Author: Suzanne B. Robotti

Suzanne B. Robotti

Suzanne is the President and Founder of MedShadow, and the Executive Director of DES Action USA.  MedShadow’s mission is to preserve quality of life by ensuring everyone has access to the risks, benefits and alternates to using drugs to manage healthcare. Read More

One person demanding proof from drug companies saved millions of US babies. Don’t forget her lesson. Morning sickness can be debilitating. It’s certainly uncomfortable. And for most pregnant women it’s a rite of passage. Very occasionally morning sickness causes so much nausea that the pregnant woman becomes dehydrated causing risk to the pregnant woman and fetus. In those cases women generally go to the hospital. Most other pregnant women have varying degrees of discomfort and interruptions to their lives. Recently Kim Kardashian (I don’t really have to explain who she is, right?) claimed to use Diclegis for relief from morning sickness.…

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Did you know that women have different side effects to medicine than men have? For example, a beneficial side effect of aspirin is prevention of heart disease, right? Not for women. Because women were not included in the original research on aspirin and heart disease, doctors were unaware that women get no cardiac benefit from prophylactic aspirin. For 20 years, women were prescribed aspirin for no reason, noted Nieca Goldberg, MD, Keynote speaker. And yet, since 1985 more women than men have died of cardiovascular disease, stated Dr. Goldberg, and 2/3 of the women who died never even made it…

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 Is the holy grail of morning sickness finally available? Meet Diclegis ! Several months ago, the Duchess previously known as Kate Middleton was hospitalized for severe morning sickness. A week or so later she was recovered, and made the medical term for severe morning sickness, “hyperemesis gravidarum,” (HG) temporarily famous. The FDA has approved the drug Diclegis for pregnant women who experience nausea and vomiting (not HG). As has been widely reported, this drug was available and then withdrawn from the market 30 years ago because of numerous lawsuits claiming birth defects caused by the drug sold under the brand name,…

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Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) It’s been widely reported that Kate and William are expecting their first child. The news included the information that Kate is experiencing an extreme form of morning sickness diagnosed as hyperemesis gravidarum, known as HG. Kate has been hospitalized as the risks are immediate and severe. What is less reported are the long-term risks to the child and mother. Few are conducting research on HG, but one doc who specializes in HG refers to a paper that found children of women who had extreme nausea/vomiting during pregnancy had “more attention problems and difficulty in task persistence at…

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