Print this page
Email a friend
Was this information helpful?
95% said yes!
(35 votes)What do you think? Click "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to vote!
If you have more to say, post a comment below!
French researchers have independently observed that studies published in prestigious journals often don't tell enough about adverse drug effects. They reviewed over 100 reports of randomized controlled drug trials and discovered that one quarter of the articles left out severe side effects. Nearly half the articles did not report on patients who withdrew from the clinical trials and only 12 percent described the reason for patients pulling out of a clinical trial due to side effects. The investigators conclude that way in which harmful drug effects are described in medical journals may obscure some important rare and potentially severe adverse reactions. An accompanying editorial in the Archives of Internal Medicine postulates that conflicts of interest and marketing pressure may override science in the presentation of information from randomized clinical trials.
My 68 yr. old husband was put on Aricept for early stage Alzheimers shortly after a normal physical. Several months later in a pre-surgical physical, it was discovered that he had developed significant pulse irregularities.
He then had a pacemaker installed which he will have to use the rest of his life. The wire of the pacemaker narrowed the space in the vein enough to soon cause a clot to form. After treatment for that, he now is on Coumadin for who knows how long. Talk about side effects!
This is so huge a problem, yet never gets above the radar on any of the mainstream news outlets, on-air or print! I've recently had the most horrible side-effects of anything in my entire life, and the doctor gave me zero indication that anything even a little bit close was at all a possibility! He was a very nice man, and sincerely trying to do what's best, but how could he be so utterly clueless?
To simply prescribe one thing after another, hoping maybe something will click with a patient, and perhaps allay one or some symptoms or issues they are dealing with, with so little concern for the huge price that person may, or will pay, is pretty much nothing more than a serious indictment on the whole approach of "western medicine", so focused on "treating symptoms", without looking at the whole person.....
The worst part of my experience, was that while I discovered pretty early on, (less than two months), that this drug (Cymbalta) was not for me, and could be trouble, if I were to continue, the nightmare side effects only kicked in, once I stopped taking it! I had lowered my dosage for a couple weeks (again, it was still not even a couple months of taking it), and the first couple days after stopping it were fine. However, 3 or 4 days, or maybe even close to a week, later, I got hit with what felt like a combination food poisoning, hangover, and severe sea sickness!
My head pounded, my eyes hurt, had severe dizziness, I felt nauseous, was overly sensitive to both sounds & light, and often had to just lie down, turn all lights & sounds off, and just try and allow my body to settle down.....
If I had to go to work, or take kids to activities, or do anything much out in the world, at that time, I really don't know what I would've done. God forbid, someone with a 9-5, in a bustling, bright, noisy environment, felt the way I did, it would truly have been a nightmare....
I was mad, really mad, both at the drug maker (Eli Lilly) & my doctor, for allowing something so massively dangerous as this to be so casually given out, and advertised day & night on TV (which I really believe is "practicing medicine w/o a license", as they are telling people what they need to cure their depression/ED/insomnia/etc..).
Only after I got hit with this, did I search online, and of course, came across entire websites devoted to support for the thousands of people who've been similarly broadsided! There's talk of class-action suits, petitions, etc, because many people had even worse stories than mine, some have had these ill effects for up to a year or more!