It bangs against Big Pharma !!

90 drugs that do more harm than good

The medical journal Prescrire has published a list of 90 drugs to avoid. It is better to " spread them to better heal, " she wrote [1].

We find unfortunately in this list of common drugs:

Célebrex® , Voltarène® and Ketum® gel for pain;
Ercefuryl® , for example, against diarrhea;
Primalan® and Phenergan® against allergy;
Seroplex® against depression. 

All of these drugs are blacklisted in the Prescrire journal: they can cause infarction, thrombosis, gangrene, and other disasters.

A disturbing list and yet very incomplete

The list is long of the authorized drugs that:

1. Have no positive effect on patients, beyond the placebo effect;

2. Can trigger terrible side effects, even death.

I will not list these medications because:

1. You find it for free by following this link ;

2. It would be boring because most will not concern you;

3. It would be useless because they include drugs that are not marketed in France;

4. And above all, I am a little uncomfortable with the selection of the Prescrire magazine. Made by doctors rather opposed to alternative approaches, she remains very favorable to chemical medicine. This bias pushes her to condone many highly controversial drugs (statins, antidepressants, NSAIDs), and others to offer no natural alternative to patients.

One even notes in the list an "error" (voluntary?): Prescrire includes among the "dangerous drugs" the glucosamine , which is nevertheless a nutriment all that is more natural against osteoarthritis, and which does not involve no risk ! This blacklisting of glucosamine is justified by possible allergies, insofar as it is extracted from crustaceans. But in this case, we must include all the drugs in the list since, without exception, can cause allergies in people who are ... allergic!

But I stop. I do not want to criticize too much. The Prescrire team did a great job and we need to do it justice. This document gives valuable guidance to all patients, very important to know when you are prescribed medication.

For example :

Beware of cold medicine

The cold makes nosebleed, cough, spit ... It's painful, it's true, but Prescrire formally recommends not taking any medicine, and waiting for it to pass.

In particular, it is imperative to avoid:

decongestants for example (sprays in the nose or mouth), which " expose to serious cardiovascular or even fatal disorders" . These drugs are ephedrine , naphazoline , oxymetazoline , phenylephrine , pseudoephedrine and tuaminoheptane ;
Pholcodine , used against cough, which can cause sensitization to curare, and make dangerous future anesthesia;
Ambroxol or Muxol ® , and Bromhexine or Bisolvon ® to dissolve mucus that has " no clinically proven efficacy beyond the placebo effect " but can kill (anaphylactic shock);
Tixocortol against sore throat which can cause severe edema (Quincke's edema). 

The second category of drugs really to avoid are antidepressants:

Antidepressants are a disaster

You know my deep dislike for antidepressants.

As one of my doctor friends says, it is crazy to give people " drugs that you do not understand against a disease that you do not understand either. "

Yet this is what we do with these drugs that everyone, including Prescrire , recognizes that the effects are uncertain, long to get, and come at the cost of significant risk to the patient.

Prescrire , very wisely, recommends avoiding agomelatine (Valdoxan ® ), duloxetine (Cymbalta ® ), citalopram (Seropram ® ) and escitalopram (Seroplex ® ), milnacipran (Ixel ® ), venlafaxine (Effexor ® ) and tianeptine (Stablon ® ).

This is already a sacred list.

But it also recommends avoiding other psychotropic drugs, because of their " undesirable side effects ": dapoxetine (Priligy ® ) and etifoxine (Stresam ® ).

The list also contains anti-infection medications, hormone replacement therapy (for menopausal symptoms), nausea, vomiting, diabetes, heart problems, and more.

For the full list, I give you the link here again.

But I will content myself here to treat in more detail the very painful case of very serious diseases, fatal in the short term:

Serious diseases in the terminal stage: pay attention to the drugs which further aggravate the sufferings !!

n the case of a short-term fatal illness (advanced Alzheimer's disease, end-stage cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis), the Prescrire journal is particularly cautious.

She points out that this is a field where the skids of medicine are more frequent.
"Caregivers feel justified in attempting" last chance "treatments that are unlikely to provide any improvement, and carry the risk of serious adverse effects, Prescrire says.

And they do it " without always warning patients, or providing them with incomplete information, knowingly or unknowingly. ".

Why ?

Because they feel that there is no more " nothing left to lose, " and that these patients are also more likely than others to accept unproven drugs.
" Yet patients with therapeutic impasse are not guinea pigs, " Prescrire recalls.

And indeed: it is inhuman and even contrary to the mission of medicine, to aggravate the state of health of people already terribly affected by the disease.

A medical system that considers that it is not serious to hurt someone, under the pretext that the person is already suffering a lot, can really be considered as a little ... sick.

Let's look at the cases of cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis:

Cancer

Prescrire recalls that many so-called "anti-cancer" drugs have no positive effects to compensate for the dangers to patients. The review mentions defibrotide (Defitelio ® ), mifamurtide (Mepact ® ), nintedanib (Vargatef ® ), olaparib (Lynparza ® ), panobinostat (Farydak ® ), trabectedin (Yondelis ® ) and vandetanib (Caprelsa). ® ), vinflunine (Javlor ® ), all used in oncology.

However, my advice is to ask your doctor specific and insistent questions to know the real evidence of the effectiveness of any chemotherapy treatment for solid tissue tumors.

Chemotherapy has proven itself in blood cancers (leukemia), lymph, bone marrow and some others. Yet, often, its use is only experimental when it comes to other cancers. This means that it is very unlikely to cure you, but you will suffer no less serious adverse effects.

The goal then, is more to advance the research, than to treat you. But you must be aware, and agree to suffer these consequences.

Alzheimer

The same is true of drugs against Alzheimer's disease.

All have " disproportionate (sometimes fatal) side effects and expose to many interactions, " according to Prescrire . They aggravate mental problems (neuropsychic disorders) and cause heart problems.

However, " none has proven efficacy to slow down the evolution towards dependence " !!

Why are we giving drugs against Alzheimer's disease?

The explanation is simple and cruel: because we dare not tell patients, and their entourage, that conventional medicine has no treatment.

These drugs, which are very expensive, can make people believe that "take care of them", even if it is a scam.

These are donepezil (Aricept ® and others), galantamine (Reminyl ® or other), rivastigmine (Exelon ® or other) and anticholinesterase inhibitors.

Multiple sclerosis

For multiple sclerosis, the picture is almost the same. There is only one treatment, with limited effects and many adverse effects: interferon beta (Avonex ® , Rebif ® , Betaferon ® or other).

But Prescrire really warns against three immunosuppressive drugs, which are also used against multiple sclerosis, but which she says " expose people to disproportionate and avoidable risks ":

These are alemtuzumab (Lemtrada ® ), natalizumab (Tysabri ® ) and teriflunomide (Aubagio ® ).

I am aware that this makes a long and arid list of barbaric names. But if you are taking any of these medications, it is important to find out and talk to your doctor at your next consultation. Of course, do not stop your treatment without his agreement, but be ready to ask him the right questions.

Cheers !

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