medication adverse reactions Archives

Unexplained New Onset Fatigue and Other Symptoms

Published on May 4, 2022

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For almost a year, I have suffered from fatigue, morning sinus and congestion problems, and other health issues including type 2 diabetes, insomnia, and depression. For the last four months, I have been dealing with a skin rash on my legs, arms, stomach, and small outbreaks on my face. I have been misdiagnosed by my primary doctor and two different naturopaths. They told me that it was fungal and I was given anti-fungals. I don’t remember the name. After a second visit to a dermatologist, the doctor did a scraping and a biopsy and told me that it definitely wasn’t fungal. They are going to do some patch tests this week. I have had to keep my mental outlook positive because, for the last year, the doctors have had no answers.

My primary has told me that I am an anomaly. Great! But still no answers. She has done a plethora of blood tests, two or three CAT scans, and other imagery. The only blood test that was a little high was my white blood cell count. My iron is high because of my testosterone injections. I was initially told that I had Lyme’s disease but my blood tests found that to be negative. Then I was told that I have Epstein Barr, but my blood tests were negative for that also. I am used to an active lifestyle, lifting weights, hiking, backpacking, fishing, martial arts, etc., but, for the last year, I have been extremely low energy with significant fatigue. I will sleep 8 hours, get up for a while, and just feel like going back to bed. I would like my life back!

Early Thyroid Problems

I take levothyroxine because my thyroid was low about 20 years ago. They did a scan of my thyroid and told me that my thyroid was quite small, probably due to my Graves’ disease treatment when I was 16 years old. I was told that I was close to death at that time. I remember some of the unpleasant things I went through at that time. They gave me a drink called a “nuclear cocktail” and then, for the next 4+ years, they treated me with propylthiouracil. I fought my way through this disease and started lifting weights and working out when I felt better. I was about 16 years old at the time. I continued to work out and have been athletic all of my life.

Back Pain and Spine Curvature

After years of athletics that included snow skiing and martial arts, I began to develop significant back pain. After an MRI in 2004, the doctors asked if I had polio. The test showed curvature of the spine, a bulging disc, and some areas of bone on bone. At that point, I was prescribed oxycodone and have been on it ever since. Despite the back issues, I have functioned fine until this last year when a variety of new symptoms manifested, including unremitting fatigue. I have had a big change in my energy levels, sex drive, and the pain issues have increased and so it is a struggle to lift weights. My hands, shoulders, spine, and feet have increased pain. I have always been very self-motivated, but this last year has been very tough. The doctors say that I have osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia. I don’t know anymore.

Maybe Thiamine for the Fatigue?

Recently, I listened to Elliot Overton’s interview with Dr. Marrs about thiamine and found many of my symptoms were possibly linked to thiamine deficiency. I have taken a myriad of nutritional supplements over the years. They are listed below. All to no avail. I have also started taking thiamine, but the jury is not out on that yet. It has been pretty expensive with all the doctor appointments and nutritional/medical expenses.

There is a lot more that I have probably missed, but I wanted to keep this to a short story, not a novel. What am I missing with my health issues? The fatigue is unending. The doctors have no advice and consider me an anomaly. Am I? Or are we simply missing something?

Current Medications

Levothyroxine-125mcg – for approximately 29 years.
Sertraline-50 mg – last two years
Lisinopril-10mg – last year and a half
Metformin-750mg – last two years
Hydroxyzine-50 mg – at bedtime for sleep issues for the last year and a half
Oxycodone-10 mg up to 4 times a day since 2004. I see my spine doc every 2 months. I have some spine damage and joint issues from the martial arts and various other sports.
Dicloflenac- 50 mg (Rarely use)
Lunesta-3 mg (1 at night) – this was given to wean me off of clonazepam.
Testosterone-.5 ml – injection every 2 weeks – for low testosterone
Aspirin-81 mg-one a day for thick blood due to the testosterone replacement therapy
Kenalog injection for rash. I have had only one injection and the dermatologist told me that it would be good for a month.
Triamcinolone cream to use on the various rash sites.

Current Supplements

Vitamin D3-10,000 IU a day (Kirkland brand)
B12-5000 mcg sublingual 1 a day
Saw Palmetto-450 mg, 1 a day (ZHOU brand)
Ceylon Cinnamon-1200 mg, 1 a day (Spring Valley brand)
Garlic-2 capsules, 1 a day (Kyolic brand)
Niacinamide-500 mg, 2 times a day (Nutricost)
Liposomal Vitamin C-1400 mg, twice a day
Benfotiamine-300 mg, twice a day

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on February 19, 2020.

Undiagnosable or Sustained Ignorance?

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on December 6, 2021

5286 views

Over the last several years, I have born witness to immense human suffering; young women wracked by pain, with organs diseased, struggling to survive; some have seizures and brain infections are common; many have nerve damage, some develop cancer, and others die; sometimes by their own hands, so desperate for relief that suicide seems like a legitimate option, and other times by the cumulative effects of bad medicine.

These women are poked and prodded by physicians, hospitalized for extended periods, surgery after surgery, failed treatment after failed treatment, with no hope in sight. Their pain grows. Their symptoms worsen. Their suffering continues. In many cases, they are dropped by their physicians because their conditions are too complex to understand and too difficult to manage. They are undiagnosable, often untreatable, and their struggles are mostly invisible to the public.

They are your sisters, your mothers, your wives, your daughters, your girlfriends and colleagues. They are the 50% of the population that medical science ignores and the pharmaceutical industry preys upon. They are women. This is their story. And as a woman, a mom, a scientist and an advocate for women’s health– this is my story too. As a human being, how can it not be your story too?

Let me point you to the personal stories of the women I work with. Many were healthy once, prior to a medication or vaccine adverse reaction or ill-conceived surgery or surgical device. Some were not so healthy, suffering from one of the many undiagnosable women’s health conditions. But all of the women I work with have one thing in common – they fell victim to the promise of medical science. They believed that their doctors understood the effects of the drugs they were prescribed. They believed in the surgical treatment their doctor suggested. They believed that their doctors could find the source of their pain and treat it. They were wrong.

Meet Alisa, Alexis, Nicole, Britt, Nina, Ashley, Tracie, Susan, Danielle, Michelle, Kerri, Rosemary, Jordan, Philippa, Lisa, Angela, Kelsey, Rachel, Roxie, Rosalie, Heather, Jill, Louise, Sydney, Suki, Destini, Lisa, Emily, Debra, Patti, BJS, Joan, Holly, MAK, DES Daughter, Lisbeth, Robin, WS, Sarah, Zoe, Gabriella, Erika, Janet, Yuka, Sharne, SWC, Stacey, Bette, Amber, Momoka, Yumi, Dorothy, Samantha, Kristin, Katelyn, Jean, Sarah M., Erika, Charlotte, Kerry, Sharon, Taylor, Brandi, Alisen, Jess, J.H., Alex, Sandra, Theresa, Ann, Connie, Jessica, Kristyn, Bernadette, MJ, Marit, Alyson, Detrease, Claudia, Kristen G., Annie, Rebecca, Grace, Julia, Brooke, Anna-Karin, Brittany, Kristen S., CS, Asha, Anne, Leslie, Sharida, Lisa P., Daniel’s wife, Annie, JMR, June, Lisa MH, Casey, Margaret, Nicole, Stacey R., Stephanie, Karen, and all the men and women who shared their stories anonymously and the millions of others suffering in silence.

I have come to realize that their suffering is not uncommon. It is not a fluke. They are not the outliers of modern medicine; rather, they are the norm. Perhaps, the details of a particular story change somewhat, but every woman (and more and more men) has a health story; one that is marked by unending medical confusion and half-witted diagnoses based, not on a deep understanding, but on wild-assed guesses levied by pharmaceutical marketing. Indeed, if the illness does not have a medication then, in the eyes of all but the most progressive physicians, it does not exist. That may explain why the prevalence of medically unexplained symptoms ranges from 25-75% in outpatient settings, with pain being the most common.

Worse yet, when a medication elicits an adverse reaction, especially one that is chronic and complex, the patient is left to fend for themselves. It takes decades for recognition that a medication or vaccine might evoke complex reactions beyond those associated with anaphylaxis. The statistics for women’s healthcare back this up.

Did you know that it takes 5-10 years to diagnose common women’s health conditions and that once diagnosed there are often no medications or effective treatment options? You’d think that that since the development of modern medicine, someone, somewhere, would figure out how to diagnose and effectively treat some of these conditions? You’d be wrong.

Did you know that only 30% of Ob/Gyn Clinical Practice Guidelines are based on actual data – 70% are based on consensus? Sit with that one for a minute. You’d have a better chance of getting an accurate diagnosis with a dartboard.

Did you know that before the mid-1990s, women were prohibited from being in clinical trials – meaning that no medications developed before then were ever tested on women? Hundreds of medications currently on the market were developed before women were permitted into clinical trials.

Did you know that even today women represent only about 30% of early clinical trial participants? It is in the early trials that safety and efficacy data are established. Not even female rodents were used in testing drugs that would be used in the female population until 2014.

Did you know that even when women are included in clinical trials, there is no mandate to analyze the safety or efficacy data by sex – to see if a particular medication causes more adverse reactions in women, or even works in women? It took 20 years to realize Ambien dosing for women was different than for men. And by different, I mean, it should have been half. For the twenty years this drug was on the market women were over-dosing because no one bothered to consider sex as a variable in pharmacokinetic research.

Did you know that women account for disproportionately more serious and more frequent adverse reactions and that most of the major drug recalls in recent history were due to the adverse events experienced by women?

Nope, you probably didn’t know that because it’s not common knowledge. Unless, you are one of the millions of individuals suffering from an undiagnosable, untreatable, unknowable disease or adverse reaction, then it is all too real.

And though I focus of women’s health, men are not completely risk free. The British Medical Journal reports that when 3000 commonly used medications were reviewed, less than 50% had the appropriate data to suggest any efficacy whatsoever. Worse yet, because of publication bias, fraud, and the closed clinical trials system allows pharmaceutical companies hide their negative results behind the walls of intellectual property, when already approved medications are re-evaluated using the previously closed trial data, the recommendations for use changed for 93% of the medications – 93%. For cancer drugs, efficacy could be confirmed in only 11% of the studies reanalyzed. That’s just wrong. We can do better. We must do better.

As I rattle off these stats, you might be thinking to yourself, ‘but Chandler, those adverse reactions, those drug side effects are rare, they wouldn’t, they couldn’t, happen to me or my family, we’re healthy.’ Think again.

According to the Mayo Clinic, 70% of all Americans take at least one pharmaceutical chronically, 50% take two, and 20% take five or more medications, even during pregnancy where 80% of women take at least one medications and 30% take four or more, an increase of more than 60% over the last 15 years. And don’t get me started about administering vaccines to pregnant women under the auspices of protecting the fetus. There are no data suggesting that a vaccine during pregnancy is anything more than a toxic cocktail that both mom and fetus have to survive, and many do not. None of these medications or vaccinations have ever been tested for safety or efficacy during pregnancy, read the package inserts. Similarly, infants, children and adolescents represent key demographics for pharmaceutical marketing and once again, only 10-20% of pediatric medications were tested on children. We have no idea what illnesses we are initiating by our overuse of medications and vaccines. None. And therein lies the problem.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on October 31, 2017, and as one might expect, the list of women who have suffered at the hands of sustained ignorance has grown considerably.

Image credit: Imgflip.

Adverse Reactions, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Gait, Balance and Tremors

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on July 6, 2017

69724 views

Gait, tremors with adverse medication vaccine reactions

One of the things I most love about social media and health research is the opportunity to identify patterns of illness across different patient groups. Here is an example of finding research from one patient group, ThyroidChange, that likely spans many others (Gardasil injured, post Lupron Hashimoto’s, and Fluoroquinolone reactions – to name but a few) and offers clues to a perplexing array of symptoms. The research, is about a little known association between movement and balance disorders and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis: Ataxia associated with Hashimoto’s disease: progressive non-familial adult onset cerebellar degeneration with autoimmune thyroiditis. Some background.

Hashimoto’s Disease

Hashimoto’s is the most common causes of hypothyroidism afflicting women at a rate of 10 to 1 compared to men. It is an autoimmune disorder in which antibodies attack the thyroid gland and destroy its ability to maintain normal thyroid hormone concentrations. The most common symptoms include: fatigue, muscle pain, weight gain, depression, cognitive difficulties, cold intolerance, leg swelling, constipation, dry skin. If left untreated, goiter – a swollen thyroid gland, appears. If left untreated for an extended period, cardiomyopathy (swelling of the heart muscle), pleural (lung) and pericardial (heart) effusion (fluid), coma and other dangerous conditions develop.

Hashimoto’s and Cerebellar Degeneration

A little known risk in Hashimoto’s is cerebellar degeneration. The cerebellum is the cauliflower looking section at the base of the brain that controls motor coordination – the ability to perform coordinated tasks such as walking, focusing on a visual stimuli and reaching for objects in space. The walking and balance disturbances associated with cerebellar damage or degeneration have a very distinct look, a wide gait, with an inability to walk heel to toe. Cerebellar ataxia looks like this:

In recent years, cerebellar involvement in attention and mood regulation have also been noted. The physicians reporting the Hashimoto’s – ataxia connection present case studies of six patients with Hashimoto’s disease, presumably controlled with medication and a progressive and striking shrinkage of the cerebellum (see report for MRI images) along with progressively debilitating ataxia (walking and balance difficulties) and tremors. Here’s where it becomes interesting.

Hashimoto’s: Medication Adverse Reaction and Misdiagnosis

Hashimoto’s disease is prevalent in our research into medication adverse reactions for Gardasil and Cervarix and Lupron, with some indications it may develop post Fluoroquinolone injury as well. The symptoms are difficult to distinguish from other neurological and neuromuscular diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and an array of psychiatric conditions, and so Hashimoto’s often goes undiagnosed or is misdiagnosed and mistreated for some time.

Hashimoto’s, Demyelination and Cerebellar Damage

In some of the more severe adverse reactions to medications and vaccines that would lead to Hashimoto’s, the tell tale cerebellar gait disturbances have been noted and documented, along with a specific type of tremor (discussed below).

Research from other groups shows a strong relationship between thyroid function and myelin/demylenation patterns in nerve fibers in animals. Specifically, insufficient T3 concentrations demyelinates nerve axons, while T3 supplementation elicits myelin regrowth. Myelin is the white sheathing, the insulation that protects nerves and improves the electrical conduction of messages in sensory, motor and other neurons. Like co-axial cable in electrical wiring, when the protective sheathing is lost, electrical conductance is disrupted. The early symptoms of a demyelinating disease neuromuscular pain, weakness, sometimes tremors. These can be misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, when in reality, the culprit is a diseased thyroid gland.

Back to the Cerebellum

The cerebellum is a focal point of white matter axons – myelinated sensory and motor nerves. The cerebellum is where input becomes coordinated into motor movements or movement patterns. White matter damage in the cerebellum causes cerebellar ataxia, the movement and balance disorders displayed above. Hashimoto’s elicits white matter disintegration. Adverse reactions to medications and vaccines can elicit autoimmune Hashimoto’s disease. See the connection?

The Thiamine – Gut Connection

It gets even more interesting when we add another component of systemic medication adverse reactions – nutritional malabsorption, specifically thiamine deficiency. Almost across the board, patients with medication or vaccine adverse reactions report gut disturbances, from leaky gut, to gastroparesis, constipation, pain and a myriad of other GI issues that make eating and then absorbing nutrients difficult. Gut issues are common in thyroid disease too.

As we learn more, and as individuals are tested, severe nutrient deficiencies are noted, in vitamin D, Vitamin B1, B12, Vitamin A, sometimes magnesium, copper and zine. We’ve recently learned of the connections between Vitamin B1 or thiamine deficiency and a set of conditions affecting the autonomic nervous system called dsyautonomia or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) linked to thiamine deficiency in the post Gardasil and Cervarix injury group. It may be linked to other injured groups as well, but we do not know yet.

Thiamine and Cell Survival

Thiamine or vitamin B1, is necessary for cellular energy. It is a required co-factor in several enzymatic processes, including glucose metabolism and interestingly enough, myelin production (the Hashimoto’s – cerebellar connection). We can get thiamine only from diet. When diet suffers as in the case of chronic alcoholism, where most of the research on this topic is focused, or when nutritional uptake is impaired, thiamine deficiency ensues. Thiamine deficiency can elicit cell death by three mechanisms:

Mitochondrial dysfunction (reduced energy access) and cell death by necrosis
Programmed cell death – apoptosis
Oxidative stress – the increase in free radicals or decrease in ability to clear them

Thiamine deficiency in and of itself can elicit a host of serious health symptoms. The cell death and disruption of cellular energy balance can be significant and lead to a totally disrupted autonomic system.

Thiamine and Myelin Growth

Add to those symptoms, the fact that thiamine is involved in the growth myelin sheathing around nerves, and we have a whole host of additional neuromuscular symptoms masking as fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue. Like with MS, limb and body tremors are noted in dysautonomic syndromes such as POTS. (Video of POTS tremors, note the uniqueness of the POTS tremor and the similarity between it and the foot tremor shown above along with cerebellar ataxia).

Let thiamine deficiency continue unchecked for period and we get brain damage, as white matter – the myelin disintegrates in the brainstem, the cerebellum and likely continues elsewhere. One of the most prominent areas of damage in thiamine deficiency, is the cerebellum, and hence, the cerebellar ataxia (movement disorders) noted in chronic alcoholics who are thiamine deficient, but also observed post medication or vaccine adverse reaction.

The Double Whammy on Myelin and Cerebellar Function

In the case medication or vaccine adverse reactions, particularly those that reach the systemic level, we have a double whammy on myelin disintegration: from a diseased thyroid gland and a diseased gut. Hashimoto’s and the reduction of thyroid hormones, particularly T3, impairs nerve conduction by shifting from a constant and healthy remyelinating pattern to one of demyelination, while the lack of thiamine further impairs myelin regrowth, because it is a needed co-factor. Both deficiencies affect peripheral nerves, but both also hit the brainstem, the cerebellum and likely other areas within the brain.

Take Home Points

The science of adverse reactions is new and evolving and much of what I am reporting here remains speculative. However, it has become abundantly clear through our research that to address medication adverse reactions or vaccine adverse reactions in a simplistic fashion, by region, or in an organ specific manner, is to miss the broader implications of the compensatory disease processes that ensue. Moreover, to look for symptoms of adverse reactions simply by the drug’s mechanism of action and/or by the standard outcome variables listed in adverse event reporting systems, again misses the complexity of the human physiological response to what the body is perceiving as a toxin. I believe that the entire framework for understanding the body’s negative response to a medication must be shifted to a much broader, multi-system, and indeed, multidisciplinary approach. In the mean time, we will continue to collect data on adverse reactions and offer our readers points of consideration in their quests for healing. I should note, that finding these connections is entirely contingent on the input our community of patients and health activists, both via the personal health stories that so many of you have been willing to share and the data we collect through our research. You know more about your health and illness than we do.

What we Know So Far – Tests to Consider

If you have had an adverse reaction to a medication or vaccine and neuromuscular difficulties, like pain, numbness, motor coordination problems, tremors etc., consider testing for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Also, consider thyroid testing when fatigue, depression, mood lability (switching moods), constipation, attentional and focus difficulties are present. In fact, I would consider thyroid testing, specifically for autoimmune thyroid disease like Hashimoto’s, as one of the first disease processes to rule out.

If you have had an adverse reaction to a medication that includes gut disturbances, consider the possibility that you are deficient in key micronutrients such as Vitamin D, the B’s, Vitamin A, magnesium, copper, zinc. And given the modern diet, consider that you were probably borderline deficient even before experiencing the adverse reaction. These nutrients are critically important to health and healing (and no, I do not have an association with vitamin companies or testing companies). Some tests for these nutrients are more accurate than others, so be sure to do your homework first.

If you have symptoms associated with autonomic systems dysregulation such as those associated with POTS, dysautonomia and its various permutations, consider thiamine testing, especially, transkelotase testing.

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Postscript: This article was published originally on Hormones Matter on October 15, 2013.

Out of Balance: The Unbridled Power of the Pharmaceutical Industry

by Lisa Bloomquist

Published on October 27, 2014

4151 views

A staggeringly large number of people are hurt or killed by pharmaceuticals each year. Medical mistakes and pharmaceutical induced injuries are the 4th most common cause of death in American hospitals (1).

Casualties reveal that the medical system is broken, and it is broken in ways that are systemic, complex and difficult to fix.

Every large system that works well has a foundation of checks and balances that keeps power from being too concentrated. Unchecked power corrupts – it has been shown to be true millions of times throughout history. The need for checks and balances on the power of pharmaceutical companies is just as great as the need for checks and balances on the power of any given branch of the government. There are organizations, individuals and institutions, that should be checking and balancing the power of pharmaceutical companies, and keeping them from maiming and killing thousands of people each year; but those organizations and institutions are failing. They are not keeping the pharmaceutical industry in check, and thus, the problems with the pharmaceutical industry are systemic.

Here is a list of institutions and groups of people who are supposed to be protecting the public from the pharmaceutical companies, but who are not:

The FDA does not Regulate the Pharmaceutical Industry

It’s self-evident that the FDA is failing. Deaths from pharmaceuticals don’t get to the point where thousands of people needlessly die each year while using drugs as prescribed when a regulatory agency is doing its job. “Every week, about 53,000 excess hospitalizations and about 2400 excess deaths occur in the United States among people taking properly prescribed drugs to be healthier. One in every five drugs approved ends up causing serious harm, while one in ten provide substantial benefit compared to existing, established drugs(2).” This sorry state of affairs doesn’t happen with a regulatory agency that is working properly to protect the people.

Most people assume that the FDA tests drugs for safety. They don’t. The FDA reviews tests performed by the pharmaceutical companies, the same company that developed the drug and stands to profit from the drug(3). It’s a system that is rife with conflicts of interest and perverse incentives that allow dangerous and/or ineffective drugs onto the market.

The FDA is approving drugs that are linked to cancer in clinical trials (new diabetes drugs, Farxiga and Invocana showed high incidence of bladder cancer in clinical trials (4). CANCER. When it is discovered after drugs are released onto the market that they are cancer-causing, the FDA doesn’t remove them from the market or insist that pharmaceutical companies try again to make a better formula that DOESN’T CAUSE CANCER, they simply make the warning label longer – as is the case with TNF inhibitors like Humira and Enbrel (5,6).

Those at the FDA are apparently incapable of making connections between drugs and chronic diseases. When the FDA added the risk of permanent peripheral neuropathy to the 43 page warning label for fluoroquinolone antibiotics, they noted that the mechanism for action that caused the peripheral neuropathy was mitochondrial dysfunction. There are hundreds of studies that link mitochondrial dysfunction to every chronic disease of modernity (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome / M.E., fibromyalgia, etc.), but rather than restrict the use of dangerous mitochondria damaging drugs like fluoroquinolones, they just increased the length of the label, and people keep getting sick from these drugs (7).

The FDA is not looking out for the people. The notion that they are actually protecting people from dangerous drugs is laughable.

The Courts Rule in Favor of the Pharmaceutical Industry

If you’re hurt by a drug, you can sue, right? After all, the United States is the most litigious country in the world. People sue for all sorts of things all the time, surely those who are legitimately hurt by pharmaceuticals have legal recourse, right? And the legal system must be keeping pharmaceutical companies from hurting people, right?

It’s not that easy.

If the “side-effect” of a drug that you suffer from is listed on the warning label for the drug, you can’t sue the drug companies for failure to warn. So, for example, if you develop a severe psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder or severe depression after taking Chantix, an anti-smoking drug, you can’t sue the manufacturer of the drug, even if your declined mental health ruins your life, because the warning label for Chantix says that serious psychiatric ill-effects have followed treatment with Chantix (8).

If the side-effect that you suffer from isn’t listed on the warning label for that drug, you’re not much better off than you are if it is. If it’s not listed on the warning label, the connection between the drug and the disease is not established and proving that the drug caused the adverse reaction is close to impossible.

Additionally, those who take generic drugs have no legal recourse against the manufacturers of the drugs, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 24, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that generic drug manufacturers could not be held liable for the effects of the pharmaceuticals that they manufacture. A New York Times piece pointed out that, “The decision is a significant victory for the generic drug industry, but further narrows the recourse for people who are injured by such drugs” (9). People who have been hurt by a drug manufactured by a generic drug company have no recourse now – no chance for justice – regardless of how horribly they are harmed by a drug. Lawyers aren’t even taking cases of people hurt by generic drugs.

The justice system is doing a horrible job at providing justice for those who have been hurt by pharmaceuticals. In not getting justice for the people who have been hurt by pharmaceuticals, they are giving the pharmaceutical industry no incentive to stop hurting people.

Media Ties to the Pharmaceutical Industry Hamper Objectivity

If you read a newspaper, news based magazine, or watch television news, you will be bombarded with advertisements for pharmaceuticals. A quick review of a few issues of Time, U.S. News and World Report and Reader’s Digest revealed that 15% of the advertisements in those “news” magazines were for pharmaceuticals. Television news programs are even worse with constant bombardment of advertisements for antidepressants, erectile dysfunction drugs, etc. How can we expect the news media to cover the dangers of drugs and the malfeasance of the pharmaceutical industry when advertisements from the pharmaceutical industry provide a significant portion of the revenue for those media sources?

I don’t believe that the media can be objective toward those who ensure their livelihood. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, as they say – and the mainstream media is well-fed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Doctors and the Pharmaceutical Industry

Doctors generally know too little about the drugs that they prescribe. Most are not pharmacologists and they count on the FDA to tell them whether or not a drug is safe to use.

In some ways, I feel sorry for doctors. They don’t intend to hurt people with pharmaceuticals – they mean to help people with pharmaceuticals. There are good drugs that do what they’re supposed to do and even save lives. But the entire medical profession seems to have lost critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the appropriate use of powerful drugs. Drugs can do harm, and many pharmaceuticals do more harm than good. Admitting that will not mean that any physician has to have his or her prescription pads taken away.

There is an appropriate time and place for every type of health therapy – nutritional, herbal, pharmaceutical, etc. – but the dependence of physicians on the exclusive use of pharmaceuticals has made them so entrenched in the system, and so dependent on the pharmaceutical industry, that the questioning of the appropriateness of drug therapies is rarely done. Doctors aren’t keeping the pharmaceutical companies in check by questioning them and refusing to tolerate the inordinate number of harmful drugs going through their office because doctors cannot operate without those dangerous drugs. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Some push-back on the pharmaceutical industry by doctors is entirely appropriate. They should push back on the pharmaceutical industry – for their patients and for their conscience.

Pharmacists and the Pharmaceutical Industry

Pharmacists understand the mechanisms of drug actions. They are trained in pharmacology. They are the gate-keepers for dispensing drugs to the public. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why there isn’t more uproar among them about harmful drugs.

Scientists and the Pharmaceutical Industry

Everything that I know about biochemistry, cellular biology, how drugs interact with cells, etc. is from journal articles written by scientists. I thank them very much for their work. It is with science that the fraud and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry will be revealed.

Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical and agricultural biochemical corporations have a strangle-hold on much of the work being done by scientists. Objectivity and scientific principles are lost as health research is corrupted by corporate funding at multiple levels. Selection bias has been demonstrated repeatedly, showing that negative results in drug research are not published. Scientists are put in a difficult position as their status and livelihood depend on publishing (publish or perish) so, they must only publish positive findings. Moreover, much of their work and their institution’s research funding comes from the pharmaceutical companies, either directly with drug development or testing grants or indirectly via the NIH inasmuch as the NIH won’t fund adverse events research but only that which has the possibility of a drug discovery. Researchers who dare to question the safety of a particular drug are often disciplined by their institutions for fear that the institutions will lose the millions of dollars drug companies funneled to them, and then if the researcher does speak out, the personal campaigns against them by the drug companies will end their research career. It’s a very untenable position for anyone with a brain and a conscience.

Even though I understand that research scientists are in a difficult position, I get frustrated with the lack of screaming and grand-standing that I don’t see from the scientific community. Scientists have the tools to see the damaging effects of pharmaceuticals. They have the intelligence to connect the dots. They have the credibility to make a difference in people’s lives. They have the ability to save lives. But most aren’t screaming about the harm caused by drugs, partly for the reasons listed above, and partly because they seem to be stuck in an outdated mode of caution and gentlemanliness. They know that they can say that a drug is associated with a higher incidence of cancer, but they are reluctant to say that the drug CAUSED the cancer. They can say that a drug had hugely harmful effects on the cells of rats, but they are reluctant to make any recommendations about human use of those drugs based on those studies of rats – even though the rats are effectively canaries in the coalmine and screaming about hurt rats may prevent future hurt humans. I understand this caution and the rules of science. But it would be really nice if more scientists were using their credibility and intelligence to push back against the pharmaceutical industry.

The People Must Resist Pharmaceutical Industry Marketing

Without the FDA, the media, the justice system, doctors, pharmacists or scientists standing up to the pharmaceutical companies and putting a check on their (currently unmitigated) power, patients are left to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, most patients don’t have the time or capability of doing the necessary research to determine the safety of any given drug. Patients depend on the system to have checks and balances to keep them safe, but those systems that are supposed to be providing checks and balances are failing.

I don’t think that the pharmaceutical companies are evil entities that are conspiring to decrease the world’s population. But I do think that they are profit motivated businesses with obligations to enrich their shareholders, and that their obligations to enrich their shareholders are in direct conflict with any mission of making the people that they sell drugs to healthy. There is an inherent conflict of interest born from the fact that sick, especially chronically ill, people are the best customers of pharmaceutical companies. A poisoned, sick, population is in nobody’s interest except those who leach money from the ill.

Systematic corrections are needed to fix the problem of an obscene numbers of casualties from the pharmaceutical industry.

Stopping the pharmaceutical companies from hurting people is the right thing to do. I hope that the FDA, the media, the justice system, doctors, pharmacists and scientists start doing so.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Sources:

Journal of American Medicine, “Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients”
Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center For Ethics, “Risky Drugs: Why the FDA Cannot be Trusted”
FDA Drug Development and Approval Process
Huffington Post Healthy Living, “Farxiga, Just Approved by FDA, Uses New Approach to Treat Diabetes”
Medscape Medical News, “FDA Safety Changes: Humira”
FDA Warning Label: Humira
Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service Food and Drug Administration Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology, Pharmacovigilance Review, April 17, 2013, “Disabling Peripheral Neuropathy Associated with Systemic Fluoroquinolone Exposure”
Chantix Warning Label
New York Times, “In 5-4 Ruling, Justices Say Generic Makers Are Not Liable for Design of Drugs”

Image by wirestock on Freepik

Side Effects and Unintended Consequences of Popular Pharmaceuticals

by Lisa Bloomquist

Published on October 7, 2014

3626 views

After experiencing an adverse reaction to a popular antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, that involved destruction of my tendons, muscles, and cartilage, as well as my central, peripheral and autonomic nervous systems, I was left with questions that no one seemed to be able to answer – What did ciprofloxacin do to my body? What happened that made it feel as if a bomb had gone off in me? Why was I fine after taking ciprofloxacin once, but was far from fine after taking it a second time? Why can some people tolerate ciprofloxacin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics with no ill effects, but others can’t and are destroyed by a single prescription? And the most important question of all – How could I put my body and mind back together again?

I scoured research journals for answers to these questions. The answers that I found were daunting. I found that ciprofloxacin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics are topoisomerase interrupters – meaning that they disrupt the enzymatic process of bacterial DNA replication (and mitochondrial DNA replication). I found that fluoroquinolones deplete intracellular magnesium. Depletion of intracellular magnesium has multiple health consequences including disruption of more than 300 enzymatic processes. I realized that both enzyme depletion and magnesium depletion lead to mitochondrial dysfunction. I found that mitochondrial dysfunction leads to high levels of oxidative stress and that oxidative stress wreaks havoc on multiple areas of health. I discovered that the carboxylic acid molecule in fluoroquinolones can be metabolized into poisonous metabolites in the liver. I learned how feedback loops between multiple biological systems work together and those compensatory feedback loops make repairing damage difficult.

The more I learned about the complex interactions occurring in my body, the more I realized that the number of unknown factors is far greater than the number of known factors. I realized that, as much as I wanted easy answers and quick solutions, there were none available. Because of the complexity of the human body, as well as individual differences in both genetics and environment, I doubt that easy answers will ever be available. Any one of the many complex systems within the human body can be studied for a lifetime without knowing everything about it. The multiple systems within our bodies are interconnected, difficult to comprehend, poorly understood and truly amazing. Human life is astoundingly, beautifully, mind-bogglingly complex.

Mind Blowing Complexity

This chart of metabolic pathways shows just one level of biochemical complexity in the human body. Click and take a look. Amazing, isn’t it? I find the pathways to be both incredibly daunting and beautiful at the same time. As complex as that chart is, it doesn’t include everything. There are additional layers on top of it – genetics, epigenetics, equally complex charts about the microbiome, endocrine system, bioenergetics, etc.

Even though the metabolic pathways in the chart above are known (if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be in the chart), I suspect that the interactions between the metabolic pathways, and the connections between them and other complex systems, are not adequately considered in healthcare. How could they be? These pathways are so mind-blowingly complex, and so interconnected with layer upon layer of feedback and feedforward loops amplifying any disruption and miscalculation, that if we were to properly consider the ramifications of pharmaceutical alterations, no one would dare take most medications. We would recognize the limits of our abilities to predict and treat the inevitable unintended consequences of disturbing the balance within and among these systems. Since pharmaceuticals are a trillion dollar industry, it is safe to say that all of the potential effects of pharmaceuticals on these pathways are not fully considered.

Pharmaceuticals Disrupt Biochemical Pathways

Every pharmaceutical has an effect on those pathways. When the drug interacts with the metabolic pathways as expected, all parties involved are pleased. When the drug interacts in unexpected or unwanted ways, we say that there are “side-effects.” I wonder though, are there really side-effects, or is that just a more palatable expression about the limits of our understanding (and attention)? One could argue that if we paid more attention to the broader biological systems involved in human health, those “side-effects” would be entirely predictable. But we don’t. Instead we focus our medication efforts on narrowly defined targets, destroying a particular pathogen or amplifying or diminishing a specific cell cycle function, all the while ignoring that those processes are conserved systemically. Perturbations in one organism or one function, necessarily affects the entire system. Nothing happens in isolation.

If we were to consider the potential for drugs to initiate systemic reactions, and if the effects of drugs on metabolic pathways were properly regarded, fluoroquinolones and many other drugs and vaccines would not be on the market. But we don’t. Instead, we choose to believe that side-effects are rare and won’t happen to us. Those beliefs are bolstered by decades of marketing to physicians and patients, promoting the safety and efficacy of each drug, often long after science and the legal system have disputed those claims.

Fluoroquinolones, the drugs I know most about, deplete intracellular magnesium (note how many times you see Mg in the chart) and disrupt vital enzymatic processes (which are kind of important). Can you even imagine there not being unintended consequences to depleting vital minerals from a system that is as complex and interconnected as cellular biochemistry and metabolic pathways that determine human health? I cannot imagine it, because after learning about how fluoroquinolones react in the body, I know too much to believe the marketing propaganda about any drug. Before my adverse reaction, however, I never gave the safety of antibiotics a second thought. It appears neither did my doctor, nor the millions of other physicians who have made the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics the most prescribed and profitable antibiotics ever.

I know that there are some very smart scientists out there; people who are far more intelligent than I, who have a much better grasp of biochemistry – so why aren’t the dangers of fluoroquinolones more well-known? Why aren’t the side-effects entirely predictable? Why did I have to figure out all of this on my own, without help from the physician who prescribed the medication or the physicians I saw post reaction? Sadly, I have come to believe that most physicians and patients alike don’t want to recognize the complexity of human health; preferring instead to believe in our own intellectual supremacy. And as much as I appreciate the scientists who are doing the work on which I have based my assertions, I don’t think that there is anyone who understands the complex biochemical feedback loops sufficiently to guarantee that there won’t be unintended consequences when disrupting part of the system with a pharmaceutical.

Unintended Consequences

How can one avoid the unintended consequences that come with disruption of the biochemical interactions described in this chart? Individualized medicine that takes into consideration genetic predispositions is one place to start, but it requires that we recognize the complexity of interacting systems and abandon our silver bullet approach to medicine. From where I sit, this is a long way off. Individualized medicine based on genetic predispositions barely exists. If we consider the complexity of a lifetime of environmental exposures, predicting how a particular drug will react in given individual is complex, if not impossible. For me, the most feasible way to avoid unintended disruptions and feedback loops is to avoiding pharmaceuticals (or at least use them very sparingly). Each medication has side-effects and unintended consequences. All drugs disrupt the very biochemical feedback loops necessary for keeping us healthy.

Avoid the Cause in Order to Avoid the Effect

Perhaps, I am the medical equivalent of a Luddite. Perhaps, I over-emphasize the harm done by pharmaceuticals and underestimate the good done by them because I was hurt by a drug. I see the unintended consequences of disrupting the delicate balance of biochemical pathways everywhere. All of the diseases of modernity can be traced to a disruption on the chart above (or maybe a disruption on the endocrine system chart, or the microbiome chart, or the epigenetics chart). People are sick; not cells in a petri dish – people. They are sick and they are suffering because of disruptions in their biochemistry.

These systems are complex. The feedback loops between systems amplify the complexity and make mistakes and miscalculations difficult (impossible) to correct.

Disruptions in our biochemistry result in disease.

We live in a world of unintended consequences. Does anyone else see it?

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Information about the author, and adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) can be found on Lisa Bloomquist’s site, www.floxiehope.com.

Poor Nutrition Stress: The Enemy of Health

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on May 6, 2014

4367 views

In previous posts, I have indicated that stress can initiate or exacerbate disease and medication or vaccine adverse reactions. Read that statement, you might think I am attributing the onset of serious disease and adverse reactions to a psychosocial cause. That is not the case. Stress comes in a myriad of forms, some external, some internal, and although much of what we call stress relates to psychosocial responses to perceived threats, I think stress encapsulates so much more. At its most fundamental level, stress represents a physical state where the body is performing less than optimally. Let me explain.

What is Stress?

I define the word “stress” as a physical or mental force that is acting upon you. An example of mental or psychosocial stress might be an insult from a person, meaning that the stress comes from a source outside the body. On the other hand, it might be the realization that a deadline has to be met, a mental source from within. Any form of injury is an obvious source of physical stress. Physical action such as shoveling snow is another form of stress, demanding energy consumption imposed by the individual who wishes to get rid of the snow. Being infected with a virus or by bacteria is a form of stress that demands a defensive reaction. In each of these instances, the body reacts to the inflicting stressor. Sometimes, when the resources are available, it reacts efficiently. Other times, when the resources are not available or when additional factors intercede, the body’s response to the stress is ill-adapted.

Your Body is Your Fortress, Your Immune System the Soldiers

Perhaps an analogy might help to provide an explanation for the remarks that follow. I imagine the body as being like an old fashioned fortress. The people living within it go into action when the fortress is attacked by an enemy from outside. It would be of little use if the defense soldiers went to the eastern battlements if the attack came from the west and so there had to be a central figure that would coordinate the defensive reaction. The nature of the attack would be spotted by a guard on duty and the central figure informed by messenger.

The body represents the fortress and the lower part of the brain represents the central figure that coordinates the defense. The cells in the blood known as white cells can be thought of as soldiers, armed with the necessary weapons to meet the nature of the enemy. Suppose, for example, a person’s finger is stuck by a splinter carrying a disease bearing germ. The pain, felt in the brain, recognizes its source and interprets it as a signal that an attack has occurred. White cells in the area can be regarded as the “militia under local command” and a “beachhead” is formed to wall off the attack. The white cells sacrifice themselves and as they die, they form what we call pus. If the beachhead is broken and the germs manage to get into the bloodstream, it is then called septicemia and the brain/body goes into a full defensive reaction where high fever is the most obvious result. Such an illness is an attack/defense battle.

The symptoms that develop from such an infection represent the evidence for this defense, feeling ill, pain and developing a fever are excellent examples. Micro-organisms are most efficient at 37° C, the normal body temperature. The rise in body temperature, initiated by the brain, makes the microorganisms less efficient and may kill some of them. One therefore has to question the time honored method of reducing the fever, during illness, as being an example of good treatment. While reducing fever improves the symptoms caused by the infection, it also reduces the efficiency of the immune battle raging within.

The outcome against the stressor is death or recovery; although it is possible sometimes to end up in a kind of stalemate, represented by prolonged symptoms of ill health. Chronic illness may be viewed as the immune system’s inability to eradicate fully the stressor.

Poor Nutrition and Stress

As I have emphasized in previous posts, the autonomic (automatic) nervous and endocrine systems are used to carry the messages between the body and the brain that enable the defense to be coordinated. This demands a colossal amount of cellular energy, no matter the nature of the stress. That energy to fight stress comes from oxidation of the fuel that is provided from nutrition. Of course, the greater the stress the greater the energy demand, but in the end the equation is quite simple. If the energy required to meet the stress is greater than the energy that is supplied, there must be a variable degree of collapse within the defensive system. That collapse presents as intractable symptoms, where the body is unable provide the energy needed to sustain health. This is the secret of the autonomic dysfunction in the vitamin B1 deficiency disease, beriberi. It is also the secret behind the initiation of POTS because both conditions are examples of defective oxidation. You can read more details regarding thiamine deficiency, beriberi, POTS and other health issues from previous posts on this website

High Energy Demands Equal High Nutritional Demands

Nutrient density of diet might appear to be perfectly adequate for a given individual, but inadequate to meet the self-initiated energy demands of a superior brain/body combination in a highly active individual such as an actively engaged student or athlete. Our genetic characteristics, the quality of nutrition and the nature of life stresses each represent a factor that all combine together to give us a profile for understanding health and its potential breakdown.

Epigenetics and Mitochondria: The Stress of Our Parents

Epigenetics, the science of how our genes are influenced by diet and lifestyle, is relatively new. Epigenetics considers the possibility that genes can be activated and deactivated by nutrition and lifestyle. Stress can come in many forms, from psychosocial trauma, poor nutrition, environmental and medical toxin exposures, to infections. Stress impacts how our genes behave. Even though one may inherit a hard-coded genetic mutation from a parent, that mutation may not be activated unless exposed to a particular type of stress. Similarly, an individual who may have no obvious illness-causing genetic abnormalities but stress, in the form of nutritional depletion, exposures or trauma, can turn on or turn off a set of genes that induce illness. What is remarkable about epigenetics is the transgenerational nature of the stressors. The memories of stressors affecting our parents and even our grandparents can affect our health by activating or deactivating gene programs.

We also have to consider the state of our mitochondria, the “engines” in each of our cells that produce the energy for cellular function (to learn more about mitochondria and health, see previous posts on this website). Mitochondria have their own genes that are inherited only from the mother. Damage to the DNA that makes up these genes sometimes explains the similarity of symptoms that affect a given mother and any or all of her children. For example, although this damage may be inherited, we also have scientific evidence that thiamine deficiency, known to be the result of poor diet, can damage mitochondria. A bad gene might be the solitary cause of a given disease, but even where this is known as the cause, the symptoms of the disease are sometimes delayed for many years, suggesting that other variables must play a part. A minor change in cellular genetic DNA might be alright to meet the demands of normal living, but impose a risk factor that could be impacted by prolonged stress or poor nutrition, and disease emerges.

Nutrition is the Only Factor that We can Control

The imposition of stress on any given individual is variable, most of which is accidental and out of our control. Therefore, if we represent these three factors, genetics, stress and nutrition as three interlocking circles, all of which overlap at the center of such a figure, there is actually only one circle over which we have control and that is nutrition. We now know from the science of epigenetics that nutritional inadequacy can affect our genes. By examining the mechanism by which we defend ourselves against stress, we can also see the effect of poor nutrition.

Poor Nutrition Equals a Poor Stress Response

Using these three variables, perhaps we can begin to understand several unanswered questions. Why does a vaccination negatively affect a relatively small percentage of the total population vaccinated? Or why do some medications negatively impact only some individuals? It might be because of a genetic risk factor or because of a collapse of the coordinated stress response related to quality of nutrition or a combination of both. Why does a vaccination tend to “pick off” the higher quality students and athletes? Again, the same kind of answer; high quality machinery demands high quality fuel. Since the limbic system of the brain has a high energy demand and represents the computer that coordinates a stress response we can understand the appearance of beriberi or POTS and cerebellar ataxia, all examples of a deviant response to stress. Nutrition, therefore, should not be looked at as supplement to good health, but as the foundation of health. When disease or medication and vaccine reactions emerge, efforts to identify and then restore nutritional deficiencies must be the first line of immune system health. Without critical nutrients, the body simply cannot mount a successful stress response and the battlefield will expand and eventually fall.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by Pedro Figueras from Pixabay.

Medication Safety and Efficacy Studies: Share Your Experience

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on December 27, 2013

2290 views

Is this Medication or Vaccine Good for Me?

That is the question on everyone’s mind; is this medication good for me? How does one decide? The mandated medication package inserts tell one story. The online drug reaction and interaction lists are long and complicated. Adverse events data are incomplete and patient stories reflect individual reactions. Where are the reports that put numbers to the side-effects and adverse reactions? Where are the real world data that show risks for patients of different age groups, men versus women, or on multiple medications? Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter are collecting those data and you can help.

Understanding Side Effects

While we cannot make your medication decisions for you, we can collect more complete side-effect data from patients like you, from around the world and we can offer those data reports to patients, physicians and industry. We think everyone deserves to know the frequency, severity, and chronicity of side-effects. We think everyone deserves to know whether a the benefits of a medication or vaccine outweigh the risks. Don’t you?

How You Can Help

Take a Health Survey

Take a few minutes to complete a survey about the medications and surgical procedures you have utilized. Take as many health surveys as are applicable and share the surveys with your friends. All surveys are anonymous and completely voluntary. We’re adding more surveys every month, so check back frequently or sign up for our weekly newsletter to keep abreast of the latest research news.

Take one of our health surveys:

Understanding oral contraceptives safety, off-label prescribing and efficacy
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Fluoroquinolone Side Effects

Fund the Fight – Support Research

Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter, are unfunded and are run by Dr. Chandler Marrs along with a cadre of dedicated volunteers. We know the work we do is important and needed and so we’re doing it anyway, despite the lack of funding. We’re bootstrapped to the nth degree*, but determined to fill the critical data void in healthcare, one study at a time.

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Hormones Matter – Legal Structure

Hormones Matter is the health media arm of Lucine Health Sciences. We leverage the broad educational and social media reach of Hormones Matter to crowdsource critical, direct-to-patient research. Lucine is a C-corporation by federal standards, a B-Corp (for benefit corporation) in the state of Nevada. What this means is that any money you contribute, either through the donate or the subscribe buttons, is not tax deductible; for that we would have to be a not-for-profit enterprise.

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In February of 2016, Lucine received a grant to conduct a multi-phased study on the risks for blood clots with hormonal birth control. All other research remains unfunded.

medication adverse reactions

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Current Medications

Current Supplements

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Thiamine and Cell Survival

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The FDA does not Regulate the Pharmaceutical Industry

The Courts Rule in Favor of the Pharmaceutical Industry

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Scientists and the Pharmaceutical Industry

The People Must Resist Pharmaceutical Industry Marketing

We Need Your Help

Sources:

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Mind Blowing Complexity

Pharmaceuticals Disrupt Biochemical Pathways

Unintended Consequences

Avoid the Cause in Order to Avoid the Effect

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Related posts:

You might be interested in

What is Stress?

Your Body is Your Fortress, Your Immune System the Soldiers

Poor Nutrition and Stress

High Energy Demands Equal High Nutritional Demands

Epigenetics and Mitochondria: The Stress of Our Parents

Nutrition is the Only Factor that We can Control

Poor Nutrition Equals a Poor Stress Response

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Is this Medication or Vaccine Good for Me?

Understanding Side Effects

How You Can Help

Take a Health Survey

Fund the Fight – Support Research

Buy An Unsubscription Now

Hormones Matter – Legal Structure

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