UCSD Fluoroquinolone Effects Study

Have you taken the UCSD Fluoroquinolone Effects Study survey yet?  If so, THANK YOU!!!!  If not, please do.  Here’s the link to it –

http://www.fqstudy.info/Fluoroquinolone_Effects_Study/Welcome.html

This study is important on so many levels.  Your participation in the study is important on many levels.

You have the opportunity to TELL YOUR STORY TO RESEARCH SCIENTISTS through the study/survey.  The survey has several narrative sections where you can describe, in as much detail as you wish, how fluoroquinolones have affected you.  You can tell the researchers about how fluoroquinolone toxicity caused you pain and loss.  You can describe how fluoroquinolones have adversely affected not only your health, but also your family, your career, your finances, etc.  Your story will be heard.  Your pain will be acknowledged and it will be counted.

It feels good to tell your story.  It feels good to scream about how wrong it is that your life has been devastated by a drug that is perceived as innocuous.  It feels good to be counted.

Through studies like the UCSD Fluoroquinolone Effects Study, the severity of adverse reactions to fluoroquinolones can be quantified.  It can be shown that the effects of fluoroquinolones are not transient or insignificant.

If we don’t participate in studies like this one (and report our side-effects to the FDA, and write our story for the Wall of Pain), the researchers, the FDA and all the doctors that are prescribing fluoroquinolones will continue thinking that fluoroquinolone toxicity is rare, and that the side-effects are transient and insignificant.  We know that the side-effects of fluoroquinolones are severe, and that many people are adversely affected by them.  The way that we communicate this to the FDA, doctors, and everyone else is through participating in studies like the UCSD Fluoroquinolone Effects Study.

When updating the warning label to include the risk of PERMANENT PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY that is associated with fluoroquinolone use, the FDA searched for case studies that were documented in peer reviewed journal articles.  You can read the FDA report HERE.  They gave far more weight to the patient reports published in journal articles than they gave to the patient reports that they received through the adverse event reporting system (AERS).  If you want the FDA to change how fluoroquiolones are regulated, participating in this study is a very good way to push them in the right direction.

Dr. Beatrice A. Golomb, M.D., Ph.D. is conducting the UCSD Fluoroquinlone Effects study.  She’s as legitimate as a scientist can possibly get.  Check out her C.V. / resume – http://www.fqstudy.info/Fluoroquinolone_Effects_Study/About_Dr._Golomb.html  Ridiculous, huh?  She accomplished more before she turned 20 than I will in my entire life (and I’m not a total slug).   She’s the type of person that can (and hopefully will) change the world.  She needs your help in order to do something about fluoroquinolone toxicity though.  She needs your story.  She needs your data.  Please give her the information that she needs in order to stop the absurd way that fluoroquinolones are prescribed.

On top of Dr. Golomb’s huge list of accomplishments, she’s an incredibly upstanding and ethical scientist who refuses to take money from the pharmaceutical companies.  She speaks out against the corruption of the medical system by entrenched conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry.  Here are a couple of informative links about Dr. Golomb and her advocacy work –

http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-candles-in-the-dark/beatrice-golomb

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/06/12/beatrice-golomb-interview.aspx

Dr. Golomb is moving medicine in the right direction.  She is calling out the pharmaceutical industry on the harm that their products are doing to people.  It is fantastic that a research scientist of her caliber has taken an interest in fluoroquinolone toxicity.  Please help her by completing the survey that is part of her study.

Sure, it will take a couple of hours and it’s tough to do with brain fog.  But it’s important.  It’s really, really, really important.

So, do it.  Please.  Thanks.

Also, the Hormones Matter / Lucine Health Sciences survey has enough respondents for the survey data to be analyzed.  Unfortunately, there isn’t enough money currently available to properly analyze the data.  If you would like to donate to the Hormones Matter / Lucine Health Sciences data analysis fund, please do so through this link – http://www.hormonesmatter.com/we-exceeded-research-goals-crowdfund-data-analysis/

THANK YOU!