Epidemiology deals in correlations that are subject to confounding. Think tobacco and lung cancer. Although studies should attempt to account for confounding, confounding can also be exploited to explain away inconvenient data as tobacco company claims that correlations do not prove causation illustrated. This underpinned the famous Doubt is our Product tobacco company strategy, which| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
I took part in a podcast recently at the invitation of John Wilks and Our Birth Journey a group John is linked to. Our conversation is on this link: Antidepressants and Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy The title says Antidepressants and Acetaminophen (U.S. for Paracetamol). The original invite was to talk about Antidepressants and Pregnancy. The| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Among the greatest triumphs linked to RxISK was Anne-Marie Kelly's discovery that SSRI antidepressants can cause alcohol misuse. A Hero Anne-Marie's story was first told in Out of My Mind Driven to Drink, which featured here in March 2012. This led to a post on RxISK Driven to Drink. Between them the posts have over| Dr. David Healy
The Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SRI) story starts in 1969 with Arvid Carlsson (above) who created Zelmid, the first SRI, after listening to people on antidepressants. He linked an anxiolytic effect some older drugs have to the serotonin system. The SRIs aimed at exploring that effect - Normality and Antidepressant Dysregulation. Fluoxetine (Prozac). sertraline (Zoloft). paroxetine| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
This recently published US strategy on Suicide Prevention epitomizes all that is going wrong in medicine today. It is stuffed full of references to Shared Decision Making, Informed Consent and Lived Experience. Stuffed full of token words, window-dressing, tick-boxing. It will increase rather than reduce suicide rates. It is clear that the people behind this,| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
