Phyllocontin (aminophylline). Pharmaceutical drugs are no longer "banned" when they cause patient harm; they are "discontinued"!

When a pharmaceutical drug has been prescribed for years/decades but then found to be dangerous they were once "banned"; or at least "withdrawn. There have been a very long history of such harmful pharmaceutical drugs ending up in this way, in the dustbin of history. Now, Phyllocontin, a drug routinely used for the treatment of bronchospasm in Asthma and COPD, can be added to this long and ever-growing list. 

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this new ban is that Phyllocontin (aminophylline) has been around since at least 1974, so has presumably been harming patients for some 50 years now. Seemingly it takes this long for conventional medicine to understand the dangers. They are slow learners!

The drug is also known as Euphyllin, Truphylline, and Minomal so these are dangerous too. And although the drug is now banned in the UK it will still be considered 'safe', or safe enough to be prescribed, in other parts of the world. So patient, beware.

Yet the "banning" of a drug is never good publicity for pharmaceutical drug companies, so the first 'progression' in how these drugs were removed from the market was to "withdraw" them before the regulator moved to ban it. Withdrawal could be done without the level of publicity a ban entailed; that is, without patients, some of whom will have been seriously harmed, getting to know there was a problem. Now, the latest banned drug is not withdrawn, it is "discontinued". Drug companies are masters at obfuscation!

This is how MIMS describes this latest pharmaceutical drugs to be (effectively) banned (15 February 2021). The drug might be dangerous but the ban, or withdrawal, will not be imposed until 'remaining supplies' are exhausted. A few more months of patient harm is apparently acceptable. But no new prescription should be made, and in this sentence is some glimmer of the seriousness of the problem with this drug.

        "Patients currently prescribed Phyllocontin will need to be contacted promptly to allow time to plan for treatment reviews and switching. Prescribers should seek support from specialists for patients with unstable asthma, and children should be referred to secondary or tertiary care to decide on further management."

So, what harm does Phyllocontin (aminophylline) do? This is not a secret. The adverse affects are listed here, and no doubt some of them are listed in the Patient Information Leaflet, which probably have gone mostly unread and disposed of in the bin for 50+ years. They include chest pain, irregular heartbeat, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, seizures, disorientation, confusion (dementia?), and much more. Presumably so much more the drug companies could no longer protect the drug from being banned. So it has been quietly 'discontinued'.

But never fear. Doctors will now be expected to 'review' all their patients on this drug in order to ensure there is "an up-to-date plan" in place, and an alternative drug has been suggested. This is theophylline, Uniphyllin or Continus. So presumably these are safer drugs that do less harm to patients. Well, sadly not. The adverse affects of theophylline are listed here. And if you want to spend more time than I have in trying to spot any difference between the side effects of theophylline and phyllocontin, please do so?

It would seem that, as far as the patient is concerned

 it is out of the frying pan right into the fire!

More antibiotic drugs have been banned. They have been used since the 1960's! How many patients have been damaged by them? Do doctors know? Do they care? Have you been damaged by them?

Quinolone and Fluoroquinolone antibiotics have been suspended by the EMA (The European Drug's Agency). They were first introduced in the 1960's. In June 2018, after over 50 years, conventional medicine has discovered that they cause "disabling and potentially permanent side effects". On 16th November 2018, the EMA suspended them. Their findings will now be forwarded to the European Commission "which will issue a final legally binding decision applicable in all EU countries".

The machinations of the conventional medical establishment are long and convoluted. 

The suffering and patient harm they have caused are lengthy and enduring.

Yesterday patients were told that these drugs were safe.

Tomorrow they will be told that they are unsafe.

These antibiotic drugs are the latest of a long line of pharmaceutical drugs doctors have given to patients over the years - safe, wonder drugs - that have eventually had to be banned. Over the years I have constructed a long, but probably incomplete list of banned pharmaceutical drugs and published them in my ebook, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine". They are all drugs that have been

• 'scientifically' tested
• approved by drug regulators as safe and effective
• given to patients
• caused patient harm over many years
• and were all, rather belatedly, banned

Even so, not all fluoroquinolone antibiotics have been suspended - their use has just been restricted, and will no longer be used:

• to treat infections that might get better without treatment or are not severe (such as throat infections);
• to treat non-bacterial infections, e.g. non-bacterial (chronic) prostatitis;
• for preventing traveller’s diarrhoea or recurring lower urinary tract infections (urine infections that do not extend beyond the bladder);
• to treat mild or moderate bacterial infections unless other antibacterial medicines commonly recommended for these infections cannot be used.

And the EMA says that they should be used only "with special caution" in the elderly, patients with kidney disease and those who have had an organ transplantation because these patients are at a higher risk of tendon injury.

I suggest that patients, all patients, might want to take even greater precautions, and say NO, not only to these drugs, but to all pharmaceutical drugs. This situation demonstrates that the conventional medical establishment is prepared to continue prescribing drugs long after they are known to be dangerous for patients.

The side-effects website has said this about these antibiotics - long before this rather belated suspension.

               "The newer Quinolone Antibiotics are considered 'safe' in most studies.... But this can be deceiving and the incidence of problems are often MUCH higher than the industry-sponsored drug trials say. Quinolone antibiotics have an VERY DARK history, and many of the problems people experience are disabling, long-term effects- and even death from these 'safe' drugs."

They went on to make the point I have now been making for many years, emphasising that all the serious and dangerous side effects of these (and other) drugs, were found 'post-marketing'.

               "What this means that these reactions occur AFTER the drug is on the market and is being taken by YOU. What this says is that they KNOW that quinolone antibiotics are dangerous and have side effects that could be disabling or deadly and yet they keep developing new ones in the hope that THIS one won't have those problems."

They went on to say that Quinolone Antibiotics were too dangerous to use, something that European drug regulators are only now prepared to accept. They said that medical science have shown them to be safe enough for FDA approval. I have no information yet about whether the FDA believe they are still safe enough for Americans to take. At this very moment, in the USA, a doctor may be telling one of his patients.

               "Take these antibiotics. They have been proven to be safe. They won't hurt you"

And that is the way with conventional medicine. Doctors are prepared to give their patients anything, harmful as the drug might be. They might change their mind in 50 years time. They might not. But even if they do they will give you another drugs that medical science has proven to be 'entirely safe'.

Anyone for natural medical therapies which actually believe in "first do no harm"?

After 30 years, MHRA (reluctantly?) suspends use of HES drips!

HES drips, used to treat critically ill patients, and patients undergoing surgery, were suspended by the MHRA (Britain's drug regulator) on 27th June 2013.

The reason, we were told in an MRHA press release, was that 'the benefits no long outweighed the risks'.

HES (Hydroxyethal Starch) drips have been licensed for use since the 1980's, and in over 30 years, they are now known to have caused thousands, and probably hundred's of thousands of unnecessary deaths in British hospitals through renal, or kidney failure, and increased morbidity.

Some doctors have apparently been calling for a ban on these drips since the 1990's, but as so often when drugs, vaccines and other conventional medical treatments are questioned, nothing was done to protect patients by drug regulators, who task is - to protect patients!

It would seem that as far as the Conventional Medical Establishment is concerned, taking action to protect patients against dangerous drugs and vaccines appears to be a last, and final resort. It is not difficult to argue that it is probably easier for them to allow people to die rather than to admit that a treatment they have approved, and has been used routinely within the NHS for decades, has actually been killing people for many years - under their very nose!

Surprisingly, the BBC appears to have picked up this story. Usually, like the rest of the mainstream media in Britain, they complacently ignore such stories, and fail to investigate anything that is critical of the Conventional Medical Establishment. However, the Radio 4 programme, 'You and Yours' reported the ban on 19th August 2013, and it was dealt with in more detail on on the 'Face the Facts' programme on 21st August 2013. Two months after the ban, and 20+ years after initial concerns were being expressed, but at least the BBC has risen from its usual torpor and apparent indifference when it comes to patients being harmed by conventional drugs and vaccines.

Professor Ian Roberts, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was featured on this programme. Apparently, he had raised the subject in 1998, as he considered that there was not evidence of benefit "and a trend towards harm", (Interesting language)? He made the point that many millions of people have used this drip, and if just 2% were harmed, this meant that some 20,000 people per million would have suffered. Later in the programme, it was stated that 4 million people used the drip between 2008 and 2012 alone.

Before this time, two studies were released. One, a French study in 2001, pointed to the kidney damage the drips were causing. The second, a German study in 2008, point not only to renal failure, but to 'unnecessary deaths'.

These studies, as is so often happens, failed to lead to any reaction from the drug regulators.

Instead, the programme said, numerous studies suddenly appeared that 'played down the harm caused by this drips'. Again, this is how the 'evidence' of 'evidence based' medicine is so often undermined. Any suggestion that a profitable drug or vaccine is harmful, and 'positive' studies begin to appear that suggest otherwise, and these studies are often funded by the companies who are profiting from the drug.


As far as HES drips were concerned, Professor Joachim Boldt was apparently available to support the Pharmaceutical industry. Boldt, a German anesthesiologist, and professor at Giessen University, is now known to have falsified 'scientific' research papers that supported the use of this drug. He has been stripped of his professorship, and he is now under criminal investigation for the possible forgery of up to 90 research studies (Wikipedia).

It is quite remarkable how much fraud is associated with conventional medical drugs and vaccines, and this is just one more example of the mis-selling and bogus promotional activity that underlies so much conventional medicine. It dominates what the Department of Health, the NHS, and our local GP's tell us about the health treatment they have to offer us.

The three drug companies who manufacture the HES drip have apparently admitted that Professor Boldt was paid to speak at medical conferences. But they continue to deny that there is anything wrong with the drug, and challenge the new findings.

As they said to the BBC, the drip continues to be used in the USA, and elsewhere, where there are no such reports of harm!

So if you live outside Europe, beware!

This is how the pharmaceutical industry operation. They use junk science, cheque-book science - the science that allows them to produce, get a licence, and sell dangerous and lethal products for profit. And they do this all at the expense of patients, their health, and even their lives.

And as the programme intimated, has to be question marks raised about the regulation of conventional medical drugs. Why, after the studies of 2001 and 2008 was there no response, no insistence on a thorough investigation from either the European Drugs Agency, or the British MHRA? Why was the MHRA still approving new drugs of this type as recently as 2010.

Why are the drug regulatory agencies failing to do their job, to protect patients from harm?

Why is the Conventional Medical Establishment happy to continue peddling drugs and vaccines that are known to cause us harm?

Why are our doctors failing to comply with their Hippocratic Oath?

But, at least, congratulations to the BBC for doing at least one piece of honest and informative journalism on an important health issue.

Avandia: if it's harmful, you won't be told!

It is not just that Big Pharma drug's are harmful (if you want to see just how many drugs have been banned or withdrawn click here), it is that drug companies have apparently known that they are  harmful, and have not published that information.

It may sound incredulous, but it is apparently true! If you have difficulty believing it, have a look at:

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2010/07/16/glaxo_smithkline_hides_side_effects_of_its_drugs_health_supreme_newsgrabs_friday_16_july_2010.htm.