Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

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My girlfriend has this with Zoloft. The doctors are telling her how to withdraw and if it doesn't work they just don't believe it. It seems they are trained to believe their textbooks to the point of ignoring things right in front of them.

I had this too with Zoloft and the doctors didn't believe I was on a high enough dose to experience the side effect. It was bad for a week and was sporadic for another week or two. I was surprised that the doctor was so skeptical about a known side effect. It's not like I was trying to get more of that sweet sweet Zoloft. Medical devices have an incident reporting database that are required to be updated by companies and health professionals. Every pharma product should be subject to the same reporting -- whether the practitioner believes it or not.

Reporting for drugs is a standard for a long time now. You should report any adverse event to your physiciand and they are under obligation to report it to the pharma company who in turn sends annual reports of adverse events to the authorities. Serious side effects get reported to authorities within 24 hours and can lead to further investigations.

A bunch of drugs were stopped in the past because of post marketing reports.

Very good. I work preclinical and am familiar with the devices version. Glad the same is in place in general pharma too. Although it does seem the results are not well communicated. Do you know the rules in place for a recall vs update to recommended protocols?

I have some horror stories on this sort of drug and attitude which I don't wish to detail here with an identifiable account, but you are spot on. Many people have suffered in the hands of doctors with that attitude, some irreversibly harmed in the process.

Arrogance, showboating, non-science and anti-pragmatism are the biggest killers.

Agreed. Doctors would never get away with the level of shoddy care or outright patient abuse they often do in any other field except psychiatry. There are some fantastic psychiatrists and GP's who do a fantastic job with psychiatry, but just as many if not more crappy ones. Very frustrating, and a disaster for patients.

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