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Readers' Messages to Colin Downes-Grainger
Many congratulations. I have read it all and it is brilliant. What an enormous amount of work it represents. It will be an extremely useful reference. I admire the illustrations - very witty. I particularly like the last one about the government umbrella. I hope many people read it , not just the converted like Charles Medawar and me, but I greatly fear that people like Rosie will not have the attention span. Nevertheless I hope you will send it to as many gov't and gov't committee members as you can. The battle continues... Professor C.H. Ashton, DM FRCP; psychopharmacologist, Newcastle University, January 1, 2007.
Great Stuff !! It is so true that politicians (have to) make decisions without knowing enough about a subject to make a fair judgement. In this sense they are rather like GPs who have to make decisions about illnesses of which they are largely ignorant. But the good GP, when faced with an individual issue, will look up the literature (few of them do) and/or refer the patient to an expert specialist whose advice the GP will heed and whose suggestions he will implement (most of them do this). Here is the difference: The GP will listen to the expert, while politicians, despite calling "expert advisors" will not listen to the experts' advice or implement their suggestions. Intead they "roll out" year by year their own hackneyed euphemisms without ever taking the trouble to try to really understand the complaint. (In fairness there may be a few exceptions but they do not usually have the clout to move their sheep-like colleagues). Professor C.H. Ashton, DM FRCP; psychopharmacologist, Newcastle University, February, 8 2007.
I don't know if I got back to you after I started reading your book. It is well written with lots of info. You are a talented writer. Millie Kieve, APRIL - Adverse Psychiatric Reactions Information Link, 12 July 2007.
You are owed a debt of immense gratitude. As your book exposes - the corruption of the British government, social engineering by the 'establishment' and their pure evilness, the greed and complete lack of morality of the drugs industry and the sheer arrogance and negligence of the medical profession - fuelled and protected by their insurance companies. Never doubt your book's value to society, as a direct testament of man's inhumanity to fellow man....You are a true warrior. Barry Haslam, iatrogenic victim and long time benzo campaigner, July 13 2007.
"..beautifully produced and masses of important stuff.." Charles Medawar, Social Audit, August, 12 2007.
You don't need a review essay from me on Prescription for Injury: But what I will say is your book exposes the politics of medicine, not as it’s been described before as a conspiracy of goodwill, but rather as a malevolent conspiracy of the perversion and subjugation of the science of good medicine, and the suppression of that fact from the knowledge of the people, by the ill will of successive UK governments.
Your book gives ample evidence of that ill will towards iatrogenic injured citizens using the tools of unjust laws, lack of redress by law, propaganda, obfuscation and omission.
And because of that malevolent conspiracy, the harms caused by conflicted medical science continue to be perpetrated on the unaware.
The shame of your book is it will only be read by a few.
Stuart Jones, father of a prescription drug victim and campaigner. August 19, 2007.
I have just finished reading your excellent book. I can only say this, I am so pleased you managed to get off those benzos for you have now found your forte'. You are an excellent writer, no doubt about it! You must write more, you really should. I found it very readable and oh so interesting. I had known they are all in cahoots but to actually read about the process of how this is done, is mind blowing. Mary Baker, Voluntary Benzo Counsellor, September 28, 2007.
Just to say thank you for the book, which I have just read on a beach in Greece! It is excellent, and outlines the problems that exist with conventional drugs in fine detail - and so up to date. Although you focus on the Benzodiazepines in the main, the same can be said of most, if not all drugs...
I will soon be putting together my web site on the dangers of conventional medicine, and this will also cover the inadequacies of the testing and licensing system. Much of what I am going to say will mirror what you have already said - and I hope you will not mind me referring to your book, especially when I refer to 'mind'' drugs...
The government's recent 'conversion' to talking therapies for depression et el, could constitute the first recognition that conventional drugs are dangerous. I do hope so.
I hope your book is selling well. I will try to publicise it within the homeopathic world as much as I can (many homeopaths still believe that conventional medicine can work) and what you have written needs to be read and understood by as many people as possible. Congratulations.
Steve Scrutton, Homeopath, Registrar, Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, October13, 2007.
Brilliant Colin!! Thanks for sending this paper to me. It is a master piece of truth with no 'holds barred!' I am always amazed by doctors and the Government and many others who always and persistently BLAME THE PATIENT for their prescribed, involuntary drug addiction illness. But I believe this BLAME THE PATIENT attitude is clearly transference. As any knowledgeable psychiatrist will know, other people will transfer their emotional feelings and guilt and their lack of responsibility onto others; namely, in this case, they transfer their lack of responsibility onto the patients who are involuntary addicted to prescribed benzodiazepines. These very ill patients do not abuse these prescribed drugs, but by this method of 'transference, of blaming the patient, they have most definitely been abused by the doctors who continue to prescribe these drugs, who ignore Government guidelines with impunity and the Government who will not acknowledge what they already know to be true!! It is their fault not the patients fault; and they should shoulder their responsibility but they do not.
It's simple really; they all stick together, it is the UK 'buddy' system of "you cover your own back and I will cover your back if you cover my back", and so they are all in denial together because they have the 'power' to do this, and the 'power' to deny these patients proper treatment on the NHS; they deny them of their basic human right, subsequently, they are actively and with intent abusing and keeping these patients addicted to drugs and 'disabled' for life without a twinge of their conscience troubling them. They are just not like the average person who does have a conscience. No, they are not people to be admired or to have any respect for. That's for sure.
Mary Baker, Voluntary Benzo Counsellor, May 7, 2008.
You are to be congratulated on this particularly excellent and well informed work. I tried extracting a short synopsis from the pamphlet to illustrate its importance as a tool for those who may have an interest in the ongoing benzodiazepine scandal, but failed. Every sentence is bound to each paragraph and reference so symbiotically, it proved impossible.
The document is so well put together taking any part of it to use as a synopsis would be inappropriate to the task of furthering, what I believe to be, it’s intended purposes:
Namely: a) Educating people who may be able to do something (politicians, those in power and health professionals) about the ongoing controversial and unnecessary doping of the healthy and worried well with long term use of these damaging drugs, on the chance that once so informed, such influential people will try to do something about the matter.
And: b) Further informing those who have become iatrogenic addicts through no fault of their own, and at the very least, reassuring them that some of things they suffer, others have suffered before them, (and do so still) they are not alone, they have not gone mad, and for some there may even be hope of at least limited recovery.
And c) perhaps of more importance, your pamphlet may be read by someone who will not meekly submit to doctors orders, and unnecessarily partake of the poisoned chalice of “benzo-treatment “ or an antidepressant, or for that matter, any other psychotropic drug for one of life’s negative experiences, or even as you point out, a minor ache or pain, et cetera.
In short, some may become aware there is not a pill for every ill. That no medicine carries no risk, and apart from when used for the severely afflicted, (e.g.; possibly catatonic depression, etc.) most psychotropic drugs carry a most unfavourable benefit to risk ratio.It is time to stop this madness - from prescribing pad to lifelong illness - maybe your work will help. If so, many will deserve your thanks. You have mine anyway.
Stuart Jones, father of a prescription drug victim and campaigner, May 8 2008.
Thank you for sending me the pamphlet on "Blaming the Patient," which I will take as a submission to the All Party Parliamentary Drugs Misuse Group (APPG DM) Inquiry into addiction to and misuse of over-the-counter and prescription medication. As you said I have already read a copy of your book on this subject.
Thank you also for the email you sent to me today containing the document on questions asked by the current Minister for Public Health, I had already received a copy of this document from my colleagues in the All Party Parliamentary Group on Involuntary Tranquilliser Addiction.
The APPG DM expects to write our report over the summer and publish it in the autumn, when Parliament returns. I will ensure you receive a copy of the report.
Dr. Brian Iddon MP, Chair All Party Parliamentary Drugs Misuse Group, June 5, 2008.
In Blaming The Patient Colin tells it like it is. It is a must read for anyone involved with benzodiazepine tranquillisers. For decades, benzo campaigners, survivors and iatrogenic addicts have presented their well researched claims with accuracy, integrity and honesty with the backing of expert medical opinion and very often with passionate support from MPs and ministers. There is no doubt that the Benzo Scandal is a can of worms. Who can afford to recompense the millions of people who have been maimed, abused and beggared by this class of drugs? Successive governments have steadfastly refused to embrace the evidence presented to them and have consistently failed to address the issue head on, preferring instead to sweep it and its millions of victims under the carpet. The Department of Health employs a variety of strategies: it ignores victims completely; it answers questions that weren't asked; it deflects the blame back to prescribers - and worse - back to the victims themselves. A public enquiry into the benzodiazepine scandal is long overdue. Ray Nimmo, www.benzo.org.uk, June 8, 2008.
Thank you very much for sending me your booklet "Blaming the Patient". I am sure this will be very useful and I hope that the MPs take the trouble to read it. You are a prodigy at seeking out quotations - I shall have to be very careful what I say from now on! The list of withdrawal effects on page 19 is pretty comprehensive but I note that Professor Jeffrey Richards does not mention panic attacks or tinnitus,which are both very common in withdrawal. Your list of collected reasons for benzodiazepine prescribing on page 26 is interesting. I could add from my paper "Benzodiazepine Withdrawal: Outcome in 50 Patients" in 1987: menorrhagia, tinnitus, tics, feeling run down, as well as exam nerves in a student at this university prescribed by the University Health Service. None of these points really matter, the booklet is excellent - like all of your publications. Professor C.H. Ashton, DM FRCP, psychopharmacologist, Newcastle University, June 10, 2008.
I've just been reading your article on the above and offer you my gratitude and thanks for exposing the scandal of the irresponsible prescribing of addictive drugs, many of which have no therapeutic value after a few weeks but are still prescribed, thus not only creating addiction, but then feeding it, and adding to it's severity.
As someone who attempts to assist those seeking to recover from alcohol and other drug (AOD) addiction, I am continuously meeting addicts who having sought assistance from their GP are currently being prescribed drugs which are contraindicated for their addiction. Attempts to get the cooperation of their GP in helping them to recover, are either ignored, or dismissed. It is also the case that the majority of those who have been prescribed addictive prescription drugs, have not been screened by their GP for the presence of AOD misuse or addiction.
I wish you well in your campaign, but fear that Big Pharma and those with vested interests in them, which of course includes governments of all political persuasions, will seek to either ignore, or dismiss the facts. One only has to look at the members of the ACMD, and their associations with the pharmaceutical industry, to understand that.
It seems to me that rather than tackling the problems of addiction with abstinence focused recovery, the above and various charities, masquerading as 'drug advisory' or 'policy' agencies, are encouraging the ongoing use of addictive substances by either widening the prescribing of illicit drugs, and/or the long term prescribing of addictive substitutes. Adds to that the fact that so called educational pamphlets on drug use circulated to schools appear to glamourise, drug use, rather than seeking to prevent it.
It may be a groundless fear on my part, but I have come to believe that the majority of the present treatment protocols financed by the government and administered by the National Treatment Association, (NTA) together with calls from influential individuals and organisations for the legalising of drugs which are presently illicit, are intended to bring about legalisation by stealth, the principle beneficiaries of which will be the pharmaceutical industry, and organised crime. I include the latter on the grounds that there is no effective means by which they will relinquish their 'franchise' on illicit drugs. A more likely scenario is that they will set up 'respectable' front organisations to supply the pharmaceutical industry, whilst continuing to ensure ongoing distribution for the 'secondary' market, much in the same way that so called prescription drugs are now freely available on the internet.
As for the pharmaceutical industry, irresponsible and unauthorised distribution of what are presently illicit drugs is likely to occur, as witnessed by the case of Roche who have been found guilty of 'inappropriate supply' of the slimming drug orlistat (Xenical) to private diet clinics. (BMJ 2008;337:a835)
With renewed thanks.
Peter O’Loughlin, The Eden Lodge Practice, July 26, 2008.
Very good and very true. Cognitive Dissonance is there all the time. Doctors commonly blame the patient if he/she does not respond as predicted to a prescribed medicine, thus unconsciously putting the doctor in the wrong. A famous consultant I once worked for, a cardiologist, used to get angry if a patient on his ward turned out after tests to have a stomach rather than a heart complaint - as if it was the patient's fault. The innocent patient would usually get discharged summarily from the ward and sent home! Professor C.H. Ashton, DM FRCP; psychopharmacologist, Newcastle University, July 9, 2008.
Dear Colin, I read your article Benzo Withdrawal Realities it was so true. I was put on benzos by my GP because I passed out no more than that. That was in 1988. I was given them mostly on repeat prescriptions. I cold turkeyed off them in 2001 after a new GP refused to give them to me and told me the dangers of the evil benzos, I did it alone in room on my own. I would not have been alone if the benzos had not altered my brain's commonsense thinking. I lost my home everything I worked so hard for and worst of all my son and daughter lives were messed up because of that pill popping person I was. The years I lost ,the painful leg jerks, the pain on even touching my legs sometimes, the constant tinnitus, the blurred vision sometimes for no reason. Could go on more. I am 63 now, not secure, been to doctors once in last three years Won’t tell him my problems as I wont take pills. Reading your article last night I did not feel so alone, very sad that so many people have had their lives ruined and none of us will ever be the person we were before we popped those Benzos, in my case just because I passed out once. JS, July 29, 2008.
I've just read your articles on the benzo.org.uk website and felt I just had to write to you to tell you how sorry I am that you have had such a rough ride over the last 3 decades. I am nearly at the end of my training to be a mental health nurse and the more I see of the use of benzos the more I am determined not to use them with patients in my care. I have also lost a very loving relationship with a fantastic guy as a result of him becoming dependant on diazepam through the incompetencies of his GP and the lack of support from services. I cried when reading your article, because I understood so much the devastating effect this drug can have on peoples lives. I wish you happiness and health for your life, whatever it may hold. Thank you for touching me in the way you have. Michelle, August 3, 2008.
BENZO EXPERIENCES
Dear Colin,
This is what happened to my life because of Benzos.
I was born in 1945 and lived with my parents and three older brothers. My father died when I was thirteen. I married in 1969 as my husband worked abroad I stayed with my mother. It was the home I was born in and I loved it.
In 1972 our son was born .In 1974 my mother wanted to move away to the country, so my husband and I bought the home off her. In 1976 our daughter was born it was a dream come true. We were so happy. I had all my friends around so many happy memories from my childhood, .always a house full of laughter and love. My husband children and my home were everything to me, I did not want flash cars holidays abroad etc; I had contentment and wanted to spend all my life in the home I loved with my family and friends around me. I would have been able to if I had never taken Benzos.
In 1982 my marriage started to go wrong, younger woman working away from home things that put a strain on marriage. I was coping well as I was used to being on my own bringing up the children. In 1988 I was going through divorce and my son had broken his back and was going in hospital for major surgery but I was still coping well, the mortgage was getting paid, the children were well fed - they were very happy although they missed their dad.
One day I blacked out so I went to see my GP, the biggest mistake of my life and one I will always regret. She gave me Tranxene, “take one at night you are just over doing it this pill will help you,” her words. I trusted her. From that day on as I look back, that’s when things started to go wrong. I had a man friend - no more than a friend; he had been on about moving in with me. I always said no I was happy on my own. I did not want anyone moving in with the children and me. The home was signed over to me something I fought so hard for.
After being on Benzos a short while things changed I was like a zombie. When the man friend asked to move in I said yes. I even signed half my home away to him, something I would never have done if I hadn’t been on Benzos. He turned out to be a violent control freak. In 1999 I sold my home I even moved away with him, away from my friends and memories. It was so hard, but the children had already moved out they could not take anymore of his violence and mental torture, and the way my mind was I was not protecting them - another guilt factor I live with because of Benzos.
In 2000 I walked out on him after he gave me such a beating - it even went to Crown Court. He got away with it as he played the perfect gentleman, I had lost everything - the home I loved all my dreams gone.
In 2001 I was living in a room on my own. I went to see another GP for my Benzo fix. He refused, saying I should never have been on them so long. He told me all the dangers of Benzos, I really did not like him for that but I am glad he did. I cold turkeyed on my own; it was a nightmare, no sleep, my head a mess, but I did it. After a while I wanted answers and wrote to the NHS complaints, went all the way to the ombudsman got no where - CLINICAL JUDGEMENT. What a load of rubbish when most of the time they were repeat prescriptions, she even posted them to me when I moved away. From being a very strong person who could cope well I became a zombie. The pain will never go away from the damage caused to my children because of having a Benzo popping mum, the home I loved and owned and lost because of Benzos. How different my children’s life and my life would be if only I had not been to see my GP because I passed out once.
Maybe one day we will get justice for all the lives ruined because of the GP's who do not follow guidelines for Benzos, for some it will be to late,
Jennifer, September 7, 2008.
Dear Colin,
I must congratulate you on your Blog. I read it everyday everything on it is very very true. I am sure every Benzo addict and ex addict (I do believe you never fully recover from the effects of Benzos - I have been off them for seven years and still suffer from being on them) must be 100 per cent be behind you in your fight for justice. If we were thalidomide victims, surgery victims where an operation has taken away the good limb and left the one with cancer by mistake, or a person put in prison for a crime they did not commit then released when the true criminal was found, we would get justice and compensation. The damage done to our bodies and minds is not visible like thalidomide. We have not had a limb removed by error so you cannot see the pain we go through. We have not been put in prison for a crime we did not commit, but we have had our lives taken away from us by being not in control of our own minds and being locked in a different world. Not being able to think logically has caused so much damage and pain to the people we love and to us the victims.
Keep up the good work Colin, thank you.
Yours sincerely
JS, October 16, 2008.
Professor David Nutt - and those he has influenced so widely and comprehensively - is the sole reason for my extreme pain, endless suffering and why I live in beggardom subsisting on survival morsels from a state that couldn't give a toss about my plight. Professor Nutt's fatuous understanding of medicine is promoted universally and is the reason why I cannot be heard or taken seriously. He mocks my pain and negates my suffering.
That Professor Nutt has wide influence is undeniable. That he has a deeply flawed and biased understanding of medicine is easily demonstrated. I have been off benzos 10 years. Had it not been for Nutt and his acolytes I might have achieved recognition and maybe also support and help for for my pain and suffering. He has successfully stymied further research and so I hold him personally accountable.
Phil Woolas MP once warmed my heart, heralded the hope of a new dawn, the sweet promise that I should see justice if but once in my life but for some reason he ditched the benzo cause and I feel bitter, bewildered and betrayed. It is an outrage that those invested with the power to redress this overwhelming wrong - and thereby put this, vacuous self-serving creature firmly in his place - are consumed with interminable inertia. RN, December 12, 2008.
Doesn’t seem to be much response from government or health service when questions are asked, does there? You are certainly right I am sure that nothing will be done for us - and no-one who finds themselves going down the same road in the future presumably. What an unbelievable word we live in (or exist in). Keep up the good work, your blog is a sanity saver. Hope you have a peaceful, comfortable Christmas, I am sure you deserve it.
I have just been reading about Professor Nutt, oh boy does the name suit him. He should read the Benzo stories from real people whose lives have been ruined because of those doctors who prescribe benzos. I have been off them 7 years after being on them 13 years, the muscle spasms the tinnitus etc are real, the damage done to my life is real, the years lost because of being zombified is real. Could write a lot more but it’s so painful. He should take them for a few months or years like a lot of prescribed benzo addicts do, maybe then he would be adding his name to the ban the benzos petition. He should be grateful his life has not been ruined because of being a legally prescribed benzos addict. Like other benzo addicts everyday I wish I had never been given benzos yet he is saying they are OK. Like I say the name NUTT really suits him. Keep up the good work Colin! MB, December 12, 2008.
I have been aware of Nutt almost since the very beginning of my investigations into why my daughter died.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is should they choose to send Professor Nutt to Zimbabwe to deal with the cholera outbreak, he would prescribe psychiatric type drugs, and as the plague spread further, killing more, would write an erudite paper on his regret he had not prescribed stronger doses in poly form.
This crude analogy of a treatment paradigm may look like a cheap shot. It's not, it's Nutt's belief system, one that's willingly backed up, and paid for, by the psycho-pharmaceutical industry. Nutt has a lot in common with Beiderman, Shatzberg et al. He also has a lot in common with the Emperor of Zimbabwe. Only their all knowing opinions count: Only they know what is right. It follows then that people who disparage them are fools, liars or charlatans...... in other words and in the real world - sane. JS, December 13, 2008.
This man is beyond understanding. He needs to try a few of his harmless pills. RA, Glasgow, December 13, 2008.
God help us. This quack knows nothing and has learned nothing. He wouldn’t recognise Hippocrates if he introduced himself. How can he be that pig ignorant? Does he think all those other researchers were amateurs? HG, Hampshire, December 13, 2008.
And the winner is.... Drum roll.... Biiiiig PHARMA! Huge burst of applause from government, drug regulators, ABPI and other trade associations, and conflicted medical institutions in the front row. Ghost writers, Nutty professors who lucratively sign off on the ghost writers fabulous fables, key opinion leaders and drug detailers in the second row. And pharmaceutical trained doctors, disease awareness campaigners and the worried well in the rest of the seats in the circus of life under current medical practice. SJ, Wales, December 14, 2008.
I would like you to give my congratulations to Colin on this article. Nutty Prof Nutt, well done well said. X hates this guy and has had many run ins with him. I personally would like him to take benzos for six months then have them taken away. He would sure feel different about them then. V&SB, December 17, 2008.
Cannabis is my main concern and I have written the cannabis report for the Social Justice Policy Group of the Tory Party (Iain Duncan-Smith). I am on the board of Eurad (Europe against drugs), on PandA (Prisons and Addictions Forum of the Centre for Policy Studies) and work closely with Talking About Cannabis, a website and organisation mainly for parents of cannabis-damaged children.... Very best wishes and thanks for all you do. You are doing a marvellous job! M, December 19, 2008.
Dear Colin,
My warmest congratulations on your succinct, no nonsense letter, I pray it will receive the attention and action it deserves.
It is also to be hoped that your detailed breakdown of Nutt's streams of income will be seen for the irrefutable conflict of interests they represent.
Both Nutt, and Blakemore, together with Strang, appear to be intent on addicting our nation, ably supported by their acolytes at the UKDPC, Transform and Drugscope.
I salute your courage in your attempts to curtail their activities; attempts which I feel deserve a much wider audience. PO'L, December 19, 2008.
Thank you Colin for all your hard and wonderful work you are doing for us benzo sufferers. Benzos have so far stolen completely 15 years of my life, my family, home friends, money, security, sanity at times, just about everything really, but after 7 attempts to get off thanks to Dr Reg Peart I am 15 months benzo free and, though improved, still suffering but hopeful for a few happy twilight years. VB, December 31, 2008.
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