About Prescribed Harm

Our Mission

Prescribed Harm exists to fill a critical gap in public health information. While pharmaceutical companies invest billions in direct-to-consumer marketing and clinician education, patients suffering from severe medication-induced injuries have few authoritative resources to turn to. This disparity in information availability has allowed harmful side effects to remain underrecognized, underreported, and inadequately addressed by medical systems.

Our project compiles peer-reviewed research, patient experiences, and expert clinical analysis to systematically document the neurological damage that can result from commonly prescribed medications. We focus on conditions that are well-documented in the scientific literature yet frequently overlooked or dismissed by healthcare providers and regulatory agencies.

Our overarching goals are three-fold: to inform patients about medication risks they should understand before treatment decisions, to educate physicians about under-recognized adverse effect syndromes they may encounter in clinical practice, and to push for meaningful regulatory reform that prioritizes patient safety and informed consent over pharmaceutical industry interests.

Who Is Behind This

Prescribed Harm was created by Mikhaila Fuller, who experienced firsthand the damage psychiatric medications can cause. After being harmed by psychiatric medications herself, she also watched her father suffer from years of akathisia after decades of treatment for severe depression. These experiences revealed just how broken the system is: patients are injured by drugs they were told were safe, and when they seek help, the medical system that harmed them has no answers.

This project exists because no one should have to piece together scattered research papers and patient forums to understand what happened to them. The information on this site is what Mikhaila wished had existed when she and her family needed it most.

The Problem We Address

Misclassification as "Relapse"

Withdrawal syndromes and iatrogenic injuries are frequently misdiagnosed as disease recurrence. When a patient develops severe depressive symptoms after discontinuing an SSRI, or experiences severe anxiety following benzodiazepine tapering, physicians often interpret this as "relapse of depression" or "relapse of anxiety" rather than recognizing it as a medication-withdrawal phenomenon. This mischaracterization perpetuates continued prescribing and prevents appropriate management of the actual underlying condition: medication-induced injury.

Lack of Diagnostic Recognition

Many medication-induced syndromes lack formal ICD diagnostic codes, making them invisible in healthcare data and clinical practice. Without official disease codes, conditions cannot be reliably tracked, researched, or treated. Patients describing their symptoms find no diagnostic validation, while physicians cannot document or bill for treatment of conditions that officially "don't exist" in the classification system.

Pharma-Funded Research Bias

Conflicts of interest pervade pharmaceutical research. Industry funding of clinical trials, sponsorship of physician education, and financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and academic medical centers create systematic bias toward minimizing adverse effects and amplifying efficacy claims. Independent research is chronically underfunded, while industry-sponsored studies consistently show better outcomes for company products.

Systematic Underreporting

The FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) captures only an estimated 1-10% of actual adverse drug events. This massive reporting gap means that even serious side effects may go undetected for years. Patients who suffer injuries often don't report them, healthcare providers lack awareness of the connection between symptoms and medication, and regulatory structures fail to aggregate emerging signals of harm.

Recognized Conditions with Limited Awareness

Several medication-induced conditions have been formally recognized by major regulatory bodies, yet remain poorly known among both patients and clinicians:

• PSSD (Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction) — Formally recognized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2019 as a persistent adverse effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Sexual dysfunction continues indefinitely for many patients even after medication discontinuation.
• Protracted Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Syndrome — Patients experience prolonged withdrawal symptoms lasting months or years after discontinuing benzodiazepines — even when using proper hyperbolic tapering protocols — including cognitive dysfunction, sensory disturbances, and psychological symptoms. Hyperbolic tapering, where each successive dose reduction is progressively smaller in absolute terms, is the safest known method for benzodiazepine discontinuation, though it is not perfect and some patients need to go much slower than others.
• Protracted Antidepressant Withdrawal — Withdrawal from SSRIs and SNRIs can persist for months or years after discontinuation, involving neurological symptoms far beyond what clinical guidelines prepare physicians for. Often misdiagnosed as relapse of the original condition, leading to reinstatement of the drug that caused the injury.
• Akathisia — A drug-induced neurological emergency involving unbearable physical and psychological agitation directly linked to suicides and violence. Can be caused by SSRIs, SNRIs, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and other medications. Routinely misdiagnosed as "worsening depression" or "anxiety," leading to dose increases that intensify the condition.
• FQAD (Fluoroquinolone-Associated Disability) — FDA issued a black box warning in 2016 regarding serious adverse effects of fluoroquinolone antibiotics, including tendinopathy, peripheral neuropathy, and CNS effects. Yet awareness among prescribers remains low.
• Post-Finasteride Syndrome (PFS) — Listed in SNOMED CT and described in peer-reviewed literature. Patients experience persistent sexual dysfunction, cognitive impairment, and mood disturbances after stopping finasteride (Propecia), despite the drug's short half-life.
• Post-Accutane Syndrome — Documented adverse effects including severe depression, suicidality, inflammatory bowel disease, and persistent musculoskeletal pain following isotretinoin treatment for acne.

Who This Is For

Prescribed Harm serves multiple audiences, each with distinct information needs:

Our Principles