David Healy - Seeking a Cure for Protracted, Medication-related Sexual Dysfunction

Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

Mad in America

Mental Health, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 212 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we interview Dr David Healy.

Dr Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist, and author. A professor of Psychiatry in Wales, David studied medicine in Dublin, and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and 20 books, including The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology and his latest book, Pharmageddon, published in 2012.

David is a founder and CEO of Data Based Medicine Limited, which operates through its website RxISK.org, and is dedicated to making medicines safer through online direct patient reporting of drug side effects.

In this interview, we discuss Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) and Dr Healy's novel and innovative approach to finding a cure.

A recent email to Dr Healy starkly highlights the problem:

I took X for 16 years without any side effects. Stopped 7 months ago and all hell broke loose. Some of the side effects I got in the first week after quitting are: no libido, cold testicles/penis, pain around penis and anus, tinnitus, erectile dysfunction, tingling, numbness...

Life is not very good these days.

I am married with beautiful children. They have lost their father. If I can do anything to help, don't hesitate to get in touch. I would like to give you my biggest thanks for what you are doing and wish you all the best with the fundraising.

In the episode we discuss:

How Dr Healy came to set up Data Based medicine and RxISK.org.
Why RxISK are focussing on Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD).
That genital numbness can occur very quickly upon taking an ssri antidepressant and can also be triggered by drugs such as Roaccutane (isotretinoin) and Propecia (finasteride).
What led to setting up the RxISK Prize.
How people can get involved with the campaign.
That it's often people not involved with healthcare who get motivated to take action.
How empowering it is to enable people harmed by pills to be part of the solution.

To get in touch with us email: podcasts@madinamerica.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry and social justice.
0:13.6	Hello, this is James, and welcome to episode 20 of the Madden America podcast. Before we get started,
0:19.7	I just wanted to thank everyone for taking the
0:21.8	time to listen. And also to ask that if you like the podcast, please consider leaving us a review
0:27.3	in iTunes, as it really helps to get more listeners. Thank you. This week, my guest is Dr. David
0:32.9	Healy. Dr. Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist and author,
0:40.2	a professor of psychiatry in Wales, David studied medicine in Dublin and at Cambridge University.
0:45.8	He is a former secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology
0:49.9	and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and 20 books, including the antidepressant
0:55.7	era and his latest book, Pharmageddon, published in 2012. David is a founder and CEO of
1:01.8	Data-based Medicine Limited, which operates through its website Risk.org, and is dedicated to making
1:07.5	medicine safer through online direct patient reporting of drug side effects.
1:12.4	David, thank you so much for talking with me today for the Madden America podcast.
1:16.2	I wanted to start by asking about your background and what led you to setting up
1:20.4	data-based medicine and risk.org.
1:22.6	Okay, well, the background is this, I think, that for whatever reason, I've been instinctively inclined to believe people when they come along and tell me that, you know, I was put in this drug and this has been happening to me.
1:39.5	And one of the things I found then, early on, years and years ago, when I began to say, look, people have been coming into me and saying to me that when they get put on an essence right, they become suicidal.
1:54.5	When I began to get pushback from the wider world saying, look, the clinical trials don't show this.
2:00.4	This got me interested in
2:01.9	why this mismatch between what people seem you have to be saying to me and why the evidence
2:08.7	that's out there seems to point in a different way. And there were two things to it. First of all,
2:13.8	the general inclination of a lot of doctors not to believe patients.
	...

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