100. THE MAIN QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED

Apparently, there are no answers for the main questions that afflict people suffering from the floxing syndrome. The scientific questions in desperate need of answers are:

What are the exact mechanisms of the damage?

Does the drug remain in the body (tissue bound) after cessation of treatment?

Why do the most severe symptoms develop months after the treatment has ended?

Is there a condition that makes some people more prone to being damaged?

How deep or permanent is the neurological damage?

Why some foods and substances trigger another amplified reaction?

What are the irreversible internal injuries we are facing?

What type of recovery period is to be expected?

What can be done to limit the extent of the damage caused by these toxic chemical antibiotics?

What can be done to help or expedite the recovery?

What other health problems can we expect in the very long run (cancer, early morbidity, etc...)?

We have tried to find answers for almost all of the questions, however, no matter how logical the conclusions in this paper appear, the fact is that we know very little. Obviously, there is insufficient scientific research on the subject of quinolone toxicity. And to date there is no known cure. It is difficult to understand why with so much clinical data available from us as victims and the availability of willing volunteers for studies, no scientific research is being done on a great scale. The negative influence and pressure of the drug manufacturers is the only explanation as to the reason for eluding and avoiding such desperately needed research.

From the social point of view, the critical questions about the subject are:

Why nobody undertakes a follow up (OVER A MINIMUM PERIOD OF THREE YEARS) study of large populations of people that have taken fluoroquinolones, (especially high doses or long-term treatments) like the U.S. postal workers?

Why the public health administrations do not begin a true, real, and accurate study, and not merely a manipulated or washed over study, about the safety of the quinolone class of antibiotics, taking into account that half of the quinolone family of antibiotics have been withdrawn from the market over the years due to severe toxicity?

Why quinolone antibiotics are not strictly forbidden in the raising and production of cattle, poultry and fish for human consumption; because substantial amounts of the antibiotic remain in the food, irrespective of the time elapsed from administration to slaughter, and pass on to unsuspecting people?

Many thousands of people are diagnosed every year as having fibromyalgia, lyme, osteoarthritis, immune disorders and neurological problems, when in fact they are just poisoned from a quinolone, either by direct ingestion through a drug prescription or through the food supply (poultry, beef, fish, dairy).

101. WHY DOES THE MEDICAL CLASS IGNORE THE TOXICITY OF QUINOLONES

Being floxed is a very hard, life-altering experience, and sometimes a life experience of misery and accelerated physical and mental decay. You have to be prepared to add your doctor's ignorance to your despair. The average doctor, irrespective of his/her specialization, is fed technically on propaganda from the drug manufacturers. Manufacturers generously sponsor medical magazines, many medical reports, symposiums, conferences, and travel. Their advertising and information highlights the alleged benefits of quinolone antibiotics, hiding the true toxic profile.

Prescribing doctors know virtually nothing about quinolones and their use, apart from the biased information provided to them by the laboratories and drug companies, or perhaps by medical associates or other fellow physicians, that know nothing either. The main and nearly only technical information available the doctors have about these drugs comes from the advertisements in the medical magazines and visits from the drug representatives of the manufacturers. So they all think that quinolones are very safe drugs. No other antibiotic enjoys a ‘safety profle’ that matches the profile of the quinolones, except for maybe amoxicillin; but bacteria can be resistant to amoxicillin, so quinolones are the preferred alternative for all purposes, according to the clinical ignorance of many doctors.

This table is a summary of the notes taken by 42 volunteers after visiting their doctors. The results are based on the outcomes of the first visit to each doctor.

TABLE 18 HOW DOCTORS SEE THE PATIENT INTOXICATED BY A QUINOLONE
DOCTOR'S RESPONSE	NUMBER OF DOCTORS	PERCENTAGE
Number of doctors visited by 42 floxed persons with proven reactions to quinolones seeking for medical advice and treatment	327	100%
Number of doctors that knew that quinolones caused tendon problems in "rare" cases or arthropathy "only in animals"	31	9%
Number of doctors that said that they had never heard of toxic reactions to quinolones	285	87%
Number of doctors that had heard of other serious adverse reactions of quinolones that are different from the tendon problems (neurological, vasculitic, inflammatory)	8	2%
Doctors that dismissed any possibility of quinolones being the cause of the reaction of the patient	257	79%
Doctors that dismissed any possibility of quinolones being the cause of the reaction of the patient even after the floxed person mentioned that those adverse effects were included in the drug package inserts	219	67%
Doctors that believed that the adverse reactions were going to be short lived (less than 15 days) once the drug was stopped	198	61%
Doctors that mentioned that the reaction would subside in about one month	16	5%
Average number of doctors floxed persons had to talk to before finding one doctor willing to consider the quinolone connection as one possible cause of their health problems	13

Number of floxed persons that have participated in this poll	42
Number of floxed persons that have participated in this poll that have suffered rechallenge reactions	7
Countries from where the floxed persons gathered information	USA (35); France (2); UK (1); Sweden (1); Spain (1); Germany (1); India (1) Two floxed persons reported from 2 countries each but have been asigned to a single country.

The "industry" is one of the most dishonest that exists in the legal market. The manufacturers manipulate all the trials until they render the results (mostly forged) that they want to show. From the investigative work of Stephen Fried in his book "Bitter Pills": ...

A fifty seven year old woman had enrolled in an Omniflox [a quinolone] trial in October 1990 after being diagnosed with a bacterial infection on top of her chronic bronchitis. It was a double-blind trial (two unmarked drugs) and the patient initially got better. But after ten days on her study drug, she was hospitalized with kidney failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation, a life-threatening blood coagulation disorder. This was a serious dysfunction in two separate body systems. Four days later, the study "blind" was broken to reveal that she was taking Omniflox.

The patient's physician believed that the antibiotic had caused both of her conditions, and indeed, she recovered from both ailments, after she stopped taking the drug. However, when, as is customary, Abbott [the manufacturer] sent a letter about her case to all the other Omniflox clinical investigators who were testing the drug, the company reported her doctor's findings in a more equivocating manner, saying that the "precise relationship of the study drug.....is difficult to ascertain" because the patient had not been "rechallenged". ......Who in their right mind would do it, except by accident? -but drug companies invariably note that is wasn't done.

As you have already learned, many people involved with the present paper have been re-challenged by a quinolone treatment, and their symptoms have always reproduced, increased in intensity dramatically, and become chronic or permanent.

More than 90% of all the prescriptions of quinolones could be avoided, using other safer, less toxic antibiotics. It is very normal and standard for urologists to prescribe a long-term course of fluoroquinolones for a suspected case of prostatitis without obtaining a culture test or a more definite diagnosis. They argue that they have a good “penetration” through the prostate and blood/brain barrier; so good a penetration that they wreak havoc on all bodily systems.

Let us have a look again at another passage from the book of Stephen Fried "BITTER PILLS":