asked the BBC whether it felt any responsibility to answer some of the questions raised by Dr Fletcher's statement, namely,

• "Why isn't the Government taking this massive public health problem more seriously?"
• Whether it is true that "no one in authority will even admit it's happening, let alone try to investigate the causes." 
• "Why the Government is not investigating it further".

Thie BBC's response to my complaint exactly mirrors a similar complaint I made to the BBC in September 2015 about their non-coverage the Dr Thompson affair, where there was an admission that research into the MMR-Autism link had been falsified in order to demonstrate that there was no link. Not even this interested the BBC!  But the story is covered fully in my blogs, "The MMR-Autism Controversy, and the dishonesty of Medical 'Science'", and "MMR Vaccine, Autism, and the silence and culpability of the Political, Medical and Media Establishment".

My purpose in making these complaints is not to change their attitude and approach to health matters. The BBC are no impartial, and they will not change until they are forced to change. They act as a spokesperson for the pharmaceutical industry, and will not question the government, NHS line.

The purpose of the complaints is to ensure that they are 'on record' as denying these links, and failing to investigate tor report on them. Millions of parents agree to vaccinate their children on the basis that they are safe. Their doctors tell them they are safe, the NHS tell them they are safe, and BBC News merely confirms they are safe through their disinterest, their failure to investigate, and their refusal to report.

In doing so they will become culpable of misinforming the public when the link is finally proven, and cannot be denied any more - which is surely coming closer with each new revelation, and with every child who becomes part of the autistic epidemic.

Then, BBC News will have to answer the real question. Why did you not report? Why did you not investigate? Why did you fail to inform the British public? Why did you not carry out your editorial guidelines about impartiality? Why did you fail to fulfil your statutory duties?

The unfortunate thing is we are uncertain how long we have to wait for this, how many parents will subject their children to dangerous vaccines, how much longer the BBC will continue to insist that we remain ignorant.

Unlike other parts of the mainstream media, the BBC has no shareholders, no links on their board with pharmaceutical companies (not that this should be an excuse for their silence). It is the licence payer who owns, and pays for the BBC. Most licence payers are, have been, or will become parents. And the BBC is not serving us well.

Big Pharma drugs cause Dementia, Alzheimers

In the journal American Medical Association, commonly used pharmaceutical drugs, used to treat a variety of illnesses, such as gastrointestinal condition like nausea, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhoea, diverticulitis, and ulcerative colitis; and respiratory disorders such as asthma, bronchitis, and COPD; as well as other conditions, such as cystitis, urethritis, prostatitis, insomnia and dizziness, were linked to higher dementia risk in elderly people.

Even the BBC reported the study today ( 27th January 2015) which, given their usual craven and submissive attitude towards the conventional medical establishment, is quite something. Yet, as usual, they play down the importance of this evidence for all of us.

First, there are many kinds and brands of Anticholinergic drugs, many of them readily on sale 'over-the-counter'. It has been estimated that about 50% of the USA population is taking at least one of these drugs. The figure for the UK is similar. This demonstrates the dangers that these drugs are to our mental health.

This list of anticholinergic drugs has been taken from the Wikipedia website (used here, but not always the best, or most accurate source of health information because of its connections with the conventional medical establishment).

Anti-Muscarinic Drugs. Atropine, Benztropine (Cogentin), Biperiden, Chlorpheniramine (Chlor-Trimeton), Dicyclomine (Dicycloverine), Dimenhydrinate (Dramamine), Diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Sominex, Advil PM, etc.), Doxylamine (Unisom), Glycopyrrolate (Robinul), Hydroxyzine (Atarax, Vistaril), Ipratropium (Atrovent), Orphenadrine, Oxitropium (Oxivent), Oxybutynin (Ditropan, Driptane, Lyrinel XL), Tolterodine (Detrol, Detrusitol), Tiotropium (Spiriva), Trihexyphenidyl, Scopolamine, Solifenacin, Tropicamide.

Anti-Nicotinic Drugs. Bupropion (Zyban, Wellbutrin), Ganglion blockers; Dextromethorphan, (Cough suppressant and ganglion blocker), Doxacurium (Nondeplorizing skeletal muscular relaxant), Hexamethonium, (Ganglion blocker), Mecamylamine, (Ganglion blocker and occasional smoking cessation aid), Tubocurarine, (Nondepolarizing skeletal muscular relaxant).

The Wikipedia article states that the anticholinergic drugs with the greatest effect, and taken frequently by older people, were:

• Anti-depressants such as Amitriptyline, Imipramine and Clomipramine
• Tranquilisers such as Chlorpromazine and Trifluoperazine
• Bladder medication such as Oxybutynin
• Antihistamines such as Chlorphenamine. 

The second reason why they underplay this information is that it has been available to us for a very long time, but the BBC, and the mainstream media generally, have not little or no attention to it before. Do an internet search on 'Anticholinergic drugs' and 'dementia' and you will see that the link has been known for many years, and no-one has bothered to tell us about it before. But this article, in the British Medical Journal (332: 455 – 459) was published in February 2006, nine years ago. It refers to research that says doctors should be aware that anticholinergic drugs can cause confusion, memory loss and disorientation. Karen Ritchie, the author of the article, told Reuters (London) that:

          "A large number of elderly people are taking medications that can mimic early dementia and are likely to be classed as having early dementia. A very large number of people with so-called early dementia have these effects due to drug consumption. The drugs they are taking are very common - they include things like antihistamines”

          "What we showed is that many of the people who are classified in this way have it due to the medication they are taking, and not because they have early Alzheimer's disease".

          "The drugs they are taking are very common they include things like antihistamines"

No wonder there has been an epidemic of Dementia and Alzheiemer's disease in recent decades. It has little to do with 'an ageing population', and much to do with the drugs the conventional medical establishment has been giving us for a very long time, and our media, who have stood passively to one side and allowed them to do so.

So in their article, the BBC still feels able to tell us that "Experts say people should not panic or stop taking their medicines". Who are these experts? They are, of course, the only experts the BBC ever consults over health matters - the very people who have been giving us these drugs over the years, without telling us about these disease-inducing-effects (D.I.E.s), and perhaps reluctant to admit how serious their error has been.

Actually, there appears to be no pharmaceutical drug that is sufficiently safe for us to risk taking.

There appears to be no Big Pharma drug that the conventional medical establishment will every warn us about, until it has done such untold harm that they can no longer continue withholding the truth further.

And, our mainstream media, including the 'public broadcaster' the BBC, seem willing to continue to do nothing that might bring to us the evidence that a variety of illnesses and diseases are being caused by conventional medicine.

Autism, the MMR Vaccine, and Media Censorship

The Conventional Medical Establishment has been lying about the link between the MMR Vaccine and the epidemic rise of Autism, and has been doing so for at least 10 years. What is now clear is that there is a link. And the evidence has been suppressed. A major fraud has been perpetrated on the public throughout the world.

• The news is all over the internet
• Yet the news is no-where to be seen in the conventional, mainstream media!

I am not going to repeat the news here. Basically, a leading scientist Dr William Thompson, working within the CDC (US Centers for Diseasse Control and Prevention) has revealed that the organisation suppressed evidence of the connection between the MMR vaccine and Autism, and instead published 'scientific' evidence that there was no such link. This is what he said.

          “I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.” In other words, it confirmed the serious omission highlighted by Hooker.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rest of the statement reads like something written by lawyers on behalf of a man afraid of professional reprisals. 

The details of this revelation can be read elsewhere, and here are just a few of the reports that have appeared on the internet during the last 2 weeks (since 27th August 2014).

• “Statement of William W. Thompson, Ph.D., Regarding the 2004 Article Examining the Possibility of a Relationship Between MMR Vaccine and Autism” August 27, 2014 Press Release
• Agency hides data that reveals that the MMR vaccines causes Autism
• Whistleblowing CDC senior scientist goes public as new evidence is suppressed
• CDC scientific fraud: an update on Dr. Poul Thorsen who authored fraudulent study 'disproving' vaccine-autism connection and stole millions of dollars
• Moms of autistic, vaccine-damaged children mount wave of online protest against CDC research fraud.
• CDC Scientist Apology to Andrew Wakefield About MMR Causing Autism – Journalist Celia Farber Interviewed On Breaking This Story – Robert Scott Bell Radio Show

And there are, of course, many many more such articles, all discussing the enormity of this massive cover-up by the conventional medical establishment, led of course by the powerful Big Pharma corporations.

The mainstream conventional media that is ignoring this huge story includes the BBC news service. Unlike other news services the BBC is not owned and controlled by Big Corp. Nor is it dependent on the advertising of Big Pharma, and related industries. The BBC is a public broadcaster, paid for by licence payers, who are also, incidentally, patients of the National Health Service (NHS). Therefore, its culpability is censoring this information is more serious.

The BBC hase a duty and a responsibility to report health matters, especially when a vaccine, given to the vast majority of our young children, is causing Autism, and destroying the lives of thousands of children and families.

And their failure to report on this matter (some two weeks after the revelation, at the time of writing), indicates that the BBC are not only implicated in the cover-up, but are, at least in part, responsible for the thousands of children who have contracted Autism, via the MMR vaccine, during the last 10 years. Their silence seems to indicate that:

• fabricating medical research evidence is not a news event worthy of reporting.
• a major vaccine that has been given to our children since the early 1970's, and which is causing a major life-long health issue for increasing numbers of children, is not a news event worthy of reporting.
• the anger of parents, whose children have been diagnosed with Autism, is not a news event worthy of reporting.
• the BBC's ongoing and continuous libel against Dr Andrew Wakefield, is not something the BBC feels obliged to offer an apology.

And so the enormity of the cover-up by the BBC, and the rest of the mainstream media, goes on!

What should we do about it?  We must ask the BBC one important question. 

Why are you failing to report this important news?

And this is what I am asking everyone to do, right now if possible. Write to BBC News, and ask them this question. If necessary, make a complaint to the BBC about their censorship of important medical news. The simplest way of doing this is to use this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/20039682

From this page you can either make a comment, and if you wish refer to this blog, asking why this news has not been published, why it has effectively been censored. And you can also go quickly to the complaints page too, if this is necessary.

Moreover, the BBC is currently renegotiating its Charter, so it is certainly appropriate to write to your MP, asking them to question why the BBC, and indeed the NHS Establishment, and the Government, have not seen fit to comment on these events.

Aspirin and the Media (BBC News)

Once again this morning (6th August 2014) I awoke to more ‘good news’ from the conventional medical establishment, forwarded by their most trusted supporter - BBC News! We were all told that another study (no doubt funded by Big Pharma) has shown that regular Aspirin was good for our health!

This blog has regularly reported on the Media’s failure to inform the public (their readers, listeners, viewers) of the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs. Yet whilst most media is dependent on advertising revenues (of which Big Pharma, and related industries are a major source), and so unlikely to ‘bite the hand’ of their main supporter), the BBC is a public broadcaster, funded by the licence payers. It should not be beholden to the drug companies in the way it seems to be. It should be able to provide us with news that does not focus on ‘good news’ and ignores ‘bad’ news. 

BBC News should be providing the public with a balanced and unbiased view on health issues - but is routinely failing to do so.

The BBC does know that Aspirin is not the ‘wonder drug’ that it so often tells us it is. In the past they have published articles stating the problems associated with Aspirin, and indeed other painkillers.

‘Routine Aspirin may cause harm’ (9 January 2012).

‘Routine Aspirin benefits queried’ (28 May 2009).

Even as recently as June this year the BBC published this article.

‘Aspirin not best for preventing heart disease (18th June 2014).

Yet the BBC does not focus on these problems. And when they do discuss them they go to the only people they consider to be ‘experts’ - conventional medical practitioners - the people who are giving us pharmaceutical drugs and so cannot be expected to question their use, or their value.

Instead, the BBC parrots, usually without question, the ‘good news’ about Aspirin. This morning the feature did mention gasto-intestinal bleeding (but does not mention that this can cause death) - but this is not the only major problem that Aspirin, and other similar NSAID painkillers represent to our health.

‘Painkillers cause life-threatening kidney damage in children’

‘Just-in-case Aspirin may do as much harm as good, say researchers’

‘NSAID painkillers found to deplete vitamin B-6 levels’

‘Soluble painkillers increase high blood pressure risk seven-fold’

‘Patients with atrial fibrillation ‘at risk’ from outdated Aspirin prescribing practice’

If the BBC were aware, or if they were prepared to feature anything about conventional health which was not ‘good’ news, they might be discussing the major problem that painkilling drugs now present to the conventional medical establishment. Doctors are fully aware that they are rapidly losing their battle against pain, as all their painkillers are now deeply implicated in causing serious disease, dependency and death. Painkillers are known to be extremely harmful to our health. What is more, if the BBC is not aware of this, are doctors are! Our doctors are debating this very the problem amongst themselves, although not, of course, with patients!

But as with the failure of Antibiotic drugs, the failure of Painkilling drugs is not being debated my our media, and certainly not by the BBC!

Patients are being left in the dark. The government does not inform us because of Big Pharma investment in our economy. The NHS does not inform us because they are dominated by Big Pharma, and Big Pharma interests. Our doctors do not inform us because they would be castigated and probably struck off if they dared break ranks.

Our mainstream media does not tell us because they are dependent on their advertisers.

BBC News does not tell us because ………??

The Diabetes Epidemic. What the Media does not tell us!

Given that BBC News are reporting that the current epidemic of Diabetes threatens to bankrupt the NHS, here is what the BBC, and the rest of the mainstream media, is steadfastly refusing to tell you! Lots of Big Pharma drugs cause diabetes!

The BBC reported (28th September 2006) that the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has increased by over 100,000 in the previous year, and that its prevalence had jumped from 3.3% to 3.6%, or from 1,766,000 to over 1,890,999 in just one year. These figures were taken from the Government's Information Centre. 

In the same article, Douglas Smallwood (Diabetes UK) said that 

      "up to 750,000 people have diabetes and are not aware of it. This means that thousands of people are going about their daily lives unaware they have a condition that reduces their life expectancy".

Another BBC News report, 16th March 2007, said that the number of under-fives with diabetes had increased 5-fold, and affected one child in every 1,000 in 2004. The number of under-15's with diabetes had almost doubled during the study, which focused on 2.6 million people in the Oxford region between 1985 and 2004. The charity Diabetes UK said that the trend applied to the whole of the UK, as other studies had revealed similar rises. Professor Polly Bingley, who led the study, said the rate of childhood diabetes was increasing all over Europe , particularly in the very young. She said that these increases were too steep to be put down to genetic factors alone, and blamed 'changes in our environment', 'being exposed to something new', or 'reduced exposure to something that was previously controlling our immune responses'.

The problem is now getting so big, it is 'threatening to overwhelm the NHS' (The Independent, and other papers, 24th February 2009). This article said that the number of people newly diagnosed with diabetes has more than doubled (from 83,000 in 2006, to 167,000 in 2008, and that more than 2.2 million people in Britain now suffer from the adult-onset type of the disease.

Although diet and lifestyle factors are an important contributory factor in this epidemic, NHS-ConMed drugs are also implicated. WDDTY March 2007 (reporting the Lancet 2007; 369:201-7) said that "it's been suspected for nearly 50 years that antihypertensive drugs provoke diabetes because they lower a patient's glucose tolerance levels". But a definitive statement has been hard to come by as many patients with raised blood pressure are simply more likely to develop diabetes in any event. But it says that researchers from Rush Medical College in Chicago arrived at these conclusion after re-examining 22 clinical trials involving more than 143,000 patients who did not have diabetes when they started taking an antihypertensive drug to control their blood pressure.

In a story published in the New York Times (17 December 2006), Yahoo News (17 December 17 2006) and Consumer Affairs (18 December 2006) evidence had been obtained by an attorney representing patients in a lawsuit suggested that Eli Lilly covered up concerns about its schizophrenia drug Zyprexa. Although the company denies this, the documents suggest that the company withheld important information about the drug's links to obesity and increased blood sugar levels for the 10 years it was being marketed. The drug is implicated in causing diabetes.

The British Heart Foundation Statistics website, in 2010 outlined the following statistics:

    * Over 4% of men, and 3% of women in England have been diagnosed with diabetes.

     *The estimate that there are just under 1.9 million adults with diagnosed diabetes in the USA.

     * It says that the Health Survey for England found that not all diabetes is diagnosed, and that 3% of men, and 0.7% of women aged 35 and over have undiagnosed diabetes. As a result, they estimate that around 2.5 million adults in the UK have diabetes.

     * In 2001, just under 7,000 deaths due to diabetes were officially recorded in the UK. This, they say, is likely to be a huge underestimate because other diseases caused by diabetes (such as cardiovascular disease) are normally given as the cause of death.

      * They say a better estimate is found in the World Health Organization's 'Global Burden of Disease Project'  (Murray CJL, Lopex A (1996) The Global Burden of Disease. WHO: Geneva) which suggests that in countries like the UK there are about five times as many deaths indirectly attributable to diabetes as directly attributable. This would mean that there are about 35,000 deaths a year in the UK attributable to diabetes - or about 1 in 20 of all deaths.

So what has caused the epidemic of diabetes? No doubt there are many factors, including diet and obesity. But Conventional Medical drugs are also implicated, including Beta Blocker drugs, and diuretics.

When will our news media begin putting the spotlight on pharmaceutical drugs? They know that they cause 'side effects'. So why do they not investigate when the 'medicines' we are being given to make us healthy are actually causing these epidemics of chronic disease?

For more information about diabetes and pharmaceutical drugs, click on this link.

BBC News highlights its own inadequacies in health reporting. Statin Drugs.

The mainstream media does not report the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, and this includes BBC News, a public service broadcaster that has repeatedly refuses to inform its viewers and listeners of the harm Big Pharma drugs can cause.

It was therefore a surprise to hear this morning (11th June 2014) that the Today programme reported that certain senior doctors have asked NICE to re-look at its advice to prescribe Statin drugs to healthy people. Perhaps they did not realise that they were giving an opportunity for these doctors to state that Statin drugs cause serious adverse reactions, including kidney and liver damage, muscle damage, and diabetes (dementia was not mentioned).

The BBC, and most of the mainstream media, have never reported these disease-causing-effects of Statin drugs before - and the question needs to be asked - Why not?

(Incidentally, the 'epidemic' rise of diabetes was featured by the Today programme the previous day, 10th June 2014. No connection was made to this, or the fact that many conventional drugs are known to cause diabetes).

What astute listeners would  have realised is that BBC News have never announced these adverse reactions, and have always been happy to parrot the conventional medical establishment's view that these drugs were 'entirely safe', and that 'everyone should take them'.

The report also demonstrated that NICE make their recommendations without access to all the evidence known to Big Pharma companies about the adverse reactions of drugs. 

John Humphries seemed genuinely surprised about this 'revelation'. Perhaps we should ask where he has been during the last ten years and more!

It also seemed to come as a surprise that NICE was dominated by people who had close links with Big Pharma companies.

For a moment I thought that the BBC had changed their policy on health issues - a sudden conversion to open and honest and impartial reporting. However, it is more likely that they stumbled on this evidence. Whether they pursue such concerns in future remains to be seen. But by past performance, they will continue to believe everything the conventional medical establishment tells them, and assume that the only people who know anything about health are conventionally trained doctors.

Patients are badly served by the BBC, and by the mainstream media generally. This is one of the main reasons for this, and similar blogs - to inform people about the dangers of conventional medicine - to inform people that the NHS, NICE, the MHRC, et al, are part of a monopoly that is causing harm to our health.

BBC News Attacks Homeopathy Again

The BBC (and indeed most of the mainstream media) hates Homeopathy, in much the same way that it loves, and indeed, does all it can, to promote conventional medicine, and support the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies. The BBV, our public broadcaster, takes every opportunity to attack Homeopathy and Homeopaths, and in doing so, forgets entirely about its Editorial Guidelines which focus on 'Impartiality'.

The latest attack comes from BBC South West, and its "Inside Out" programme, which last night (14th January 2013) featured another attack on Homeopathy. You can watch it here. Or read about it here. However, in truth, you could save yourself time - it is the usual BBC News bias and bile, easily and simply described here. This programme follows an almost identical pattern to the notorious 'Newsnight' programme which gratuitously attacked Homeopathy in January 2011.

1. Underlying BBC's anti-Homeopathy programmes is the assumption that conventional medical vaccines (and drugs) are the treatments we should all be having (this time for Pertussin, or Whooping Cough). And if we do not avail ourselves of these treatments, there is a problem for the BBC to address. We are either foolish, or misguided. The MP for Totnes, Dr Sarah Wollaston, who figures in this programme, is a well-known and vocal opponent of Homeopathy (and supporter of drug-based medicine), who decries the fact that only 7 out of 10 children in her Devon constituency have been vaccinated against Pertussin. The DTP vaccine is, of course, given routinely to babies just a few months old - and parents have to 'opt out' to prevent their children having the injection. It is not a matter of parents 'forgetting' to get their children vaccinated!

The BBC's commitment to drug-based conventional medicine appears to be total. Their health and science correspondents appear to take the 'Sense About Science' approach to the Health Debate. And as a result, as far as the BBC is concerned, there is no Health Debate. The BBC's commitment to Big Pharma drugs can be seen in every news bulletin which presents them as 'magic bullets', and refuses to discuss their 'side-effects', 'adverse-reactions', or disease-inducing-effects (DIEs).

2. The programme completely ignores the obvious question that most good journalists would, at some point, want to ask - why are so many parents actively refusing to allow their children to have the DPT vaccination.

The BBC never moves beyond the assumption that such people are foolish, or badly informed, and that have no good or justifiable reason for doing so. The BBC never seems to want to investigate why people are asking Homeopaths for an alternative to something the NHS gives to them 'free'. What is their motivation? It is clear that the BBC does not want to ask them the question.

3. The programme ignores the 'good reasons' for refusing the DPT vaccine - that there are serious questions about both its effectiveness, and its safety for our children. These are not the quirky and unfounded prejudices of silly people. The concerns arise from solid evidence; from large numbers of parents who have children who were normal before vaccination, and sick afterwards; and from research evidence that is routinely ignored by the BBC.

• Evidence from USA that a deadly new pertussis strain is linked with whooping cough vaccine
• Outbreaks Proof That Whooping Cough Vaccines Don’t Work | International Medical Council on Vaccination.
• Whooping cough strain 'breaking through' vaccines - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
• Whooping Cough Vaccine – Doesn’t Work – GSK Says “We Never Bothered to Check”. Child Health Safety.
• Vaccine failure admitted: Whooping cough outbreaks higher among children already vaccinated.

It is this kind of evidence that persuade parents to seek alternative treatment, and to refuse conventional vaccinations. They are right in seeking safer and more effective treatments. They do not do so for any other reason than they feel that such vaccines are dangerous, and they no longer trust what the Conventional Medical Establishment, supported by the media, tells them. This biased BBC programme merely reinforces this view.

4. The programme makes the implicit assumption that the recent increase in the number of serious Pertussin cases, including a handful of deaths, are the result of children who have not received the DPT vaccine.

The ability of BBC News to make this assumption depends on their ability, and determination to ignore the growing evidence that various recent epidemics have affected vaccinated rather than unvaccinated children. Here are a few sources, there are many others, including a recent Mumps outbreak in the USA.

• Recent Evidence Shows Vaccinated Kids Account For 90% of Whooping Cough cases.
• Worst whooping cough outbreak in over 50 years happening among the fully vaccinated.
• Whooping Cough Epidemic Caused by Virulent New Pertussis Strain—And It’s the Result of Vaccine.
• Whooping Cough Outbreaks in Vaxed Children More and More Frequent.
• Whooping Cough May Spread Through Vaccinated Populations.

It is just not true that vaccinated children are safer than non-vaccinated children. Indeed, it is quite the reverse - regardless of what the BBC believes.

5. The programme, and particularly the presenter Sam Smith (who does not at any stage seek to adopt a stance of impartiality), makes repeated statements about Homeopathy - that there is no evidence supporting Homeopathy, that remedies have 'no active ingredients' so cannot possibly work.

This is, of course, the language and the attitudes of the Conventional Medical Establishment, but expressed here by a BBC presenter who appears to want to present herself as a concerned and impartial investigator.

It is difficult to determine whether the BBC takes this approach because it is ignorant of the centuries-old experience of Homeopathy, or the large and growing body of scientific studies that show that Homeopathy is an effective medical therapy, whose action is much more than just 'placebo'. If anyone wishes to know about the effectiveness of homeopathy, they just have to look at the evidence, available on the internet to everyone (although not the BBC apparently). Here are few few links to the treatment of Whooping Cough with Homeopathy/

• Homeopathy Makes a Real Difference in Whooping Cough | NAB Communities
• Homeopathy dramatically more effective at preventing and treating whooping cough than allopathic medicine
• A doctor makes the case for the Homeopathic treatment of Whooping Cough

Positive RCT evidence for the effectiveness of Homeopathy in 'upper-respiratory' complaints can be found in these two sources:

Bornhöft G, Wolf U, Ammon K, et al. Effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of homeopathy in general practice – summarized health technology assessment. Forschende Komplementärmedizin, 2006; 13 Suppl 2: 19–29.

Bellavite P, Ortolani R, Pontarollo F, et al. Immunology and homeopathy. 4. Clinical studies – Part 1. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine: eCAM, 2006; 3: 293–301.

The repeated recitation of the 'their is no evidence for Homeopathy' mantra will no longer prevail for anyone who takes a proper interest in health, or who genuinely looks at the evidence, which is available for anyone who wants to see it. It would appear, however, that this is not good enough for Sam Smith, and the BBC. Or is it just that the conventional medical mantras are easier to understand.

6. To support the BBC's hypothesis, that there is 'no evidence' for Homeopathy, the programme called on 'experts', and several times during this 10 minute programme, Sam Smith called on 'experts' who were entirely from the Conventional Medical Establishment. What is their view of Homeopathy? Well, surprise, surprise, they didn't think it works, and it can be dangerous. So what did experts on Homeopathy say? They had no real say in the programme! And what they are quoted as saying was presented in a confusing and contradictory way, by a presenter who clearly misunderstood, or perhaps did not want to understand, what she was being told. Perhaps this not surprising in a programme that took no time, and made to effort, to understand Homeopathy, and how it works.

Edzard Ernst, as usual, was featured in the programme, a long-time opponent of Homeopathy, but a 'Professor of Complementary Medicine' at a University faculty funded largely by Big Pharma companies.

And Sam Smith held in her hand a letter from 'The Nightingale Collaboration', an off-shoot of 'Sense about Science', itself a 'charity' funded largely by Big Pharma companies. She failed to mention the association with Big Pharma, naturally!

It is strange, but typical, that the BBC believes it can gets expert information on homeopathic treatment by asking non-Homeopaths, indeed, asking people who are well known to be antagonistic to Homeopathy

The Homeopathic Community no longer expects fairness or impartiality from the BBC. Several Homeopaths (and Homeopathic Patients) complained to the BBC about their 2011 Newsnight programme, and the response to the complaint, as much as the programme itself, showed clearly that the BBC does not act impartially or fairly in matters related to health.

This raises an important question about the BBC. If this public broadcaster reports in this partial and unfair way in matters relating to health, how can anyone be sure that it is reporting impartially and fairly in other areas of public concern.

Footnote
Since this time, the BBC has continued its biased and partial reporting of homeopathy, and its unquestioning support for conventional medicine, and the pharmaceutical industry generally. To read more of the BBC breaking its own editorial guidelines, type in "BBC" at the top of this page.

BBC News supports drug taking (Ritalin) to enhance work performance!

BBC News appears to support drug taking! I have said before that the BBC rarely report evidence of the harm and damage Pharmaceutical drugs do to patients, or news about the fraud and corruption of the Big Pharma companies. I have also commented, many times, on their willingness to report the 'medical breakthroughs' reported to them by the Conventional Medical Establishment, without questioning them about the safety of these so-called 'breakthroughs' - which never seem to materialise!

Listening to BBC News would make it appear that all was well with the conventional medical world, and that all we have to do, as patients is to 'keep on taking the pills'.

But this morning, BBC News sank to new depths. In their flagship Radio 4 'Today' programme they discussed a wonderful idea. We could all be taking drugs in order to increase our mental and intellectual performance at work. Employers, and even employees, might even feel it necessary to take these drugs.

Lance Armstrong has just been stripped of 7 Tour de France victories because he took drugs to 'enhance' his performance. Yet, according to the BBC Today programme, it is okay to take so-called 'Mind Enhancing' drugs to improve our performance at work!

And just what drugs does BBC News suggest we should be taking to assist our work performance? The suggestion was ADHD drugs, including Ritalin.

Now, the question arises, is BBC News just ignorant about the disease-inducing-effects (DIEs) of Ritalin? Or are they taking their role as 'sales representative' for the Big Pharma industry more seriously than I have previously thought? Either way, it is unacceptable for a public service broadcaster.

So here is something I have published about Ritalin - in the vain hope, perhaps, that someone at BBC News will bother to read it, and understand that people are suffering out here because too many people are taking this drug that appears to have the support of the BBC.

          "Ritalin is an amphetamine drug used unsparingly for children with ADHD. But other costly and long-acting medications Concerta, Strattera, and Adderral and also used. Some statistics about the rise in the use of this and similar drugs to treat hyperactivity in children shows the soaring sales figures 

     * In the USA between 1993 and 2003, prescriptions of ADHD medications, including Ritalin, almost tripled (274%), with one in 25 children and adolescents in the USA now taking drugs for the condition

     * Global spending on ADHD drugs increased nine-fold, with 83% occurring in the USA

     * In the UK, use of the drugs grew by 12.3% between 1999 and 2003 and expenditure grew by 30.8%. Monthly prescriptions for Ritalin increased from just 4000 in 1994 to 359,000 in 2004. 

In 2000, NICE estimated there are around 400,000 under 16-year olds with ADHD in England and Wales. Richard Scheffler, an expert in health economics and public policy, who led the study said that "ADHD could become the leading childhood disorder treated with medications across the globe. We can expect that the already burgeoning global costs for medication treatment for ADHD will rise even more sharply over the next decade"

A 'What Doctor's Don't Tell You' (WDDTY) report dated 18^th October 2007 stated that children as young as three were being given Ritalin, and similar powerful drugs to treat ADHD – even though they are not licensed for use with small children, and there had been no studies to see how safe the drug is in with age group. The report said that early studies suggested around a third of small children given Ritalin or similar drugs have had such a bad reaction that treatment had to be stopped.  The reactions included sleeplessness, irritability, repetitive behaviour or thoughts, and appetite loss. The drugs were also found to affect the child’s growth.  Children on an ADHD drug were around 20% shorter, and 55% lighter, for their age. The source was the Journal of the American Medical Association, 2007; 298: 1747-9).

Indeed, the disease-inducing effects of these drugs are staggering. In another WDDTY report dated February 2005, the following side-effects were listed, indicating how damaging the drugs can be to young children who are probably already suffering from a condition created by other Big Pharma drugs.

Cardiovascular

* Rapid heart beat (palpitations, tachycardia)
* High blood pressure (hypertension)
* Unusual heart rhythm (arrythmia)
* Heart attack (cardiac arrest)

Central Nervous System

* Altered mental status (psychosis)
* Hallucinations
* Depression or excitement
* Convulsions / seizures (excessive brain stimulation)
* Drowsiness or "dopey" feeling
* Confusion
* Lack of sleep (insomnia)
* Agitation, irritation, anxiety, nervousness
* Hostility
* Unhappiness (Dysphoria)
* Impaired mental abilities (cognitive impairment on tests)
* Jerky movements (Dyskinesias, tics, Tourette's syndrome)
* Nervous habits (such as picking at skin or pulling hair)
* Compulsive behaviour
* Depression/over-sensitivity
* Decreased social interest
* Zombie-like behaviour

Gastrointestinal

* Eating disorders (anorexia)
* Nausea
* Vomiting
* Stomach ache, cramps
* dry mouth
* constipation
* Abnormal liver function tests

Endocrine/Metabolic

* Growth problems (pituitary dysfunction)
* Weight loss

Other

* Blurred vision
* Headache
* Dizziness
* Rash/conjunctivitis/hives
* Hair loss
* Inflammation of the skin (dermatitis)
* Blood disorders (anorexia, leukoplacia)
* Involuntary discharge of urine (enuresis)
* Fever
* Joint pain
* Unusual sweating

Withdrawal and Rebound

* Sleep problems (insomnia)
* Evening crash
* Depression
* Over-activity and irritability
* Worsening of ADHD-like symptoms

So this is the drug that BBC News so casually thought might be capable of enhancing our work performance this morning. The Today programme made no mention whatsoever that it could cause innumerable health problems as a 'side-effect'. So perhaps we should all be avoiding listening or watching BBC News programmes? Or perhaps they should not be broadcast without a health warning - that listening to this programme could seriously damage our health!