![]()
PRESCRIPTION FOR INJURY
Colin Downes-Grainger
August, 2007FREE PDF DOWNLOAD NOW AVAILBLE
Printed copies available from Fastprint
This book examines the question of how it is that medicine inflicts widespread damage through mind altering drugs in particular but also a range of other drugs. It goes into the reasons why so often dangerous drugs are sold to regulators and doctors as safe and it is left to patients to discover later that this is far from true. The history of tranquillisers has been pulled together to show that doctors are not as expert as they think they are when they prescribe, that drug companies routinely exploit the existing medical system in the UK, that politicians and regulators fail to protect public health while saying that they do and that the British legal system allows almost no possibility of redress.
The Department of Health has no idea how many have been affected by tranquillisers, SSRIs and many other controversial drugs, and it does not seem to want to know. But many thousands have told their stories in the media and on the internet. The thousands who died have sadly been unable to tell their stories. In respect of tranquillisers, some people who died or who were injured did not themselves take the drugs-they were killed or injured in accidents by those who had. The benzodiazepine story is most notable because of the huge numbers of people to whom tranquillisers were prescribed-and because many of them subsequently became very sick due to over-prescribing. The history of tranquillisers is a clear description of a system which out-sources drug production to profit motivated private enterprise but then maintains a system of drugs regulation which it is almost impossible to penetrate. Medicine, Pharma and politicians defend what happens to patients in order to defend the system they have jointly created. This is the reason why they show no desire to listen, and continue to learn nothing from the chequered history of drugs.
Prescription for Injury shows clearly what the UK government would not wish included in its description of 'our way of life' - including what benzodiazepines have done to a great many patients for nearly fifty years. The question might be asked, "Is the first duty of the state really the protection of its citizens?" If it is then government has failed to protect. This examination of the past raises the suspicion that the maintenance of a failing but profitable system and the avoidance of responsibility, is seen by government as being politically more desirable than the introduction of an efficient protective healthcare agenda. The only protections that patients have against drug disasters are the enlightenment of doctors, strictly honest science and effective regulation, but all of these health safeguards have regularly failed in the past, particularly with psychotropic drugs, and the true enormity of these failings is clearly illustrated by benzodiazepines. The book is now available online. Click here to download PDF file.
BLAMING THE PATIENT
Colin Downes-Grainger
May 6, 2008
Following the book Prescription for Injury Colin Downes-Grainger has written a 28 page booklet on the subject of tranquillisers and the refusal of government to admit that those who become addicted through prescriptions are not the same population as those who become addicted through the illegal use of the drugs. That politicians persist in this immoral stance is a continuing cause for questioning concern, particularly as there are somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million innocent patients addicted in the UK at this time. The paper can be downloaded as a pdf by clicking the image above or clicking this ink: Download PDF.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I went into a life on hold at the age of 25 when I became an iatrogenic victim of tranquillisers and many other consequent mind drugs, prescribed for stress. At the age of 53 through personal discovery, I began the withdrawal from a medication which I later discovered was only supposed to be prescribed for a month at most including withdrawal.
I had become a Primary teacher in 1972 and had early success. I managed to stay with the job until I was 38 in 1985 when the effects of polypharmacy finally caught up with me and I became unemployed and officially incapacitated.
Having fought my way off the drugs, as you have to do, I discovered that there was no return to health, there being many post-withdrawal symptoms which still persist. I moved into campaigning on the issue of benzodiazepines and other prescribed mind altering nostrums. I quickly discovered that there are deep but generally unrecognised political calculations in the background of the provision of healthcare. I felt this message should be disseminated as widely as possible and I do this through images and print. Like many other victims of tranquillisers I am never going to recover from the social and health effects that come with the addiction but I have felt it necessary to try to prevent others falling into the trap.
Colin's Main Page · Media Archive · Benzo Books · Colin's Blog
« back · top · www.benzo.org.uk
»