My name is Deborah, and my life has been shaped by medicine—not just its promises, but its failures. Too often, the story of patients like me is one of harm hidden beneath the label of “treatment.” My children and I live with the consequences of drugs that were prescribed without enough caution, without enough honesty, and without enough accountability. I was given multiple medicines, including dangerous levels of metformin and sodium valproate, and the long-term damage has been profound.

This is not just my story. It is the story of countless people whose suffering is quietly written off as “side effects” rather than recognised as preventable harm. We are left to carry the burden of medical decisions we did not make, while the system that prescribed them moves on.