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Dr Sarah Myhill faces another GMC Hearing

Messages
36
Sarah has been called by the GMC to appear in front of an Investigation
Committee at 9:30 on 2-4 October 2012 at St James's Building, 79 Oxford
Street, Manchester, M1 6FQ. The details of this Hearing can be found at
http://www.gmc-uk.org/Myhill_Sarah_02102012_14092012_49872334.pdf

Sarah is contesting the GMC at this Hearing. Indeed she has requested the presence of the GMC Expert Witnesses Dr Savla and Dr Ann Hubbard at that hearing so that she can cross-examine them.
The Hearing will decide whether a Warning should be placed against Sarah's registration with respect to these issues. This is the only power an Investigation Committee has in this respect.
If anyone is interested in attending the hearing, we can confirm that it is a public hearing and therefore you are all most welcome to be there.
 
Messages
646
Excellent to see the GMC taking its duties to clamp down on potential breaches of professional etiquette seriously. Perhaps this will encourage those who paid certain UK doctors a sign off fee for the useless XMRV tests, to come forward and expose those very doctors who prey on the desperation of patients for £65 a signature.

IVI
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
Sarah is entitled to her views as a qualified GP.

Don't mention UK GP's to me, a bigger bunch of useless idiots (or should I say robots) employed by the NHS you'd struggle to find. I say again useless, at least the private docs are trying to work with patients to find something that will help them, not so the massively overpaid NHS employed bunch. Don't get me going on charging for signatures, NHS GPs even charge for signing a medical insurance form, utter rubbish.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Excellent to see the GMC taking its duties to clamp down on potential breaches of professional etiquette seriously. Perhaps this will encourage those who paid certain UK doctors a sign off fee for the useless XMRV tests, to come forward and expose those very doctors who prey on the desperation of patients for £65 a signature.

IVI
Myhill unlike many SOB psychobabblers, tried ot help with the patient's express desire and co-operation.
When you are between a rock and a hardplace, any glimmer of hope is worth pursuing so long as it is honestly offered.
There's a HELL of a difference between being a "quack", and a physician or laboratory offering what they genuinely believe to be helpful.
Some of the "psychobabblers" no doubt believe their bullsh*t, which saves them from being evil exploiters, just damn stupid and egocentric.
Myhill has tried for many years ot help...I do not know her, there can be a fine line between genius and madness, physician and quack. if she helps some, good, een if I agree or disagree with her methods.
I genuinely do not know, but at least she gives SOME bloody hope in a vast turdpile of useless, incompetant, biggoted and bloody maliciously arrogant doctors
And, as always apologies ot the many decent docs, but even they can offer little true help beyond the "palliative" for this illness (at this moment in time)
 

Min

Guest
Messages
1,387
Location
UK
It's the doctors who permanently harm us, and who have been responsible for at least death, with their stupid graded exercise who should be up before the GMC.

Instead, Dr Myhill is repeatedly harassed by them and our wonderful Dr Wright has been suspended for 9 months.

It's as if any doctors trying to put a plaster cast on a broken leg were hounded by the GMC, whilst all those doctors who told the patient that the broken leg was a false illness belief, and who insisted that the patient repeatedly hop on the leg, were lauded by the GMC and also given all research and treatment funding for broken legs.
 
Messages
759
Location
Israel
I got a severely bad reaction from her EPD injections and lost a lot of weight on an oversevere diet elimination diet she used to do before she started doing the "Paleo" diet. It left me in malnutrition.
I found that she didn't bother to monitor me much during her treatment and was very unhelpful when I phoned to ask her about my worsening symptoms. I don't mind if she gets struck off.
The current protocol she has looks good but it is slightly different to what she did to me and was done by learning off my worsening.
There has to be better doctors than her.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
I sympathise with you as I became severely intolerant to many substances/food etc after allergy shots from B/spear, I paid several hundreds of pounds for these in my quest to get well. This caused a set back of several years.
SM offered me EPD too but she also told me it can make some (a minority) worse so I deferred. This treatment is offered on the NHS now as a cure for allergies and is a well researched , mostly successful treatment, I think we were just unlucky in that respect
I've always found SM and her office staff to be above and beyond what you would expect from them, by phone and e-mail. I don't know why your experience was different but I'm sure she would be sorry to hear that. A more caring, understanding doctor (irrespective of ME) I have yet to meet.
I know the docs at B/spear were trying to help me get better, unlike the NHS GPs and hospital consultants I've seen since becoming ill,I blame them for not taking this illness seriously at its onset, if I had had the proper testing then, who knows?
 
Messages
759
Location
Israel
I sympathise with you as I became severely intolerant to many substances/food etc after allergy shots from B/spear, I paid several hundreds of pounds for these in my quest to get well. This caused a set back of several years.
SM offered me EPD too but she also told me it can make some (a minority) worse so I deferred. This treatment is offered on the NHS now as a cure for allergies and is a well researched , mostly successful treatment, I think we were just unlucky in that respect...
What treatment are you referring to : the EPD or the allergy shots?
I just want to clarify.
Conventional allergy shots (for inhalent allergies only) are available in all of Europe and in Israel but were illegal when I was Britain. In Israel conventional allergy injections by law must be done by a doctor specialising in allergy. In Britain in 1995 when I went to Dr Myhill they were illegal. Therefore I had EPD. I wish Dr Myhill had warned me then that they make a small minority of people worse.

I'm suspicious of Dr Myhill's red blood cell test for magnesium too. I heard from someone who was on high magnesium supplements and magnesium injections yet still tested low for red cell magnesium. I don't think it is a reliable test. I also read Dr Myhill talking about "Reiki" and energy type alternative medicine which I don't believe in. However, those aren't my main objections to her. My main objection is the experience I had that I explained.

Could you please tell me which type of allergy shots are now available on the NHS?
I'm surprised at what you said.
I do not want to have them, I am just curious if they changed the law.

I'm sorry you suffered a reaction to allergy injections too.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
Its probably easier for you to read the following than to have me explain it to you


"Enzyme-potentiated desensitisation (EPD) is a treatment which aims to reduce the sensitivity of patients to substances causing allergy and intolerance and thereby reduce symptoms, whether due to allergens in the air (for example, pollens, dust mite, animal danders), in food, or even environmental chemicals. EPD may be used to treat conditions such as hay fever, dust mite or animal allergies, allergic asthma and eczema, and food intolerances.
Developed about forty years ago by Dr Len McEwen, an allergist working at St Mary's Hospital, London, EPD has been in constant use since then in the United Kingdom, mainland Europe (particularly Italy) and the United States by small numbers of allergists. In the UK it is available privately from members of the British Society of Ecological Medicine (www.ecomed.org.uk) and on the NHS at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (formerly the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital) where it has been used since the 1970s and where about five hundred patients are currently receiving EPD.
In EPD, tiny doses of purified allergy-causing substances (allergens) are given by injection together with an enzyme, beta-glucuronidase, which potentiates (enhances) desensitisation to the allergens injected, hence the rather complex-sounding name. The enzyme is naturally occurring in humans where it helps to break down complex carbohydrates in many organs. Tiny amounts of naturally occurring sugars are also used.
In EPD, many allergens are given together in standard mixtures. For instance, in inhalant allergies such as hay fever, the mixture includes 62 tree and grass pollens, 6 mite and dust extracts, 15 animal danders and 70 fungal extracts. For food intolerances, a standard mix of 58 food extracts is used, as well as the inhalant allergens. The use of such a wide range of allergens aims to "damp down" the allergic tendency of the immune system as well as treating the specific allergy. The dosage is usually the same on each occasion. Injections are given at two- to three-monthly intervals initially, for up to a dozen injections, and then treatment is spaced out and can even be stopped if patients have significantly benefited. Allergen exposure must be avoided, particularly in the twenty-four hours either side of an injection, and if treating food intolerances, a restrictive diet must be eaten for those forty-eight hours. Certain medications such as painkillers, and procedures such as dental work, should be avoided for up to three weeks after an injection.
EPD may be contrasted with the conventional type of desensitisation used in most NHS allergy departments, known as specific immunotherapy (SIT). In EPD, injections are given intradermally (into the skin) at intervals of two to three months, whereas in SIT injections are given subcutaneously (under the skin) and must be given at weekly intervals in increasing doses to begin with, then sometimes 4-6 weekly for three years. In EPD, the allergen is given in tenfold smaller doses than SIT, about the same size dose as a skin prick test. This makes it free from the rare but serious allergic reactions which may occur with SIT, limiting its use to very severe allergies and making it unsafe to use in asthma. In a safety surveillance study, over a third of a million doses of EPD were given without serious incident. Another difference is that with SIT only a single allergen can be given, so patients with multiple allergies cannot be treated, which they can with the multiple allergen EPD approach. However, SIT is the only treatment available for allergy to bee or wasp stings, and neither approach can at present be used for severe food allergy (such as immediate-type peanut allergy) or latex allergy.
A major difference between EPD and SIT is in the scientific evidence to justify its use. There is consistent evidence from many studies of the good effectiveness of conventional SIT for hay fever and venom allergy, and emerging evidence for sublingual (under the tongue) immunotherapy tablets in hay fever. The evidence for EPD is inconsistent. Several small studies, mostly conducted in the 1980s, showed promising results using EPD in a variety of conditions including hay fever, dust allergy, migraine, ulcerative colitis, and childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This prompted a large, well-conducted study of EPD in grass pollen hay fever (conducted by Dr Michael Radcliffe at Southampton University).
Published in the British Medical Journal in 2003 (volume 327 pages 251-254), the study did not confirm the earlier studies but showed no difference between EPD and placebo (dummy) injections. The study lasted for a single season and it is possible that benefits may have emerged if the study had continued for two or three seasons. It may have been that EPD achieved benefits in some patients, but did not show a statistically significant improvement across the whole study population. Finally, there was some suggestion that the EPD injections used in the study, although stringently prepared to a good manufacturing practice standard, might have been subject to a loss of desensitising potency. However, the study has cast some doubt on the effectiveness of EPD for hay fever.
The results puzzled those physicians seeing apparent and long-lasting benefits of EPD in daily practice for many patients. Often, these patients try EPD as a last resort, having had conventional and sometimes alternative treatments without success. They are therefore initially sceptical about EPD, which makes it unlikely that the benefits should be attributed to the effects of positive expectation. Furthermore, significant changes may be seen not just in symptoms but in more objective measures such as the extent of eczema, the severity of asthma, and the use of orthodox medication.
The unfavourable state of the current evidence makes it unlikely that EPD will become more widely available on the NHS, despite its relative safety. However, the good results seen in practice over thirty years, and the many patients requiring EPD to maintain good health, mean that it will continue to be offered as an option alongside conventional immunotherapy at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine.
Dr. is a Consultant Physician at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, London, the only hospital in the UK which provides EPD on the NHS and accepts patients from all geographical areas who are referred by their GP
 
Messages
759
Location
Israel
Oh, I understand now. EPD is available on the NHS alongside conventional immunotherapy SIT only at that one hospital -the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine.
That's odd. I was told that SIT was illegal in all of Britain at the time.
Thank you for answering.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
You're welcome and sorry once again you've been so ill, hope you improve soon.
 
Messages
13,774
I wasn't sure whether to post this, as I don't know much about Myhill, or this complaint, or the side-effects of contraceptives... but I typed it out, so thought I'd leave it for others to pick apart if I'm wrong.

To me, a lot of the stuff Myhill claims looks dodgy, I wouldn't give any money to her, and would encourage others to avoid her but I do think that the fact the it's generally patients seeking her out and choosing to give her their money makes it less worrying to me than a lot of the quackery that is being promoted by those with influence in the NHS.

There's loads of nonsense around on the internet for those who want it, but isn't the NHS still funding homoeopathy? The Lightning Process is thought to be a sensible use of research funding for CFS, acupuncture is to be provided by the NHS by those trained in altering the flow of qui through meridians... and Esther Crawley is claiming that PACE showed a 30-40% recovery rate for CBT/GET while acting as chair of the organisation paid to educate NHS staff about CFS.

I'd like us to have a medical system which prevents medical staff from making money from quackery, or misleading patients, but it would be nice to see more priority give to penalising more widespread and socially acceptable quackery, or those who are in positions of real power and authority whose work harms patients who have not volunteered to be under their care.

I've also got some sympathy for the notion side effects from the contraceptive pill tend to be under-sold (if that was what Myhill claimed - the complaint was not specific). Lots of women seem to get a range of quite dramatic changes following going on/coming off different types of pill, and there's very little research gone in to trying to work out who will respond in different ways. This often seems to be under-played in GP's surgeries. For women who already suffer from other health problems, like CFS, even just a couple of months of increased risk of migraines can cause really serious problems in their life. For a lot of people, condoms just work, and don't include the risk of side-effects. (PS: If half of the young men in the country were taking medication which randomly made their boobs grow/shrink or affected their libido, I expect that more effort would have been made to find out what was going on!) Maybe Myhill went well beyond this though.

I'm not sure what I think about this as I don't like Myhill, don't respect the GMC, and think that the NHS's response to CFS is often more quacky than Myhill's seems to be. I also got the impression from the last hearing that the GMC was more concerned by Myhill's defiance than how she treated her patients.

Overall: I think Myhill and Crawley should be forced by the GMC to sing a two hour duet of 'It's a small, small world'.

EdIt: I've never paid for any private or alternative care, so may be a bit poor at placing myself in the position of those who have (I do take some supplements, like vitamin D, and have taken other stuff in the past, and my parents took me to some things in the past which I always thought were a dodgy waste of money). I'm just reading a rubbish medical paper made up of anecdotes, and a lot of them are about the families of patients facing very real financial hardship because of the amount they are spending on alternative health-care, and that's pretty disturbing. This complaint seems to just be about information on Myhill's website, rather than any treatments she's charging for though.

This is all complicated by the relentless quackery that surrounds CFS too. If Myhill is charging patients for 100% nonsense testing, they could still be worth paying for, as they may help in a benefits tribunal appeal against one of ATOS's 100% nonsense biopsychosocial assessments.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
I am not that familiar with the medical system in the UK, so bear with me.

Unfortunately, Dr. Myhill, has lots of medical misinformation on her website, some of which can be dangerous. She recomends lying babies on their sides, not their backs and her take on mammograms as well as giving patients medical tests that have no science to back them up are concerning. I also believe she doesn't want babies immunized or taken out until six months of age which could be very problematic.

There are certainly lots of dodgy websites around and it's their right to post.

But, if Dr. Myhill wants to practice alternative medicine, then doesn't that 'mean she should not be in the NHS system but a private doctor? I do know that there has been information on her website that she had to remove but evidently there is still a lot of misinformation on the site.

Any updates on the hearing?

Barb C.:>)
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
Barb,
It doesn't matter if she operates in the NHS or as a private doctor. They both come under the General Medical Council.

Our private doctors who treat ME and CFS with treatments that the GMC doesn't approve of, or have views that the GMC doesn't approve of are being tackled in this way.

The Facebook page for Dr Myhill says that it has had to take down information about the hearing proceedings until after the Determination decision is made.
 

justinreilly

Senior Member
Messages
2,498
Location
NYC (& RI)
Anyone know what she had up there specifically that they're objecting to, ie what exactly did she say about breast cancer screenings, etc.?
 
Messages
15,786
I'm suspicious of Dr Myhill's red blood cell test for magnesium too. I heard from someone who was on high magnesium supplements and magnesium injections yet still tested low for red cell magnesium.

This can certainly happen. My serum elements were all high, and my blood cell elements were low (tested from a Dutch lab). It can result from a problem with transporting those elements into blood cells, sometimes caused by systemic inflammation, etc.
 
Messages
10,157
Anyone know what she had up there specifically that they're objecting to, ie what exactly did she say about breast cancer screenings, etc.?

I believe she said mammograms are not necessary and suggests something but for the life of me, I can't remember what. Mammograms are what the NICE guidelines state are the gold standard.
 
Messages
20
On October 4, 2012, a warning was place on the "Fitness to Practise" section of Dr Myhill's GMC registry, effective until October 3, 2017. It states:

"On Dr Myhill's website she made statements in relation to contraception and breast cancer screening that were factually incorrect; clinically unsubstantiated;and contrary to national guidelines. In so doing she used her position as a registered practitioner to exploit patients' lack of medical knowledge by arousing ill found fears for their health. This conduct does not meet with the standard required of a doctor. It risks bringing the profession into disrepute and must not be repeated. The required standards are set out in Good Medical Practice and associated guidance. In this case, paragraph 57, 62 and 65 are particularly relevant. 'You must make sure that your conduct at all times justifies your patients' trust in you and the public's trust in the profession.' 'You must not put pressure on people to use a service, for example by arousing ill founded fears for their future health' and 'You must do your best to make sure that any documents your write or sign are not false or misleading. This means that you must take reasonable steps to verify the information in the documents, and that you must not deliberately leave out relevant information.' Whilst this failing in itself is not so serious as to require any restriction on Dr Myhill's registration, it is necessary in response to issue this formal warning."


List of Registered Medical Practitioners http://tiny.cc/2wzxlw Enter Sarah Myhill in the search