ALL BRITISH GP's SHOULD HAVE THEIR LISCENCE TO PRACTICE RESTRICTED

[Gerwyn]

According to the GMC doctors who prescribe drugs without any scientific evidence in their support and may be harmful should have restrictions put on their licence and no longer be able to prescribe drugs.

Doctors in the UK prescribe aspirin for patients to prevent heart attacks(primary prevention)There is no scientific evidence in support of this but there is ample evidence of harm.Therefore if the GMC are going to be consistent they should now introduce a blanket ban on GP,s to prevent them prescribing drugs of any kind

 

[liverock]

Prescribing aspirin is the least of it, off label prescribing is a well established fact in the medical profession.

There is nothing illegal about "off label" prescribing, much of it is carried out in the paediatric and psychiatric fields. In most cases there is peer consensus or doctor based trials particularly in the paediatric area.

However, if something went wrong then the doctor could find himself in front of the GMC and also being sued by the patient or his relatives.

http://www.fetalneonatal.com/content/83/6/498.abstract

In the US there is a lot of "off label" prescribing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use

Some doctors are worried about the possible implications of doing this.

http://bjo.bmj.com/content/90/10/1218

Unfortunately due to pharma companies "pushing" certain drugs on doctors and supplying false information about their drugs, consultants can be put in a position where they will try a drug based on dodgy information provided by the drug companies.

Phizer recently paid a $1.2 billion fine for pushing one of their drugs after the FDA had banned it 4 years before.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html?hpt=T2

One of the main reasons for "off label" use of drugs is because contrary to what most people assume, drugs on the whole do not work except on a minority of patients.

The Head of research at GSK blew the gaff on drugs when he admitted their drugs did not work on most people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...rugs-do-not-work-on-most-patients-575942.html

The senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them.


Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.

It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public. His comments come days after it emerged that the NHS drugs bill has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years, rising by 2.3bn a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of 7.2bn. GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to $1bn (600m) a year.

Dr Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients.

"Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients," Dr Roses said. "Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine", he said.

"The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr Roses said. "I wouldn't say that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work in everybody."

Some industry analysts said Dr Roses's comments were reminiscent of the 1991 gaffe by Gerald Ratner, the jewellery boss, who famously said that his high street shops are successful because they sold "total crap". But others believe Dr Roses deserves credit for being honest about a little-publicised fact known to the drugs industry for many years.

The British Medical Journal commenting on the speech criticised the wasted NHS funds on drugs that dont work.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7428/0-h

This is of course no news to doctors. Anybody familiar with the notion of "number needed to treat" (NNT) knows that it's usually necessary to treat many patients in order for one to benefit. NNTs under 5 are unusual, whereas NNTs over 20 are common. Rogers's quote has, however, hit the media like a bombshell. Why is the NHS paying over 7bn ($12bn; 10bn) a year for drugs that don't work? Rogers has been compared with Gerald Ratner, the head of a jewellery firm, who famously said that most of the company's products were "total crap."

 

[Esther12]

What about the way anti-depressants were doled out for CFS, even after we knew how ineffective they were?

 

[Min]

the g.p. who prescribed me the slow release ibuprofen that has wrecked my bladder should be before them

 

[jace]

A GP that prescibed me Ibruprophen 600mg x 4 times/day. Innocent that I am, it wasn't on my prescription, but the pharmacy (at the clinic) gave me this extra box. One pill was enough to know it was tearing a hole in my stomach. I should have photographed them before returning them to the clinic. This doctor is the local 'expert' on CFS, and she is knowingly abusing patients. Wish I had the proof now. It's not over the max supervised dose, which is 3200mg/day, but no paper trail to the prescription? Odd.

jace x

 

[lotusflower]

My autistic son went into a coma after MMR with a strange illness, that they never did know what it was. la I was given seroxat during the years I was trying to find out what was wrong with my son, as he had such strange processing problems. I had bad reactions to seroxt and took an overdose which left me permanently harmed. loss of memory Iq neural sensory processing problems, communication difficulties and auditory processing fatigue, pains all over my body, kidney disease etc. That is what those drugs do too some people.

I had loads of pharmaceuticals as a child for allergies etc asthma inhalers etc but I believe the drugs side effects are now related to my illness.

I wish I knew then what I knew now, but when I innocently took these drugs, I genuinely believe they had been properly tested for safety, I now know with seroxat, they covered up information on their safety and knew it was causing suicides in children, they withdrew it for children but only because they got caught out. If it is not safe for under 18s what makes them think it is safe for over 18s expecially as I am only 4 10 and weigh six stone, I lost 10 pounds on that drug too. and it used to burn my stomach.

When I tried to explain the side effects, I was ignored and given anti psychotics, which made me collapse,

It took me 2 years to get off them and it was hell the withdrawal was shocking, I had to reduce by 1/8 of tab a day which I worked out myself, no gp helped advise as they said they were non addicitve. some years later they prescribed them again, even though I tiried to explain I had sucide attempt on them, none before or since, but they did not listen, just ignored me and so in a weak moment I took one (stupid me) and I had what is known as a severe kindling reaction and had a seizure, I went tot he hospital, they could not find anything wrong, told me to go back to gp. When I recalled my blood tests recently as I'm putting in a complaint, I checked on bloods meant it seems one test did show an inflammatory reaction after the seizure the baso test. I also discovered I had kidney disease which no one had informed me about, in the 10 years since my suicide attempt.

The docs at the time fabricated my records to cover themselves and I think the cover up has continued simply because they can and no one does anything about it

Still I know now these drugs do not detoxify from your body, they do stay there and I found out on paxil progress forum that a kindling reaction is normal although not as severe as I had.

I am now predjudiced against the use of pharmaceuticals , due to my experiences although maybe some can be useful in small amounts

 

[willow]

Lotusflower I feel for you.

I have a friend who suffered on seroxat. She also developed a pitutary tumour during this time which 5? years later she continues to treat.

Isn't it bizarre the way many GPs and other doctors fail to beleive prescription meds can have negative even damaging side effects. Worse that they take no notice of the experience of their patients. Potentially very harmful, but most of all I can't over how illogical and unscientific that stance is.

What substance does have effects other than the primary intended ones?

I know a number who work in pharma research and I don't think I've met any who refuse to believe pharma has side effects. Infact some are frustrated that the way our medical system uses them implies that they are an easy, symptom free way to treat, and argue this attitude is potentially dangerous, that pharma have to be monitored carefully and continued only when the benefits outweigh the negatives.

Of course they also believe in pharma over herbs etc, think some are life savers in certain situations and long to discover the 'big one'

My medical records from the age of 4-17 are missing. My Mum tells me that I had an adverse reaction to almost everything I was given for my recurrent infections. I remember the throat and lip swelling from Septrin but even that is not noted anywhere. One dentist was incredulous that this had been given to a child when other abx were available.

Anyway now I have no clue which other medications I received or which ones I reacted to. Wish I did.

Since old enough to make my own decisions on this I've refused almost everything, taken nothing at all for well over 15yrs.

For me herbs and biomeds haven't been much better. I oversensitised myself, I think by trying too many different ones at small doses and those too became pretty much a closed avenue.

FWIW my pharma research friends tell me that these days aspirin would never be approved for clinical use- too many serious side effects.

I'm sure I've read/heard doctors in the media recommending it for heart attack prevention. Very public recommendations, with a much wider audience than Sarah Myhill's.

 

[jace]

The mastoid process infection and associated benign brain tumour that nearly killed me, age 19, were a result of chronic ear infections from early childhood that never completely cleared even with antibiotics.

My father was a GP. I was born in the era when penicillin was a miracle cure-all, and we got the pediatric suspension of penicillin (lovely raspberry medicine - not) for every little sniffle. I believe that is connected to the eventual need for a radical mastoidectomy.