200 Common Medications Cause Depression and Suicidal Thoughts

If you know someone who is suffering from depression, urge to check any medications they are taking against this list. They could be the problem.

[....] More than 1 in 3 Americans regularly take a medication linked to an increase in depression. Common treatments such as proton pump inhibitors (for acid reflux), beta blockers, anxiety medications, OTC painkillers, ACE inhibitors (for high blood pressure) and anticonvulsant medications can cause or increase depression.

Are you taking any of these medications linked to depression? Read more

Marijuana Could Replace 5 Major Pharmaceutical Drugs

Big Pharma is nervous. Legal marijuana could replace five major pharmaceutical drugs.

It’s about time that the US government’s war on drugs is dwindling, with people across the country becoming educated enough about medical marijuana to enjoy its numerous benefits. The plant was always a nemesis to Big Pharma, because they knew just how powerful it can truly be. Now, a new study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review reveals that people are increasingly substituting prescription medications, alcohol, and illicit drugs with cannabis. Read more

11 Common Drugs That Destroy Your Brain

Are you taking any of these common over-the-counter and prescription drugs that Christina Sarich says destroy your brain?

You wouldn’t think that taking a little pain pill would cause long term cognitive impairment, but that’s just one of the commonly prescribed (or even OTC) pharmaceutical medications which were studied in a six-year test to see what kind of neurological damage was caused. Unfortunately, the research found that these pharmaceuticals, commonly taken for a variety of common medical conditions including insomnia, allergies, or incontinence, cause long-term damage to the brain. The findings point to a class of drugs called anticholinergics, which block acetylcholine, a nervous system neurotransmitter. Read more

Natural Alternatives to the Top 10 Most Prescribed Drugs

The top ten most prescribed drugs in the U.S. have science-backed alternative .

Are we an over-medicated nation? Let’s look at the numbers: Americans spent more than $300 billion on prescription drugs last year; nearly half of all adults have taken at least one prescription drug in the last month; nearly a third regularly use two or more; and women are more likely than men to use prescription drugs, according to the CDC.

Drugs can undoubtedly save lives, but our penchant for prescriptions can sometimes mean treating or masking symptoms—without fixing the root cause of the health. Read more

The Dangers of Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

Statins make you sicker, says David Brownstein, MD. Sometimes, much sicker.

The FDA added two new warnings to statin drugs this week. These warnings include an increased risk of diabetes and mental confusion among statin users. The FDA report said that all statin labeling must carry warnings about increased risk of elevated blood sugar and transient memory loss and cognitive problems. Read more

10 Frightening Facts about Prescription Pain Pills

Prescription painkillers are among the most dangerous of pharmaceutical drugs. Here are ten frightening facts about prescription pain pills.

Prescription pain pills have changed the face of medicine in many good and bad ways. These powerful pills have helped many people manage their pain and increase their quality of life, yet the fact remains that painkillers have taken thousands of lives and are one of the most commonly abused and dangerous substances in the country. The rising mortality rates from prescription drug overdoses have now exceeded traffic fatalities, resulting in at least 37,485 deaths in 2009. This statistic is just one of many startling facts about prescription pain pills and the national epidemic they’ve caused. Here are 10 frightening facts about prescription pain pills: Read more

26 Reasons Why You Should NOT Take Prescription Drugs and 14 Reasons Why You SHOULD Take Natural Medicines

Bill Sardi lists 26 reasons why you should not take prescription drugs and 14 reasons why you should take natural medicines.

Prescription drugs – more than 100 million Americans take them, often without question. But why? Despite decades of studies showing Rx drugs are potentially harmful, sometimes prompting drug recalls and news reports of needless deaths, most patients never question their doctor when given a prescription for an FDA-approved drug. True, many senior Americans are forced to forego filling their prescriptions for financial reasons, but they aren’t forgoing their medications because they perceive their medicines are problematic.

Americans love to take pills. The average 75-year-old has three chronic conditions and uses five prescription drugs. Americans feel blessed they live in a country that has miracle drugs that are the envy of others all over the globe, and often feel they want the best that modern medicine has to offer. Newer drugs are often avidly preferred after hearing about them on television ads even though their safety record will not be fully known for a few years. Read more

Big Pharma's "Antidepressants" Don't Work

Pharmaceutical are usually expensive and often have side effects almost as bad as the condition they're supposed to treat, and to add insult to injury, they often don't even work.

When my American friend Bill, who'd been on SSRI antidepressants for 22 years (Prozac, followed by Paxil, Lexapro, then Celexa), read a two-part article by Dr Marcia Angell in The New York Review of Books recently about the crisis in psychiatry and the inefficacy of antidepressants, he stopped taking his meds (tapering off gradually, monitored by his doctor). "The article brought on enough doubt to push me over," he said. Since then, his moods have become more volatile – more anger, more emotion, such as crying at the end of the last Harry Potter film (he's in his 50s). But he's got his libido back after years of "muffled response" and that seems a worthwhile trade-off.

Instead of listening to Prozac, have we been listening to placebo all along? Read more

The Big Pharma Con Job

Drugs don't work. According to a new study, 85% of their new drugs can cause more harm than good.

Drug companies have been accused of conning the public by hyping up patented medicines with little new to offer while downplaying their potentially harmful side-effects.

A new study estimates that 85 per cent of new drugs offer few if any new benefits while having the potential to cause serious harm due to toxicity or misuse.

The author of the research delivered a damning attack on 'Big Pharma' at a meeting of sociology experts in the US. Read more

8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking On

Sleep sweating? Here are some new ways the pharmaceutical industry plans to make money.

Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma's credo has been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will Appear. Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?

But pharma's recent plan to move from mass-market molecules into more lucrative vaccines and biologics did not see the anti-vaxer movement coming: millions of Americans saying You Want to Vaccinate Me -- and My Child -- with WHAT?? and condemning vials of H1N1, rotavirus and MMR vaccines to sit, well, way past their expiration dates. Nor were fears of an international vaccine conspiracy helped by former CDC Director Julie Gerberding resurfacing as President of Merck Vaccines in December. (Nice revolving door if you can catch it.) Read more

Selling Sickness: Antidepressants

Selling Sickness explores the unhealthy relationships between society, medical science, and the pharmaceutical industry as they promote their new "miracle cures," selling not just drugs but also the latest diseases that go with them.

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death

Psychiatrists claim that one billion people in the world are mentally ill. Could you be diagnosed as one of them? Think psychiatry has nothing to do with you? Think again.

Through rare historical and contemporary footage and interviews with more than 160 doctors, attorneys, educators, survivors and experts on the mental health industry and its abuses, this riveting documentary blazes the bright light of truth on the brutal pseudoscience and the multi-billion dollar fraud that is psychiatry.