Gods agin it, im agin it....

Norco Maniac

Norco Maniac

Is back!
the correct term for the subject of my rant is "off-label prescribing". Merck were fined heavily for promoting it - read the articles at the links. i should have made myself clearer, earlier. i get very frustrated with the assumption that modern medicine is the be-all and end-all. in my personal experience, it's as full of quackery as complementary medicine. i was given an off-label prescription for fibromyalgia in 2010 - a drug released for use in diabetic neuropathy. fibromyalgia is a very different pain condition. this drug was an anti-spasmodic which actually gave me seizures resulting in my losing my driver's licence for an 18-month period, or until i can prove that i haven't had a seizure for 6 or more months. yes, i'm angry about it. i care for my MIL who is suffering chronic pain from a failed back operation - where the surgeon inserted bovine bone - into her disk spaces and then applied steel cages, one of which is now somewhere near her diaphram having come loose and wandered more that 10 inches from the initial insertion point. when she went back for her three-month checkup, knowing the surgery had failed, the surgeon's office had been cleared. he'd done the midnight flit. she wasn't informed that it was experimental surgery until she consulted another surgeon.

my tafe notes re Thalidomide are back in Coffs, but articles can be found here.

i'm not going to keep ranting. the information is out there on the news sites, look for yourselves.
 
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thecat

thecat

NSWMTB, Central Tableland MBC
Most medicines have side effects that need to be monitored and controled

Thalidomide's side effects were pretty major and the fact it was used exactly where it shouldn't be is a tragic case of human error. It does not make the drug evil.
The thing that made it so bad for a morning sickness treatment is that has powerful antiangiogenic properties but that very property has been shown to be very useful in some cancer treatments.

I can't find any other references to it's use in treating schizophrenia but it is an effective tranquilizer and painkiller so long as the proper controls are put in place, ie it's not given to pregnant women or women likely to get pregnant, then I fail to see your point about it.
 
redbruce

redbruce

Eats Squid
thecat said:
Most medicines have side effects that need to be monitored and controled

Thalidomide's side effects were pretty major and the fact it was used exactly where it shouldn't be is a tragic case of human error. It does not make the drug evil.
The thing that made it so bad for a morning sickness treatment is that has powerful antiangiogenic properties but that very property has been shown to be very useful in some cancer treatments.

I can't find any other references to it's use in treating schizophrenia but it is an effective tranquilizer and painkiller so long as the proper controls are put in place, ie it's not given to pregnant women or women likely to get pregnant, then I fail to see your point about it.
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There was an excellent doco on SBS recently about thalidomide. That the company that makes it has a nefarious past linked to the Nazi's, knew of the link to birth defects years before withdrawing it from the market and avoided full accountability (up until recently) by successfully thwarting litigation against it by only having cases heard in Germany, adds to the tragedy of the thalidomide story.

While the use of thalidomide remains controversial, one can only hope there is a silver lining to the cloud of this sordid tale.
 
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X

Xavo.au

Likes Bikes and Dirt
redbruce said:
There was an excellent doco on SBS recently about thalidomide. That the company that makes it has a nefarious past linked to the Nazi's, knew of the link to birth defects years before withdrawing it from the market and avoided full accountability (up until recently) by successfully thwarting litigation against it by only having cases heard in Germany, adds to the tragedy of the thalidomide story.

While the use of thalidomide remains controversial, one can only hope there is a silver lining to the cloud of this sordid tale.
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Wasn't that one of those ACA doco's? I remember watching one about that when we were staying at a mates uncles place on the way through to Brissy. The links to the Nazi's was some doctor that worked in one of the camps was a founder of this drug company (or something like that). ACA determined this by walking up to the front door of the company, booking an appointment with some random workers who hardly spoke English and then got kicked off the premises by the PR guy after they accused everyone of being Nazis.
But yeah, still pretty nasty stuff - they did know about the defects and didn't do a thing (supposedly) and no one has been brought to justice yet.
 
redbruce

redbruce

Eats Squid
Xavo.au said:
Wasn't that one of those ACA doco's? I remember watching one about that when we were staying at a mates uncles place on the way through to Brissy. The links to the Nazi's was some doctor that worked in one of the camps was a founder of this drug company (or something like that). ACA determined this by walking up to the front door of the company, booking an appointment with some random workers who hardly spoke English and then got kicked off the premises by the PR guy after they accused everyone of being Nazis.
But yeah, still pretty nasty stuff - they did know about the defects and didn't do a thing (supposedly) and no one has been brought to justice yet.
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No not ACA witch hunt masquerading as journalism. Proper SBS doco.
 
Spike-X

Spike-X

Grumpy Old Sarah
Norco Maniac said:
“I’m convinced that homosexuals (re)produces themselves by molesting children.”Pastor Peter Walker

more nasty crap being spread by god-botherers. i'm wondering about the date on the article though... here's 9 New's version
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The National Marriage Coalition's Peter Madden said the rally was not about "having a go at the poor homosexual"
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Well, apart from the bit where somebody accused gay people of being child molesters. And the fact that their entire movement exists solely to make sure same-sex couples don't receive equal treatment under the law, based solely on their interpretation of a dusty old book of fairy tales. But no, they're not having a go at gay people, and how dare anybody suggest otherwise?
 
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