Diet pills probably are what killed Florence

[Coppelia-Birdsong]

We all know that Florence was a healthy weight for her height and figure [[let's be real, all the Supremes worked pretty damn hard, what they did was very much physical exorcise) but she ended up taking the diet pills to get Mr Gordon off her back. And we all know it wasn't Flo's weight that was the problem as she was replaced by Cindy Birdsong, who is easily the most voluptuous/full figured Supreme. It was just something Gordy used to ruthlessly undermine Florence's brittle self esteem that masked great inner pain and trauma.

Now I personally believe that the cocktail of drugs that Flo was prescribed is probably what killed her, along with her emotional dependence on alcohol to soothe her depression, probably caught significant damage to her heart. Were medical services really that incompetent back then, or did Flo have to go to more shady, profit run places that were willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that Florence was taking several drugs at once she should not have been taking: her diet pills made her talkative according to accounts, and she had to take another drug to counter out the side effects of the diet pills, and I believe she was prescribed antidepressents? What quack was allowing her to take such a worryingly large cocktail of extremely large drugs together, all of which had known side effects? Horrendous. She was also known to have a drinking problem by this point, and I am pretty sure none of these were supposed to be taken to alcohol. I would say the alcohol, as well as the combined effects of having several strong prescribed drugs with severe side effects in her system probably destroyed her heart over a long period of time. In the end it was the prescribed drugs she did not need and was bullied into taking were probably the main catalysts that led to Flo's heart being severely damaged over time and then ceasing to beat on that dreadful day.

I googled diet pills of the sixties to try and find out what are the now known side effects of taking them, and many of them are now known to cause severe damage to the heart and its valves. Flo died of a heart attack at the shockingly young age of 32, and had been for most of her life been an active, robust woman.

Here are some articles for your perusal.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/7...ry-diet-pills/

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/25/h...iet-pills.html

The sad fact is that antidepressants are given out like candy to the point I'm not surprised they have machines that pop out handfuls when you put in a quarter or the receptionist has bowls of them wrapped up like boiled candy on her desk. And to show you how incompetent folks are, let me tell you of not my own experiences on Cetraline, but a friend of mine who was prescribed the stuff on the NHS.

Nigerian girl from very well off family: half of them are doctors and half of them are lawyers. The eldest, most ambitious and hard working. Thought she would be a famous actress/politician/singer/whatever and be married and have a clutch of babies. 25, that hasn't happened like it hasn't for a lot of people especially not this generation, and just like many people this generation, had a quarter life crisis. Went to the doctor saying she was suicidal and she was desperate to feel herself again.

The quack gave her three months worth of cetraline at ONCE.
You don't give a suicidal person that much of a lethal substance at once. People who are suicidal are known to hoard medication so they can kill themselves with it, many times not dying but managing to ruin major organs such as their liver for life.

I think the most frustrating thing about stories like Flo's, is that people are ignoring it or are ignorant of it, and so her sad story is being repeated endlessly across the world, despite her life coming to an end at a shockingly young age and such an avoidable death as well. Flo died almost half a century ago at this point: why are we as a society allowing the horrors that put this beautiful, talented, sweet young lady in a shockingly early grave to still be happening so damn much to so many people, especially our youth, and especially the best and brightest of our youth?