Saturday, February 19, 2005

Psychiatrists In Drag As Soldiers

Psychiatrists in Iraq are pretending to be good American soldiers. This is a disguise. They are posing as experts in the mind, and are up their old tricks, offering destructive drugs as supposed solutions to mental problems. The drugs they're suggesting are discredited drugs originally created by and for psychiatrists, but long since degraded to the level of street drugs, including LSD and Ecstasy. Preying on the brave soldiers in Iraq with this quackery is unconscionable criminality.

Here's an article from the Guardian paper in England:

American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.

The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.

Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist leading the trial, said: "It's looking very promising. It's too early to draw any conclusions but in these treatment-resistant people so far the results are encouraging.

"People are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact they are safe now."

He is about to advertise for war veterans who fought in the last five years to join the study.

According to the US national centre for post-traumatic stress disorder, up to 30% of combat veterans suffer from the condition at some point in their lives.

Known as shell shock during the first world war and combat fatigue in the second, the condition is characterised by intrusive memories, panic attacks and the avoidance of situations which might force sufferers to relive their wartime experiences.

Dr Mithoefer said the MDMA helped people discuss traumatic situations without triggering anxiety.

"It appears to act as a catalyst to help people move through whatever's been blocking their success in therapy."

The existing drug-assisted therapy sessions last up to eight hours, during music is played. The patients swallow a capsule containing a placebo or 125mg of MDMA - about the same or a little more than a typical ecstasy tablet.

Psychologists assess the patients before and after the trial to judge whether the drug has helped.

The study has provoked controversy, because significant doubts remain about the long-term risks of ecstasy.

Animal studies suggest that it lowers levels of the brain chemical serotonin, and some politicians and anti-drug campaigners have argued that research into possible medical benefits of illegal drugs presents a falsely reassuring message.

The South Carolina study marks a resurgence of interest in the use of controlled psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs. Several studies in the US are planned or are under way to investigate whether MDMA, LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat conditions ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to anxiety in terminal cancer patients.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

They See It But They Don't

Here is the opening from an article about mothers in Texas who have recently murdered their babies; four similar cases:

DALLAS — When a mother admitted killing her baby daughter by severing the child's arms this week, she joined a high-profile list of Texas women with histories of mental illness who have killed their children in gruesome fashion.

They go on to describe each of these mothers. One of them, hopped up on two different anti-depressant drugs at once, drowned her four small children in a bathtub.

The news people see that the four women have a history of mental illness. But what is it they don't see?

Being "treated" for mental illness in America means these women were all at least given antidepressant drugs like Prozac, Paxil, Luvox or Zoloft that turn people into killers! These drugs, chemically related and grouped as SSRIs (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- don't ask -- even the psychs don't really know what that means) are the killer on the loose in the U.S. today.

There have always been killings. There have always been the insane. But when I was a kid, and for thousands of years before that, murders had motives. People had reasons for what they did. They sought out and killed someone they hated or lusted after or envied or despised. There was usually some warning -- like a lifetime of conflict with the victim, or threats -- or even that the victim belonged to a rival gang.

Now there's a new class of criminal that has crawled out of the woodwork -- in volume. These are the people that randomly kill. They kill whoever it strikes their fancy to kill. Whoever is near. They show up in their post offices or schools with automatic weapons and simply cut loose. They drown or stab their children. They shoot their grandmother and grandfather in the mouth when they're asleep. They can be any age -- a remarkable number of them are children. And they're just as likely as not to commit suicide as well.

The new class was born when we started feeding people with "mental problems" SSRI drugs -- Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, Zoloft and others.

When will the news people see the story behind the story?

Monday, February 14, 2005

Zoloft Trial To Jurry

Jurors began deliberating Monday in the murder trial of a 15-year-old boy who claims the antidepressant Zoloft drove him to kill his grandparents three years ago.
The trial has been billed as the first case involving a youngster who says an antidepressant caused him to kill. The trial also comes at a time of heightened scrutiny over the use of antidepressants among children.

Defense attorneys urged the jury Monday to send a message to the nation by blaming Zoloft for the killings by 15-year-old Christopher Pittman. They said the negative effects of Zoloft are more pronounced in youngsters, and the drug affected Pittman so he did not know right from wrong.

"We do not convict children for murder when they have been ambushed by chemicals that destroy their ability to reason," attorney Paul Waldner said.

...

Pittman has not denied carrying out the slayings. He is charged as an adult in the November 2001 murders of Joe Pittman, 66, and his wife Joy, 62. If convicted, he could get 30 years to life in prison.

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. Last October, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings — the government's strongest warning short of a ban — about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

Pittman threatened to kill himself about a month before the slayings. He also ran away from home.