UK: Drug Known to Cause Birth Defects Since the 70s Still Prescribed to Pregnant Women

We’re at the point now where it is safe to assume that all pharmaceuticals are a money scam, and most of them are designed to actually kill you.

In the very best case, they don’t care if you die or have mutant children, because they will never face any actual consequences. It’s just like with the financial industry – the profits always outweigh the fines, and no one can ever go to prison, let alone be executed, for purposeful fraud that kills people or creates mutant children.

Metro:

A drug which has harmed at least an estimated 20,000 Brits is still being prescribed to pregnant women without appropriate warnings, a former health secretary says.

The anti-epilepsy medication sodium valproate – which has been linked to physical malformations, autism and developmental delay in many children when it is taken by their mothers – is ‘a major risk to patient safety’, according to Jeremy Hunt.

He urged ministers to find an ‘immediate fix’ to prevent ‘avoidable harm’.

Doctors are said to have known in 1973 that the epilepsy drug posed a risk to unborn children.

Yet almost 50 years later, a review published in 2020 estimated that 20,000 young Britons had been affected after being exposed to it as developing babies.

At that time, the findings suggested ‘hundreds’ of babies were still being born each year to mothers taking sodium valproate without being aware of the risks.

Newer figures suggest 222 pregnant women were exposed to the drug from 2018 to 21, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.

It said exposure rates have been declining since the Pregnancy Prevention Programme was introduced, and rates in 2020/21 are ‘substantially lower’.

One of those was Catherine McNamara, who was told the medication was safe during pregnancy, but burst into tears when told her son Sebastian’s deformities were permanent, the Sunday Times reported.

His hands were unnaturally twisted and facing in the wrong direction, with one missing a thumb.

She blamed herself, while another victim said she had been given the drug without a safety information leaflet.

A spokesperson for NHS England said it has set up an expert group to help cut the use of valproate by women who can get pregnant in half.But Mr Hunt, who chairs the health and social care select committee, does not believe that is enough and compared the problem to the Thalidomide scandal.

He told the Sunday Times: ‘It’s time the British state faced up to its responsibilities. Just as we eventually did to victims of the thalidomide scandal.

‘It beggars belief that after so many warnings this still hasn’t been sorted.

‘This is a major risk to patient safety and ministers must order an immediate fix to prevent any more avoidable harm.’

Dr Alison Cave, MHRA chief safety officer, said valproate use in pregnancy carries ‘significant risks of harm to the baby’ and it ‘should not be taken by any individual of child-bearing potential unless they have a pregnancy prevention programme in place, which includes use of effective contraception’.

Each year, every woman on the drug and their healthcare professional needs to sign an annual risk acknowledgement form, as her circumstances regarding the risk of pregnancy might change, Dr Cave added.

She said work is continuing on use of the drug in people ‘where there are no other viable options available’.

Mr Hunt launched a review in 2018 into how the health service responded to concerns over sodium valproate.

I think we can say that antibiotics were a good invention. Bacteria is real, and antibiotics can clear an infection. One time I scraped my knee during a motorcycle accident and thought it would just heal, and instead it got infected and there was green pus coming out of it. If it wasn’t for antibiotics, it’s possible I would have had to have had my leg removed.

Also, antibiotics can save babies.

I don’t know of any pharma drug invented after antibiotics that I would feel safe taking or recommending to others.

Most of the increases in health outcomes over the last 100 years or so are the result of increased sanitation. There are some increases in surgery techniques of course that save lives. But basically from top to bottom, pharma is a gigantic money scam.

Most of the problems that they prescribe drugs for can be fixed through diet and exercise.

You should also ensure to get sun on your ball sack.

Maybe try this before taking drugs?