Medical Gaslighting and "Somatization Disorders" (Rebranded Hysteria)

The Curse of a ‘None of the Above’ Disease
This article talks about people suffering from health conditions that are under-diagnosed or mis-diagnosed, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and IBS, but more so people whose symptoms get dissmissed or written off as fake or psychosomatic.  Many doctors are quick to jump to this conclusion about patients without doing any testing, based just on their appearance and the symptoms they present with.  It is also common for doctors to have an inflated sense of how much they know and lack of recognition of the limits of their education and the field of medicine itself.  One example cited is that of stomach ulcers, "(o)nly a few decades ago, chronic ulcers were chalked up to stress and diet rather than an infection by Helicobacter pylori, because scientists thought it unimaginable that such microorganisms could endure stomach acid."  

 When Anxiety or Depression Masks a Medical Problem

 

What Do Doctors Have to Say About It?
From Dr Courtney Snyder (In a blog post about Mold Illness)
"Symptoms of mold toxicity impact many parts of the body. Often there are many symptoms that seem unrelated, which is why many who are unknowingly dealing with this, end up seeing multiple specialists and are left feeling their doctors think it’s “all their head.” The diagnosis of anxiety or panic, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, ADHD/ADD, pseudoseizures and conversion disorder are fairly common. I empathize with doctors who have been trained to relieve symptoms as opposed to seek deeper root causes. Still, I do think all physicians (myself included) can benefit from realizing and saying repeatedly, “There’s so much we don’t know,” or even “I don’t know why you are having your symptoms.” The lack of humility or inability to admit one doesn’t have the answer, sadly can lead to some doctors to discount symptoms as “psychiatric” or even blame their patients for feigning their symptoms."

Misdiagnoses Happen. Medical Gaslighting Should Not
Written by Dr Anne Maitland, one of the leading allergy/immunology doctors in the country, about how common it is for immunological disorders (even ones as well known as asthma, food allergies, and anaphylaxis) to be misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or missed altogether, causing an immeasurable but very large amount of unnecessary suffering.

"Missteps and misunderstandings, even by well-seasoned medical professionals, are human, but medical gaslighting is not. Medical professionals must take a step back and recognize that the interpretation of test results is only as good as the practitioner glancing at the numbers. Moreover, normal test results in patients with chronic pain, unexplained sensitivities to the world, or fatigue should provoke more investigation, rather than a weak handoff to a mental health provider. One potential remedy to avoid these misdiagnoses and medical misdemeanors may be to rebuild the patient-practitioner partnership: the medical home. We should be empowering the patient to take charge of their health care, and we should be reminding the practitioner to be a mindful partner in health, rather than a patriarchal purveyor of prescriptions and procedures."

The Martha Mitchell Effect

Martha Mitchell was married to the attorney general in the Nixon administration, John Mitchell.  She spoke up about the illegal activities that she was witnessing, but her claims were written off as delusional until the actual events of the Watergate scandal became public, when she was vindicated.  Sometimes a patient reports events to a doctor or other health care provider that the provider finds difficult to believe and considers to be delusions even when what the patient is reporting is actually true.  This is called the "Martha Mitchell effect" in reference to her experience of being wrongfully considered delusional.  This is particularly likely to happen when a patient's symptoms are the result of the malicious actions of another person, such as harm resulting from harassment or abuse.  This might include poisoning, stalking, gangstalking (group harassment), or gaslighting.  Abusers sometimes deliberately do things to their victims that make the victim sound crazy if they report it.  This is also more likely to occur if the patient reports harm from a medical procedure, treatment, or another medical provider, or from someone who is powerful or well known.

This effect was seen recently when some people presented to the hospital during the COVID 19 pandemic suffering adverse events from the COVID vaccines and were diagnosed as delusional when they were suffering actual side effects that were later acknowledged by the medical establishment and public health authorities.

Examples of medical gaslighting include:

The Incidence of Misdiagnosis in Patients with Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome
"A retrospective chart review was conducted. Among the 429 patients, 405 patients (94.4%) said yes to at least one of the questions, with only 24 patients (5.6%) not having been misdiagnosed with psychiatric illnesses. A total of 378 patients (88%) were told that they were “making it up”, 326 patients (76%) were told that they were attention-seeking, 286 patients (67%) were diagnosed with conversion disorder, 255 patients (60%) were told that “it was in their head”, and 16 patients (4%) were diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy or a factitious disorder.A retrospective chart review was conducted. Among the 429 patients, 405 patients (94.4%) said yes to at least one of the questions, with only 24 patients (5.6%) not having been misdiagnosed with psychiatric illnesses. A total of 378 patients (88%) were told that they were “making it up”, 326 patients (76%) were told that they were attention-seeking, 286 patients (67%) were diagnosed with conversion disorder, 255 patients (60%) were told that “it was in their head”, and 16 patients (4%) were diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy or a factitious disorder."

Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia
“Like Postural Tachycardia Syndrome IST is underappreciated by many in the medical profession and many doctors mistakenly consider it to be a psychological condition. People with IST can find themselves increasingly disabled and may experience high levels of anxiety.”

The Case of CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) and Mold Illness
There are many examples of medical conditions that were first described by patients and doctors, for which no physical cause was found for many years.  They were given "placeholder" names as syndromes until such time as their biological mechanism could be figured out, which they eventually were.  There is a list of conditions including Sick Building Syndrome, Chemical Sensitivities, Environmental Illness, Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance (TILT), Mold Illness, Biotoxin Illness, that had been identified accurately based on patient reports, and in some cases treatments were even discovered based on patient reports of benefits.  These conditions are now understood to be manifestations of Mast Cell Disease, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, and genetic variants that limit detoxification of various compounds capable of inducing excessive inflammation, among other things.  The biological understanding came in time and validated the experiences that patients reported.  

Nagging Pain
This is a Slate article about a program of "boot camps" for people, mostly children, diagnosed with chronic pain (including Fibromyalgia and Central Sensitization) that attempts to "rewire" the symptoms out of the person through brutal and painful exercise and experiences.  Many of the children sent to these "camps" with a diagnosis of AMPS (for "amplified musculoskeletal pain syndrome"), a made-up diagnosis based on an untested theory.  The treatment, which was also made-up based on a this theory, doesn't have any real scientific evidence to support it, just the theory.  The "evidence" that these boot-camp programs work are self-reported questionnaires given to participants at the end of the program.  Part of the program is aggressively drilling into the participants NOT to talk about or report pain or any pain symptoms, so then asking them to self-report is dubious at best.  Everything about this diagnosis, treatment, and these programs is exactly what a cult is and how cults function.  The "patients" are aggressively indoctrinated and brainwashed, their will is broken down, using the exact techniques that cults use- coercive control.  There are no "good" applications of coercive control.  

This is a list of some of the medical diagnoses that survivors of these "boot camp" style programs were later diagnosed with:
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or other Connective Tissue Disorders
MCAS
POTS
SCN9A channeloppathy (causing paroxysmal extreme pain disorder with severe dysautonomia including life threatening autonomic storming)
Yao Syndrome
Gastropareses
Adrenal Insufficiency

The following is a comment I submitted as written testimony for a legislative hearing in Oregon regarding reclassifying various pain disorders with Somatoform Disorders in the state's medical code system:

I wish to address the proposal to group Fibromyalgia and chronic pain disorders with Somatoform Disorders.  When a patient presents to the doctor with physical symptoms, including pain, there is nothing scientific about assuming that the patient has a mental health condition rather than a physical one, and that mental health treatment is appropriate.  Cursory testing does not rule out the presence of a physical condition.  Many legitimate physical conditions aren't correctly diagnosed for many years, and may be misdiagnosed many times in the process.  For example, on average a person with celiac disease is properly diagnosed 8 years after first presenting to a doctor with symptoms.  During those 8 years, it can be said that no physical cause has been found for the patient's distress, but it makes no sense to say that they have a psychiatric condition that they are miraculously cured of when they are finally correctly diagnosed with celiac. 

The fact that there are simply so many physical conditions with a significant lag time between the time when a patient presents with complaints and accurate diagnosis should cast doubt on the usefulness and even the existence of actual somatoform disorders.  I lost count a long time ago of the number of cases I know of in which a person presented to the doctor with pain and other non-specific symptoms, was patronizingly dismissed and told to get counseling, eventually given pain meds, and then finally given testing only to be told that they have late stage cancer.  In a number of cases they were actually told "if only you'd come in sooner, we could have treated it".  Many of those people died.  It is also worth noting that new disorders are still being discovered, that medical testing is never 100% accurate, and there are over 7,000 rare diseases listed by the National Organization for Rare Diseases.

Somatoform Disorders are basically the updated name for "hysteria", an archaic concept based more on the misogynist ideas of it's time than any physical reality.  At that time, medicine was considered "scientific", but not exactly in the way we see it now- as a practice based on the sciences of biology and chemistry.  At that time, eugenics was considered science, and was deeply enmeshed in the theory and practice of medicine.  This historical reality has been swept under the rug, but the pseudoscience of eugenics still lingers in the medical practices of today- and I believe that the concept of "Somatoform Disorders" is one example.

The practice of medicine requires that patients be listened to and treated as the experts about life in their own bodies.  Treating them as misbehaving children, putting on a show for attention, has no place in a scientific practice.  I myself was subjected to this gaslighting and abuse for years while struggling to survive an illness which is life-threatening on a daily basis.  I was shamed and shunned until I myself arranged to have a tissue sample from a previous biopsy prepared by the lab that was storing it according to the instructions I got over the phone from the leading pathologist in the country for the disease that I knew I had, and then shipped to her hospital by Fed Ex.  Once she gave me the diagnosis, I was taken seriously and received more than 10 additional diagnoses. 

The delay in treating my medical condition, which I had been both laughed at and yelled at for daring to suggest I had, caused my condition to degenerate such that I have lived on life support since then.  At my lowest point, I was on oxygen, unable to eat and dependent on IV nutrition to survive, requiring continuous infusions of 2 medications, needed a central line which has resulted in 2 DVTs and 15 blood infections, was mostly bed bound, my back broken in 5 places, unable to take any pain meds and needed to undergo my surgeries without anesthesia, had skin cancer removed, had all of my teeth removed due to breakage, have had multiple heart attacks, and more.  There are many, many other people like me.  Most haven't survived.  You could say that "Somatoform Disorders" have a very high fatality rate- but not for the same reason that other deadly disorders do.  Please, it's the year 2024- isn't it time that our medical system reflected that?

This recent study shows examples of people with legitimate physical disease who were misdiagnosed with psychosomatic and psychiatric conditions, and the long-term harm it did them:
“I still can’t forget those words”: mixed methods study of the persisting impact on patients reporting psychosomatic and psychiatric misdiagnoses
"Patient-reported psychosomatic and psychiatric (mis)diagnoses are associated with persisting adverse impacts in multiple domains including mental health, medical relationships, self-worth, and some healthcare behaviours. Health services and clinicians should consider these potential adverse impacts on patients and offer support to reduce any persisting negative impacts."

How "Anti-Abortion" Laws are Pro-Death, not Pro-Life

Reproductive care is health care in more ways than many people have thought through.  The fact that anyone can consider the anti-abortion laws that exist and that are being planned as I write this to be "pro-life" is a sign that life has already become so devalued that it's loss isn't even seen or recognized when it comes to pregnancy and birth.  The lives of women, both in terms of quantity and quality, are invisible, as are the lives of their families and other children and the children they may have had in the future.  If the goal were to reduce the number of pregnancies that are ended intentionally or that end in accidental ways, the solutions would start in other parts of society- we would take meaningful steps to reduce rape and to support pregnant women so they could afford to have and raise a baby unexpectedly.  We would be horrified at the extremely high infant mortality rate for black babies and other babies of color and take immediate steps to provide optimal care for those babies to bring the death rate down.  We would ensure that pregnant women receive appropriate prenatal care and that infants received the care they needed in the early years.  There are many, many things that we would do- but not only do we not do those things, we are allowing our health care system to degenerate such that more and more babies and pregnant women are losing their lives.  Anti-abortion laws, as they stand, are in no way "pro life".  

If You’re Pregnant, Here’s What To Know About the Medical Procedures That Could Save Your Life
Information about medical care for miscarriage, including D and C or D and E.  Both of those procedures can be used for abortion as well so in states with abortion bans, they may not be offered when appropriate and needed.  This video gives basic information about how to educate and protect yourself if you are or become pregnant.

How Do Abortion Pills Work? Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
Abortion medication, sometimes referred to as the "abortion pill", is two pills taken together- mifepristone and misoprostol.  "Mifepristone blocks a hormone called progesterone that is needed for a pregnancy to continue. The FDA-approved regimen is to take 200 milligrams of mifepristone on the first day. Patients are directed to take misoprostol within 24 to 48 hours of the mifepristone. The misoprostol works to expel fetal tissue from the uterus."

The Impact of Legal Abortion on Maternal Mortality
"Legal abortion has recently been suggested as an essential healthcare service. In this study, we consider whether abortion legalization over 1969-1973 improved women’s health, measured by maternal mortality. Our event-study results indicate that legal abortion substantially lowered non-white maternal mortality by 30-40%, with 113 non-white maternal deaths averted nationally in the first year abortion became legal. We also find that early state-level legalizations were crucial, and more influential than the Roe v. Wade decision itself. "

Dozens of pregnant women, some bleeding or in labor, are turned away from ERs despite federal law
"More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found.

Two women — one in Florida and one in Texas — were left to miscarry in public restrooms. In Arkansas, a woman went into septic shock and her fetus died after an emergency room sent her home. At least four other women with ectopic pregnancies had trouble getting treatment, including one in California who needed a blood transfusion after she sat for nine hours in an emergency waiting room."

Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.
"Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, the experts, including 10 doctors, deemed hers “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome."

A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a “Crime” to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital
"Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.

Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin.

ProPublica is telling these women’s stories this week, starting with Barnica’s. Her death was “preventable,” according to more than a dozen medical experts who reviewed a summary of her hospital and autopsy records at ProPublica’s request; they called her case “horrific,” “astounding” and “egregious.”

A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms
An 18-year-old woman died from sepsis after visiting emergency rooms 3 times, when she developed symptoms of sickness and miscarriage.  The hospitals diagnosed her with strep throat, and later a UTI as well and sent her home, despite clear signs indicating a life-threatening infection.  Once she returned for the third time her emergency care was delayed out of concern over the fetal heartbeat.  It's not possible to say for sure if her death could have been avoided, but a lot more could have been done to try.  In Texas, officials have made a point to tell doctors that their abortion ban takes precedence over a federal law that requires emergency rooms to treat women and stabilize them when they have life-threatening complications of pregnancy. 

A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.
"The 35-year-old’s death was preventable, according to more than a dozen doctors who reviewed a detailed summary of her case for ProPublica. Some said it raises serious questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to diverge from the standard of care and reach for less-effective options that could expose their patients to more risks. Doctors and patients described similar decisions they’ve witnessed across the state.

It was clear Porsha needed an emergency D&C, the medical experts said. She was hemorrhaging and the doctors knew she had a blood-clotting disorder, which put her at greater danger of excessive and prolonged bleeding. “Misoprostol at 11 weeks is not going to work fast enough,” said Dr. Amber Truehart, an OB-GYN at the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health. “The patient will continue to bleed and have a higher risk of going into hemorrhagic shock.” The medical examiner found the cause of death to be hemorrhage."

"But because D&Cs are also used to end pregnancies, the procedure has become tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortions. In Texas, any doctor who violates the strict law risks up to 99 years in prison. Porsha’s is the fifth case ProPublica has reported in which women died after they did not receive a D&C or its second-trimester equivalent, a dilation and evacuation; three of those deaths were in Texas.  (E)ven in cases like Porsha’s where there isn’t a fetal heartbeat or the circumstances should fall under an exception in the law. Some doctors are transferring those patients to other hospitals, which delays their care, or they’re defaulting to treatments that aren’t the medical standard.  Texas outlaws abortion from the moment of fertilization; a record showing there is no cardiac activity isn’t enough to give physicians cover to intervene, experts said."

"Staff are familiar with misoprostol because it’s used for labor, and it only requires a doctor and a nurse to administer it. To do a procedure, on the other hand, a doctor would need to find an operating room, an anesthesiologist and a nursing team. “You have to convince everyone that it is legal and won’t put them at risk,” said Goulding. “Many people may be afraid and misinformed and refuse to participate — even if it’s for a miscarriage.  (F)or example, legislators added an update to the ban for patients diagnosed with previable premature rupture of membranes, in which a patient’s water breaks before a fetus can survive. Doctors can still face prosecution for providing abortions in those cases, but they are offered the chance to justify themselves with what’s called an “affirmative defense,” not unlike a murder suspect arguing self defense. This modest change has not stopped some doctors from transferring those patients instead of treating them."

Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died
Candi Miller had several chronic health conditions that made pregnancy dangerous and potentially life-threatening for her, but she became pregnant unintentionally soon after Georgia passed a ban on abortion.  She ordered abortion pills through the mail, feeling that she needed to handle an abortion on her own, and didn't go to the hospital when she experienced complications following taking the pills out of fear.  She died, leaving behind three children who now have no mother.  Her death was preventable.  

"ProPublica’s new reporting makes clear, for the first time, that in the wake of bans, women are losing their lives in ways that experts have deemed preventable.  It also underscores the reality that abortion bans have not actually led to a decrease in abortions. But for people like Miller, they have increased the degree of difficulty and risk."  Women with chronic conditions that make pregnancy more dangerous are not helped by the narrow exceptions written into law, and often need to travel out-of-state to get the supportive care they need even to continue the pregnancy.  There is so much confusion around the new laws that women are often not showing up for care until they are already experiencing serious complications.  This system has made pregnancy more dangerous for many women.

Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.
Amber Nicole Thurman died of treatable complications of abortion medication in Georgia after the state's abortion ban went into effect.  She had a rare complication in which her body didn't fully expel the fetal tissue, which would normally be treated by a common, safe intervention called a D and C.  This procedure was essentially outlawed in Georgia, so she ended up dying of sepsis, an deadly infection that resulted from the lack of treatment that she received.  Her death is "the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light."
Referenced in the article- The Impact of Legal Abortion on Maternal Mortality
"Our event-study results indicate that legal abortion substantially lowered non-white maternal mortality by 30-40%, with 113 non-white maternal deaths averted nationally in the first year abortion became legal. We also find that early state-level legalizations were crucial, and more influential than the Roe v. Wade decision itself. "

Texas women denied abortions for ectopic pregnancies file federal complaints against hospitals
 "The hospital's intervention was too late, her attorneys say. Her ectopic pregnancy ruptured days later, leaving her bleeding heavily and in blinding pain. She was transferred from a facility in Burnet County to Ascension Seton, where she was told she was "bleeding out," according to the complaint.  To save her life, doctors removed her right fallopian tube, leaving her with lower chances of having a successful pregnancy in the future."

“These women are proof that exceptions do not make abortion bans less dangerous, even when they are exceedingly clear," Beth Brinkmann, senior director of U.S. litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in Monday's news release. “It’s impossible to have the best interest of your patient in mind when you’re staring down a life sentence. Texas officials have put doctors in an impossible situation.  Numerous Texas OB-GYNs and medical associations have said that the severe repercussions, combined with the state's abortion ban's complicated wording, leave doctors hesitant to administer treatment."

"Texas Alliance for Life in monthly news releases has highlighted that one to 10 "medical-necessity" abortions have been recorded in Texas each month since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion established in Roe v. Wade. More than 50,000 took place each year between 2008 and 2020."

Doctors Warned Her Pregnancy Could Kill Her. Then Tennessee Outlawed Abortion.
Mayron Michelle Hollis became pregnant unexpectedly soon after giving birth to a daughter, but despite the pregnancy posing a very serious risk to her health and life, Tennessee passed an abortion ban before she could end the pregnancy.  Her doctor tried to put together a team to perform the necessary procedure but was unable to gather the needed participants because they were afraid of the legal consequences, so she was left to navigate a terrifying situation with little help- further traumatizing her, jeopardizing her health, her family, her sanity, and her life, and with additional barriers put up by the state to make her already extremely difficult situation orders of magnitude worse.  Amazingly she and her baby survived- despite the medical system, not because of it.  This article is very well done and worth reading.

Her miscarriage left her bleeding profusely. An Ohio ER sent her home to wait
Christina Zielke had a confirmed miscarriage but was left to wait for the tissue to pass on it's own, which didn't happen for weeks.  When it did, she lost a large amount of blood but was not treated and instead sent home due to Ohio's trigger law- meaning that abortion became illegal the same day that Roe v Wadew was overturned.  Many anti-abortion advocates do not understand that miscarriage, a common event in pregnancy, is treated with the same procedures that are also used in abortion.  This means that when abortion is outlawed, miscarriage becomes much harder to get treatment for and becomes a dangerous event when it doesn't need to be, placing the health and lives of large numbers of women in danger- even women who had no intention of having an abortion, even women whose pregnancies are not viable or are ectopic (which must always be terminated).  These laws are having a large amount of unintended consequences that their authors don't take accountability for, at least partially because they lack a basic understanding of the biology and medicine around pregnancy.

North Texas woman says her baby fell on a Dallas freestanding ER floor after she gave birth
In a state with anti-abortion (so-called "pro life") laws, it is horrifyingly ironic that this baby nearly lost her life due to such utter disregard for human life.  The US has a profoundly disturbing history of such incompetent treatment and such complete lack of basic care for black women and their babies that the infant and maternal death rate is many times higher than it is for white mothers and babies.  This just highlights the hollowness of the so-called "pro-life" movement who are nowhere to be seen when it comes to these excess deaths.  In addition, this level of care is the "new normal" in America as we allow private equity and profit-based health care to destroy the health care system and leave only the most minimal skeletal remains, all in the name of short-term value extraction.

The CDC Hasn’t Asked States to Track Deaths Linked to Abortion Bans
"(T)the Biden administration has missed a critical opportunity to illuminate how abortion bans are interfering with maternal health care, leading to deaths and irreversible injuries: The CDC has not pushed state committees that review maternal deaths to examine the role these new laws have played."

If You’re Pregnant, Here’s What You Should Know About the Medical Procedures That Could Save Your Life
"Women experiencing pregnancy loss in states with abortion bans told us they wished they had known what to expect and how to advocate for themselves. We created this guide for anyone who finds themselves in the same position."

Are Abortion Bans Across America Causing Deaths? The States That Passed Them Are Doing Little to Find Out.
"The same political leaders who enacted abortion bans oversee the state committees that review maternal deaths. These committees haven’t tracked the laws’ impacts, and most haven’t finished examining cases from the year the bans went into effect. "

We Don't Do That Here (New York Times)

Five Woman Sue Texas Over the State's Abortion Ban (New York Times)

Maternal morbidity and fetal outcomes among pregnant women at 22 weeks’ gestation or less with
complications in 2 Texas hospitals after legislation on abortion
"n 2 Texas hospitals, state-mandated expectant management of obstetrical complications in the periviable period was associated with significant maternal morbidity (Figure). Consistent with reports
evaluating outcomes in women requesting expectant management, most of the pregnant patients at <22 weeks presenting with medical indications for delivery experienced serious morbidity, and fetal outcomes were poor. Expectant management resulted in 57% of patients having a serious maternal morbidity compared with 33% who elected immediate pregnancy interruption under similar clinical circumstances reported in states without such legislation."

Harm Caused by Prescription Medications

There are many drugs and categories of drugs that can cause harm.  Here are some of the more common ones:

EpiPen maker failed to investigate product flaws associated with patient deaths, FDA says
"The FDA said Meridian Medical Technologies, a Pfizer company that manufactures the auto-injectors used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions, had detected faults in some units of the EpiPen and failed to adequately respond. In addition, the company received "hundreds of complaints" that the drug did not function properly -- "including some situations in which patients subsequently died."

Prescription Drugs Now Kill More People In The US Than Heroin And Cocaine Combined
When Half a Million Americans Died and Nobody Noticed (Vioxx) 

Not Good: Nearly 1 in 3 Drugs Have Safety Issues Even After FDA Approval
"New research has shown that, even after drugs are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), nearly one in three of them go on to have safety issues. That's not necessarily as bad as it sounds - the good news is that this shows the FDA is taking lifetime monitoring of its approved drugs seriously. But perhaps more concerning is the fact that so many drugs with safety issues are getting approved in the first place." 

The emperor's new drugs: medication and placebo in the treatment of depression
 "The serotonin theory is as close to any theory in the history of science having been proved wrong. Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed in the future."

Clinical and patient characteristics associated with severe outcome in diphenhydramine toxicity

Benzodiazapines and Other Psych Meds
Benzodiazepine-Induced Brain Injury: The Hidden Prescription Epidemic

Xanax withdrawals 'like being tortured alive' 

Post-SSRI sexual dysfunction & other enduring sexual dysfunctions

The Other Side of Psych Meds: An Interview with David Healy

The emperor's new drugs: medication and placebo in the treatment of depression
"Antidepressants are supposed to work by fixing a chemical imbalance, specifically, a lack of serotonin in the brain. Indeed their supposed effectiveness is the primary evidence for the chemical imbalance theory. But analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were hidden by the drug companies reveal that most (if not all) of the benefits are due to the placebo effect. Some antidepressants increase serotonin levels, some decrease it, and some have no effect at all on serotonin. Nevertheless, they all show the same therapeutic benefit. Even the small statistical difference between antidepressants and placebos may be an enhanced placebo effect, due to the fact that most patients and doctors in clinical trials successfully break blind. The serotonin theory is as close to any theory in the history of science having been proved wrong. Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed in the future."

Fluoroquinolones are a class of antibiotics, ciprofloxin is probably the most widely recognized.  Other drugs in this category, sometimes called "floxies" have names ending in -floxin.  In 2016 the FDA put out a warning saying that these drugs should be used as a last line of defense and generally avoided for common, non-serious infections because they cause serious side effects.  These side effects can be disabling and permanent and include tendon rupture, central nervous system damage, and heart damage.

FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA advises restricting fluoroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections; warns about disabling side effects that can occur together
"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising that the serious side effects associated with fluoroquinolone antibacterial drugs generally outweigh the benefits for patients with acute sinusitis, acute bronchitis, and uncomplicated urinary tract infections who have other treatment options. For patients with these conditions, fluoroquinolones should be reserved for those who do not have alternative treatment options.

An FDA safety review has shown that fluoroquinolones when used systemically (i.e. tablets, capsules, and injectable) are associated with disabling and potentially permanent serious side effects that can occur together. These side effects can involve the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system."

FDA updates warnings for fluoroquinolone antibiotics on risks of mental health and low blood sugar adverse reactions
"Across the fluoroquinolone antibiotic class, a range of mental health side effects are already described in the Warnings and Precautions section of the drug labeling, but differed by individual drug. The new class-wide labeling changes will require that the mental health side effects be listed separately from other central nervous system side effects and be consistent across the labeling of the fluoroquinolone class. The mental health side effects to be included in the labeling across all the fluoroquinolones are disturbances in attention, disorientation, agitation, nervousness, memory impairment and delirium."

"Additionally, the recent FDA review found instances of hypoglycemic coma where users of fluoroquinolones experienced hypoglycemia. As a result, the Blood Glucose Disturbances subsection of the labeling for all systemic fluoroquinolones will now be required to explicitly reflect the potential risk of coma with hypoglycemia."

Chemical Proteomics Reveals Human Off-Targets of Fluoroquinolone Induced Mitochondrial Toxicity 
"While general mechanisms for the fluoroquinolone-associated disability (FQAD) have been identified, the underlying molecular targets of toxicity remain elusive. In this study, focusing on the most commonly prescribed FQs Ciprofloxacin and Levofloxacin, whole proteome analyses revealed
prominent mitochondrial dysfunction in human cells, specifically of the complexes I and IV of the electron transport chain (ETC). 

the interactions of FQs with mitochondrial AIFM1 and IDH2 have been identified and biochemically validated for their contribution to mitochondrial dysfunction. Of note, the FQ induced ETC dysfunction via AIFM1 activates the reverse carboxylation pathway of IDH2 for rescue, however, its simultaneous
inhibition further enhances mitochondrial toxicity. This off-target discovery study provides unique insights into FQ toxicity enabling the utilization of identified molecular principles for the design of a safer FQ generation."

Specific cases and stories
Paralyzed By A Prescription: Doctor 'Poisoned' By Common Antibiotic
A doctor who once prescribed these meds became paralyzed after taking them.  He recovered after a stem cell transplant, and now raises awareness among other doctors about the risks they pose.  He says the experience taught him about what patients go through.

‘I can’t walk today:’ 25 Investigates finds millions still prescribed risky antibiotic
In 2023 over 3,000 adverse reactions to fluoroquinolones were reported to the FDA.  These drugs continue to be used with relative frequency despite the FDA's warning that the risks generally outweigh the benefits.  

Southland Firefighter Says Popular Antibiotic Poisoned His Body, His Life
The prescribing doctor told him that only elderly people or those with existing health problems get the side effects, and another doctor told him it was fine and to stay off the internet.  Doctors are generally unaware of the dangers of this drug.

Popular antibiotics linked to growing number of suicide deaths, patients unaware of side effects
FDA reports tie over 200 suicides to cipro and levaquin.  The FDA estimates that only between 1 and 10% of adverse drug reactions are reported.