| Type | Comments Since You Last CheckedArticle | Source | Last Checked |  |
 |
Researchers studying antibiotics in pregnancy have found a surprising link between common drugs used to treat urinary infections with birth defects.
Where are the "science knows best" spokespeople?
Where are the "doctors know best" people?
Where are the results of mutagenic testing on every prescribed medication? They don't exist.
Welcome to prescription pad medicine. A drug rep says buy it, the PEZ dispensers wearing lab coats do as they are told, and it isn't safe, never was tested to be safe, but patients get it anyway. Congratulations, docs, how does it feel to know children have birth defects and children die because you don't know what the prescriptions you write will do.
Welcome to "modern medicine".
#1 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 6:23 PM ESTGramma,
Chances are you and most of your ancestors that preceded you would be dead from some common bacteria or childhood disease. So you probably wouldn't be here to know best. Ever have a cut, respiratory infection? Ever have a tetanus shot? Smallpox immunization? If so before prescription pads you were dead. We also didn't wear bike helmets, safety belts, and no sun screen. To all who expect pharma to cure their ills while refusing to make lifestyle changes too bad! Modern medicine is nothing more than giving lazy people what they want. Cry me a river Gramma, I invite you to try and survive with out any medical science. Please!
But the H1N1 shot is very healthy, trust me. (sarcasm)
The human body is a masterful creation and probably not meant to be fully understood. I laugh at people that just assume that the "experts" should just be able to understand everything about it from reading a book or two and blame them when something goes wrong. One has to remember that medicine is just as much an art as it is a science.
Gramma Knows:
Not all prescription meds are dangerous--if a patient feels uncomfortable with taking a prescribed med, do the research on the internet about side effects, or just don't take it at all.
A Patient has to be the Advocate for themselves while at a doctor's appointment. What is best for you. Ask your doctor if there is another antibiotic that works just as well if there are doubts.
Most Professional, excellent doctors, rarely prescribe Antibiotics anymore. They know they can be dangerous, and if taken on a consistant basis, for bacterial infections, one now can become immune to them. There are so many different bacterias out now like viruses, it is hard to kill the culprit. Antibiotics can become resistant to the infection.
We will not get this kind of interest or care from our own physicians if this Health Care Bill goes through.
It will be like a "Jack in the Box" fast food restaurant. No time to spend with a patient, no personal discussions.
We are talking abortion here!!!
And yet, urinary tract infections are one of the easiest to treat with safe alternatives. Assuming a woman does not have a severe, chronic condition -- which she would have known about before getting pregnant -- a simple change in diet and a homeopathic prescription will kill it faster than antibiotics.
And before a bunch of idiots inform me that homeopathic remedies are quack medicine, do some real independent research. Cows and infants are not susceptible to the placebo effect. And in the 1918 flu epidemic, allopaths killed thousands with their miracle drugs, while only a handful of those treated with homeopathy died.
Gramma,
Well, generally science does know best at any given moment. But you have to remember:
1) About 80% of the drugs on the market (not counting naturopathic or homeopathic remnedies) were never tested by the FDA. Powerful drug lobbies were at work when the FDA was created and "grandfathered" existing drugs, basically exempting them from FDA control. Sulfa drugs were amonng those exempted even though "science" had serious concerns about their safety for pregnant women.
2) The FDA's mission is "safety only". It is only concerned with whether drugs are safe. Unfortunately, they rely on the drug manufacturers' own testing to determine if they are safe. Drug manufacturers are allowed, by law, to suppress any clinical data that is unfavorable.
3) The FDA is forbidden by law to test efficacy (effectiveness). Over 30% of all drugs approved by the FDA did not do any better than a placebo. On other words, about 30% of all the drugs approved are nothing more than placebos with side effects.
4) The FDA is physician-controlled. Over 80% of these physicians have mostly undisclosed financial ties to the drug and medical device manufacturers. Physicians have no training or skills in the design, conduct, or evaluation of clinical drug trials. They must rely on the drug manufacturers to do all this for them.
5) One of the most noted recruiting grounds for drug company sales reps is cheerleaders. Every University of Kentucky and University of Alabama cheerleader for the past several years has been offered employment as a drug company rep. These jobs start at around $70k plus bonuses. Now exactly what kind of inducements do you think a cheerleader is going to offer a physician to prescribe her drugs? Use your imagination.
Science is out there and working hard. But the FDA is not associated with real science in any sense of the word. It is simply an arm of the drug and medical device manufacturers. Under Gerberding, the CDC took a similar turn, firing PhD epidemiologists in droves and replacing them with higher-paid physicians with absolutely no knowledge of epidemiology except a 2-week "epidemiology boot camp." This is one reason that the CDC is struggling to come to grips with even simplistic public health situations.
There are physicians who have chosen to be researchers. But legitimate research physicians have additional degrees in addition to an MD --- usually an MPH (Master of Public Health) or a PhD. The rest are not interested in anything except the huge amounts of money they can make "on the side" from drug and medical device manufacturers. The law requires disclosure of such financial ties, but over 80% of physicians at the FDA have failed to disclose their ties.
People need to be speaking out, especially about the FDA:
A) Physicians who do not possess skills and education IN ADDITION TO an MD degree, should be replaced with people, mostly PhD's who do have research skills and training.
B) Any employee of the FDA who has ties to the for-profit medical industry should be given two choices: drop all ties within 30 days or be fired. Any physician or scientist who has not declared their financial ties to the for-profit medical industry but has been previously required to do so should be fired immediately and should forfeit all federal retirement benefits.
C) The FDA should be charged with testing all drugs and medical devices (including those grandfathered) for both efficacy and safety. If a drug or device does not perform better that a placebo, it should not be approved.
D) The FDA should be allowed to commission head-to-head efficacy tests. There is no reason for banning the FDA from telling you if one drug works significantly better than another of if the cost/benefit ration favors one drug over another.
E) Drug and medical device companies should be barred from the design and evaluation phases of all clinical trials. There are plenty of people with the skills to do so and they should be in the FDA, not in the employ of the company trying to get a drig or device approved.
F) The FDA should have the responsibility of publicly disclosing the amount of taxpayer money that was used to develop a drug or device. Most drugs and devices were developed using National Institutes of Health funding, yet the drug and device companies get all the profit.
G) Drug and device companies should be required to disclose all clinical trial results instead of cherry-picking the favorable ones and suppressing the unfavorable ones.
H) All clinical trials in China and India should be banned from being used to obtain FDA approval of a drug or device. Currently most drugs are tested in India and China because there are lots of people who need the money. These people are often enrolled in several clinical trials concurrently and there are actually schools in both countries that teach people how to be "good" research subjects --- what symptoms to report and what to not report and how to tell if they are getting the placebo. They know exactly what lies to tell the drug companies to continue being enrolled in studies and often do not actually take the drug being tested.
There is good medical science out there and good scientists and researchers whose entire adult lives have been dedicated to trying to better the life of mankind in general. But the FDA and CDC, as presently constituted, are not capable of either good science or good medicine and are doing about as much harm as good.
unless it's serious or possibly scary, let nature do it's own thing..a fine balance of common sense here..if it's minor and not broken/ not serious, please don't try to fix it, or over fix it..again, a fine line and common sense here..an overload is just as bad, if not worse for many extenuating circumstances......
Chris, I challenge you to name 5 drugs approved by the FDA that work no better than placebo. Please list the name of the drug and the indication it was approved for.
NU--I was curious after reading Chris' post. I don't have much time to devote to the question, but googled this from New England Journal of Medicine in a minute:
In the longest, largest phase 3 trial, patients in the Lunesta group reported falling asleep an average of 15 minutes faster and sleeping an average of 37 minutes longer than those in the placebo group. However, on average, Lunesta patients still met criteria for insomnia and reported no clinically meaningful improvement in next-day alertness or functioning.
According to the same artible, Lunesta sales topped $800 million in 2006.
Article goes on to say,
FDA approval does not mean that a drug works well; it means only that the agency deemed its benefits to outweigh its harms. This judgment can be difficult to make: benefits may be small, important harms may not have been ruled out, and the quality of the trials may be questionable.
-article quoted is "Lost in Transmission..." Oct 21, 2009 if you want to read it
For insomnia meds, there is really no reason to try Lunesta unless generic zolpidem (brand name Ambien) doesn't help. Patients will not spend their money on this (i.e. higher co-pay) if it doesn't work. Even before rx'ing a sleeping pill, a detailed history will often reveal the source of the problem, and usually a med isn't even needed (e.g. caffeine intake, stress, depression, frequent nocturnal urination from a different dx, ...). Benzodiazepines (e.g. Valium family) have some utility, but are certainly not good in terms of addiction potential, chronic use, and they disrupt sleep architecture (i.e. sleep might not be restful and rejuvenating).
The FDA approves drugs only if they work better than placebo and have a reasonable degree of safety (depends on the indication).
I do subcribe to New England Journal. Here is the perspective article (a.k.a. educated opinion piece) you quote: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/361/18/1717. Unfortunately, it does not include the raw data from the original study which would include the control group. Lunesta also gives a bad aftertaste for some reason, which is another reason to avoid it.
A reasonable degree of skepticism is wise. But keep in mind that only 12% of what we spend on health care went to "drugs and nondurables" in 2006. I disagree with several of Chris' ideas in post 1.7 since some are impractical or can stifle innovation, but agree we can do a better job policing what is sold by rx or OTC in this country. Furthermore, I wish manufacturers of herbs, vitamins, and supplements (low R&D costs, low mfg costs, huge profits) would be subjected to higher standards (e.g. have to prove safety and efficacy) before being sold.
Where are the "science knows best" spokespeople?
Where are the "doctors know best" people?
They are over on the vaccine boards talking up a storm. If they come over here they'll discredit this whole article by rationalizing and chalking it up to "progress".
and "that's how science works."
#2 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 8:26 PM ESTRobert,
The "grandfathering" of drugs, and the way that the FDA and CDC function is political not scientific.
Hmm. Wonder how those new H1N1 vaccines recommended for pregnant women will affect unborn babies. I get the impression that they're just guessing on a lot of this!
#3 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 10:28 PM ESTThe protective antibody induced by the vaccine crosses the placenta, and protects the baby for the first 3-6 months of life. The benefit to risk ratio is more favorable for pregnant women than it is for a non-pregnant woman with the same health status. For those skeptics that are afraid of mercury-containing thimerosal, about 40% of the shots do not have this, you just have to look around for it. No studies have shown that thimerosal is either safe or dangerous in pregnant women, but in post #10 of my pandemic influenza article, I have numerous references attesting to the safety of thimerosal in young children: http://bogenbmg.newsvine.com/_news/2009/10/23/3417137-2009-pandemic-h1n1-influenza-a-a-balanced-presentation-by-a-family-practice-physician.
It's not so much guessing as slowly obtaining sufficient data to make decisions. The way science works is that as you get more information, you should always be ready to modify conclusions based on additional information.
The problems with the H1N1 vaccine is that it is very slow growing --- making a vaccine take longer to produce and more subject to contamination; the vaccine does not provoke a strong immune response from the patient's body --- this is why they have determined that one dose does not endanger a fetus as much as originally thought; and squalene is usually added to vaccines to cause the body to produce a stronger response, but squalene does not help with the H1N1 vaccine.
Pandemic H1N1 vaccine induces a strong immune response without squalene adjuvant, so the issue is moot. This issue is unrelated to safety of the fetus.
FYI, the amount of mercury in some flu shots is approx. what one gets in a can of tuna.
Well, this is interesting. Bactrim and nitrofurantoin are the safest antibiotics we have that treat the bacteria that cause urinary tract infections. Ampicillin would be a safe choice, but most UTI bacteria are resistant to it. Cipro, which we avoid using in pregnant women, is more dangerous. Before pregnant women rush to just take cranberry juice for UTI's, it should be pointed out that the "active ingredient" in cranberry juice is nalidixic acid, which is structurally the backbone of the antibiotic cipro. First choice if I had to rx something would still be Bactrim and nitrofurantoin.
So, it seems again that the best treatment for a UTI is prevention: stay hydrated, void before and after sex, wipe front to back. If you want to acidify the urine, perhaps vitamin C (ascorbic acid) would help. But, UTI's are very important to treat if you are pregnant due to the risk of complications (notably, a kidney infection which can cause one to get quite ill and put the pregnancy and life at risk), so I would encourage women to consult their physician for any symptoms like burning with urination, urgency, and having to void frequently. Certainly fever or flank pain would be very serious symptoms. I will also point out that it is wise to avoid ANY unnecessary medications or substances while pregnant, especially during the first trimester which is the most critical time that birth defects form. This would include prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, herbs, supplements, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs (duh!). Vitamins are fine, and the prenatal vitamin has extra folic acid which helps prevent a birth defect called "neural tube defects."
#4 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 10:38 PM ESTND Wildcat Fan,
I am becoming a fan of yours. You seem to be quite sane.
The who relationship of people to science and medicine is that you make your decisions based on the best information available at the time you make your decision. Sometimes we make bad decisions that way, but it is very rare.
Keep posting facts.
Actually we know that Nitros should NOT be taken in the last trimester and IMHE i have seen a number of medics rx'ing it to women during that time telling them that it is no big deal - when it is - we know that they cause cardiac issues with the fetus...so that one does not shock me at all to put it mildly... You should also already know that pregnant women are very prone to UTI's due to hormones not anything that they are doing wrong as you are stating.
Your lack for clarification and irrational methods of explaining issues are just beyond comprehension...
But before we rush to change how we practice medicine in such cases, I would point out that retrospective "research" studies based on telephone surveys are subject to "recall bias." Review of actual medical records is far more accurate. I would be interested to peer-review the actual study when it is published.
Dr. stes - I was not implying pregnant women do anything wrong, although some do. I was just listing advice. What is your advice for UTI prevention, and if you rx a UTI, what med at what dose and duration would you use? Actually, I'd avoid sulfa in the last trimester. Which cardiac issue does nitrofurantoin cause in the 3rd trimester, which is after organogenesis has occurred?
The study covered antibiotic exposure from one month prior to pregnancy through the end of the first trimester. Docs do try to avoid prescribing anything during this time. Cipro surprisingly had few (one case) associated problems. The authors appropriately did not recommend using cipro. They did call for further study. Also, the study is still degraded by recall bias, and does not establish cause-and-effect, just association. Scientifically, this is a huge distinction.
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/163/11/978
As usual, the lay press doesn't know how to report medical issues. I always have to wait for the original medical study to be available so that I can peer-review it myself.
So we dont have a choice whether we take them or not. They are in our drinking water. So where is the EPA on that one. Oh they are trying to get cap and trade through so all the politicians and their buddies get rich. Shouldnt they be solving real problems instead of making them up ? I believe the drinking water problem should be addressed first . As Sarah would say. Dont Ya think ?
#5 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 10:42 PM ESTA reminder: people think they are okay if they drink and shower with filtered water. But the plants and animals you eat weren't given filtered water, so this crap is in their bodies.
I'm sure if we knew what was really in the water, we'd have a clue about such things as the sudden high rate of autism. In the meantime, governments the world over just keep polluting. Australia just dumped 4000+ barrels of oil in the sea due to yet another accident.
But hey, the environmental issue is nonsense. There's no global warming. The fish aren't really toxic. The butterflies will come back.
Ex-marine - I'm glad we have well water at our house! We just have to test the water for nasty, natural bacteria that can make us sick!!
"The new study is the first large analysis of antibiotic use in pregnancy."
I'm not trying to completely bash science and modern medicine, but considering that antibiotics and pregnancy have both been around for a very long time, why is this the first large analysis of using antibiotics during pregnancy? Shouldn't that have had some priority in scientific studies a long time ago?
And now that the first large analysis has been done, it's even sadder that this article claims it doesn't really reveal much of anything except for that certain antibiotics seem to be connected to birth defects. I value a lot of what the medical world has to offer, but I don't think anybody at the FDA or CDC should be particularly surprised when the general public is skeptical and concerned about what they claim is safe and effective and shouldn't be questioned.
#6 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 11:07 PM ESTCara- I don't think this was a study at all. They talked to women on the phone who couldn't even remember if or what they took. How can you possibly draw a conclusion and make a study out of that? So, it's no wonder they didn't really reveal anything because they had no real or useful information to make the analysis in the first place.
Wonder how much money those who conducted the study made to find nothing from nothing????
Considering that most UTI's can be safely taken care of by drinking cranberry juice or taking cranberry leaf extract capsules, why the need to give antibiotics to pregnant women without first trying these natural and safe methods? Ooops! I forgot! The FDA, who think they are God, has ruled that nothing but pharmaceuticals can heal! Morons! Thieves. That is what the FDA is!
Let's see, real cranberry juice (not the "cocktail"), cranberry leaf extract capsules, olive leaf extract capsules, garlic, lemon juice, unpastuerized apple cider vinegar with the "mother", and colloidal silver all have properties that can wipe out a UTI, and I didn't cover cornsilk, parlsey, and other herbs that work well for UTI's.
There are home remedies for just about anything and everything that ails you. It is the lack of knowledge (ignorance) of these remedies that keeps people from knowing how to self-treat these simple ailments themselves with simple, basic, and safe items. Search the web, these things work! I've been self-educating myself and others for more than 26 years on home remedies, and we've had nothing but success. Knowledge is empowerment.
TP~If you get a cut, clean it well, and cover it with some activated charcoal and it will heal up nicely. Yes, activated charcoal~burnt wood! If you get a respitory illness, then make and use an old fashioned onion poultice. Back in 1945 before antibiotics were well known or available, my fairly newborn uncle became sick with pneumonia and the doctor ordered onion poultices to cure my uncle. It worked as it caused the pneumonia to break within 12 hours. It took some diligence to continue to apply poultices, but it healed him. And it was a doctor who prescribed this.
Many of the old timers lived on home remedies and lived because of it! Some are/were nasty, but they work! There is plenty of information and education on these things in books and on the Internet.
#7 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 11:56 PM ESTActually, there's no real proof that cranberry pills even work. And cranberry juice PREVENTS UTIs. They don't actually get rid of them after the fact. Only antibiotics can kill that.
However, natural rememdies have been around for hundreds of years, and many do work, in specific instances.
You obviously didn't read my post #4 on cranberry juice. The common fallacy among believers of alternative medicine and home remedies is that "if it's natural, it must be safe." Here are some "natural" things: tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, heroin, digitalis, certain hepatotoxic mushrooms... Bottom line, the only way to prove something has more benefit than risk is to do a good clinical study. The internet and alt med printed sources are full of unproven unsafe untested remedies.
We should all just stop our whining and line up for our flu shots. Yea sure, a few of us will die from them but hey, you gotta break a few eggs you know. I'm sure they are every bit as well researched and tested as those antibiotics that have been around a LOT longer. Willie's Wisdom: As long as we all continue to do what we did, we can certainly expect to get what we got.
#8 - Mon Nov 2, 2009 11:59 PM ESTWas that a pun? Because you know you can't have a flu shot if you are allergic to eggs!
cara--- i was wondering that myself what with all the hype of how 'safe' "ALL" the drugs are "in comparason" to the disease of course. but now we find out that the antibiotics used during pregnancy for decades has been the subject of 'research' to 'discover' if it caused any problems. they would not be doing the 'research' if there were not enough to warrent the use of the money to do the 'research' so that someone else doesn't find it first and sue thier a**es.
more and more often, there are articles deflating the fabulous bubble of big pharma. no matter what they do to try to beat nature at her own game and make a huge profit in the process, it just does not seem to last very long.
the first "Large" study of antibiotics in pregnant women and it was only 18,000 women. how many women are in the usa? how many of them have had children in the past two years? they chose only 13000 for thier "Large' study?
pregnant women should not use antibiotics period if it is at all possible to get by without it. study up on herbalogy, find the diet that keeps you healthy, find the lifestyle that keeps you healthy (and by the way, if you do, you will find that about half of what the 'professionals say is needed to have a healthy life style is wrong, and they omit twice as much stuff you should know).... the more natural that it is possible to be in your life or life style (food, cleaning products, insecticides ect) the better off you will be.
chemically replicated, chemically identicals......... all mean one thing.... it ain't real. it is artificial, a 'knock off' of nature, a bad copy of, it is not the original nor the best. it means simply what it says.... reproduced from something else.
if we put up with that in our art, music, movies, books, there would be huge lawsuits of copyright infringements.
#9 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 12:10 AM ESTThis article is just plain scary!!!!!! What other antibiotics have they not tested carefully? Do you remember a nausea medicine that caused pregnant women to have babies without legs and arms? It was called thiamidine or something like that.
My 88 year old mother has constant UTIs. This is very common in the elderly because tissue gets thin without estrogen. Her urologist wanted me to apply an estrogen cream to her. I take care of her seven days a week, all day, 365 days of the year, but I didn't want to do this. So I gave her pure organic cranberry capsules. She hasn't had a UTI for 7 months. This is the longest she has gone. Both of her doctors, (urologists and internist) think that I am nuts, but they said that it was harmless. I wonder what they think now. The theory is that the e coli cannot adhere to the lining of the bladder because of the acidity of the cranberry juice.
#10 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 2:21 AM ESTThalidomide was never approved for morning sickness by the FDA, it was approved in other countries. There was some bad science behind thalidomide (rat studies were used to prove that it did not cause birth defects, yet it was known to be ineffective in rats). The FDA was asking for more research, when the birth defects arose.
Thalidomide is now approved in the US for a couple of indications (including leprosy). It is tightly controlled to prevent use by pregnant women.
Shot a man - I was about to say the same thing. Thalidomide was NEVER supposed to be used for pregnant women but it has been proven effective for certain indications.
women should discuss antibiotics choices with their doctors
Would that be sometime during the thirty seconds that the doctor is actually with you?
#11 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 7:49 AM ESTAnd how many women are going to continue questioning when the doctor smirks and asks them where they got their medical degree?
Welcome to the real world!
Please tell me that if you've heard that question from your doctor, it was the last time you ever went to that doctor.
I have VERY successfully self-treated mastitis (breast infection), ear, and urinary tract and Athlete's foot infections with topically applied, medicinal grade essential oils. Essential oils and their healing properties absorb through the skin, relief is often felt in a 4-8 hours, with complete healing in 24 hrs. For safe measure, I may appy the oils an extra day.
Friends, family, and doctors continue to think I'm trying to practice voo-doo but that is quite okay. My health, my wallet and my experience say otherwise.
There are times and places for pharmaceuticals, we take those also, but I'm pleased with the results I get from the oils.
#12 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 8:42 AM ESTSara - I have a friend that has been using altnerative medicine to sucessfully cure an ailment for years. I respect that people have the right to make their own judgement when curing diseases.
However, modern medicine also deserves respect. Without it, my son would have died from a heart condition. His open-heart surgery SAVED his life and no pill or remedy or any other course would have changed that.
What we have to do then, is question studies like these because this one is certainly not valid.
Why didn't the group that conducted the study ask OBs, pediatric heart specialists and pediatric neurosurgeons what they found? Seems to me it would have made more sense to talk to specialists and analyze their findings.
Let's remember, doctors are NOT going to willingly put their patients at risk. They just aren't. (Maybe there's a few bad apples, but all groups have them.) So, then, why not use their expertise to find out what the drugs REALLY do instead of asking women who couldn't even remember what drugs they took and analyze nonsense???
There goes the Media again: if it ain't the flu, it's the flu shots or antibiotics. They love to scare the public!! And reading these posts shows they have succeeded.
If it weren't for antibiotics, how many million people alive today would never had made it through childhood?
Overuse of antibiotics has definitely made matters worse and not better. But read up on medicines and talk to your doctor; use a little common sense.
#13 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 9:12 AM ESTI agree with both your points about antibiotics. They HAVE saved lives but overuse does have a negative effect.
To further your point, my son has had to be especially careful of overuse because of a heart condition that required open heart surgery at age 4.
This is a good reason why I only go to the doctor when I cannot take the pain anymore. I haven't seen a doctor over ten years. Every time I go, I get antibiotics, they want to put on this drug and that drug, this is wrong with me and that is wrong with me. They have to find something wrong with you and treat you with all these drugs. It is insane. When I get the prescription, I just throw it away. No antibiotics for me, thank you. No H1N1 shots either.
#14 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 9:19 AM ESTThis study is total drek. They published a study that was done by taking phone interviews based on faulty memories? How can you even call this a study? It seems like pre-research more than anything. If they didn't even look at these women's medical records, they have no real idea whether the women's recall was even correct.
This study is total drek. Invalid drek.
What I learned today: You can publish ANYTIHNG and you can say whatever you want and get published.
And what kind of panic are you going to cause by putting the fear in pregnant women if it's not even true??? I mean, being pregnant is already worrisome because anything and everything you do is already judged and nothing is safe.
I hated being pregnant for that reason alone: I feared that ANYTHING I did, said, or ate, might put my babies in jeopardy. And now they publish studies that aren't even valid to further the fears of pregnant women.
And people believe this nonsense? It's NOT a valid study. Show me REAL facts, with real backup evidence. Show me exactly what the women took exactly when - then make an investigation.
Don't just publish DREK that says, "well, we talked to a bunch of women and they think they took drugs but couldn't remember what and now they have kids with birth defects." That's crap. There could be ANOTHER reason altogether WHY these birth defects are prevalent.
My son was involved in a study of heart defects of children in my state. It has been going on for YEARS and is very comprehensive and the University is still not publishing exact causes because they want ALL The facts. Those are the studies I'm interested in. Comprehensive and useful.
But, hey, if you can just publish anything, I want to know how to get in on that action.
#15 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 9:45 AM ESTThe AP slimes trying to terrorize people again with their "Common Antibiotics Tied to Birth Defects" when this is not the case and they knew it. Same garbage trying to scare hell out of people with the Swine Flu thing. The AP slimes publish the 19 deaths for children and 1000 overall for the US but don't bother to publish the CDC seasonal flu at 80 and 30,000.
The AP seems to serve little purpose other than to push their agenda and hide behind the 1st amendment. It's no wonder the public has lost confidence in the main stream media.
#17 - Tue Nov 3, 2009 12:02 PM ESTThe seasonal flu (a different H1N1, H3N2, and influenza B) might kill almost nobody this season. In pandemic years, the new influenza A strain replaced the previous seasonal strain in 1957 & 1968. So far this season, all influenza A strains that could be typed were the new pandemic H1N1 strain. An oft-quoted number of deaths per season for seasonal influenza is 36,000, and 90% are in the elderly. This season, I'm predicting we will see fewer (e.g. 10,000) deaths, but they will disproportionately be in younger and pregnant women since the elderly seem to have some natural immunity. The vaccine delays will lessen the life-saving benefit of the vaccine.
I don't think the AP or its politics have anything to do with the pandemic influenza.
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
Follow msnbc.com health to get e-mail or watchlist alerts whenever new content is published, or subscribe via RSS:
Popular Articles & Seeds 
Health care bill faces a crucial Senate voteSchumer: Dems can go-it-alone on health careBruising debate awaits health bill in SenatePatients face bitter choice: Pay up or lose careMan in coma heard everything for 23 yearsClinic with two doors, a symbol of two-tier careSenate health bill targets 'Cadillac' plansFrom the hospital room to bankruptcy court'Concierge' care is just another word for bribe
Log In | Register
Start Tracking
Stop Tracking
