See my Credentials for daring to speak to fellow Sickleblos like this at www.sicklecell.md or www.konotey-ahulu.com and grasp how the way to help loved ones to become ACHIEVERS is clearly shown. [Read World Specialists’ Opinion about me]:
1972 Professor Helen Ranney MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, in Sickle Cell Disease, Editors H. Abramson, J.F. Bertles, Doris Wethers (C. Mosby Co.) 1972 p 320:
“There is no single clinical experience in the United States comparable to that of Dr Konotey-Ahulu.”
1985 Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine Dr Maxwell Wintrobe MD PhD, University of Utah, USA, in his book Haematology, The Blossoming of a Science – A Story of Inspiration and Effort (Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia) 1985 pp 378-380:
“Dr. Konotey-Ahulu has contributed to our understanding of the clinical manifestations of sickle cell disease and other haemoglobinopathies in Africa … His contributions are especially noteworthy; the value of his work has been widely recognised … He has become increasingly involved with ethical matters and genetic counselling and has strong views against antenatal diagnosis and selective abortion.”
1991 Professor Sir David Weatherall FRS MD FRCP FRCPath. Oxford University, in Lancet June 29, 1991, Vol. 337 p 1590:
“The Sickle Cell Disease Patient’ is a fitting tribute to a physician who has done as much as anyone to improve facilities to deal with this condition in Africa.”
1991 Professor Roland Scott MD, Washington DC, USA.
“This book is a meritorious addition to the medical literature and Dr Konotey-Ahulu has been disclosed as a seductive narrator as he tells the story of Sickle Cell Disease” (Foreword to The Sickle Cell Disease Patient 1991).
1992 Professor D Geraint James MD FRCP Royal Free Hospital, London University
“This thesaurus or treasure trove of information adds a new dimension to the world of sickle cell disease”. (Book Review of `The Sickle Cell Disease Patient’ in Sarcoidosis Volume 9, 1992 p 73.)
1993 Professor A J Bellingham MB FRCP FRCPath, King’s College Hosp., University of London
“This remarkable study must represent the largest compilation and report of a single person’s clinical experience … For professionals working within the community and hospital I can recommend it as a marvellous feast to delve in”. (Tropical diseases Bulletin, 1993, Vol 90 No. 3, p 164).
.
And now, read https://bit.ly/3hmBV81 on ResearchGate-Berlin a couple of years ago the following paragraph:
Consequent on the TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION 2022 WORLD UNIVERSITIES RANKING indicating that University of Cape Coast was First in Global Citations, the university invited Professor I D Konotey-Ahulu for an Award at a Special Ceremony on May 31st 2022 because “this great achievement of the university was made possible by dint of your scholarly contributions and commitment to the mission of the University” as the Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics in the Faculty of Science.
“First in Global Citations” – Why did of all the universities of the world, TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION 2022 WORLD UNIVERSITIES RANKING discover, and publish, that I had been quoted more than anyone else in the world. One of the reasons is that since 1965 when in that one year alone, I published from Korle Bu major articles in Lancet, British Medical Journal, and British Journal of Clinical Practice, I have every single year up to 2024 my name has appeared in print referring to something I had observed and proclaimed. Some of those things were against the then accepted practice, but decades later my views were found to be correct.
For example, my very first major article, published in The Lancet “Sicklaemic Human Hygrometers” May 8 1965 in which I mentioned 17 precipitating causes of Sickle Cell Crisis, blood transfusion being one of them, is being quoted today!
My Sickleblos who are keen to scrutinise my 447 Publications (Major and Minor, but each with a message) listed in www.sicklecell.md or www.konotey-ahulu.com will certainly find material that will enable them look after our loved ones from kindergarten to university with a minimum of sickle cell crises. [Read that again]
You will find me criticising even UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence and exposing the poor care of sickle cell disease patients in the UK [Publication 296] by pointing out clearly how their recommendations have killed patients. Read and see how treatments, including Hydroxurea were evaluated, enabling other doctors worldwide to handle my views, and indeed fly me to the USA and Switzerland to salvage patients in extremis.
Why all this Preamble?
ANSWER: To let you Sickleblos, for whom I am writing this evaluate the present goings on in the GMA Forum.
LISTEN: I was minding my own business when [Twi: Mε tenaa mε baabi, na] one Dr Kofi Effah wrote to me on the GMA Forum drawing my attention to a Ghanaian Research on “Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Randomized Controlled Trial of Hydroxyurea for HbSC: Result of the Prospective Identification of Variables As Outcomes for Treatment (PIVOT) Trial”.
This Dr Kofi Effah obviously wanted a fight with me because, as I pointed out that Hydroxyurea listed in the British National Formulary has no less than 38 side-effects including Rhabdomyolysis, and that the two physicians who had directed the largest Sickle Cell Clinics in the world – Professor Graham Serjeant in Jamaica and myself at Korle Bu – both of us stress that the drug suppresses the bone marrow and ruins the kidney for being loaded with grams of hydroxyurea daily for life – as I stressed that, Dr Kofi Effah went for me.
Not satisfied with the fact that I said I had invited the inventor of Hydroxyurea-use, Professor Samuel Charache MD of Johns Hopkins University Medical College to come to London and Ghana to see my adult Sickle Cell Disease Patient Achievers who had used other genes that their parents gave them to do great things without regular blood transfusions or Hydroxyurea or bone marrow transplantation, or other things – not satisfied with my thesis that I even criticized National Institute of Clinical Excellence for dangerous advice on sickle cell disease management, Dr Kofi Effah writes on the GMA Forum – “As far as I know, NICE guidelines are evidence-based, not eminence-based”, completely dismissing the fact I (with BMJ Editorial approval) disclosed how useless and dangerous NICE was/is in guiding how patients with sickle cell disease must be treated.
Examine my international publications on this, Dr Kofi Effah, and respond to them with your evidence-based brilliance. Why limit your criticism of me to the GMA Forum? Spread your brilliance out to the world, please.
Just one example before I proceed with this long memorandum
The mother of a 31-year-old Ghanaian, one Elisabeth Blankson, wife of Professor Jeurry Blankson, rang me one Sunday night in the UK from Kumasi. Their son, Kofi, was in a coma in Intensive Care Unit of a hospital in Manchester. He had walked to the hospital on Friday in sickle cell crisis. Could I help, asked Elisabeth, whom I had known as a brilliant nurse in London, and who had agreed to be bridesmaid to my bride in London on our Wedding Day. I quickly rang the hospital, got through to Intensive Care, I introduced myself and asked:
“Is a patient called Kofi Blankson, on a Morphine or Diamorphine pump?”
“Oh yes”, came the answer “It’s routine in the Protocol for this problem from NICE”.
When I put the phone down, I drafted a letter to The Lancet entitled “Opiates for sickle-cell crisis?”. That was Sunday night. Kofi Blankson died on Tuesday, less than 4 days after walking to that hospital, and a week before my protest communication in Lancet was published Saturday 9 May 1998, Vol 351 No. 9113, page 1438.
Let Dr Kofi Effah read the first 2 paragraphs containing “eminent-based evidence”:
==============================================================================
Opiates for sickle-cell crisis?
Sir – Every now and then, a patient with sickle cell disease is admitted to hospital in painful sickle crisis, and within 48 hours or so, ends up in intensive care unit in coma. Usually, the patient has been perfectly well for years before this episode. In most cases, it is only after admission that breathing difficulties and coma arise, and the question that should be asked was “Was the patient given opiates?”
I usually find that the answer is yes, the patient was on a morphine pump, sometimes diamorphine is the culprit. If the patient dies, sickle crisis and chest syndrome will be recorded on the death certificate. …”Rush him to intensive care, the chest syndrome behaves like this”. [Sicklebos, Do Google this in Lancet and read it]
=================================================================================================
This is the NICE evidence-based Medicine that Dr Kofi-Effah says should not be criticized by the eminence-based one.
Fortunately, no less than 8 clearer-thinking Ghanaian Sickle Cell Disease ACHIEVERS accompanied by Professor Ivy Ekem wrote to protest at the Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s commissioned Report on Sickle Cell Disease which revealed that many sickle cell disease patients died through the NICE approved Guidelines.
Read Mrs Cecilia Shoetan’s BMJ Communication on 18 June 2008 “I lost my adult daughter minutes after being given Diamorphine intravenously when she could’nt breathe”.
Dr Kofi Effah finds himself in a hole. Contradicting my distrust of NICE on Sickle Cell Management [Hole level 1]
The English have an instructive phrase which I won’t be surprised was borrowed from Kwaku Ananse:
“When you are in a hole, stop digging”. But Dr Kofi Effah goes on digging. He also contradicts my sweet mother of 3 sickle cell disease children.
Whenever my brother’s priapism (erect penis) reared up during his sickle cell crises, it was because of malaria that provoked the crisis. “Bring the bottle of Quinine quickly” pronounced my dear mother, and the priapism with crisis went away.
Oh, not so, says ignorant Dr Kofi Effah, “bring Hydroxyurea rather, and there would be no crisis”.
[Hole level 2]
And there would be no crisis? No problem with the drug? Why do patients on Hydroxyurea still need blood?
Imagine a conversation between Dr Kofi Effah and one of my brilliant Hb SS ACHIEVERS:
.
Dr Kofi Effah: We have a new drug, double-blind, fantastic! You will stop having crises. It has 38 side-effects.
My ACHIEVER: But I have not had a crisis for 30 years, and I am SS with a PhD working at Noguchi. My Hb has never been more than 9.0 grams, and Dr Konotey-Ahulu has never transfused me.
Dr Kofi Effah: Look here, believe me. Double-blind, Placebo-controlled. It will stop you having crisis. Hydroxyurea.
My ACHIEVER: Eyi de mente ase. Aduro foforɔ bi aba?
Dr Kofi Effah: Oh Yes! Hydroxyurea – ɛyɛ papaapa.
My ACHIEVER: Ho, Doctor, ɛyɛ papaapa with 38 side effects? And I have had no crisis for 30 years? Tafracher, Nkwasiasɛm ara kwa!
[Hole level 3]
You see, fellow Sickleblos, My Achievers are not fools. But would Dr Kofi Effah stop digging deeper into his hole?
Listen to him, now 10 days ago:
“Prof. Konotey-Ahulu is a member of the Ghana Academy of Sciences. This academy takes very important decisions for all of us. I am very worried if this is how issues will be handled there by him. Remember the Ebola vaccine issue? He fought against it.”
Dr Kofi Effah asks us to remember the Ebola Issue, and he is “very worried” about what Professor Konotey-Ahulu did.
Well, what did Professor Konotey-Ahulu do?
Dear Sickleblos, look at the facts about the Ebola Vaccine Issue and, please, evaluate Dr Effah’s cerebration:
Brilliant Fellows of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences whose President was then Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr in 2015 produced 10 scholarly reasons why a team of scientists from the National Institutes of Health (USA) plus a drug and vaccine company should not be allowed to come and do Ebola Vaccine Trials in Ebola-free Ghana. I thought “The GAAS Vaccine Investigative Protocol” as I called it was so remarkable the international world needed to know about it and use it.
I therefore sent the 10 scholarly reasons to British Medical Journal, the world’s leading Medical Journal, praising GAAS for their remarkable document. Read it yourself in https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2105/rr-7 which clearly showed the world that Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences scientists were superior in intellect to those coming from NIH to test a vaccine in an Ebola-free Ghana, so they had no scientific reason or right to set foot in our country. For Dr Kofi Effah to interpret this with sorrow (“I am very worried” he says) is a classic example of perversion of language and thought! Isn’t Dr Kofi Effah clearly a confused man?
If GAAS had imagined I was a Fellow bound to disgrace them to be a worry to such as Dr Kofi Effah they would not have dreamt to have given their First GOLD MEDALS to me in Medical Sciences and to Professor Francis Allotey in Mathematical Sciences. [Hole Level 4]
But Dr Kofi Effah was not the only GMA member who objected to my telling the world the marvellous thing that our Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences did in 2015. A Ghanaian lady doctor J Ocran-A working in Europe saw my article http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2105/rr-7 “Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and Ghana Government Suspend Ebola Virus Trials” 14 June 2015 and she wrote to me a scathing comment, posting it also on the GMA Forum:
She said I had been sitting in Ghana doing no research, and serious scientists had come from abroad to do proper research, and I was obstructing them. She went on (and I quote her actual words): “It is almost as if you woke up from a coma only to find that some people are actually doing real clinical research in Ghana you did not know about, and you feel left out”. [Read that again, please]
Fortunately, fortunately, fortunately The GMA is not full of the ilk of Dr Kofi Effah linking me to Witchcraft or Dr J Ocran-A saying I was comatose at Korle Bu, there was a doctor I had never met, Dr Isaac Botchey, who quickly wrote back: “The vituperative attack on Dr Konotey-Ahulu totally shocked me”.
My ACHIEVERS are the proof that my opinion of how I say they need to be managed, and how they should never be managed (like giving them Hydroxyurea) – an opinion quite clearly stated in International Scientific and Medical Communications.
Therefore, Dear Sickleblos, look for my ACHIEVERS, several still alive in their 70’s and 80’s. To ever listen to the constant baying of Dr Kofi Effah’s “Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled” is to deprive our loved ones of the opportunity to ACHIEVE great things with the other genes their parents have given them.
But Dr Kofi Effah had another confrontation on me that deepened the hole he found himself in.
Listen to Hole Level 5:
When the UK Government on the advice of NICE – the National Institute of Clinical Excellence whose evidence-based practice contrasted with my “eminence-based” one – when the UK Government advised that boys between 12 and 13 be given the Cervical Cancer Vaccine that Dr Kofi Effah specialises in, I totally disagreed with the recommendation and I gave my reasons https://bit.ly/2AM6VZw starting with my BMJ article “Tafracher” half a century ago [February 8 1975, Volume 329; 1: (5953) page 329]. Even for cervical cancer, I insisted that “PRINCIPLES SHOULD COME BEFORE DETAILS”. Dr Kofi Effah took me on, and set his Assistant to deal with me, insisting that the only way to halt cervical cancer even in my tribe, ignoring the work that Professor J Kwashie Quartey, Cecilia Bentsi, others and I did there when Dr Mary Grant was Director of Health Services, was through vaccination. I disagreed. In my tribe, Manya Krobo, vaccination in NOT the only way to prevent teenagers from going on to adulthood with cervical cancer.
But back to Hydroxyurea, the 1 in 9 GMA doctors with loved ones suffering from sickle cell disease have just one decision to make: To take my advice never to let them be induced to use it, or to succumb to the baying of a totally ignorant Dr Kofi Effah on this matter. He refuses to show me one single person who has taken grams daily of Hydroxyurea since 1994 when Professor Sam Charache (whom I knew in person) introduced the drug who is still alive. Just one – and Dr Kofi Effah refuses to do so. My diagnosis of him is “Fuu kwa!”
On the other hand I can show my fellow Sickleblos SS, SC, Sbeta-Thalassaemia patients who were at my First International Conference for Sickle Cell Disease Patients at The Royal Society of Medicine at Number 1 Wimpole Street, London W 1, in 1993 all of them witnessed by Professor Samuel Charache whom I had invited there, who are still alive. [Thanks to President J J Rawlings & Dr Kwesi Botchway paying cost of transport]
To listen to the profusions of Dr Kofi Effah and his Placebo-Controlled Double-Blind Mantra is quite dangerous.
Ignorance is bad enough [Stop malaria-provoked sickle cell crisis with Hydroxyurea], but ignorance combined with arrogance [attributing Witchcraft to my accredited Clinical experience for which there is no comparison in the USA, and which says “avoid Hydroxurea by all means” is quite incurable.
Dr Kofi Effah the Scientist
He delights to call himself scientist who is bright enough to discern Witchcraft in relation to my science. I give him and his followers some homework:
Google Haemoglobin Korle Bu and Haemoglobin Osu-Christiansborg both discovered at Korle Bu when Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu was supposed to be mostly comatose, read the papers, and for homework mark the pages where the odour of Witchcraft hits you, and let me know.
Dr Kofi Effa’s wise friends asking for a Truce are advising him to think twice before continuing to tackle Professor Konotey-Ahulu and sink deeper and deeper into the hole he continues to dig.
How can a person think twice when he is incapable of thinking once? Which person in the entire world surveying me and my work, and the fact that I began a new church on the Korle Bu Hospital Compound called Accra Chapel, now Korle Bu Community Church would think just once, and then dare to attach Witchcraft to my name? Dr Kofi Effah can’t think once, how can he think twice?
They should leave Dr Kofi Effah alone. He certainly loves excavation while he sinks deeper and deeper.
Let him continue digging. My response will just be Tu bra!
Felix I D Konotey-Ahulu FGA MB BS MD(Lond) DSc(Hons UCC) DSc(Hons UH) FRCP(Lond) FRCP(Glasg) DTMH(L’pool) FGCP FWACP FTWAS ORDER OF THE VOLTA (OFFICER)
Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics University of Cape Coast, Ghana;
Former Consultant Physician Genetic Counsellor in Sickle Cell and Other Haemoglobinopathies Korle Bu Teaching Hospital & Director Ghana Institute of Clinical Genetics, and at Cromwell Hospital, London SW5 0TU; Also at 9 Harley Street, Phoenix Hospital Group, London W1G 9AL. Website: www.sicklecell.md or www.konotey-ahulu.com