November 14, 2023 • 67 mins
David Healy is a psychiatrist, scientist, psychopharmacologist, and author. Before becoming a professor of Psychiatry in Wales and more recently in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in Canada, he studied medicine in Dublin and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology. He has authored more than 230 Peer Reviewed Articles and 25 books, including The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology from Harvard University Press, Let Them Eat Prozac from New York University Press, and Mania from Johns Hopkins University Press and Pharmagedden. His latest book, Shipwreck of the Singular –Healthcare’s Castaways, shows how improvements in medicine, which contributed to increasing our life expectancies, have turned inside out and are leading to shortened life spans
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
intro (00:00):
get ready to hear the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth about theUnited States healthcare system
with your host of the medicaltruth podcast, James Egidio.
James Egidio (00:16):
Hi, I'm James Egidio Welcome to the medical
truth podcast.
I'm your host.
My guest is a psychiatrist,scientist, psychopharmacologist,
and author.
Before becoming a professor ofpsychiatry and Wales, and more
recently in the department offamily medicine at McMaster
university in Canada.
He studied medicine in Dublin,Ireland.
(00:37):
And at Cambridge university,he's a former secretary of the
British association forpsychopharmacology.
And as authored more than 230peer reviewed articles in 25
books, including the book, theantidepressant error and the
creation of psychopharmacologyfrom Harvard university, press.
He also wrote thepsychopharmacologist volumes one
(00:58):
through three.
Let them eat Prozac from NewYork university press.
And mania from John Hopkinsuniversity press in Pharmgedden
the latest, the most importantbook he wrote is shipwreck of
the singular healthcare'scastaways.
Which documents, howimprovements in medicine, which
contributed to increasing ourlife expectancies have now
(01:19):
turned inside out and ourleading to short.
Shortened lifespans.
Here to discuss post S S R I orantidepressant sexual
dysfunction.
it's an honor and a pleasure tohave on the medical truth
podcast.
My guest, Dr.
David Healy.
Hi, Dr.
Healey.
Dr.
Healy, welcome to the MedicalTruth Podcast.
(01:39):
How are you doing today?
Dr. David Healy (01:41):
I'm doing fine.
James Egidio (01:42):
Great.
For the listeners and viewers ofthe Medical Truth Podcast, a
little bit about who you are andwhat you do.
Dr. David Healy (01:49):
Okay, quickly I'm a doctor and I figured one
of the interesting things when Iqualified first was to look how
the brain fits into the mind.
And there was an opportunityback then to do a...
PhD on the serotonin system.
This is before the SSRI group ofdrugs, and that turned out to be
really interesting.
It illustrated to me how a lotof the stuff we hear about
(02:11):
things like the serotonin systemand the SSRI group of drugs,
this is really bio babble.
It's got Nothing to do with whatwe actually know about the
serotonin system.
But the other interesting thingwas, having worked on this
before the drugs came out,pharmaceutical companies thought
I was the perfect person to talkabout these drugs to doctors who
knew nothing about them.
(02:33):
And this gave me a great insighton how the pharmaceutical
industry works.
James Egidio (02:39):
Nice.
So what I want to do today is Iwant to unpack something that
you, that really got myattention because I'm going into
a series now of interviewingseveral guests that are
involved, either were victimizedby SSRIs, or are experts even
here in the United States.
And of course, just for thelisteners and viewers, We Dr.
(03:01):
Healey is from, you're in,located in Ireland, right?
The UK.
What part of Ireland are you in?
Dr. David Healy (03:08):
Currently, I actually come from Dublin, and
that's where I am at the moment.
But I've worked most of my lifein the UK, and I've worked in
Canada for a few years.
James Egidio (03:15):
Nice.
Nice.
But what I wanted to talk about,like I said, is what got my
attention was the post SSRIsexual dysfunction with SSRIs.
Dr. David Healy (03:25):
Yeah.
So go ahead.
Okay.
Quickly to fit you in on, let metake you all back a little bit
first, 60 years ago to when thefirst antidepressants came out.
And these were drugs that alsoinhibited the reuptake of
serotonin, but they did muchmore than that.
And there were a lot strongerdrugs than the SSRI group drugs
(03:45):
in the sense they could treat acondition called melancholia,
severe Mood disorders, whichcause you to commit suicide,
hugely increase the rate atwhich we might go on to commit
suicide.
Get in the way of us beinginterested to make love.
We lose interest in virtuallyeverything.
And this is a kind of problemthat can also relapse.
So the older drugs treated this,the SSRIs don't.
(04:08):
And doctors were thrilled to getthese older drugs.
They thought this is hugelyhelpful.
We're going to be able to savelives and things like that.
But they could also recognizeback then within a year of the
drug's been out that thesedrugs, while they save lives on
average, could also cause somepeople to become suicidal and
commit suicide.
While they were treating anillness, which might mean that
(04:30):
you weren't interested to makelove, they could also cause
sexual problems in their ownright.
And while they preventedrelapse, they also came with a
withdrawal syndrome that couldbe confused for relapse.
Now, one of the big mysteriesabout PSSD is not the actual
problem, which I'll outline nowfor people, but it's the fact
(04:53):
that doctors today using muchweaker drugs in terms of their
age.
ability to help us get well butmuch more powerful drugs working
on the serotonin system.
These drugs cause people to toactually commit suicide, but
doctors today can't see this andthey tell you it's the mild
condition that we've put you onthis drug for, which comes with
(05:14):
no risk of suicide, but it'sactually causing you to commit
suicide.
And these drugs also hugelyinhibit our ability to make love
way beyond what the older drugsdo and they've been given to
people who've got mildconditions Where there's no
interference from the conditionwith our interest in and ability
to make love Doctors can see thedrugs are actually causing the
(05:36):
problem and say it's yourcondition that's causing this we
need to increase the you know atthe dose of the drug i'll keep
you on it much longer And theother thing is these mild
conditions people get put inthese drugs for there are
usually stress, their distress,there's things that are going
wrong in their life, but usuallythe problems are going to clear
up in a few weeks or months atmost.
(05:57):
Doctors put you on these drugs.
You then try to come off themand you feel desperate and
you're told, ah, this is yourillness coming back.
You're going to have to remainon these drugs for the rest of
your life.
When you're We thought whenthese drugs came out first that,
if you're on them for about sixmonths, that's about all you
need to be on them for.
But people these days are onthem for 10, 20, 30 years.
(06:19):
Now, the extreme version of thisis PSSD.
I've said to you that people whogo on the SSRI group of drugs,
that's These drugs have apowerful effect on our ability
to make love.
Within 30 minutes of your firstpill, you're going to be
genitally numb.
(06:41):
Okay?
Now, companies can use this,doctors can use this to treat
men who got a premature E.
ejaculation problem.
So it's not it isn't the end ofthe world, this can be useful,
but it happens in pretty welleveryone that goes on these
pills.
But if you look at the label ofthe drugs or the informed
consent forms or anything likethat, there's no mention of it.
(07:03):
You aren't told this.
You're told maybe 5 percent ofpeople could have a problem on
these pills.
In actual fact, doctors like mewho ran trials for the
pharmaceutical companies, wewere told, early on, this is
before these drugs actually comein the market, when you're doing
this trial, don't ask about sex.
The companies knew beforehandwhen they gave these drugs to
(07:24):
healthy volunteers that, thehealthy volunteers were
complaining bitterly about thefact that, on these drugs I just
can't function at all.
Okay.
So the other thing that wasclear from, the 1980s, we've
known, at least some people haveno, when you halt the drugs, you
can have a problem that howeverbad the problem was when you
(07:47):
went on the drug first about,not being able to make love the
way you normally would andorgasms are muted and your
libido begins to fall off.
Everybody thinks when they comeoff the drugs, things are going
to be just fine.
But natural fact, what canhappen is things get worse.
You get more numb, not just yourgenital area.
Your entire groin can be numb.
(08:07):
Your orgasms, which may havebeen muted, disappear.
Your libido and emotionsgenerally can just be numbed
completely.
So this is what we call.
post SSRI sexual dysfunction.
Now you can maybe forgivedoctors for thinking that you're
off this drug.
It can't be causing the problem.
(08:29):
The person complains about whenthey go to see the doctor
wondering what on earth hashappened.
In fact, we've known for 60years that some of the
psychotropic drugs we have theantipsychotic group of drugs can
cause Problems that really beginor get much worse when you come
off the drug and can endure foryears afterwards is a famous
(08:50):
condition called TardiveDyskinesia that can cause just
this.
PSSD is like Tardive Dyskinesia,but it's involving our ability
to make love.
And the response loads of peopleget from the doctors that they
go and see is, you're crazy.
Somatizing, you're hysterical,and even, I know of people who
(09:14):
have been told you're crazy tothe point where we need to
detain you in a mental hospitaland treat you for these crazy
ideas.
It's, the person who has theproblem, who has the insight,
the doctor has lost insight.
So one of the big problems weface, not just with this problem
and this group of drugs, butwith any of the problems we can
have on any of the drugs we'reon is.
(09:38):
Doctors have lost insight.
They seem to be unable torecognize that the drug may also
be causing problems.
It's a bit like the drugs havebecome sacraments.
That is, they can only do good,they can't do harm.
If you get worse on this drug,our response these days tends to
(09:59):
be let's double the dose.
The reason you're not gettingbetter is we've got you on too
low a dose.
But of course, if the drug ismaking you suicidal, for
instance, doubling the dose is arecipe for completed suicide.
This is a huge problem that'snot just a mental health
problem.
It actually extends right acrossmedicine these days.
(10:21):
And the thing, the key thing weneed to get to understand is how
come it's happening.
What's actually leading to thisand how to turn things around.
James Egidio (10:35):
Yeah.
What you mentioned that whensomeone gets off the medication,
it's even worse at times.
Is there like a period that whensomeone does quit using the
medication that they go through,let's say a recovery process
where they.
They get back to, some normalcywithout the medication.
Dr. David Healy (10:56):
Yeah.
There's loads of people that cancome off the medicines and don't
have any problem at all.
Okay.
But at the moment the situationwe have is that 15 percent of
the population in most Westerncountries is on these drugs.
And primarily because it'sawfully difficult.
to get off them.
(11:17):
You've got a bunch of people whogo on them first and roughly
half the people that go on themfigure these aren't for me and
they halt instantly after thefirst few weeks.
And that's fine.
It's unfortunately the peoplewho do relatively well to begin
with, who end up being on thedrugs for weeks or months, who
then when they try to hold canfeel terrible.
(11:37):
And figure they hear that thisis your illness.
And this is a bit like insulinand diabetes.
You're going to have to remainon these drugs for the rest of
your life.
So they remain on them.
Okay.
Now you have to come off thedrugs for us to Make a diagnosis
of PSST, that's post SSRI sexualdysfunction.
(12:00):
If you're not able to get offthe drugs, you may have it.
And in fact, it can often looklike people who are still on the
drugs have probably PSST, in thesense that the sexual
dysfunction they have on thedrugs is pretty extreme.
Okay, so that means that we knowthere's tens of thousands of
(12:22):
people who've got PSSD.
What we don't know is of, say,the 15 percent of people, which
I guess in the United States issomewhere in the area of 40
million people, what proportionof those might have PSSD when
they come off?
In essence, there's a bunch ofthem who have something like
(12:44):
PSSD and that while on thedrugs, they aren't actually
making love the way they wouldwish to.
be able to do so it's a hugeproblem.
There's only tens of thousandsof people who have a confirmed
diagnosis that they're off thedrugs.
But potentially in terms of thenumber of people who could have
a problem or have something likea PSSD problem on the drugs,
(13:07):
it's a huge number and goodnessonly knows how big.
James Egidio (13:11):
Yeah.
What are some of the signs?
Let me back up a moment.
It sounds like to me that oncethey get started on these SSRIs,
these antidepressants it soundslike it creates a dependency,
correct?
As opposed to, let's say, anaddiction.
Dr. David Healy (13:27):
Yeah, now, and that's a key word.
You're absolutely right.
These aren't drugs that causeyou to go out in the street and
mug people to get the money tobe able to buy the next.
bit of drug.
Partly because it's so easy toget them from your doctor, so
you don't need to mug anyone.
Yeah, it's whether a dependencyis quite the right word isn't
(13:50):
absolutely clear in the sense ofwhen you're trying to come off
them, it's not like trying tocome off an opioid or alcohol
and things like that.
It's much more like the drugshave done something like caused
a peripheral neuropathy.
That is, they can leave youfeeling pain and things like
that from the small nerve fibersthat we have in our hands and
(14:13):
feet and skin generally.
And when you try to come offthem, you're lifting the drug
that's controlling the pain sothat you feel really bad and
awful as you try to come offthem.
So that's not that's not classicdependence and it doesn't
(14:33):
respond.
We don't have the kind oftreatments we have with the
opioids that can help people getoff opioids or the kind of
treatment we have with alcoholthat can help you get off
alcohol.
We don't have anything to managewithdrawal from this group of
drugs.
As I say, there are people whocan withdraw easily enough.
But then there are a bunch ofpeople who simply can't withdraw
(14:54):
at all.
I've got patients who'veactually tapered very slowly
over a course of three or fouryears before they can get off in
the end, they do get off, butfor years afterwards, they know
they're not right yet that theyhaven't come back to normal.
James Egidio (15:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's because of the SSRIsthat they haven't come back to
normal, correct?
Dr. David Healy (15:17):
That's correct.
There are other antidepressantsthat don't work on the serotonin
system at all, which are mucheasier to get off.
James Egidio (15:25):
Yeah.
So what are some of the signs orsymptoms of someone coming off
of SSRIs?
When they do come off of them,what are some of the signs and
symptoms of
Dr. David Healy (15:36):
that?
Yeah.
And there's an interestingproblem here, which is that when
researchers look at this, theywant to see things that you
didn't have in the originalcondition.
so Things like feeling dizzy,that's the kind of thing people
when they're anxious, peoplewhen they're and depressed going
(15:56):
on.
And that's right.
Don't usually complain aboutfeeling dizzy when you come off
the drugs.
One of the big features isyou're feeling unsteady and
dizzy.
And if you complain of thingslike that, doctors feel
reasonably happy figuring thatthis is part of our withdrawal
problem.
The problem is most doctorsdon't know the following, which
(16:17):
is that when the companies bringdrugs like the SSRIs on the
market, they do what are calledphase one trials first.
That is, they give them tohealthy volunteers, usually
young men.
And when you see what whatactually happens in At the
trials of these young men, it'sreally interesting.
(16:37):
You get them being put on thedrugs for maybe two or three
weeks.
And when they come off it, theycomplain about dizziness for
sure.
That's one of the commonestthings.
They also complain aboutinsomnia, which is a bit tricky.
This could be part of theoriginal condition.
This.
could be part of a drug inducedproblem.
Doctors will be a little unsure.
(16:58):
If you come back to them andsay, you aren't able to sleep
properly and things like that,they're not sure whether this is
a withdrawal problem.
But the other thing that theseyoung men complained about
Fairly often was, I'm anxious,and this isn't a thing they had
before they went to the pill.
And I'm depressed, and thisisn't a thing they had before
(17:19):
they went to the pill.
Some of them tried to commitsuicide, and some have committed
suicide after only a few weekson these pills.
Doctors faced with this feelconfident this couldn't be
withdrawal.
This is your original condition.
Except, these healthy volunteersdidn't have these problems
originally.
This is the kind of problem weface.
(17:40):
This is the kind of problemanyone on these pills faces.
They're going to be told by thedoctor, for sure, this just
shows that you have an illnessthat we need to continue
treatment for.
Yeah.
You could have an illness.
You could have the originalproblem that you do need to be
treated for.
You can also have a newcondition, which is something
that's been caused by your pill.
(18:01):
And the pill is the answer totreating that in the sense of
you have actually taking it.
James Egidio (18:06):
That's what I was going to ask you.
You must see a lot ofpolypharmacy along that are
accompanied with these SSRIs,these antidepressants.
In other words, let's saysomeone gets off of the
medication.
And they're anxious or evensomeone that's on the medication
that's anxious Then you get thephysician that says oh, by the
way, let me put you on some kindof a you know Something for
(18:28):
anxiety like let's say xanax orsomething.
Dr. David Healy (18:31):
Correct?
Absolutely.
Yeah one and it's It's a trickthat the pharmaceutical
companies have been quite goodat using which is background At
2004, lemme take you back 30years to 1990 where the first
concerns blew up about the SSIgroup of drugs causing people to
become suicidal.
(18:51):
The regulators and the companieswere able to damp things down,
so some doctors knew there was aproblem, but there was no
warnings put on these drugsaround 2004.
Big concerns again re emergedabout children becoming suicidal
on these drugs.
And the clinical trials done onkids didn't show the drugs
(19:12):
worked all that well.
So FDA felt forced to put blackbox warnings on these drugs.
But the companies handled thewhole thing really well.
They said, okay, maybe peoplehave become suicidal, but this
isn't really the problem withour drugs.
It's it's...
Much more a case of this provesyou're bipolar and we need to
(19:33):
add a mood stabilizer into themix.
And these days when I'm treatingpatients over in Canada, and
it's a bit the same in theUnited States, teenagers on.
Up to 10 psychotropic drugs.
And if you look at what happens,it's they've been on an SSRI,
they become suicidal, they'retold you need a mood stabilizer
(19:53):
to get an anticonvulsant whichmay not help much, then they get
an antipsychotic and they comeback and say, yeah, not not as
suicidal.
But I'm not able to focus.
And they get handed an ADHDrating scale, which is all about
not being able to focus.
And they tick the boxes and theyget told, Oh, you've got ADHD.
(20:15):
We need to add a stimulant intothe mix and having an
antipsychotic, which works oneway on.
at the dopamine system.
And a stimulant, which worksexactly the opposite way, makes
no sense.
As I often say, it's a bit like,you get up on a weighing scale
and I put, 25 kilogramdumbbells, one in each of your
(20:36):
hands.
So you're 50 kilogramsoverweight.
And I look at the scales andsay, you're overweight, I need
to give you a weight loss drugrather than take the dumbbells
out of your hand, which will be,it's crazy as that.
James Egidio (20:51):
So you get a push and a pull with these
medications working against eachother.
So it's a recipe for disaster.
I know a lot of people to that.
From what I understand that areon these and that are on these
SSRI's they get, because fromwhat I understand, they get very
anxious on them.
So what they'll do is they'lldrink alcohol.
(21:11):
And they'll mix them withalcohol.
That's a deadly mix, correct?
Dr. David Healy (21:15):
There's a curious thing there.
Yes, it is.
And no, it isn't in the sense ofone of the best treatments for
the agitation and akathisia Thatthe SSRI group of drugs are the
antipsychotic group of drugs cancause is alcohol, we drive a lot
of our patients to drink becauseof this, because they find out
(21:37):
for the pharmaceutical companiesway back when the SSRI group of
drugs came out first thecompanies knew in the first week
or two, when you go on them, youcould become very agitated.
And they told loads of doctorsto give a benzodiazepine at the
same time to damp that down.
Alcohol will do very similarthings, and a lot of patients
(21:59):
have worked this out forthemselves.
And as I say, one of theconsequences of this is we drive
a lot of our patients to drink.
They're doing a reasonable thingin the sense of it does make
them feel a lot better.
better.
But, as you say, there's theother problem, which SSRIs can
disinhibit.
(22:20):
And alcohol, of course, doesthat also.
And some people, when they're onboth, become very disinhibited
and do things that are fairlycatastrophic.
James Egidio (22:31):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know in your last I want onyour website David Healy dot
org.
You talked about how health carehas gone mad and you made a
comparison on a parallel betweenthalidomide and the SSRI's that
cause sexual dysfunction in yourresearch.
(22:52):
And I know you referenced thebook Wonder Drug.
Let's talk about that a littlebit.
Dr. David Healy (22:58):
Yeah, one of the interesting things that
people don't know about much isthat the thalidomide story is
that this drug, which was aimedto help us sleep, came out in
Europe and caused horrific birthdefects.
And the way the story is told isthat a lady called Frances...
(23:21):
Kelsey in FDA held up itslicensing so that this problem
didn't happen in the UnitedStates.
Now, in actual fact, whathappened is the company bringing
the drug on the market in theUnited States, Merrill was the
name of the company, actuallytwo years before the Thalidomide
(23:45):
crisis broke open, we're handingit out to doctors in the United
States, thousands of doctors whogave it to tens of thousands of
women who had hundreds ofchildren born with the birth
defects that we were also seeingover in Germany at that time or
in the UK and elsewhere.
So the problem did happen in theUnited States, but FDA, when
(24:07):
they came to look more closelyat it, certainly found
themselves unable to find thechildren who had these problems.
They didn't get any help from atthe company and they didn't
chase the company hard to getthe names of all the doctors who
had who had been given this drugand they didn't chase up the
doctors who had been given thedrugs to hand out to the
(24:29):
patients who handed them on totheir friends to hand out to
other patients, so it was reallya major problem that left FDA
looking bad.
One of the doctors who had beengiven the drugs was a man called
Louie Lasagna, who at the timewas the, one of the most famous
doctors in the United States.
(24:50):
He was an advocate and advocatefor what we call randomized
clinical trials, which were agood way to look at whether
drugs really do work or not.
Drugs that we have doubts aboutwhether they work.
You don't need randomizedcontrolled trials for drugs that
work clearly and well.
(25:11):
You don't need them to pick upthe adverse effects of drugs
when these are obvious.
But if there's doubts aboutWhether the drug works, then
randomized controlled trials,RCTs, can be awfully helpful.
And Lasagna was the majoradvocate of this, and Merrill
gave him the drug, and he ran anRCT on thalidomide, and showed
(25:35):
that it worked wonderfully well.
As a sleeping pill, and hemissed the fact that it can
cause sexual dysfunction.
It can make people agitate andsuicidal.
It causes peripheralneuropathies, which the SSRIs do
also.
It's a very SSRI like drug.
And one of the fascinatingthings about it is we think now
(25:55):
that the way it produced thebirth defects that it actually
produced is very similar.
It's acting on the same kind ofproteins that the SSRIs act on
to cause PSSD.
James Egidio (26:09):
Yeah.
So I know with thalidomide, itwas more of no limbs, correct?
Dr. David Healy (26:15):
That's right.
But it, so the key thing wasthat it's, if you take the drug
at a certain point, okay it's,there's critical windows when
you're pregnant during the firstthree months of the pregnancy,
if you have the drug.
When the limbs are being formed,if the mother is on the drug at
(26:36):
that point in time, then you canhave a missing limb or missing
part of your limb.
The SSRIs can also cause birthdefects if you're on them.
One of the, one of theconsequences that has come out
of all this is that afterthalidomide, There was a great
(26:56):
focus on not being on any drugsat all during the first three
months of pregnancy if you couldat all avoid it.
That's when we thought birthdefects happen.
But it's now clear, actually,that if you're on drugs during
pregnancy, a lot of other thingscan happen other than just birth
defects.
You can be born, we now know,with organs, limbs, organs,
(27:21):
kidneys, hearts, things likethat, that all look normal.
but aren't functioning normal.
And a lot of these problemshappen if you're on the drugs
through pregnancy completely.
So it's not just the first threemonths that we need to be are
that we need to take care about.
It's any drugs at all duringpregnancy cause problems.
(27:45):
And one of the things FDA hasonly woken up to in the last
year is that we haven't reallylooked at this in the kind of
detail we should have looked atit in that, there's things
about, could this drug orwhatever cause.
mean that an embryo won'timplant, the the sperm might
(28:06):
meet the egg, but it doesn'timplant in the uterus.
So there's things like thishappening.
There's the fact that drugs youcould be on can cause babies to
be born with a low birth weight,which puts them at huge risk of
dying soon after birth andgenerally living a much shorter
life than they would otherwiselive.
(28:27):
There's a whole bunch of thingslike this that most women
probably would like to knowabout to be able to take into
account.
They don't know about it becauseFDA isn't asking companies to
screen for these things.
James Egidio (28:42):
Yeah.
And it's so evident too when,Someone who is pregnant, a woman
who's pregnant is instructed notto drink alcohol because of
fetal alcohol syndrome or not tosmoke cigarettes.
So it should be the same thingwith the the use of, let's say,
like you said, SSRIs, theseantidepressants, and it just
(29:02):
seems to me, and it sounds likethat it's like a wink and a nod
by the FDA and thesepharmaceutical companies to just
go ahead and give the greenlight.
And it's okay, even if you'repregnant to use these
medications.
And so what you're saying isthat there are birth defects
that are now evident.
(29:22):
with the use of SSRIs duringpregnancy,
Dr. David Healy (29:25):
correct?
Absolutely.
And just to add to the pointwe've got, if people go out for
a meal these days, anyrestaurant you're in will have a
sign saying, if you're pregnant,don't drink, which is the point
that you've just made.
But that's your fact.
When people look at this indetail, they find that.
Women who are taking an SSRIduring pregnancy have a tenfold
(29:47):
increased rate of having a babyborn with a fetal alcohol
syndrome.
Because for some women, thesedrugs cause compulsive drinking.
There's no point having a signsaying, don't drink alcohol.
If if the woman is on a drugthat's going to cause her to
compulsively drink.
And only in the last week ortwo, about two weeks ago, the
(30:08):
Canadians brought out some newguidelines recognizing just
this, that there's a group ofpeople, and we don't know how
big the group is, but it's not asmall group, who begin to drink
compulsively.
When they're on an SSRI and itseems to be probably more women
than men and you've got if ifyou look at the media are the
(30:29):
things we see in the media theway I do you see a lot of women
awfully respectable women, whoend up being in awful trouble
because they've crashed the carand killed someone and behind
the story there's anantidepressant involved and
what's happened is this is not.
An alcoholic woman, it's a womanwho has recently developed an
(30:50):
alcohol problem, and it's linkedto the pills that she's on, and
she's not going to be told youneed to hold these pills.
She's going to be ashamedafterwards.
She's going to be depressedafterwards.
People are going to say to her,you need to continue taking
these pills.
Nobody's recognizing.
The role of the pill in at thetragedy that's just happened.
Yeah,
James Egidio (31:10):
and I think we, in the last two and a half years
with this whole COVID thing andthe vaccine, it's probably been
more evident with the wink andthe nod from the pharmaceutical
companies to allow this what Icalled now a bio weapon to be
released onto the publicthrough, of course, emergency
(31:34):
use authorization, which I callit.
Experimental use authorizationis what I called it.
thAt there was no oversight.
It was just done in a veryhaphazard way.
When they released this vaccine,it just seems like it's the the
cost of doing business for thesepharmaceutical companies.
And even freeing themselves nowfrom the liability with this
(31:56):
bioweapon, this so calledvaccine that they call it as but
I guess what I also want to askis what, why do these SSRIs,
these antidepressants, uh, causethese side effects or what is it
That causes the side effects orfunction the way
Dr. David Healy (32:17):
they do.
Let me answer that question in away that you're not going to
expect, and listeners aren'tgoing to expect either, which is
clearly the drugs act on theserotonin system and that's
where the problems come from.
But what's really causing theproblems is not the action on
the serotonin system.
(32:38):
It's the fact that everyPrescription drug is a chemical
which can cause problems, but achemical that comes with
information that should let meand you know how best to use the
problem so that you are how bestto use at the drug so that you
get what you want out of this.
Okay.
(32:58):
And then I'm helping you to livethe life that you want to live,
but in actual fact what we'vegot is in the studies companies
do to bring these drugs on.
The market there is no access tothe data from these even FDA
when they agree to License adrug and let the companies
claim.
This is an antidepressant.
They don't see the raw data fromthe company trials they read the
(33:22):
company report about what thetrial has shown.
It's the same for the vaccinesalso FDA don't the key thing
people need to know is that In atrial, there's going to be
people like me and you in thistrial.
There's me being the doctor,perhaps you being the volunteer
who thinks you're doingsomething useful for everybody
you know, helping to prove thisdrug either works or not works.
(33:45):
Okay.
For FDA to really have access tothe Data.
It's not just the raw databeyond the company report, they
need to have your contactdetails.
They need to be able to call youup and find out look, it says
here in this report that, youhad nausea and headache or
whatever.
They might find out as you cansee, when you get access to the
(34:06):
raw data, that actually you weresuicidal.
You've ended up being coded ashaving nausea, but that's not
what happened to you in thistrial.
The other thing is that In thecase of the articles written
about all of the drugs and thevaccines that we have, they're
ghostwritten.
You may have a distinguishedauthorship line coming from
(34:27):
Harvard and Yale and all thebest institutions.
But the natural fact these guyswon't have seen the data
themselves.
The investigators won't haveactually seen the data.
They didn't write the article.
It's usually.
Ghostwritten.
Now, this has been going on for30, 40 years or more to the
(34:47):
point where, the ghosts, theyhaven't seen the actual data.
They know the company report andthey're able to frame it well
and things like that and make itlook like the drug worked
wonderfully well and wasreasonably safe and do so in a
way that's legally defensible.
Usually.
Okay.
And looks okay to the journal,the best journals in the field,
(35:10):
like the New England Journal ofMedicine actually publishes
these articles and they're allghostwritten and the New England
Journal of Medicine knows it.
But the pharmaceutical industrytripped up 15 years ago or so
maybe no.
20 years ago now, when in acase, in the case of study 329,
which is a trial done by GlaxoSmith Klein of their SSRI Paxil
(35:34):
in teenagers who were depressed.
The company had recognized thatin this trial, our drug didn't
work and wasn't safe.
And there's a document to showthis.
Okay.
So they published it and thearticle said the drug worked
wonderfully well and it'scompletely safe and.
(35:55):
Thousands of kids got put onthis drug shortly after the
article came out.
A year later, GSK sent thistrial into FDA and told FDA
actually, it was a negativetrial.
And FDA looked at the companyreport said, we agree.
It's a negative trial, but we'restill going to license the drug
for teenagers who are depressed.
Now, it turns out that it wasn'tjust this study that FDA
(36:21):
approved a drug on the basis ofit being a negative trial, and
then say nothing to you and meand the wider world of doctors
and the media and thepoliticians and all, that
actually there's a lot ofarticles out there in the New
England Journal of Medicine thatare fraudulent.
The company says the drug worksin a safe, but, We know it
isn't.
FDA stay quiet about all this.
(36:43):
And this applies to pretty well.
It isn't the case that alltrials failed to show the drug
works, in the case of theantidepressants, over half the
trials companies did, and theydid these engineering the trial
to make sure it looked good.
And it, it still turned out tobe the case that these trials,
(37:05):
the drug were negative.
But that's not how it looks whenyou read at the published
literature, which looks like,These drugs are wonderfully
effective and wonderfully safeWe should all race out and get
ourselves put on them prettyquickly
James Egidio (37:20):
Yeah, and that leads to my next question is how
safe or unsafe are SSRIsantidepressants for Pediatric
patients and we're talking I saypediatric patients.
We're talking let's say I guessyou could say a child under 19
years old or 19 years old andyounger.
(37:40):
So how safe or unsafe are theyfor a teenager?
Dr. David Healy (37:43):
There's a whole bunch of things that we don't
know here, which is that it'snot just teenagers actually
becoming suicidal.
They don't become suicidal anymore frequently than adults put
on these drugs.
The reason we've got warningsfor teens is that actually the
trials done in teens didn't showthe drugs worked at all.
(38:06):
What FDA argue is they may makean adult become suicidal, they
can also help.
So we don't want to warn peopleabout this risk and put them off
taking the drug.
But in the case of teens, theyrecognize, they don't also
usually help, and we do have towarn about it, but there's a
bunch of other things that FDAdidn't go near, which is that,
(38:29):
um, if you're a male, forinstance one of the things that
we know about in male rats isyou give the rat the drug and
the rat's sperm count.
Drops off a cliff.
Now the, what you hear, you'rereassured to hear that actually,
it comes back to normal when therat comes off the drug, but I've
(38:53):
just told you that a lot of us,when we go on these drugs can't
get off them and we don't know,there's no evidence that your
sperm can't come, there isn'tanything.
that we've got that will dropyour sperm count in quite the
way the SSRI group of drugs cando.
And if you can't come off themyou're not going to be fertile.
(39:15):
Yeah.
And these things really aren'tlooked at.
James Egidio (39:20):
Yeah.
I was just of these.
We have in the United Stateshere, the, these mass shootings
that took place and this wastitled always swept under the
carpet when the mass shootingstake place and it's been decades
of evidence that SSRIantidepressants cause these mass
(39:40):
shootings and each 1 of these.
Suspects or perpetrators ofthese mass shootings have been
placed on and they were most ofthem were teenagers.
I guess there's a lot of stuffthat's being uncovered about
SSRI's and the dangers of them.
What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. David Healy (40:01):
Yeah, I've got a few thoughts.
And let me begin with JamesHolmes.
And then I want to move on to adifferent group of linked
thoughts.
Okay.
James Holmes.
It's hard to comment on all ofthe cases that you've just
shown.
Because unless I are an expert,get to see the person and
(40:21):
really...
works out, could the drug haveactually caused the problem or
not, just saying that thesedrugs can make you homicidal,
which they can, doesn't meanthat because the person's
actually committed homicide andthey were on the drug that the
drug caused it.
I'd have to get to see theperson and interview them and
really work out what's going onhere.
(40:43):
And I have interviewed JamesHolmes.
And I have written a report onhim saying that the drug caused
this mass shooting.
Now, the interesting thing aboutthat was the the legal team
defending him figured as Iunderstand it, or looking at it,
(41:03):
how it looks to me is that theyfigured they were going to have
an easier life.
Just doing a deal with at theprosecution that somehow he was
just going to get off in thesense of he's not going to be
executed.
He's going to be put in jail for3, 000 years.
That was going to be easier thantrying to argue in court that he
was innocent.
(41:24):
Because in order to persuade ajury, it's not just do the jury
get to see him and get to seewhy I think this drug played a
part in his case.
But the jury are being asked to.
To say more than that, they'vebeen asked to agree that you
can't trust FDA.
FDA knew about these hazards for30 years beforehand, but haven't
(41:48):
warned about them.
That you can't trust the medicalliterature, that it's
fraudulent.
If you're an average juror,there's a lot of things that you
will say, yeah, the drug lookslike it caused it, particularly.
In a homicide case where you'vegot a man like Don Schell who
killed himself and his entirefamily, if you've got a case
like that, where the man whokilled people is not going to
(42:11):
walk free from the court, thejury can say, yeah, the drug
caused it.
When they get to a point ofhaving to say about James Holmes
that, we really should let himwalk free and FDA should be in
the dock.
That's a step too far for a juryand for most lawyers also.
But let me go a bit further withthis, which is that when people
(42:34):
think about the adverse effectsof a drug, they think I'm going
to take this pill.
And what could it cause me?
Now, if you take an SSRI, itmight cause you to become
suicidal.
It might also cause you to beunable to make love, but it
doesn't stop there because yourpartner is not going to be able
to make love either.
If you're not able to make love,she or he's not going to be
(42:57):
making love either.
So the pill can cause problemsthat don't just affect the.
person living with the person onthe pill.
But the other thing that they dois in the case of the SSRIs,
there's mounting evidence thatthey do impair fertility.
And in the United States andmost Western countries, if you
(43:19):
look at the SSRIs people aretaking that there's a falling
reproductive replacement rate.
In the United States, thecurrent rate is 1.65 children
per Woman in the United Statesif it falls below 2.1, the
United States is not replacingitself, it's ending up with a
(43:42):
smaller population in the UK anda lot of European countries.
It's down below 1.
5.
One of the interesting thingsabout this is that the SSRI
group of drugs are taken mostlyby white educated people and
things like that, as I've hintedto you earlier, the, the
(44:05):
immigrant kind of communitiesand faith communities like
Hindus and Muslims are much lesslikely to be taking SSRIs.
There's still much morecommunity oriented when it comes
to handling.
problems that individual peoplein the community may be having.
So what we're getting is in theUK just now the rate, the
(44:27):
reproductive replacement ratehas fallen beneath 1.5.
One third of the births are towomen who have been born.
outside the UK.
So the whole shape of the UK ischanging.
It's not just the person on thepill who has an adverse effect,
either partner, it's the entirecountry is having an adverse
(44:49):
effect from these bills.
James Egidio (44:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think we also had BillGates mentioned that he wanted
to depopulate the world too,
Dr. David Healy (44:57):
as well.
I don't my view on all this, Idon't believe in that these are
actually things that people haveworked out beforehand, that this
conspiracy, I don't know thatanyone could have foreseen this.
I think this is cock up country,the problem is when FDA have
cocked up, how do they getthemselves out?
How do they.
Fess up to all of us and sayinglook, you know We have got a
(45:20):
real problem here and we don'tknow how to turn around.
This is A a political issue thatfor the presidential debates
should really be upfront to bethe kind of thing that Donald
Trump and Joe Biden aredebating, whether that's going
to happen or not,
James Egidio (45:40):
you mentioned also, I don't know.
Following you is random controltrials and what is evident based
versus evidence based medicine.
You talked about that.
Let's just discuss that for a
Dr. David Healy (45:52):
minute.
As I've indicated to youearlier, when a drug works or
when it causes problems, that'sactually the same thing, drugs
aren't given to us by Godbecause they work.
They do a bunch of things.
And one of them may be usefuland that's what we say.
If the drug working is, butthings that may be happen
(46:12):
happening even more commonly,maybe unhelpful.
Okay.
But these things are often veryobvious.
And just to make the point, ifwe take the adverse effects of
oral contraceptives on women'shair.
It was women and theirhairdressers that were able to
spot the problem.
(46:32):
It wasn't doctors or FDA oranyone like that.
Sometimes, for the most part,these things are terribly
obvious, but this brings meright back to the point that I
opened up with, which is the bigmystery of our time is you can
have people becoming.
obviously suicidal, shortlyafter being put on a drug like
(46:53):
an SSRI they weren't beforehand.
If you took care to reduce thedose of the drug and maybe halt
it and see the problem clear upit's evident the drug has caused
it.
Or in the case of PSSD, thefirst lady that I had That
actually came along to me andgot me recognizing at the
(47:14):
problem.
She told me she'd been off theSSRIs she'd been on for three
months now, and she stillcouldn't make love at all.
And I brushed it off and said,no, this will clear up.
And she looked at me and said, Ican take a hard bristled brush
and rub it up and down mygenitals and feel nothing.
Now, once someone says that,you're able to distinguish a
(47:37):
problem That can only be causedby the drug from a nervous
disorder.
There's no nervous disorder.
There's no mental illness thatwill cause someone, male or
female, to be able to rub a hardbristle brush up and down their
genitals and feel nothing.
This has to be some kind oftoxic effect.
So this is evidence basedmedicine.
(48:00):
In the case of randomizedcontrolled trials, as I often
say, they are a good way to findout what a drug might do that
could be useful, but drugs dohundreds of things.
And a randomized controlledtrial gets doctors hypnotized to
focus in on just one thing thatwe want to find out about.
And as you heard with the LouisLasagna.
(48:21):
Thalidomide trial, focusing inon this one thing, does it help
you get to sleep, means you canmiss all sorts of elephants in
the room that the drug isobviously doing.
And that's what's happening.
What we've got is when thesuicide problem blew up first
about people evidently becomingsuicide on Prozac, Lily's
(48:43):
response was we've analyzed ourrandomized control trials and we
don't see the problem.
And this is when.
companies discovered evidencebased medicine, which is, this
is the scientific way of ourRCTs.
Don't show the problem that it'sreally not happening.
What you're talking abouthappening to you is just
anecdotal.
(49:04):
You, yes, it happened to you,but you're making a link to the
drugs is just not right.
In actual fact, in theirclinical trials, people became
suicidal.
And committed suicide and Lillymanipulated the data to hide the
problem.
James Egidio (49:21):
I see your latest book, is called shipwreck of the
singular health care'scastaways.
I'll actually post that rightnow Let's talk a little bit
about that because you didmention something about how you
document how improvements inmedicine which contributed to
increasing our life expectancieshave now turned inside out and
(49:43):
are leading to Shortenlifespans.
What do you mean by that?
Dr. David Healy (49:48):
Yeah.
If you look at the figures for,uh, actually life expectancy in
the United States, and again,with all of these things, it's
probably because in the UnitedStates, you'll actually be able
to tell me, or listeners will beable to tell me, there's been a
greater belief in technicalprogress than anywhere else.
We all tend to follow you, butthe United States is the one who
(50:11):
believes we can make a bettergadget we can develop better
science.
We can win Nobel prizes andthings like that.
And you do.
So there's a belief in the factthat the next pill that's come
out is really going to be muchmore helpful than the ones we
had before.
And we should really get onthese things.
(50:32):
The problem with it is that oneof the other things that the
United States is very good at isthe development of marketing
science.
You know how to market thingsbetter than anyone else.
And if you switch the wordmarketing for a word that's
closely related to it, althoughpeople don't think about that,
(50:54):
it's the word propaganda.
Yes.
Which in essence is justmarketing.
And in the case of drugs, whatpharmaceutical companies have
achieved really is the mostsuccessful propaganda ever in
the sense that If you look at amedical journal, like the
British Medical Journal, or mostof the good medical journals we
(51:17):
have, there's adverts in them.
Some drug has been handed out bysome doctor to some patient who
looks very happy to get it orwhatever.
And people think I wish medicaljournals didn't have adverts
like that.
Okay.
They focus in on the adverts,but in actual fact, as I've
explained to you, right besidethe advert is probably a ghost
(51:39):
written article making claimsabout a drug that are close to
fraudulent are actuallyfraudulent.
And that's the bit that thecompanies are using to market
the drugs.
It's not the advert.
They figure most doctors aregoing to pay no heed to this
advert.
They're going to pay heed towhat they think is.
The evidence, this is, themarketing here has become
(52:01):
invisible to doctors.
They think they're following thescience when they're not,
they're following the marketing.
And the result of all this isthat we're now on, 10, 20 drugs
loads of people are on at least10 drugs or more.
Eight years ago in at the UnitedStates Over the age of 45 on
(52:23):
average, half the population wason three or more drugs.
Over the age of 65, half thepopulation was on five or more
drugs.
Now, things have got worse sincethen.
We we used to think this is aproblem that affected older
adults.
It was recognized 20 years agothat some older folk are on more
(52:43):
drugs than they really should beon, by which is meant to run.
Three, three drugs or more it'snow, if you look at the New York
times, just a year ago, it's,we've got teenagers on 10
psychotropic drugs.
So it's come all the way downand it actually affects all of
us.
And it's also an in utero issue.
(53:03):
That an increasing number ofwomen are taking drugs during
pregnancy and are on multiplevaccines during.
Pregnancy.
So the human body can cope witha chemical taken for a short
period of time, like anantibiotic, which is poisonous
in its own right, but you'reusing it to treat a poison,
(53:27):
which is the bug that's causingproblems.
We can do that and survive that.
The human body is not made to betaking drugs chronically every
day of the week for years andyears.
And we know that.
Because of nicotine and alcohol.
Everybody knows if you takethese drugs every day of the
week, and if you're on two orthree of them every day of the
(53:47):
week for 20 or 30 years, thingsain't going to end well.
It's the same with aprescription drugs that, if you
take them three or four of themevery day of the week for 10 or
20 years, it ain't going to endwell.
Let me give you what I think isa gorgeous story, which is I had
(54:08):
a patient who had OCD.
That's obsessive compulsivedisorder.
And he was an extremely nice manwho I ended up dead keen to
ensure that we helped him.
And the usual treatment for OCDis to give an SSRI.
So that's what I gave him.
(54:29):
Okay.
And he didn't do well on it.
And the big problem was weneeded to treat his OCD because
he was going to lose his job ifwe didn't.
Okay.
The at the SSRI didn't help him.
And we put the dose up and addedmore pills in and They didn't
help.
I was feeling bad because Iliked this guy.
(54:50):
Then a few weeks later, he comesback to me and he's clearly
looking a little better.
I'm pleased.
Whatever he's done to getbetter, I'm pleased.
And he tells me that he's haltedall the pills that I Put him on,
and he's feeling better.
And I am more than happy withthat.
And then he says, I didsomething else.
(55:10):
And he tells me that he'd done abit of research before he did
this something else.
Okay.
And found that there wasresearch to support what he did.
And what he'd done was to goback smoking.
Now, what readers won'tappreciate, and I didn't, and he
didn't either, but he handed mea bunch of articles saying,
(55:32):
look, there's good evidence outthere on the web that nicotine
can be good for OCD.
And he didn't realize, hereally.
didn't know the field at all.
He just found these articles andsaid, that's interesting.
The top article he showed me wasby a man called Arvid Karlsson,
(55:53):
who won the Nobel prize formedicine and who was the creator
of the first SSRI.
Karlsson had shown that there'sa bunch of people who Don't
respond to SSRIs who've got OCD,who respond better to nicotine.
Wow.
Now, the interesting thing aboutit, the interesting thing about
(56:14):
it and this is an interestingpoint.
In the case of this man, I hopeyou'll be able to see it, he's
in a great position to knownicotine's not safe, but he
knows what the risks are.
But he can also feel the benefithe gets from it compared with
the SSRI, which is equallyunsafe and maybe even more
(56:35):
unsafe than nicotine.
But he's the person who's in theposition to make the trade off.
I have to keep my job.
When I smoke, I'm able to do thejob and yeah, there are risks
and things like that.
Maybe I can use a patch insteador
James Egidio (56:49):
whatever.
I was just going to say that.
What about a
Dr. David Healy (56:51):
patch?
No, sure.
Sure.
But that's up to him.
Okay.
but the point I'm trying to makeis it's really.
You, if you're on a pill or me,if I'm on a pill, who's in the
best position to know what thetrade off feels like, do we get
a benefit?
Can we sense hazards and thingslike that?
The world we have at the momentis you don't get the warnings
(57:13):
about your.
Genitals will go numb.
You don't get the warnings aboutbirth defects.
You don't get the warnings aboutactually becoming suicidal or
homicidal.
FDA decide they're going todecide what the risk benefit
ratio is for you, not you.
And that's helping you to livethe life.
That Pfizer and Lilly and GSKwant you to live rather than
(57:35):
helping you to use theirproducts to live the life that
you want to live
James Egidio (57:40):
yeah, it's interesting.
I think it was my second orthird interview.
I had an interview with Dr JamesGreenblatt, who's a pediatric
psychiatrist and he usesmagnesium as a alternative he
doesn't use as an alternative,but he uses in conjunction with
medications for ADHD because hetreats ADHD and he treats them
(58:01):
with Ritalin or Adderall but healso use and he uses those in
small doses, but he also,believes in and has dedicated
his career to treating pediatricpatients with ADHD with
magnesium supplementalmagnesium, and it just
completely turns these kidsaround the magnesium.
Does it helps them focus muchbetter?
(58:23):
Yeah what is your take on that?
What is your take on naturalsupplementation or just, or,
things that are away from the socalled pharmaceutical industry
or mainstream pharmaceuticalindustry?
Dr. David Healy (58:38):
Yeah.
I have a few takes.
One is it's interesting to hearabout magnesium in that there
are, it was one of the Firstcompound to be called a mood
stabilizer.
Way back before we began to usethe anticonvulsants, magnesium
was shown in clinical trials tohelp stabilize moods.
This was done by orthodoxmedical doctors in, I forget
(59:02):
where, but somewhere likeHarvard or wherever.
Okay.
So the idea that it can behelpful is not an unreasonable
idea.
There's good evidence that itcan be helpful, which doesn't
mean it's going to suit allpeople.
But the other aspect to allthis, which is wanting to take
care of it.
And it's not just thesupplements and things like
(59:22):
that.
It's.
If I want to give you Prozac,I've got to give you a major
depressive disorder first, andthen I give you Prozac for this
illness you have.
In a sense, I make you ill.
And a lot of medicine these daysis about making people ill in
(59:44):
order to give them drugs.
And that can be harmful in itsown right.
If you start thinking ofyourself as having an illness,
it Impacts on the way you viewyourself and how you live life.
There's a very famous study.
On treating people with bloodpressure problems This was way
(01:00:04):
back in the early 1980s and afamily doctor in the uk.
This was not high poweredacademia It was just a family
doctor Figures you we've gotthese new antihypertensive drugs
out.
And I'm going to give them to abunch of my patients.
We're told that, we need totreat it because if we don't
treat it, they could havestrokes or whatever.
(01:00:25):
He had a bunch of 75 men and hegave them the antihypertensive
and in all cases he was happybecause in every single case the
blood pressure, the mercurycolumn, this is an old style
mercury column way to test bloodpressure the mercury column
fell.
In half of the cases, half ofthe men were also happy with.
(01:00:49):
Probably, it's hard to know why,but probably because the doctor
was happy, he was obviouslyhappy the way the treatment was
going, but in 74 out of the 75cases, the wives were unhappy
because they had a man who hadno symptoms beforehand.
Who now is having adverseeffects from the drugs and was
(01:01:12):
neurotic because he thought hehad a dangerous blood pressure
problem.
Now, we know from huge trialsthat were done later, recruiting
thousands of men, that yes,these same drugs that were being
tested by at the family doctordo show blood pressure falls,
(01:01:34):
but they don't save lives.
This is the kind of thing thatyou're.
Not actually told, but there'svery few drugs that the
companies bring on the marketthat actually save lives.
An astonishingly few.
And the ones that actually savelives have often been discovered
by patients.
It was triple therapy for AIDSwhich actually saves lives was
(01:01:59):
discovered by AIDS patients, notby the pharmaceutical industry.
James Egidio (01:02:03):
So what you're saying is trust yourself.
Dr. David Healy (01:02:06):
It's just it's easy to be overpowered by the
science and the academics andthings like that who think they
know what's best for you.
You got to do your own researchand you got to ask the awkward
questions and maybe at the endof the day, it's, You need to be
prepared to take some risksmaybe and say I might live a
(01:02:26):
week longer If i'm on all thesepills, but i'm not going to have
the same quality of life,
James Egidio (01:02:31):
yeah, what's your advice to anybody that's out
there that's on SSRI's or islooking to get off of SSRI's
Dr. David Healy (01:02:38):
my advice And it's awfully tricky, to advise
people who are on the pills thelet me be clear.
I'm not anti any pills.
I use the antidepressants.
I use the SSRI.
So it's not a case of, I thinkyou shouldn't be using them at
all.
The problem you've got is notjust the pills.
The problem you've got is theinformation that comes with the
(01:03:01):
pills that didn't warn you tobegin with about the risks.
And.
Doesn't know how to help get youoff them.
The usual media Thing thatpeople like me will be told if
we talk about these issues isyou can't tell people to go off
the drugs.
You've got to tell them go backto their doctor now The problem
(01:03:22):
we got at the moment.
We're in an extraordinarysituation, which is I don't feel
comfortable saying that topeople because if they go back
to the doctor and say, when Itried to come off this pill, I
feel awful.
Chances are, they're going to betold, you have to stay at it for
the rest of your life, which isnot the right answer either.
So everybody who's on thesepills, who's having problems and
(01:03:43):
they.
May not be having problems.
Come back to the nicotine story.
People may be on these pills anddoing well and comfortable with
being on them.
I'm not saying you should changethese things.
The problem I'm saying is, ifyou're not doing well on them,
it's very hard to know where togo for help because we don't
really know how to get you offthese things and your doctor may
(01:04:05):
not be the best person to go to.
James Egidio (01:04:07):
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode
of the medical truth podcast.
Dr.
Healy.
I really appreciate it
Dr. David Healy (01:04:14):
Okay, it's good to be here James.
James Egidio (01:04:16):
Absolutely.
Absolutely And that you can befound at online at www.
davidhealy.
org and then also one otherthing I want to mention or if
you would like to is yourwebsite, which I'm actually
posting at the bottom.
There is rxisc.
(01:04:37):
org rxisc.
org.
Risk.
org.
What is
Dr. David Healy (01:04:42):
that?
We usually just call it risk.
org.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
But yeah.
And this is a place where Idon't give anyone any advice at
all.
It's a place where people whohave problems on drugs can come
and report the problems theyhave.
They can also for the ones thatwe think are going to be of
wider interest, we get people towrite it up in more detail.
(01:05:03):
You don't have to have your nameon it, often we get.
People who write compellingreports about what actually
happens to them on pills and theway the medical system Doesn't
respond the way it should do youknow all the ways they try and
persuade you It's nothing to dowith the pill or whatever And
you know we post, fairlycompelling stories about the
things that can go wrong on thepills and wrong with the medical
(01:05:25):
system.
And often these posts will get300 or 400 comments from others
who say, I'm glad you wrotethis.
I'm having exactly the sameproblems.
And this is what happened to me.
And I now know what to do basedon how you've tried to solve the
problem kind of thing.
So it's not me telling peoplewhat to do.
It's more.
people themselves.
And this is, one of the thingsthat is probably most important
(01:05:50):
in terms of the things that I'velearned, which is, these days I
learn most about most of thethings I know about medicine
from the people who come to mewho are on pills, who tell me
what's gone wrong and tell mehow they've solved it and how
they've gone on the internet andresearched things.
And.
Worked out just how the drug'scausing the problem So it's not
(01:06:10):
me telling people what to do orif I am telling people what to
do It's because i've learned itfrom other people who've been in
the same situation Rather thanfrom the books.
James Egidio (01:06:19):
Yeah.
Yeah, and I will post the a linkto that particular website at
www.
medicaltruthpodcast.
com On the free resources pageso there'll be a direct link to
that website on the freeresources page of Medical truth
podcast as well, but I reallyappreciate you joining me for
(01:06:40):
this episode of the medicaltruth podcast.
Dr.
Healy I appreciate
Dr. David Healy (01:06:43):
it.
It's been great fun
James Egidio (01:06:45):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much and keep usupdated on what's going on.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks.
Okay.
All
Dr. David Healy (01:06:50):
right.
Bye
Outro (01:06:54):
Thanks for listening to the Medical Truth Podcast.
For the latest episodes, go towww.
medicaltruthpodcast.
com.
You can also find the MedicalTruth Podcast on Rumble, as well
as all the major podcastplatforms like Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart.
get ready to hear the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth about theUnited States healthcare system
with your host of the medicaltruth podcast, James Egidio.
James Egidio (00:16):
Hi, I'm James Egidio Welcome to the medical
truth podcast.
I'm your host.
My guest is a psychiatrist,scientist, psychopharmacologist,
and author.
Before becoming a professor ofpsychiatry and Wales, and more
recently in the department offamily medicine at McMaster
university in Canada.
He studied medicine in Dublin,Ireland.
(00:37):
And at Cambridge university,he's a former secretary of the
British association forpsychopharmacology.
And as authored more than 230peer reviewed articles in 25
books, including the book, theantidepressant error and the
creation of psychopharmacologyfrom Harvard university, press.
He also wrote thepsychopharmacologist volumes one
(00:58):
through three.
Let them eat Prozac from NewYork university press.
And mania from John Hopkinsuniversity press in Pharmgedden
the latest, the most importantbook he wrote is shipwreck of
the singular healthcare'scastaways.
Which documents, howimprovements in medicine, which
contributed to increasing ourlife expectancies have now
(01:19):
turned inside out and ourleading to short.
Shortened lifespans.
Here to discuss post S S R I orantidepressant sexual
dysfunction.
it's an honor and a pleasure tohave on the medical truth
podcast.
My guest, Dr.
David Healy.
Hi, Dr.
Healey.
Dr.
Healy, welcome to the MedicalTruth Podcast.
(01:39):
How are you doing today?
Dr. David Healy (01:41):
I'm doing fine.
James Egidio (01:42):
Great.
For the listeners and viewers ofthe Medical Truth Podcast, a
little bit about who you are andwhat you do.
Dr. David Healy (01:49):
Okay, quickly I'm a doctor and I figured one
of the interesting things when Iqualified first was to look how
the brain fits into the mind.
And there was an opportunityback then to do a...
PhD on the serotonin system.
This is before the SSRI group ofdrugs, and that turned out to be
really interesting.
It illustrated to me how a lotof the stuff we hear about
(02:11):
things like the serotonin systemand the SSRI group of drugs,
this is really bio babble.
It's got Nothing to do with whatwe actually know about the
serotonin system.
But the other interesting thingwas, having worked on this
before the drugs came out,pharmaceutical companies thought
I was the perfect person to talkabout these drugs to doctors who
knew nothing about them.
(02:33):
And this gave me a great insighton how the pharmaceutical
industry works.
James Egidio (02:39):
Nice.
So what I want to do today is Iwant to unpack something that
you, that really got myattention because I'm going into
a series now of interviewingseveral guests that are
involved, either were victimizedby SSRIs, or are experts even
here in the United States.
And of course, just for thelisteners and viewers, We Dr.
(03:01):
Healey is from, you're in,located in Ireland, right?
The UK.
What part of Ireland are you in?
Dr. David Healy (03:08):
Currently, I actually come from Dublin, and
that's where I am at the moment.
But I've worked most of my lifein the UK, and I've worked in
Canada for a few years.
James Egidio (03:15):
Nice.
Nice.
But what I wanted to talk about,like I said, is what got my
attention was the post SSRIsexual dysfunction with SSRIs.
Dr. David Healy (03:25):
Yeah.
So go ahead.
Okay.
Quickly to fit you in on, let metake you all back a little bit
first, 60 years ago to when thefirst antidepressants came out.
And these were drugs that alsoinhibited the reuptake of
serotonin, but they did muchmore than that.
And there were a lot strongerdrugs than the SSRI group drugs
(03:45):
in the sense they could treat acondition called melancholia,
severe Mood disorders, whichcause you to commit suicide,
hugely increase the rate atwhich we might go on to commit
suicide.
Get in the way of us beinginterested to make love.
We lose interest in virtuallyeverything.
And this is a kind of problemthat can also relapse.
So the older drugs treated this,the SSRIs don't.
(04:08):
And doctors were thrilled to getthese older drugs.
They thought this is hugelyhelpful.
We're going to be able to savelives and things like that.
But they could also recognizeback then within a year of the
drug's been out that thesedrugs, while they save lives on
average, could also cause somepeople to become suicidal and
commit suicide.
While they were treating anillness, which might mean that
(04:30):
you weren't interested to makelove, they could also cause
sexual problems in their ownright.
And while they preventedrelapse, they also came with a
withdrawal syndrome that couldbe confused for relapse.
Now, one of the big mysteriesabout PSSD is not the actual
problem, which I'll outline nowfor people, but it's the fact
(04:53):
that doctors today using muchweaker drugs in terms of their
age.
ability to help us get well butmuch more powerful drugs working
on the serotonin system.
These drugs cause people to toactually commit suicide, but
doctors today can't see this andthey tell you it's the mild
condition that we've put you onthis drug for, which comes with
(05:14):
no risk of suicide, but it'sactually causing you to commit
suicide.
And these drugs also hugelyinhibit our ability to make love
way beyond what the older drugsdo and they've been given to
people who've got mildconditions Where there's no
interference from the conditionwith our interest in and ability
to make love Doctors can see thedrugs are actually causing the
(05:36):
problem and say it's yourcondition that's causing this we
need to increase the you know atthe dose of the drug i'll keep
you on it much longer And theother thing is these mild
conditions people get put inthese drugs for there are
usually stress, their distress,there's things that are going
wrong in their life, but usuallythe problems are going to clear
up in a few weeks or months atmost.
(05:57):
Doctors put you on these drugs.
You then try to come off themand you feel desperate and
you're told, ah, this is yourillness coming back.
You're going to have to remainon these drugs for the rest of
your life.
When you're We thought whenthese drugs came out first that,
if you're on them for about sixmonths, that's about all you
need to be on them for.
But people these days are onthem for 10, 20, 30 years.
(06:19):
Now, the extreme version of thisis PSSD.
I've said to you that people whogo on the SSRI group of drugs,
that's These drugs have apowerful effect on our ability
to make love.
Within 30 minutes of your firstpill, you're going to be
genitally numb.
(06:41):
Okay?
Now, companies can use this,doctors can use this to treat
men who got a premature E.
ejaculation problem.
So it's not it isn't the end ofthe world, this can be useful,
but it happens in pretty welleveryone that goes on these
pills.
But if you look at the label ofthe drugs or the informed
consent forms or anything likethat, there's no mention of it.
(07:03):
You aren't told this.
You're told maybe 5 percent ofpeople could have a problem on
these pills.
In actual fact, doctors like mewho ran trials for the
pharmaceutical companies, wewere told, early on, this is
before these drugs actually comein the market, when you're doing
this trial, don't ask about sex.
The companies knew beforehandwhen they gave these drugs to
(07:24):
healthy volunteers that, thehealthy volunteers were
complaining bitterly about thefact that, on these drugs I just
can't function at all.
Okay.
So the other thing that wasclear from, the 1980s, we've
known, at least some people haveno, when you halt the drugs, you
can have a problem that howeverbad the problem was when you
(07:47):
went on the drug first about,not being able to make love the
way you normally would andorgasms are muted and your
libido begins to fall off.
Everybody thinks when they comeoff the drugs, things are going
to be just fine.
But natural fact, what canhappen is things get worse.
You get more numb, not just yourgenital area.
Your entire groin can be numb.
(08:07):
Your orgasms, which may havebeen muted, disappear.
Your libido and emotionsgenerally can just be numbed
completely.
So this is what we call.
post SSRI sexual dysfunction.
Now you can maybe forgivedoctors for thinking that you're
off this drug.
It can't be causing the problem.
(08:29):
The person complains about whenthey go to see the doctor
wondering what on earth hashappened.
In fact, we've known for 60years that some of the
psychotropic drugs we have theantipsychotic group of drugs can
cause Problems that really beginor get much worse when you come
off the drug and can endure foryears afterwards is a famous
(08:50):
condition called TardiveDyskinesia that can cause just
this.
PSSD is like Tardive Dyskinesia,but it's involving our ability
to make love.
And the response loads of peopleget from the doctors that they
go and see is, you're crazy.
Somatizing, you're hysterical,and even, I know of people who
(09:14):
have been told you're crazy tothe point where we need to
detain you in a mental hospitaland treat you for these crazy
ideas.
It's, the person who has theproblem, who has the insight,
the doctor has lost insight.
So one of the big problems weface, not just with this problem
and this group of drugs, butwith any of the problems we can
have on any of the drugs we'reon is.
(09:38):
Doctors have lost insight.
They seem to be unable torecognize that the drug may also
be causing problems.
It's a bit like the drugs havebecome sacraments.
That is, they can only do good,they can't do harm.
If you get worse on this drug,our response these days tends to
(09:59):
be let's double the dose.
The reason you're not gettingbetter is we've got you on too
low a dose.
But of course, if the drug ismaking you suicidal, for
instance, doubling the dose is arecipe for completed suicide.
This is a huge problem that'snot just a mental health
problem.
It actually extends right acrossmedicine these days.
(10:21):
And the thing, the key thing weneed to get to understand is how
come it's happening.
What's actually leading to thisand how to turn things around.
James Egidio (10:35):
Yeah.
What you mentioned that whensomeone gets off the medication,
it's even worse at times.
Is there like a period that whensomeone does quit using the
medication that they go through,let's say a recovery process
where they.
They get back to, some normalcywithout the medication.
Dr. David Healy (10:56):
Yeah.
There's loads of people that cancome off the medicines and don't
have any problem at all.
Okay.
But at the moment the situationwe have is that 15 percent of
the population in most Westerncountries is on these drugs.
And primarily because it'sawfully difficult.
to get off them.
(11:17):
You've got a bunch of people whogo on them first and roughly
half the people that go on themfigure these aren't for me and
they halt instantly after thefirst few weeks.
And that's fine.
It's unfortunately the peoplewho do relatively well to begin
with, who end up being on thedrugs for weeks or months, who
then when they try to hold canfeel terrible.
(11:37):
And figure they hear that thisis your illness.
And this is a bit like insulinand diabetes.
You're going to have to remainon these drugs for the rest of
your life.
So they remain on them.
Okay.
Now you have to come off thedrugs for us to Make a diagnosis
of PSST, that's post SSRI sexualdysfunction.
(12:00):
If you're not able to get offthe drugs, you may have it.
And in fact, it can often looklike people who are still on the
drugs have probably PSST, in thesense that the sexual
dysfunction they have on thedrugs is pretty extreme.
Okay, so that means that we knowthere's tens of thousands of
(12:22):
people who've got PSSD.
What we don't know is of, say,the 15 percent of people, which
I guess in the United States issomewhere in the area of 40
million people, what proportionof those might have PSSD when
they come off?
In essence, there's a bunch ofthem who have something like
(12:44):
PSSD and that while on thedrugs, they aren't actually
making love the way they wouldwish to.
be able to do so it's a hugeproblem.
There's only tens of thousandsof people who have a confirmed
diagnosis that they're off thedrugs.
But potentially in terms of thenumber of people who could have
a problem or have something likea PSSD problem on the drugs,
(13:07):
it's a huge number and goodnessonly knows how big.
James Egidio (13:11):
Yeah.
What are some of the signs?
Let me back up a moment.
It sounds like to me that oncethey get started on these SSRIs,
these antidepressants it soundslike it creates a dependency,
correct?
As opposed to, let's say, anaddiction.
Dr. David Healy (13:27):
Yeah, now, and that's a key word.
You're absolutely right.
These aren't drugs that causeyou to go out in the street and
mug people to get the money tobe able to buy the next.
bit of drug.
Partly because it's so easy toget them from your doctor, so
you don't need to mug anyone.
Yeah, it's whether a dependencyis quite the right word isn't
(13:50):
absolutely clear in the sense ofwhen you're trying to come off
them, it's not like trying tocome off an opioid or alcohol
and things like that.
It's much more like the drugshave done something like caused
a peripheral neuropathy.
That is, they can leave youfeeling pain and things like
that from the small nerve fibersthat we have in our hands and
(14:13):
feet and skin generally.
And when you try to come offthem, you're lifting the drug
that's controlling the pain sothat you feel really bad and
awful as you try to come offthem.
So that's not that's not classicdependence and it doesn't
(14:33):
respond.
We don't have the kind oftreatments we have with the
opioids that can help people getoff opioids or the kind of
treatment we have with alcoholthat can help you get off
alcohol.
We don't have anything to managewithdrawal from this group of
drugs.
As I say, there are people whocan withdraw easily enough.
But then there are a bunch ofpeople who simply can't withdraw
(14:54):
at all.
I've got patients who'veactually tapered very slowly
over a course of three or fouryears before they can get off in
the end, they do get off, butfor years afterwards, they know
they're not right yet that theyhaven't come back to normal.
James Egidio (15:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's because of the SSRIsthat they haven't come back to
normal, correct?
Dr. David Healy (15:17):
That's correct.
There are other antidepressantsthat don't work on the serotonin
system at all, which are mucheasier to get off.
James Egidio (15:25):
Yeah.
So what are some of the signs orsymptoms of someone coming off
of SSRIs?
When they do come off of them,what are some of the signs and
symptoms of
Dr. David Healy (15:36):
that?
Yeah.
And there's an interestingproblem here, which is that when
researchers look at this, theywant to see things that you
didn't have in the originalcondition.
so Things like feeling dizzy,that's the kind of thing people
when they're anxious, peoplewhen they're and depressed going
(15:56):
on.
And that's right.
Don't usually complain aboutfeeling dizzy when you come off
the drugs.
One of the big features isyou're feeling unsteady and
dizzy.
And if you complain of thingslike that, doctors feel
reasonably happy figuring thatthis is part of our withdrawal
problem.
The problem is most doctorsdon't know the following, which
(16:17):
is that when the companies bringdrugs like the SSRIs on the
market, they do what are calledphase one trials first.
That is, they give them tohealthy volunteers, usually
young men.
And when you see what whatactually happens in At the
trials of these young men, it'sreally interesting.
(16:37):
You get them being put on thedrugs for maybe two or three
weeks.
And when they come off it, theycomplain about dizziness for
sure.
That's one of the commonestthings.
They also complain aboutinsomnia, which is a bit tricky.
This could be part of theoriginal condition.
This.
could be part of a drug inducedproblem.
Doctors will be a little unsure.
(16:58):
If you come back to them andsay, you aren't able to sleep
properly and things like that,they're not sure whether this is
a withdrawal problem.
But the other thing that theseyoung men complained about
Fairly often was, I'm anxious,and this isn't a thing they had
before they went to the pill.
And I'm depressed, and thisisn't a thing they had before
(17:19):
they went to the pill.
Some of them tried to commitsuicide, and some have committed
suicide after only a few weekson these pills.
Doctors faced with this feelconfident this couldn't be
withdrawal.
This is your original condition.
Except, these healthy volunteersdidn't have these problems
originally.
This is the kind of problem weface.
(17:40):
This is the kind of problemanyone on these pills faces.
They're going to be told by thedoctor, for sure, this just
shows that you have an illnessthat we need to continue
treatment for.
Yeah.
You could have an illness.
You could have the originalproblem that you do need to be
treated for.
You can also have a newcondition, which is something
that's been caused by your pill.
(18:01):
And the pill is the answer totreating that in the sense of
you have actually taking it.
James Egidio (18:06):
That's what I was going to ask you.
You must see a lot ofpolypharmacy along that are
accompanied with these SSRIs,these antidepressants.
In other words, let's saysomeone gets off of the
medication.
And they're anxious or evensomeone that's on the medication
that's anxious Then you get thephysician that says oh, by the
way, let me put you on some kindof a you know Something for
(18:28):
anxiety like let's say xanax orsomething.
Dr. David Healy (18:31):
Correct?
Absolutely.
Yeah one and it's It's a trickthat the pharmaceutical
companies have been quite goodat using which is background At
2004, lemme take you back 30years to 1990 where the first
concerns blew up about the SSIgroup of drugs causing people to
become suicidal.
(18:51):
The regulators and the companieswere able to damp things down,
so some doctors knew there was aproblem, but there was no
warnings put on these drugsaround 2004.
Big concerns again re emergedabout children becoming suicidal
on these drugs.
And the clinical trials done onkids didn't show the drugs
(19:12):
worked all that well.
So FDA felt forced to put blackbox warnings on these drugs.
But the companies handled thewhole thing really well.
They said, okay, maybe peoplehave become suicidal, but this
isn't really the problem withour drugs.
It's it's...
Much more a case of this provesyou're bipolar and we need to
(19:33):
add a mood stabilizer into themix.
And these days when I'm treatingpatients over in Canada, and
it's a bit the same in theUnited States, teenagers on.
Up to 10 psychotropic drugs.
And if you look at what happens,it's they've been on an SSRI,
they become suicidal, they'retold you need a mood stabilizer
(19:53):
to get an anticonvulsant whichmay not help much, then they get
an antipsychotic and they comeback and say, yeah, not not as
suicidal.
But I'm not able to focus.
And they get handed an ADHDrating scale, which is all about
not being able to focus.
And they tick the boxes and theyget told, Oh, you've got ADHD.
(20:15):
We need to add a stimulant intothe mix and having an
antipsychotic, which works oneway on.
at the dopamine system.
And a stimulant, which worksexactly the opposite way, makes
no sense.
As I often say, it's a bit like,you get up on a weighing scale
and I put, 25 kilogramdumbbells, one in each of your
(20:36):
hands.
So you're 50 kilogramsoverweight.
And I look at the scales andsay, you're overweight, I need
to give you a weight loss drugrather than take the dumbbells
out of your hand, which will be,it's crazy as that.
James Egidio (20:51):
So you get a push and a pull with these
medications working against eachother.
So it's a recipe for disaster.
I know a lot of people to that.
From what I understand that areon these and that are on these
SSRI's they get, because fromwhat I understand, they get very
anxious on them.
So what they'll do is they'lldrink alcohol.
(21:11):
And they'll mix them withalcohol.
That's a deadly mix, correct?
Dr. David Healy (21:15):
There's a curious thing there.
Yes, it is.
And no, it isn't in the sense ofone of the best treatments for
the agitation and akathisia Thatthe SSRI group of drugs are the
antipsychotic group of drugs cancause is alcohol, we drive a lot
of our patients to drink becauseof this, because they find out
(21:37):
for the pharmaceutical companiesway back when the SSRI group of
drugs came out first thecompanies knew in the first week
or two, when you go on them, youcould become very agitated.
And they told loads of doctorsto give a benzodiazepine at the
same time to damp that down.
Alcohol will do very similarthings, and a lot of patients
(21:59):
have worked this out forthemselves.
And as I say, one of theconsequences of this is we drive
a lot of our patients to drink.
They're doing a reasonable thingin the sense of it does make
them feel a lot better.
better.
But, as you say, there's theother problem, which SSRIs can
disinhibit.
(22:20):
And alcohol, of course, doesthat also.
And some people, when they're onboth, become very disinhibited
and do things that are fairlycatastrophic.
James Egidio (22:31):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know in your last I want onyour website David Healy dot
org.
You talked about how health carehas gone mad and you made a
comparison on a parallel betweenthalidomide and the SSRI's that
cause sexual dysfunction in yourresearch.
(22:52):
And I know you referenced thebook Wonder Drug.
Let's talk about that a littlebit.
Dr. David Healy (22:58):
Yeah, one of the interesting things that
people don't know about much isthat the thalidomide story is
that this drug, which was aimedto help us sleep, came out in
Europe and caused horrific birthdefects.
And the way the story is told isthat a lady called Frances...
(23:21):
Kelsey in FDA held up itslicensing so that this problem
didn't happen in the UnitedStates.
Now, in actual fact, whathappened is the company bringing
the drug on the market in theUnited States, Merrill was the
name of the company, actuallytwo years before the Thalidomide
(23:45):
crisis broke open, we're handingit out to doctors in the United
States, thousands of doctors whogave it to tens of thousands of
women who had hundreds ofchildren born with the birth
defects that we were also seeingover in Germany at that time or
in the UK and elsewhere.
So the problem did happen in theUnited States, but FDA, when
(24:07):
they came to look more closelyat it, certainly found
themselves unable to find thechildren who had these problems.
They didn't get any help from atthe company and they didn't
chase the company hard to getthe names of all the doctors who
had who had been given this drugand they didn't chase up the
doctors who had been given thedrugs to hand out to the
(24:29):
patients who handed them on totheir friends to hand out to
other patients, so it was reallya major problem that left FDA
looking bad.
One of the doctors who had beengiven the drugs was a man called
Louie Lasagna, who at the timewas the, one of the most famous
doctors in the United States.
(24:50):
He was an advocate and advocatefor what we call randomized
clinical trials, which were agood way to look at whether
drugs really do work or not.
Drugs that we have doubts aboutwhether they work.
You don't need randomizedcontrolled trials for drugs that
work clearly and well.
(25:11):
You don't need them to pick upthe adverse effects of drugs
when these are obvious.
But if there's doubts aboutWhether the drug works, then
randomized controlled trials,RCTs, can be awfully helpful.
And Lasagna was the majoradvocate of this, and Merrill
gave him the drug, and he ran anRCT on thalidomide, and showed
(25:35):
that it worked wonderfully well.
As a sleeping pill, and hemissed the fact that it can
cause sexual dysfunction.
It can make people agitate andsuicidal.
It causes peripheralneuropathies, which the SSRIs do
also.
It's a very SSRI like drug.
And one of the fascinatingthings about it is we think now
(25:55):
that the way it produced thebirth defects that it actually
produced is very similar.
It's acting on the same kind ofproteins that the SSRIs act on
to cause PSSD.
James Egidio (26:09):
Yeah.
So I know with thalidomide, itwas more of no limbs, correct?
Dr. David Healy (26:15):
That's right.
But it, so the key thing wasthat it's, if you take the drug
at a certain point, okay it's,there's critical windows when
you're pregnant during the firstthree months of the pregnancy,
if you have the drug.
When the limbs are being formed,if the mother is on the drug at
(26:36):
that point in time, then you canhave a missing limb or missing
part of your limb.
The SSRIs can also cause birthdefects if you're on them.
One of the, one of theconsequences that has come out
of all this is that afterthalidomide, There was a great
(26:56):
focus on not being on any drugsat all during the first three
months of pregnancy if you couldat all avoid it.
That's when we thought birthdefects happen.
But it's now clear, actually,that if you're on drugs during
pregnancy, a lot of other thingscan happen other than just birth
defects.
You can be born, we now know,with organs, limbs, organs,
(27:21):
kidneys, hearts, things likethat, that all look normal.
but aren't functioning normal.
And a lot of these problemshappen if you're on the drugs
through pregnancy completely.
So it's not just the first threemonths that we need to be are
that we need to take care about.
It's any drugs at all duringpregnancy cause problems.
(27:45):
And one of the things FDA hasonly woken up to in the last
year is that we haven't reallylooked at this in the kind of
detail we should have looked atit in that, there's things
about, could this drug orwhatever cause.
mean that an embryo won'timplant, the the sperm might
(28:06):
meet the egg, but it doesn'timplant in the uterus.
So there's things like thishappening.
There's the fact that drugs youcould be on can cause babies to
be born with a low birth weight,which puts them at huge risk of
dying soon after birth andgenerally living a much shorter
life than they would otherwiselive.
(28:27):
There's a whole bunch of thingslike this that most women
probably would like to knowabout to be able to take into
account.
They don't know about it becauseFDA isn't asking companies to
screen for these things.
James Egidio (28:42):
Yeah.
And it's so evident too when,Someone who is pregnant, a woman
who's pregnant is instructed notto drink alcohol because of
fetal alcohol syndrome or not tosmoke cigarettes.
So it should be the same thingwith the the use of, let's say,
like you said, SSRIs, theseantidepressants, and it just
(29:02):
seems to me, and it sounds likethat it's like a wink and a nod
by the FDA and thesepharmaceutical companies to just
go ahead and give the greenlight.
And it's okay, even if you'repregnant to use these
medications.
And so what you're saying isthat there are birth defects
that are now evident.
(29:22):
with the use of SSRIs duringpregnancy,
Dr. David Healy (29:25):
correct?
Absolutely.
And just to add to the pointwe've got, if people go out for
a meal these days, anyrestaurant you're in will have a
sign saying, if you're pregnant,don't drink, which is the point
that you've just made.
But that's your fact.
When people look at this indetail, they find that.
Women who are taking an SSRIduring pregnancy have a tenfold
(29:47):
increased rate of having a babyborn with a fetal alcohol
syndrome.
Because for some women, thesedrugs cause compulsive drinking.
There's no point having a signsaying, don't drink alcohol.
If if the woman is on a drugthat's going to cause her to
compulsively drink.
And only in the last week ortwo, about two weeks ago, the
(30:08):
Canadians brought out some newguidelines recognizing just
this, that there's a group ofpeople, and we don't know how
big the group is, but it's not asmall group, who begin to drink
compulsively.
When they're on an SSRI and itseems to be probably more women
than men and you've got if ifyou look at the media are the
(30:29):
things we see in the media theway I do you see a lot of women
awfully respectable women, whoend up being in awful trouble
because they've crashed the carand killed someone and behind
the story there's anantidepressant involved and
what's happened is this is not.
An alcoholic woman, it's a womanwho has recently developed an
(30:50):
alcohol problem, and it's linkedto the pills that she's on, and
she's not going to be told youneed to hold these pills.
She's going to be ashamedafterwards.
She's going to be depressedafterwards.
People are going to say to her,you need to continue taking
these pills.
Nobody's recognizing.
The role of the pill in at thetragedy that's just happened.
Yeah,
James Egidio (31:10):
and I think we, in the last two and a half years
with this whole COVID thing andthe vaccine, it's probably been
more evident with the wink andthe nod from the pharmaceutical
companies to allow this what Icalled now a bio weapon to be
released onto the publicthrough, of course, emergency
(31:34):
use authorization, which I callit.
Experimental use authorizationis what I called it.
thAt there was no oversight.
It was just done in a veryhaphazard way.
When they released this vaccine,it just seems like it's the the
cost of doing business for thesepharmaceutical companies.
And even freeing themselves nowfrom the liability with this
(31:56):
bioweapon, this so calledvaccine that they call it as but
I guess what I also want to askis what, why do these SSRIs,
these antidepressants, uh, causethese side effects or what is it
That causes the side effects orfunction the way
Dr. David Healy (32:17):
they do.
Let me answer that question in away that you're not going to
expect, and listeners aren'tgoing to expect either, which is
clearly the drugs act on theserotonin system and that's
where the problems come from.
But what's really causing theproblems is not the action on
the serotonin system.
(32:38):
It's the fact that everyPrescription drug is a chemical
which can cause problems, but achemical that comes with
information that should let meand you know how best to use the
problem so that you are how bestto use at the drug so that you
get what you want out of this.
Okay.
(32:58):
And then I'm helping you to livethe life that you want to live,
but in actual fact what we'vegot is in the studies companies
do to bring these drugs on.
The market there is no access tothe data from these even FDA
when they agree to License adrug and let the companies
claim.
This is an antidepressant.
They don't see the raw data fromthe company trials they read the
(33:22):
company report about what thetrial has shown.
It's the same for the vaccinesalso FDA don't the key thing
people need to know is that In atrial, there's going to be
people like me and you in thistrial.
There's me being the doctor,perhaps you being the volunteer
who thinks you're doingsomething useful for everybody
you know, helping to prove thisdrug either works or not works.
(33:45):
Okay.
For FDA to really have access tothe Data.
It's not just the raw databeyond the company report, they
need to have your contactdetails.
They need to be able to call youup and find out look, it says
here in this report that, youhad nausea and headache or
whatever.
They might find out as you cansee, when you get access to the
(34:06):
raw data, that actually you weresuicidal.
You've ended up being coded ashaving nausea, but that's not
what happened to you in thistrial.
The other thing is that In thecase of the articles written
about all of the drugs and thevaccines that we have, they're
ghostwritten.
You may have a distinguishedauthorship line coming from
(34:27):
Harvard and Yale and all thebest institutions.
But the natural fact these guyswon't have seen the data
themselves.
The investigators won't haveactually seen the data.
They didn't write the article.
It's usually.
Ghostwritten.
Now, this has been going on for30, 40 years or more to the
(34:47):
point where, the ghosts, theyhaven't seen the actual data.
They know the company report andthey're able to frame it well
and things like that and make itlook like the drug worked
wonderfully well and wasreasonably safe and do so in a
way that's legally defensible.
Usually.
Okay.
And looks okay to the journal,the best journals in the field,
(35:10):
like the New England Journal ofMedicine actually publishes
these articles and they're allghostwritten and the New England
Journal of Medicine knows it.
But the pharmaceutical industrytripped up 15 years ago or so
maybe no.
20 years ago now, when in acase, in the case of study 329,
which is a trial done by GlaxoSmith Klein of their SSRI Paxil
(35:34):
in teenagers who were depressed.
The company had recognized thatin this trial, our drug didn't
work and wasn't safe.
And there's a document to showthis.
Okay.
So they published it and thearticle said the drug worked
wonderfully well and it'scompletely safe and.
(35:55):
Thousands of kids got put onthis drug shortly after the
article came out.
A year later, GSK sent thistrial into FDA and told FDA
actually, it was a negativetrial.
And FDA looked at the companyreport said, we agree.
It's a negative trial, but we'restill going to license the drug
for teenagers who are depressed.
Now, it turns out that it wasn'tjust this study that FDA
(36:21):
approved a drug on the basis ofit being a negative trial, and
then say nothing to you and meand the wider world of doctors
and the media and thepoliticians and all, that
actually there's a lot ofarticles out there in the New
England Journal of Medicine thatare fraudulent.
The company says the drug worksin a safe, but, We know it
isn't.
FDA stay quiet about all this.
(36:43):
And this applies to pretty well.
It isn't the case that alltrials failed to show the drug
works, in the case of theantidepressants, over half the
trials companies did, and theydid these engineering the trial
to make sure it looked good.
And it, it still turned out tobe the case that these trials,
(37:05):
the drug were negative.
But that's not how it looks whenyou read at the published
literature, which looks like,These drugs are wonderfully
effective and wonderfully safeWe should all race out and get
ourselves put on them prettyquickly
James Egidio (37:20):
Yeah, and that leads to my next question is how
safe or unsafe are SSRIsantidepressants for Pediatric
patients and we're talking I saypediatric patients.
We're talking let's say I guessyou could say a child under 19
years old or 19 years old andyounger.
(37:40):
So how safe or unsafe are theyfor a teenager?
Dr. David Healy (37:43):
There's a whole bunch of things that we don't
know here, which is that it'snot just teenagers actually
becoming suicidal.
They don't become suicidal anymore frequently than adults put
on these drugs.
The reason we've got warningsfor teens is that actually the
trials done in teens didn't showthe drugs worked at all.
(38:06):
What FDA argue is they may makean adult become suicidal, they
can also help.
So we don't want to warn peopleabout this risk and put them off
taking the drug.
But in the case of teens, theyrecognize, they don't also
usually help, and we do have towarn about it, but there's a
bunch of other things that FDAdidn't go near, which is that,
(38:29):
um, if you're a male, forinstance one of the things that
we know about in male rats isyou give the rat the drug and
the rat's sperm count.
Drops off a cliff.
Now the, what you hear, you'rereassured to hear that actually,
it comes back to normal when therat comes off the drug, but I've
(38:53):
just told you that a lot of us,when we go on these drugs can't
get off them and we don't know,there's no evidence that your
sperm can't come, there isn'tanything.
that we've got that will dropyour sperm count in quite the
way the SSRI group of drugs cando.
And if you can't come off themyou're not going to be fertile.
(39:15):
Yeah.
And these things really aren'tlooked at.
James Egidio (39:20):
Yeah.
I was just of these.
We have in the United Stateshere, the, these mass shootings
that took place and this wastitled always swept under the
carpet when the mass shootingstake place and it's been decades
of evidence that SSRIantidepressants cause these mass
(39:40):
shootings and each 1 of these.
Suspects or perpetrators ofthese mass shootings have been
placed on and they were most ofthem were teenagers.
I guess there's a lot of stuffthat's being uncovered about
SSRI's and the dangers of them.
What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. David Healy (40:01):
Yeah, I've got a few thoughts.
And let me begin with JamesHolmes.
And then I want to move on to adifferent group of linked
thoughts.
Okay.
James Holmes.
It's hard to comment on all ofthe cases that you've just
shown.
Because unless I are an expert,get to see the person and
(40:21):
really...
works out, could the drug haveactually caused the problem or
not, just saying that thesedrugs can make you homicidal,
which they can, doesn't meanthat because the person's
actually committed homicide andthey were on the drug that the
drug caused it.
I'd have to get to see theperson and interview them and
really work out what's going onhere.
(40:43):
And I have interviewed JamesHolmes.
And I have written a report onhim saying that the drug caused
this mass shooting.
Now, the interesting thing aboutthat was the the legal team
defending him figured as Iunderstand it, or looking at it,
(41:03):
how it looks to me is that theyfigured they were going to have
an easier life.
Just doing a deal with at theprosecution that somehow he was
just going to get off in thesense of he's not going to be
executed.
He's going to be put in jail for3, 000 years.
That was going to be easier thantrying to argue in court that he
was innocent.
(41:24):
Because in order to persuade ajury, it's not just do the jury
get to see him and get to seewhy I think this drug played a
part in his case.
But the jury are being asked to.
To say more than that, they'vebeen asked to agree that you
can't trust FDA.
FDA knew about these hazards for30 years beforehand, but haven't
(41:48):
warned about them.
That you can't trust the medicalliterature, that it's
fraudulent.
If you're an average juror,there's a lot of things that you
will say, yeah, the drug lookslike it caused it, particularly.
In a homicide case where you'vegot a man like Don Schell who
killed himself and his entirefamily, if you've got a case
like that, where the man whokilled people is not going to
(42:11):
walk free from the court, thejury can say, yeah, the drug
caused it.
When they get to a point ofhaving to say about James Holmes
that, we really should let himwalk free and FDA should be in
the dock.
That's a step too far for a juryand for most lawyers also.
But let me go a bit further withthis, which is that when people
(42:34):
think about the adverse effectsof a drug, they think I'm going
to take this pill.
And what could it cause me?
Now, if you take an SSRI, itmight cause you to become
suicidal.
It might also cause you to beunable to make love, but it
doesn't stop there because yourpartner is not going to be able
to make love either.
If you're not able to make love,she or he's not going to be
(42:57):
making love either.
So the pill can cause problemsthat don't just affect the.
person living with the person onthe pill.
But the other thing that they dois in the case of the SSRIs,
there's mounting evidence thatthey do impair fertility.
And in the United States andmost Western countries, if you
(43:19):
look at the SSRIs people aretaking that there's a falling
reproductive replacement rate.
In the United States, thecurrent rate is 1.65 children
per Woman in the United Statesif it falls below 2.1, the
United States is not replacingitself, it's ending up with a
(43:42):
smaller population in the UK anda lot of European countries.
It's down below 1.
5.
One of the interesting thingsabout this is that the SSRI
group of drugs are taken mostlyby white educated people and
things like that, as I've hintedto you earlier, the, the
(44:05):
immigrant kind of communitiesand faith communities like
Hindus and Muslims are much lesslikely to be taking SSRIs.
There's still much morecommunity oriented when it comes
to handling.
problems that individual peoplein the community may be having.
So what we're getting is in theUK just now the rate, the
(44:27):
reproductive replacement ratehas fallen beneath 1.5.
One third of the births are towomen who have been born.
outside the UK.
So the whole shape of the UK ischanging.
It's not just the person on thepill who has an adverse effect,
either partner, it's the entirecountry is having an adverse
(44:49):
effect from these bills.
James Egidio (44:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think we also had BillGates mentioned that he wanted
to depopulate the world too,
Dr. David Healy (44:57):
as well.
I don't my view on all this, Idon't believe in that these are
actually things that people haveworked out beforehand, that this
conspiracy, I don't know thatanyone could have foreseen this.
I think this is cock up country,the problem is when FDA have
cocked up, how do they getthemselves out?
How do they.
Fess up to all of us and sayinglook, you know We have got a
(45:20):
real problem here and we don'tknow how to turn around.
This is A a political issue thatfor the presidential debates
should really be upfront to bethe kind of thing that Donald
Trump and Joe Biden aredebating, whether that's going
to happen or not,
James Egidio (45:40):
you mentioned also, I don't know.
Following you is random controltrials and what is evident based
versus evidence based medicine.
You talked about that.
Let's just discuss that for a
Dr. David Healy (45:52):
minute.
As I've indicated to youearlier, when a drug works or
when it causes problems, that'sactually the same thing, drugs
aren't given to us by Godbecause they work.
They do a bunch of things.
And one of them may be usefuland that's what we say.
If the drug working is, butthings that may be happen
(46:12):
happening even more commonly,maybe unhelpful.
Okay.
But these things are often veryobvious.
And just to make the point, ifwe take the adverse effects of
oral contraceptives on women'shair.
It was women and theirhairdressers that were able to
spot the problem.
(46:32):
It wasn't doctors or FDA oranyone like that.
Sometimes, for the most part,these things are terribly
obvious, but this brings meright back to the point that I
opened up with, which is the bigmystery of our time is you can
have people becoming.
obviously suicidal, shortlyafter being put on a drug like
(46:53):
an SSRI they weren't beforehand.
If you took care to reduce thedose of the drug and maybe halt
it and see the problem clear upit's evident the drug has caused
it.
Or in the case of PSSD, thefirst lady that I had That
actually came along to me andgot me recognizing at the
(47:14):
problem.
She told me she'd been off theSSRIs she'd been on for three
months now, and she stillcouldn't make love at all.
And I brushed it off and said,no, this will clear up.
And she looked at me and said, Ican take a hard bristled brush
and rub it up and down mygenitals and feel nothing.
Now, once someone says that,you're able to distinguish a
(47:37):
problem That can only be causedby the drug from a nervous
disorder.
There's no nervous disorder.
There's no mental illness thatwill cause someone, male or
female, to be able to rub a hardbristle brush up and down their
genitals and feel nothing.
This has to be some kind oftoxic effect.
So this is evidence basedmedicine.
(48:00):
In the case of randomizedcontrolled trials, as I often
say, they are a good way to findout what a drug might do that
could be useful, but drugs dohundreds of things.
And a randomized controlledtrial gets doctors hypnotized to
focus in on just one thing thatwe want to find out about.
And as you heard with the LouisLasagna.
(48:21):
Thalidomide trial, focusing inon this one thing, does it help
you get to sleep, means you canmiss all sorts of elephants in
the room that the drug isobviously doing.
And that's what's happening.
What we've got is when thesuicide problem blew up first
about people evidently becomingsuicide on Prozac, Lily's
(48:43):
response was we've analyzed ourrandomized control trials and we
don't see the problem.
And this is when.
companies discovered evidencebased medicine, which is, this
is the scientific way of ourRCTs.
Don't show the problem that it'sreally not happening.
What you're talking abouthappening to you is just
anecdotal.
(49:04):
You, yes, it happened to you,but you're making a link to the
drugs is just not right.
In actual fact, in theirclinical trials, people became
suicidal.
And committed suicide and Lillymanipulated the data to hide the
problem.
James Egidio (49:21):
I see your latest book, is called shipwreck of the
singular health care'scastaways.
I'll actually post that rightnow Let's talk a little bit
about that because you didmention something about how you
document how improvements inmedicine which contributed to
increasing our life expectancieshave now turned inside out and
(49:43):
are leading to Shortenlifespans.
What do you mean by that?
Dr. David Healy (49:48):
Yeah.
If you look at the figures for,uh, actually life expectancy in
the United States, and again,with all of these things, it's
probably because in the UnitedStates, you'll actually be able
to tell me, or listeners will beable to tell me, there's been a
greater belief in technicalprogress than anywhere else.
We all tend to follow you, butthe United States is the one who
(50:11):
believes we can make a bettergadget we can develop better
science.
We can win Nobel prizes andthings like that.
And you do.
So there's a belief in the factthat the next pill that's come
out is really going to be muchmore helpful than the ones we
had before.
And we should really get onthese things.
(50:32):
The problem with it is that oneof the other things that the
United States is very good at isthe development of marketing
science.
You know how to market thingsbetter than anyone else.
And if you switch the wordmarketing for a word that's
closely related to it, althoughpeople don't think about that,
(50:54):
it's the word propaganda.
Yes.
Which in essence is justmarketing.
And in the case of drugs, whatpharmaceutical companies have
achieved really is the mostsuccessful propaganda ever in
the sense that If you look at amedical journal, like the
British Medical Journal, or mostof the good medical journals we
(51:17):
have, there's adverts in them.
Some drug has been handed out bysome doctor to some patient who
looks very happy to get it orwhatever.
And people think I wish medicaljournals didn't have adverts
like that.
Okay.
They focus in on the adverts,but in actual fact, as I've
explained to you, right besidethe advert is probably a ghost
(51:39):
written article making claimsabout a drug that are close to
fraudulent are actuallyfraudulent.
And that's the bit that thecompanies are using to market
the drugs.
It's not the advert.
They figure most doctors aregoing to pay no heed to this
advert.
They're going to pay heed towhat they think is.
The evidence, this is, themarketing here has become
(52:01):
invisible to doctors.
They think they're following thescience when they're not,
they're following the marketing.
And the result of all this isthat we're now on, 10, 20 drugs
loads of people are on at least10 drugs or more.
Eight years ago in at the UnitedStates Over the age of 45 on
(52:23):
average, half the population wason three or more drugs.
Over the age of 65, half thepopulation was on five or more
drugs.
Now, things have got worse sincethen.
We we used to think this is aproblem that affected older
adults.
It was recognized 20 years agothat some older folk are on more
(52:43):
drugs than they really should beon, by which is meant to run.
Three, three drugs or more it'snow, if you look at the New York
times, just a year ago, it's,we've got teenagers on 10
psychotropic drugs.
So it's come all the way downand it actually affects all of
us.
And it's also an in utero issue.
(53:03):
That an increasing number ofwomen are taking drugs during
pregnancy and are on multiplevaccines during.
Pregnancy.
So the human body can cope witha chemical taken for a short
period of time, like anantibiotic, which is poisonous
in its own right, but you'reusing it to treat a poison,
(53:27):
which is the bug that's causingproblems.
We can do that and survive that.
The human body is not made to betaking drugs chronically every
day of the week for years andyears.
And we know that.
Because of nicotine and alcohol.
Everybody knows if you takethese drugs every day of the
week, and if you're on two orthree of them every day of the
(53:47):
week for 20 or 30 years, thingsain't going to end well.
It's the same with aprescription drugs that, if you
take them three or four of themevery day of the week for 10 or
20 years, it ain't going to endwell.
Let me give you what I think isa gorgeous story, which is I had
(54:08):
a patient who had OCD.
That's obsessive compulsivedisorder.
And he was an extremely nice manwho I ended up dead keen to
ensure that we helped him.
And the usual treatment for OCDis to give an SSRI.
So that's what I gave him.
(54:29):
Okay.
And he didn't do well on it.
And the big problem was weneeded to treat his OCD because
he was going to lose his job ifwe didn't.
Okay.
The at the SSRI didn't help him.
And we put the dose up and addedmore pills in and They didn't
help.
I was feeling bad because Iliked this guy.
(54:50):
Then a few weeks later, he comesback to me and he's clearly
looking a little better.
I'm pleased.
Whatever he's done to getbetter, I'm pleased.
And he tells me that he's haltedall the pills that I Put him on,
and he's feeling better.
And I am more than happy withthat.
And then he says, I didsomething else.
(55:10):
And he tells me that he'd done abit of research before he did
this something else.
Okay.
And found that there wasresearch to support what he did.
And what he'd done was to goback smoking.
Now, what readers won'tappreciate, and I didn't, and he
didn't either, but he handed mea bunch of articles saying,
(55:32):
look, there's good evidence outthere on the web that nicotine
can be good for OCD.
And he didn't realize, hereally.
didn't know the field at all.
He just found these articles andsaid, that's interesting.
The top article he showed me wasby a man called Arvid Karlsson,
(55:53):
who won the Nobel prize formedicine and who was the creator
of the first SSRI.
Karlsson had shown that there'sa bunch of people who Don't
respond to SSRIs who've got OCD,who respond better to nicotine.
Wow.
Now, the interesting thing aboutit, the interesting thing about
(56:14):
it and this is an interestingpoint.
In the case of this man, I hopeyou'll be able to see it, he's
in a great position to knownicotine's not safe, but he
knows what the risks are.
But he can also feel the benefithe gets from it compared with
the SSRI, which is equallyunsafe and maybe even more
(56:35):
unsafe than nicotine.
But he's the person who's in theposition to make the trade off.
I have to keep my job.
When I smoke, I'm able to do thejob and yeah, there are risks
and things like that.
Maybe I can use a patch insteador
James Egidio (56:49):
whatever.
I was just going to say that.
What about a
Dr. David Healy (56:51):
patch?
No, sure.
Sure.
But that's up to him.
Okay.
but the point I'm trying to makeis it's really.
You, if you're on a pill or me,if I'm on a pill, who's in the
best position to know what thetrade off feels like, do we get
a benefit?
Can we sense hazards and thingslike that?
The world we have at the momentis you don't get the warnings
(57:13):
about your.
Genitals will go numb.
You don't get the warnings aboutbirth defects.
You don't get the warnings aboutactually becoming suicidal or
homicidal.
FDA decide they're going todecide what the risk benefit
ratio is for you, not you.
And that's helping you to livethe life.
That Pfizer and Lilly and GSKwant you to live rather than
(57:35):
helping you to use theirproducts to live the life that
you want to live
James Egidio (57:40):
yeah, it's interesting.
I think it was my second orthird interview.
I had an interview with Dr JamesGreenblatt, who's a pediatric
psychiatrist and he usesmagnesium as a alternative he
doesn't use as an alternative,but he uses in conjunction with
medications for ADHD because hetreats ADHD and he treats them
(58:01):
with Ritalin or Adderall but healso use and he uses those in
small doses, but he also,believes in and has dedicated
his career to treating pediatricpatients with ADHD with
magnesium supplementalmagnesium, and it just
completely turns these kidsaround the magnesium.
Does it helps them focus muchbetter?
(58:23):
Yeah what is your take on that?
What is your take on naturalsupplementation or just, or,
things that are away from the socalled pharmaceutical industry
or mainstream pharmaceuticalindustry?
Dr. David Healy (58:38):
Yeah.
I have a few takes.
One is it's interesting to hearabout magnesium in that there
are, it was one of the Firstcompound to be called a mood
stabilizer.
Way back before we began to usethe anticonvulsants, magnesium
was shown in clinical trials tohelp stabilize moods.
This was done by orthodoxmedical doctors in, I forget
(59:02):
where, but somewhere likeHarvard or wherever.
Okay.
So the idea that it can behelpful is not an unreasonable
idea.
There's good evidence that itcan be helpful, which doesn't
mean it's going to suit allpeople.
But the other aspect to allthis, which is wanting to take
care of it.
And it's not just thesupplements and things like
(59:22):
that.
It's.
If I want to give you Prozac,I've got to give you a major
depressive disorder first, andthen I give you Prozac for this
illness you have.
In a sense, I make you ill.
And a lot of medicine these daysis about making people ill in
(59:44):
order to give them drugs.
And that can be harmful in itsown right.
If you start thinking ofyourself as having an illness,
it Impacts on the way you viewyourself and how you live life.
There's a very famous study.
On treating people with bloodpressure problems This was way
(01:00:04):
back in the early 1980s and afamily doctor in the uk.
This was not high poweredacademia It was just a family
doctor Figures you we've gotthese new antihypertensive drugs
out.
And I'm going to give them to abunch of my patients.
We're told that, we need totreat it because if we don't
treat it, they could havestrokes or whatever.
(01:00:25):
He had a bunch of 75 men and hegave them the antihypertensive
and in all cases he was happybecause in every single case the
blood pressure, the mercurycolumn, this is an old style
mercury column way to test bloodpressure the mercury column
fell.
In half of the cases, half ofthe men were also happy with.
(01:00:49):
Probably, it's hard to know why,but probably because the doctor
was happy, he was obviouslyhappy the way the treatment was
going, but in 74 out of the 75cases, the wives were unhappy
because they had a man who hadno symptoms beforehand.
Who now is having adverseeffects from the drugs and was
(01:01:12):
neurotic because he thought hehad a dangerous blood pressure
problem.
Now, we know from huge trialsthat were done later, recruiting
thousands of men, that yes,these same drugs that were being
tested by at the family doctordo show blood pressure falls,
(01:01:34):
but they don't save lives.
This is the kind of thing thatyou're.
Not actually told, but there'svery few drugs that the
companies bring on the marketthat actually save lives.
An astonishingly few.
And the ones that actually savelives have often been discovered
by patients.
It was triple therapy for AIDSwhich actually saves lives was
(01:01:59):
discovered by AIDS patients, notby the pharmaceutical industry.
James Egidio (01:02:03):
So what you're saying is trust yourself.
Dr. David Healy (01:02:06):
It's just it's easy to be overpowered by the
science and the academics andthings like that who think they
know what's best for you.
You got to do your own researchand you got to ask the awkward
questions and maybe at the endof the day, it's, You need to be
prepared to take some risksmaybe and say I might live a
(01:02:26):
week longer If i'm on all thesepills, but i'm not going to have
the same quality of life,
James Egidio (01:02:31):
yeah, what's your advice to anybody that's out
there that's on SSRI's or islooking to get off of SSRI's
Dr. David Healy (01:02:38):
my advice And it's awfully tricky, to advise
people who are on the pills thelet me be clear.
I'm not anti any pills.
I use the antidepressants.
I use the SSRI.
So it's not a case of, I thinkyou shouldn't be using them at
all.
The problem you've got is notjust the pills.
The problem you've got is theinformation that comes with the
(01:03:01):
pills that didn't warn you tobegin with about the risks.
And.
Doesn't know how to help get youoff them.
The usual media Thing thatpeople like me will be told if
we talk about these issues isyou can't tell people to go off
the drugs.
You've got to tell them go backto their doctor now The problem
(01:03:22):
we got at the moment.
We're in an extraordinarysituation, which is I don't feel
comfortable saying that topeople because if they go back
to the doctor and say, when Itried to come off this pill, I
feel awful.
Chances are, they're going to betold, you have to stay at it for
the rest of your life, which isnot the right answer either.
So everybody who's on thesepills, who's having problems and
(01:03:43):
they.
May not be having problems.
Come back to the nicotine story.
People may be on these pills anddoing well and comfortable with
being on them.
I'm not saying you should changethese things.
The problem I'm saying is, ifyou're not doing well on them,
it's very hard to know where togo for help because we don't
really know how to get you offthese things and your doctor may
(01:04:05):
not be the best person to go to.
James Egidio (01:04:07):
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode
of the medical truth podcast.
Dr.
Healy.
I really appreciate it
Dr. David Healy (01:04:14):
Okay, it's good to be here James.
James Egidio (01:04:16):
Absolutely.
Absolutely And that you can befound at online at www.
davidhealy.
org and then also one otherthing I want to mention or if
you would like to is yourwebsite, which I'm actually
posting at the bottom.
There is rxisc.
(01:04:37):
org rxisc.
org.
Risk.
org.
What is
Dr. David Healy (01:04:42):
that?
We usually just call it risk.
org.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
But yeah.
And this is a place where Idon't give anyone any advice at
all.
It's a place where people whohave problems on drugs can come
and report the problems theyhave.
They can also for the ones thatwe think are going to be of
wider interest, we get people towrite it up in more detail.
(01:05:03):
You don't have to have your nameon it, often we get.
People who write compellingreports about what actually
happens to them on pills and theway the medical system Doesn't
respond the way it should do youknow all the ways they try and
persuade you It's nothing to dowith the pill or whatever And
you know we post, fairlycompelling stories about the
things that can go wrong on thepills and wrong with the medical
(01:05:25):
system.
And often these posts will get300 or 400 comments from others
who say, I'm glad you wrotethis.
I'm having exactly the sameproblems.
And this is what happened to me.
And I now know what to do basedon how you've tried to solve the
problem kind of thing.
So it's not me telling peoplewhat to do.
It's more.
people themselves.
And this is, one of the thingsthat is probably most important
(01:05:50):
in terms of the things that I'velearned, which is, these days I
learn most about most of thethings I know about medicine
from the people who come to mewho are on pills, who tell me
what's gone wrong and tell mehow they've solved it and how
they've gone on the internet andresearched things.
And.
Worked out just how the drug'scausing the problem So it's not
(01:06:10):
me telling people what to do orif I am telling people what to
do It's because i've learned itfrom other people who've been in
the same situation Rather thanfrom the books.
James Egidio (01:06:19):
Yeah.
Yeah, and I will post the a linkto that particular website at
www.
medicaltruthpodcast.
com On the free resources pageso there'll be a direct link to
that website on the freeresources page of Medical truth
podcast as well, but I reallyappreciate you joining me for
(01:06:40):
this episode of the medicaltruth podcast.
Dr.
Healy I appreciate
Dr. David Healy (01:06:43):
it.
It's been great fun
James Egidio (01:06:45):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much and keep usupdated on what's going on.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks.
Okay.
All
Dr. David Healy (01:06:50):
right.
Bye
Outro (01:06:54):
Thanks for listening to the Medical Truth Podcast.
For the latest episodes, go towww.
medicaltruthpodcast.
com.
You can also find the MedicalTruth Podcast on Rumble, as well
as all the major podcastplatforms like Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart.
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