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!

Conventional Medical Treatment. Why is there growing dissatisfaction amongst patients?

People have had a love affair with pharmaceutical medicine for many years. We have been led to believe it is the route to good health. The UK's NHS has been a much loved institution since it was first established in 1948, and conventional medicine continues to dominate health provision in health provision all over the world, with constant demands for more funding. 

Yet is public approval now beginning to falter?

The approval of conventional, or pharmaceutical medicine has survived despite escalating levels of chronic disease over the years, and now running at epidemic levels. It has survived despite thousands of pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines, presented initially as 'entirely safe', and 'game changers' in the treatment of this, or that illness, being 'banned' or 'withdrawn' when they were found to cause patient harm. When the drug did not make patients better, regardless of being put on these unsafe drugs for their entire lifetime, pharmaceutical medicine has continued to remain popular.

Yet will conventional medicine survive after its abject failure to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic? Will more people start to realise that our love of affair with conventional medicine has been misplaced, that pharmaceutical medicine is of limited value, and a demonstrable record of failure? 

We have been told since 2020 that government policies on Covid-19 (in most countries of the world) have been based the best 'medical science' available. Yet an increasing number of people can now see that these policies, the policies advocated by conventional medicine, have been a disaster.

• The Virus: the Covid-19 virus was probably engineered in a research laboratory in Wuhan, China, and although this was initially denied, the suggestion is now more widely accepted, and evidence is accumulating.
• Masks: there has never been any science to support the wearing of masks as a protection against Covid-19; yet despite actually being told this in the early days of the pandemic, they were subsequently made compulsory.
• Lockdown: the failure of lockdown policies is demonstrable, as are its negative outcomes - on mental health, on child development and education, on jobs and livelihoods, on the economy, on personal liberty, and much else. Now (after more than two years) these failures are now being discussed.
• The Vaccines: the vaccines have clearly not worked, in the way we were told they would work. They have neither stopped the vaccinated contracting the virus, nor prevented the transmission of the virus. Moreover, the Covid-19 vaccines have caused more serious harm, and death to patients, than any other vaccine in the history of vaccinations.
  

Throughout the Covid-19 saga we have been urged to "save the NHS", as if the pandemic was a greater threat to the institution, and to the pharmaceutical drugs to which it is committed, than to patients! Actually, it probably was! In Britain we were urged to stand on the street, night after night, to applaud NHS staff, alongside rainbow and 'thank-you' signs to illustrate the reason for the applause. 

Now, there is a growing understanding that the fear and panic over the virus was largely induced by conventional medicine (with the unstinting support of government and the mainstream media), that the harm caused by the virus was grossly exaggerated, and that the Covid-19 virus has proven to be no more of a threat to us than any other seasonal influenza outbreak.

The applause often reminded me of the Soviet-styled clapping of political leaders, the engineered worship of a powerful (but a failing and increasingly absurd) political elite.

To an extent the applause was understandable. My issue is not with NHS staff, it is with the medicine to which the NHS is now totally committed. The staff were on the front life, they were responsible for for looking after very sick and dying patients, and the manufactured panic did seem genuine enough to most people at the time.

Yet there are now signs that confidence in conventional medicine is might now be changing. Public satisfaction with the NHS has fallen to the lowest levels for over 25 years. So what has caused the change?

The King's Fund has recently published "Public satisfaction with the NHS and social care in 2021: results from the British Social Attitudes survey". This has shown that overall satisfaction with the NHS fell to 36%, which they described as "an unprecedented 17 percentage point decrease on 2020". This was the lowest level of satisfaction recorded since 1997, when satisfaction was just 34%. More people (41%) were dissatisfied with the NHS than satisfied, and this dissatisfaction was spanned all ages, income groups, sexes and supporters of different political parties.

The reason for dissatisfaction with the NHS did not identify the failure of the medical system.The main reason people gave for being dissatisfied were waiting times for seeing a doctor, and for hospital appointments (65%), staff shortages (46%) and the long-held view that government did not spend enough on the NHS (40%). I suspect that more fundamental but unvoiced concerns have emerged over recent years.

I have heard much cynicism from erstwhile supporters of the NHS about the way Covid-19 was dealt with. There has certainly been a gap between (i) what we were told and (ii) what actually happened. For instance, when the vaccines were about to be introduced, in December 2020, we were told that they would save us, and return us back to normal life by February. Remember? The first single injection would improve the situation. Then we were asked to have a second dose. Then a booster. Then a second booster. And now we are being told that we will need to have boosters every 6 months for the foreseeable future, according to one UK government health agency.

With each injection, take up rates reduced. Fewer people were prepared to take more. This was probably because people realised the the Covid-19 vaccines were causing serious harm to patients. What other reason could there be? Even one manufacturer, Pfizer, knew about the harm their vaccine might cause. The public have not been told about this, by government, by doctors, or by the mainstream media. But when someone is damaged they think twice before getting a second, a third, and a fourth vaccine.

So there is little wonder that people are having increasing doubts about how 'scientific' conventional medicine is, and whether doctors and the NHS can be trusted. A rash of recent articles has outlined the new scepticism. The BMJ recently published an article entitled "The illusion of evidence-based medicine". The Daily Expose published an article entitled "Modern Medicine - a castle built on sand". CHD has published at article entitled "How politics corruption evidence-based medicine". And the Vaccine Reaction has published an article entitled "Trust in CDC waning".

Even the Spectator is moving into these more critical areas. The 'inescapable' conclusion of their article "The NHS is failing" is that when you compare the NHS to other similar health services in similar countries around the world the it does not merit our devotion.

            "While MPs compete to shout the loudest in their support of the UK’s health services (‘save our NHS!’), the British public has fallen out of love with it. More people are now dissatisfied with the NHS than are happy with it. This is true across all ages, income groups, sexes and voters of different political parties. Support for the NHS is now at the lowest level for a quarter of a century."

The Spectator article is written by Tim Knox, former director of the Centre for Policy Studies. He compared the NHS with the health provision in 19 other countries so it is basically a comparison of health service outcomes in other wealthy countries, all of which have a health service which is dominated by conventional/pharmaceutical medicine. It indicates that the NHS compares badly. So, for example, life expectancy in the UK is 17th out of these 19 comparable nations. 

            "Our cancer survival rates are shockingly low. We are the worst for strokes and heart attacks. We are one from bottom for preventing treatable diseases. We are third from bottom for infant mortality."

The article concludes that our health system is less successful than that of other nations, that in all comparisons used, the UK comes bottom of the league tables four times (more than any other country) and is in the bottom 3 nations for 8 out of the 16 measures.

Knox's article also makes the another important point, that the amount of money spent on conventional medicine makes little difference to patient outcomes. He looked at the American insurance based model as a possible alternative for the NHS, but found that although the USA spends considerably more money on conventional medicine than any other nation, patient outcomes were even worse.

            "If there is one country that clearly has a worse system than the UK, it is America. Extraordinarily low life expectancy, vast costs and often poor treatment means that it would be a crazy model to imitate. But that doesn’t mean we should discount an insurance model altogether. Plenty of European and western countries are able to effectively use such a model without the massive health failures we see in the US."

So criticism and dissatisfaction of conventional medical provision may be growing, but not to the point that the underlying cause of the failure of NHS medicine has been identified. 

The NHS is NOT failing because it is failing to use its resources as well as other comparable countries. Or because the insurance system, or some other type of organisational structure might be better that a tax-payer funded NHS service. There is a continued reluctance to identify what really underlies patient dissatisfaction - that the failure is the result of the pharmaceutical medical system that dominates the health service provided by the NHS, and health provision in most other countries.

Yet if patient dissatisfaction is increasing so rapidly it is difficult to see how the NHS can recover from a growing cynicism. Chronic disease, of all types, is on a steep rising trajectory. We are getting sicker, and conventional medicine is not making us better. Indeed, adverse drug reactions are making us more sick year by year. And for several decades now conventional medicine has failed to come up with any new treatments that are likely to overcome the ever-increasing levels of sickness and disease.

With waiting lists now at their highest ever levels, over 6 million people; and with projections that this could get far worse (as many as 14 million people suggested here) the cynicism is unlikely to improve.

Even the mainstream media is feeling obliged to publish details of this growing dissatisfaction with the NHS. What this means is that it will not be long before more and more people realise that it is conventional or pharmaceutical medicine that is failing. It is not funding, or the organisational structure, or the efficient use of resources. Then the rising dissatisfaction will be redirected, and is likely to increase even more. 

In the next few years we are heading rapidly towards medical chaos and breakdown.

 

Postscript May 2022. 

Patient satisfactions with doctors hits record low as face-to-face consultations become the exception.

Gender Dysphoria, Sexual Orientation and Pharmaceutical Drugs

Gender dysphoria can be an extremely distressing condition for those affected. It can lead to low self-esteem, becoming withdrawn or socially isolated, to depression and anxiety, and personal neglect. It is described by the UK's National Health Service as"

            ".... is a term that describes a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity. This sense of unease or dissatisfaction may be so intense it can lead to depression and anxiety and have a harmful impact on daily life."

It is certainly a relatively new condition. According to Wikipedia, it once had the diagnostic label of "gender identity disorder (GID), but was renamed in 2013 in order to remove the stigma associated with the term 'disorder'.

            "Gender identity disorder first appeared as a diagnosis in 1980, where it appeared under "psychosexual disorders" but the term was used only for the childhood diagnosis. Adolescents and adults received a diagnosis of transsexualism (homosexual, heterosexual, or asexual type)."

 

The controversial debate now happening around the condition makes the situation far worse. It is usually concerned with how trans people should be treated. Should their condition be recognised? Should children be treated for the condition, either to reverse or to confirm or support it? And should trans women be allowed to complete with women in sport? 

 

All these issues should be discussed, but if this is all we discuss the debate about gender dysphoria is both insufficient and inadequate - because it leaves out one crucially important question.

What is the cause? 

The NHS cannot answer this question, stating that "the exact cause of gender dysphoria is unclear". This is the general position of conventional medicine; and as regular readers of this blog, and my "Iatrogenic Disease" E-Book, will know that this statement always makes me suspicious that pharmaceutical drugs might be playing an important causative role.

Wikipedia confirms conventional medicine's 'non-explanation' saying that, "the specific causes of gender dysphoria remain unknown" but then suggests that "genetic factors play a role", and that gender identity "is thought to likely reflect a complex interplay of biological, environmental, and cultural factors". This suggestion succeeds only in making me even more suspicious of the role of drugs!

Gender dysphoria is a new condition and so cannot be genetic! A similar explanation is frequently used for the Autism epidemic, a condition unheard of until the 1940's. So where did these genes come from? Why have they suddenly appeared? Why does conventional medicine not explain?

There may, of course, be other factors at play that has brought trans issues to the fore, such as pollution, radiation, electro-smog, and much else. But what do we know about pharmaceutical drugs to suggest they might play a role? Actually, we know much more than we might imagine!

First, I have written on this subject before, in "Transgender. Sexual Identity. What role are pharmaceutical drugs playing in this? in January 2017 - over 5 years ago. It referenced three articles from the Rxisk website that raised the issue, and spoke specifically about SSRI antidepressants.

            "Given what we know about enduring sexual problems caused by SSRIs, it is reasonable to wonder how a prenatal or childhood exposure would affect a person’s long-term development and functioning. No studies have ever been done to investigate whether children exposed to psychotropic drugs either directly, or during pregnancy, grow up to have an unaffected sexuality."

The information in this blog, and the three references, are worth reading again. What follows is additional information that supports possible links.

For instance, one of my homeopathic colleagues has made a clinical observation that gender dysmorphia can be caused by Risperidone (an antipsychotic drug).

            "It came to my attention that Risperidone can cause gender dysmorphia in some boys. I have several of these cases under my care and I’d never thought to do a Risperidone detox on them up until now. Honestly, our children are being assaulted from so many angles right now that it’s hard to keep up with all the potential threats."

This clinical experience can be certainly be confirmed elsewhere. The drug company Johnson & Johnson was sued in 2012, and settled "out of court", after their antipsychotic drug, Risperidal caused young boys to grow breasts, "some as large as 'D' cup". Five years later, in 2017, the company was sued by over 1,000 men who claimed their antipsychotic drug caused them to grow breasts. These articles demonstrate that Risperidone/Risperidal (it's the same drug) has been promoted for many years, with young boys being specifically targeted.

The Rxisk link with painkillers has also been supported. In 2018, the Daily Mail ran an article in which a man claimed that painkilling drugs "turned him gay". He claimed that he was "a hot-blooded heterosexual and enjoyed dating women before he started taking Pregabalin (Lyrica), but that "he quickly lost his sexual attraction to women and broke up with his girlfriend of six months when prescribed the drug earlier this year." He said that it was only after he started taking Pregabalin, the painkiller highlighted, that his sexual preferences began to change.

The adverse reactions caused by Pregabalin or Lyrica is outlined in the Drugs.com website, and include both the loss of libido, and breast enlargement. In their advice, doctors are warned that the drug causes 'genitouinary issues', such as urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, impotence, sexual dysfunction, dysmenorrhoea, breast pain, anorgasmia, albuminuria, dysuria, leukorrhoea, menorrhagia, metrorrhagia, amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia, metrorrhagia, and much else. 

We do not need to know all the intimate details of these complicated-sounding conditions to reach the conclusion that this painkilling drug can do something to upset our sexual functioning.

There is also some medical studies that link pharmaceutical drugs with sexual orientation. This USA longitudinal study has demonstrated the association, finding that adolescents with a 'minority sexual orientation' (eg., lesbian, gay and bisexual) are more likely to use more substances (including both 'recreational' and prescription drug use) than their heterosexual peers. The study suggested further research they described as 'essential' - for developing interventions that were critically needed to reduce drug use in this population.

This research is dated May 2010, and there has, to my knowledge, been no such research undertaken in the intervening years.

This is typical of the strategy so often adopted by the conventional medical establishment. Whenever there appears to be a problem with pharmaceutical drugs, it is ignored, there is no further investigation, presumably on the basis of not rocking a profitable boat! Even if there are honest medical scientists out there who might want to look further into this they are unlikely to get the funding to do so. 

Denial is an important element of pharmaceutical medicine!

Another study was published two years earlier, April 2008, "Sexual Orientation and Adolescent Substance Use: a meta-analysis and methodological review". The study found that the odds of Lesbian, Gay and Bi-Sexual youth using substances were, on average, 190% higher than for heterosexual youth.

Another study, published in December 2016, "The Connection between Sexual Orientation and Substance Abuse" made similar findings. The substances that were abused included:

• the misuse of prescription opioids,
• the misuse of prescription tranquillisers,
• the misuse of prescription stimulants,
• the misuse of prescription sedatives.

There are many people, aware of changes to their sexual orientation, who have made the link with pharmaceutical drugs. There is even a website, "The Asexual and Visibility and Education Network", a discussion forum, devoted to the sharing of these experiences. It is interesting to read some of the discussion, and the experience so many have had with pharmaceutical drugs, without being entirely confident about making the association.

So to what extent is conventional medical literature aware that pharmaceutical drugs may play a role in our sexuality, including sexual orientation, and perhaps even gender dysphoria? 

It is limited. The UK's NHS website concurs that "certain medicines can sometimes reduce libido", these including:

• medicine for high blood pressure,
• many types of antidepressants,
• medicine for seizures (fits),
• medicines called antipsychotics,
• medicine for prostate cancer,
• hormonal contraception.

Conventional medical literature shows that the evidence is available. It is well know that many pharmaceutical drugs cause erectile problems, with this Medline Plus website providing a very long list of drugs that do so. And there are a plethora of websites that provide similar warnings, for example, "Drugs that affect sexual pleasure and desire", and  "Seven drugs that can wreck your sex life", and a web search will bring up many, many more.

So conventional medicine is aware of the association between pharmaceutical drugs and our sexuality, but uninterested is making any broader, more fundamental connections. It is not willing to admit the possibility that the drugs they use may be the cause of changes in sexual orientation, and gender dysphoria? We may well ask, though, armed with this knowledge, they are still able to claim that their cause is 'unknown'.

Any link could easily be researched. But I suspect that it won't be. The pharmaceutical industry, and their captive organisations (WHO, national drug regulators, conventional medical science, and national health providers around the world) should be telling us, but they don't as it would be against their vested business interests to do so!

So the cause of sexual orientation and gender dysphoria will remain 'unknown' for many years to come. And if we are not prepared to recognise the cause, we will have to watch as society continues to tear itself apart with the consequences.

So allow me to remind you of the conclusion to my blog, published over 5 years ago. It remains germane!

            ".... as the evidence of a link between pharmaceutical drugs and sexual identity issues is becoming compelling, the pharmaceutical industry is engaged in a massive cover-up, alongside its friends and allies. (We) are, however, pushing up against very powerful and influential forces, whose power and influence depends upon their continuing and ongoing ability to sell drugs, regardless of the harm they cause to patients, or, as it would seem, even the future of the human race!

 

Post Script May 2024

Sexual orientation, gender identity/dysphoria

* are they caused by vaccination as this survey suggests?

"80% of deviations from traditional norms can be ascribed to vaccination?"

This comes from clinical evidence (25 years/5,000 kids).

Is this true? Please take part in survey.

https://kirschsubstack.com/p/survey-indicates-sexual-orientation?publication_id=548354&post_id=144253484&isFreemail=true&r=130nv6&triedRedirect=true