I discovered this site last Wednesday morning - without taking th...

I work in the healthcare field and see the reps come and go, they are mostly young, female, dressed to kill and look like a model. They bring food all the time and their usual pens, gadgets, etc. Since this happened with my granddaughter I have written to my Senator and listed our complaint on the FDA website. I think your idea is great since we had her on it for 2 years with no questions being asked, we trusted the doctor who still says he sees nothing wrong with it for the majority of patients. I told him to go to this website and see the almost 2,000 stories mostly about children. This drug was not tested on children and yet they acted like it was so safe. God knows what's in this to cause such destructive, psychological symptoms. We also have no desire to put our granddaughter through a lawsuit but the pharmacuetical companies are playing russian roulette with our children and that's just too much to bear. Those drug reps are like actual drug dealers, they give their little inservice on how great the "new drug" is but they do not have medical or chemistry or any scientific degrees. This is appalling but they are getting away with it. They are making 6 figure salaries with no knowledge of what they are doing, as long as they look good and talk sweet the doctors order the drugs. The doctors themselves are usually too busy to read up on any scientific studies and they take the pharmaceutical companies word at face value. I guess we are writing from all over the country but we do need to organize!

i also wrote my congressman and ask them to look into this, you are right our drugs come every 3 months in the mail, in a plain white pill bottle had they put a big pink sticker on it telling me to read new updates,i would have, and would have taken my son off of it then, as far as the sleeping it took a good 3 weeks to straighten out, but it did, and for that i am grateful.

I wanted to reply to your post because I am glad their are folks out there who are being proactive about these issues. I have had major problems because of this drug and feel those responsible should face jail time for their crimes. If I were to smoke pot--which is harmless compared to this drug--I would face real time. These people are sanctioned by our government and offer those in power high dollar salaries if they play ball. After reading your post I am going to contact my congress woman and ask for investigations into these practices in the hopes that others don't have to go through the same nightmare we have. I have little hope of real change though as there is so much money to be made and many who are supposed to be overseeing things are more than happy to turn the other way and take that money.

Like you, I have been telling everyone who is willing to listen about the problems with this poison. I wish I was able to get past this but I am, as I'm sure you can tell, quite angry about this and will seek legal action against these people. The only way things seem to actually get done in this country is to sue. What a sad state of affairs, but that has always been the way of it when you look at our history. Thank you for your inspirational post. Good luck to you and your family.

We need to be active in getting legislation that requires drugs companies to tell the truth and the whole truth about their medications to the doctors. The doctors needs to receive complete information on how the drugs work, every part of the body that could be affected, and the complete list of side effects.

And, we need new guidance about how to protect our children against being over-medicated unnecessarily. Here is a good common sense idea from England. These people are right. If our children need medication, then there should always be review about how to get them off medication if possible.

Should Preschool Wheezers Ever Be Treated with Inhaled Corticosteroids?

Sejal Saglani1,2, Nicola Wilson1,2, Andrew Bush1,2
1 Imperial School of Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, London, United Kingdom
2 Department of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT
The syndrome of preschool wheeze commonly regresses completely in the preschool years, but it may lead to prolonged symptoms and established asthma. Although epidemiological studies have established that there are several different phenotypes, it is currently impossible to assign the majority of wheezing preschool children to a phenotype prospectively. Bronchoalveolar lavage studies have shown an increase in total cellular inflammation in the youngest, symptomatic children, and that in older preschool children the neutrophil is the predominant inflammatory cell in the airway. Endobronchial biopsy studies have shown that eosinophilic inflammation and structural airway wall changes are absent in symptomatic infants but appear in severe wheezers by the age of 3 years. Treatment guidelines are not evidence based in this age group and frequently do not appear to consider either the likely pathology or the different patterns of symptoms. Pure virus-associated symptoms may be treated with intermittent β-2 agonist or anticholinergics by inhalation. If this fails, intermittent oral leukotriene receptor antagonists or short courses of very high dose inhaled corticosteroids could be considered. The role of oral corticosteroids is highly debatable in young children with virus-associated wheeze. Prophylactic therapy may be considered for chronic intermittent symptoms (interval symptoms between acute episodes). The choices are oral leukotriene receptor antagonists, or inhaled corticosteroids, which should be introduced in a three-stage protocol to avoid overtreating the child with evanescent symptoms. Because the natural history of preschool wheeze is one of improvement, treatment should be tapered after a period of stability. Unfortunately, neither corticosteroids nor any other currently available therapy modifies the long-term outcome of preschool wheeze. In conclusion, corticosteroid treatment may have a small role in preschool wheeze, in particular for those thought to have early asthma, but the uncritical application of recommendations that are appropriate for older children and adults with asthma has led to widespread overuse of these medications. There is an urgent need for better treatment of preschool
wheeze.

http://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals/abstract/srccm/doi/10.1055/s-2007-981648;jsessionid=8E04D36394E8F8947A950943A3822D8A.jvm3

I am so glad things are getting better! If you haven't already come join us at
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Singulair_side_effects_friends/
Its a support/info group for members here!