Prozac Causes Depression

Antidepressants Kill Again

2008-02-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

From the Rocky Mountain News:

Edward C. Krug, Ph.D

February 28, 2008

We have just had another antidepressant-induced murderous rampage at a school. As a biochemist and minister, I need to point out some things that are missing in the public discussion of these tragedies.

First, these antidepressants cause chemical imbalances. The body is well perfected by God and evolution. When you introduce an outside chemical to change the body, the body pushes back, reacts. For example, when you first start drinking coffee for the extra energy, you get jangles or nerves, the result of a chemical imbalance. Continue drinking coffee and the caffeine lift decreases as your body compensates to the chemical imbalance created by the caffeine. Stop drinking coffee and you get headaches as your body adapts to the chemical imbalance caused by caffeine withdrawal. Antidepressants create far worse chemical imbalances.

There is no chemical imbalance that causes the depression. This is an advertiser’s lie. Some, long term, inescapable problem causes the person to feel like they are being slowly destroyed. This is called suppression. Strongly suppressed people become depressed. The chemicals are balanced for the stress the person is undergoing. Giving the person drugs that make them feel happier does nothing to change the suppression. They just tolerate it better. If they are lucky, conditions change and they escape the suppression, and the drug is said to have worked. Often, the antidepressants don’t work because the suppression is not handled.

How the person reacts to the drug-induced chemical imbalances depends on the nature of the suppression that caused the person to become depressed. Murder and suicide are just the reactions that get noticed. These individuals have battled the suppression long before they became depressed and the anger and desperation built up determines how they lash out under the antidepressant-induced chemical-imbalance. Without the suppression and drugs, they would be fairly normal people.

The drug-induced chemical imbalance affects another principal of biology: Use it or lose it! The ability to cope with stress is a skill. Under the influence of these happy pills, the ability to cope deteriorates. Remove the drugs, and the stress is now too much, and the person takes desperate measures.

These antidepressants also erode the moral compass we all have. Normally, the idea of causing damage to our self or others stresses us, but less so under antidepressants. Under continued suppression, and now, with a weakened moral compass, people still look for ways to fight back. Elaborate plans can be developed, as we have seen at these school mass murders. Once the person has a plan on how to fight back, a calmness and determination sets it. The moral compass is discarded. The rest is history, and the future.

These murderous rampages will continue to happen because Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertising of pharmaceuticals is increasing antidepressant consumption and annual multi-billion dollar sales, paid for by tax dollars and insurance dollars.

Advertising works! Describe a condition well enough and anybody listening will believe they have it, and ask for medicine. It must be true if they say it often enough! Our government is spending millions in the war against drugs, and the pharmaceutical companies are spending so much more to keep us taking more drugs. Antidepressant consumption has skyrocketed. Antidepressant drugs are now measurable in river water leaving major cities, and occasionally in city drinking water. As drug sales go up, the violence will only get worse.

Two actions are required. First, repeal direct-to-consumer drug advertising! Call your congressman, demand it! Second, be a friend, care, take time to listen, and be willing to butt in to stop suppression, bullying and injustice. This message has been repeated by great people throughout history; Love thy Neighbor. Drugs are not answer. Listening and understanding is. The wrong thing to do is nothing. A punch line to an old joke says it best. We don’t need psychiatrists; we have friends!

Edward C. Krug, Ph.D. is a resident of Denver.

Eli Lilly settles 900 more claims over Zyprexa

2008-01-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008801240416

Indianapolis Star

Eli Lilly settles 900 more claims over Zyprexa
January 24, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS -- Eli Lilly and Co. has settled another 900 personal-injury claims against its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, including five set to go to court next month, thus avoiding what would have been the first trial in the U.S. The Indianapolis drug maker confirmed the settlement Wednesday but declined to reveal the amount. With the latest agreements, Lilly has settled more than 25,000 claims, leaving about 1,100 unsettled. Many of the plaintiffs have claimed Lilly underplayed the drug's side effects, including weight gain and elevated blood sugar. Lilly has set aside $1.2 billion to pay claims.

Mental Health Watchdog Vindicated

2008-01-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

New Report Confirms Psychiatric Drug Risks Kept Buried by Vested Interests

LOS ANGELES: After decades of warning the public that vested interests were burying psychiatric drug risks, vehemently denied by the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industires, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says new research published Jan 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine vindicates their demands for full public disclosure.

CCHR has filed Freedom of Information requests to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for adverse reactions reports of antidepressants, helped to orchestrate FDA hearings into the suicidal side effects of antidepressants and filed complaints to government officials and agencies about the conflicts of interest of FDA advisory committee members ignoring the drugs' side effects. In addition, CCHR has issued numerous publications about the cover-up of psychiatric drug side effects and has filed complaints worldwide with licensing boards and other agencies on behalf of people harmed by psychiatric drugs including stimulants, antidepressants and antipsychotics.

Now, a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled, “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy,” has revealed that negative studies on antidepressants are either not being published, or are skewed in a way that makes them appear positive. (See stories running on Fox National News, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal) CCHR says the psychiatric-pharmaceutical cartel is not only misleading the public about the drugs, but also about the disorders for which they are prescribed.

Just this month, U.S. News and World Report confirmed that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) failed to fully disclose the substantial pharmaceutical ties of its task force members, charged with updating and expanding psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, comprised of subjective checklists of symptoms which are then used to categorize new “mental disorders” and bill insurance companies. Even high-ranking psychiatrists such as Steven Sharfstein, former president of the APA, have pointed out the financial corruption in their field. In 2006, Sharfstein admitted, “We have allowed ourselves to be corrupted in this marketplace with lucrative consulting to industry, speaker panels, boards of directors and visits from industry representatives bearing gifts.”

For more information on the financial ties between psychiatrists and drug manufacturers, read CCHR’s publication, Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.

And Now It's On Reuters...

2008-01-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

This one is blowing up big. Reuters is now carrying the story. One version of it, on AOL, says, "Data on Antidepressants Often Shelved".

In the story, the statistics are incredible. "Nearly a third of antidepressant drugs studies are never published in the medical literature and nearly all happen to show that the drug being tested did not work..." according to the story.

Of 74 studies for 12 antidepressant drugs, 38 produced positive results. All but one of these were published. But only 3 of the 36 studies with negative or questionable results, as assessed by the FDA, were published, and another 11 were written as if the drug had worked when in fact the results of the studies were negative.

Making this data broadly public is a vital step in the right direction. Those of us who have been involved in this movement for a long time already knew this, but not enough people were aware of it. Legislators who want to have the government pay for psychiatric drugs don't know it, for instance.

It's time for a system overhaul.

The Worm Turns On Public Perception Of Big Pharma

2008-01-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

The winds are changing. I saw an episode of Law and Order where the detectives were investigating a series of suicides at a university and traced it to trials of an antidepressant. They further found that the drug company had mounted a series of trials, but bad results vis-a-vis suicide had caused them to brush the previous trials under a rug. They continued to start new trials in the hope that one would be positive so they could publish it. So they arraigned the CEO of the pharmaceutical company for murder!

And only one day later I found an article in the Wall Street Journal: Antidepressants Under Scrutiny Over Efficacy. The subheading is even more heartening: Sweeping Overview Suggests Suppression of Negative Data Has Distorted View of Drugs.

The article addresses the very issue raised dramatically in the Law and Order episode -- the manipulation of multiple trials to showcase the ones that are positive and scuttle the ones that are negative.

The WSJ Online requires a subscription, but if you have one, read the story. It's at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120051950205895415.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

Florida May Follow Texas: Investigate and Sue Drug Companies

2008-01-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

Florida undecided as states sue over costly drug program

Daytona Beach News Journal

By Mary MOEWE

January 10, 2008
NEWS: Front Page

They're powerful psychotic drugs, used to treat conditions like schizophrenia. No one knows what their effects are on children, especially infants, yet within seven years the number of children prescribed the drugs in Florida's health insurance program for the poor has nearly doubled.

There's no doubting one side effect, though -- drug companies watched sales soar, aided by a Florida program they helped create

Florida is far from unique. Several states also noted the costly boom of atypical antipsychotics -- a new class of the drug that was touted to have fewer side effects. The states are suing drug makers, alleging the companies pushed newer, untested drugs that proved no more effective in treatments -- but were far more costly.

In Florida, the taxpayers' bill for the drugs jumped from $9 million seven years ago to nearly $30 million in 2006. Whether Florida will join states like Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina in trying to recoup some of those costs is unclear.

"Our office is aware of concerns with antipsychotics in Florida's Medicaid program but we cannot acknowledge nor provide any information pertaining to ongoing criminal investigations," said Sandi Copes, a spokeswoman with the Florida Attorney General's office.

Florida Medicaid records show the number of children -- some just months old -- who were prescribed the drugs went from 9,364 seven years ago to 18,137 in 2006. No records for privately insured patients are available.

"The situation is out of control," said David Cohen, a professor at Florida International University who has been studying the use of antipsychotics since 1983. While no long-term studies have been done on the effects the drugs have on children, there is evidence children on the drugs face greater risks of diabetes, hyperglycemia and extreme weight gain, Cohen said.

'MOOD STABILIZERS'

Orange City child psychiatrist Manuel Mota-Castillo said age shouldn't be a factor in determining whether the drug is needed. He has prescribed antipsychotics to children frequently, with the youngest being a 25-month-old child.

"I don't want to use the name 'antipsychotic.' I use 'mood stabilizer,' " said Mota-Castillo, who also worked for three years at Act Corp., the area's main mental health facility.

The 25-month-old child had been kicked out of five day-care centers where complaints included punching other children, he said. "The child's mother came to me in shorts so I could see the bruises and marks (on her)," he said.

Crystal Lamson of Sanford said Mota-Castillo has been treating her bipolar son for more than two years. Ryland, now 7, broke a Plexiglas window at a day-care center when he was 5.

"I get criticized all the time from family members," Lamson said. "(But) there are some children out there who do need them."

Another Sanford parent, Richard Davis, said he watched in horror as his daughter Ciara, then 6, gained 40 pounds, developed breasts and had uncontrollable tongue and facial movements.

"Those drugs were killing her," Davis said.

Over his objections, he said Ciara was given antipsychotics by her mother and while in foster care. A court-appointed guardian also noted the effects in an August 2003 report, describing a visit in which Ciara "never once kept her tongue in her mouth."

Ciara, now 11, was taken off the drugs after about a year, her father said, and she quickly dropped the added weight.

'TAINTED' MONEY

In Florida, even as drug makers were being told to issue warnings about risks, a Florida Legislature-directed program partly funded by pharmaceutical companies was recommending the drugs as treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with tics or intermittent explosive disorder, according to the program's Web site that has since been shut down

According to a study that looked at three years of data, about 40 percent of the antipsychotics prescribed to Florida Medicaid children were given to children diagnosed with ADHD -- a use not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Florida program was patterned after a Texas project that has spurred a whistle-blower lawsuit. The Florida Algorithm Project used some of the Texas-developed medical formulas that recommended drug treatments for mental diseases.

A year ago Texas joined the whistle-blower suit against Janssen Pharmaceutica and several other Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries. The suit alleges the program's treatment guidelines -- "improperly influenced" and paid for by the drug companies --increased sales of the antipsychotic Risperdal.

An official with Janssen said the company will defend its actions.

"We believe our participation in all aspects of our Texas Risperdal activities were in accordance with what the law required," said Ambre Morley, a company spokeswoman.

Florida pilot programs using the Texas-developed guidelines began in 2001, according to state documents. Act Corp. in Volusia County was one of 15 sites that adopted the program until it was discontinued in September 2004.

James Bax, a former director of the Florida program, said the project began with funding from pharmaceutical companies.

"It did not take me long to realize that the money from the drug companies was tainted," Bax said. "Once I got into it, I saw what I thought was very insidious."

According to the program's defunct Web site, Bax was director only a couple of months before a retired Johnson & Johnson employee took the title.

In 2002, the Florida Legislature permitted the Department of Children & Families to accept grants from pharmaceutical manufacturers to develop training for health care organizations serving public sector clients, according to a September 2003 Agency for Health Care letter about the Florida program.

When first interviewed, those familiar with the program said they did not recall any ADHD-related information. But archived pages from the program's Internet site show the program had more guidelines on how to treat ADHD than any other ailment. A 2004 report about the program's progress pointed to the development of an ADHD guideline as an accomplishment.

Rajive Tandon, chief psychiatrist for the Mental Health Program Office with Florida's Department of Children & Families, said he's not sure how much impact the Florida program had on the increased use of antipsychotics.

"It certainly was a contributing factor," he said.

Doctors believed the new antipsychotics were better, Tandon said, citing "aggressive marketing."

But the new antipsychotics proved no more effective than older drugs in two significant studies -- one published in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine and another in the Journal of the American Medical Association published in 2003, said Cohen, the antipsychotics expert at Florida International.

Tandon said Florida should consider a lawsuit like other states.

"Should we at least look into it? Absolutely," he said, calling for, at minimum, an investigation into the Florida program's funding and impacts. "Then basically hold the appropriate people responsible."

The Dark Side - Cold War Psychiatric Experiments

2008-01-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

In the course of pursuing my preoccupation with the antics of psychiatry and the drug industry, I occasionally stumble onto stories about the dark underbelly of the beast. Even I sometimes am tempted to stop what I'm reading and quietly look the other way.

The CIA's MKULTRA experiments during the cold war were among history's most frightening footnotes, and they definitely helped to set up the environment we have today with school kids on psychiatric drugs shooting up their classmates and themselves.

Read this story in Freedom Magazine about a woman in Canada who finally achieved some closure for her experience as a psychiatric guinea pig in this program; repeatedly electroshocked, heavily drugged and subjected to techniques that can best be labeled as torture.

Justice Served -- But Injustices Remain

You Gotta Love 'Em

2008-01-03T17:04:00.001-08:00

Don't you love psychs? Here is another lovable shrink going about the dereliction of his duties.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880102050

January 02, 2008

The Florida Department of Health is trying to take away the medical license of a Fort Myers doctor who was sentenced to over two years in prison for handing out drugs to patients without physical examinations.

The Department of Health filed an administrative complaint against Cecilio Pizarro for giving out prescriptions for Xanax, methadone, Oxycontin, Dilaudid and Valium.

In some cases, Pizarro allegedly agreed to administer the drugs in exchange for sexual intercourse.

According to the complaint, Pizarro also prescribed pain killers to a detective with the Fort Myers Police Department in exchange for sexual intercourse.

Pizarro was indicted by a grand jury March 14 for two counts of knowingly and willfully distributing controlled substances. Pizarro pled guilty to both counts and was sentenced to 27 months in prison Sept. 25.

Brave New World: Mental Health Screening In Boston

2007-12-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

Please assist before this infiltrates your area!

"Families may decline the screening if they wish. If a screen turns up signs of potential trouble, it is also up to the family whether to pursue further help and an official diagnosis.
The new requirement applies to the 460,000 children and young adults covered by Massachusett's Medicaid program, at annual checkups from birth to age 21."

Dr. John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and author of "Overdosed America." says: "What happens is that there's a very quick translation of mental health symptoms into drug treatment."

Write a letter to the editor, click here: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/write/ and please get this info to all your friends in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/27/mental_screening_for_young_to_begin/?page=1

The Boston Globe

Mental screening for young to begin
Mass. doctors to offer questionnaires for children on Medicaid
By Carey Goldberg
Globe Staff / December 27, 2007

As of Monday, annual checkups for the nearly half a million Massachusetts children on Medicaid will carry a new requirement: Doctors must offer simple questionnaires to detect warning signs of possible mental health problems, from autism in toddlers to depression in teens.

The checklists vary by age but ask questions about children's behavior - whether they are spending more time alone, seeming to have less fun, having trouble sleeping - that are designed to trigger discussion between parents and doctors. The conversations may or may not lead to a referral to a specialist.

Over the last several years, such questionnaires have increasingly become the standard of care in pediatric practices, but - spurred by legal action - Massachusetts is jumping ahead of other states by requiring the screens for all its young Medicaid recipients.

The new requirement represents "a huge step forward in a direction that is a national trend," said Dr. Robin Adair, a University of Massachusetts Medical School pediatrician and screening specialist.

Supporters say the screening can catch issues earlier, before they develop into hard-to-manage crises.

Skeptics warn that more children could end up on heavy-duty medications that they don't really need.

"In a more perfect world, screening for mental illness amongst children would clearly be a good idea," said Dr. John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and author of "Overdosed America."

"But let's look at the realities of the world we live in," he said. "What happens is that there's a very quick translation of mental health symptoms into drug treatment."

Others wonder how Massachusetts' overburdened mental health system for children will handle the new patients the screening is expected to identify.

Already, children's psychiatrists and psychologists are often overbooked. Children with serious mental illness sometimes end up stuck in psychiatric hospitals for lack of mental health services in the community.

If, as expected, the new screening requirement turns up more children with mental health problems, "I do think it creates a potential additional access problem," said Dr. David DeMaso, chief of psychiatry at Children's Hospital Boston.

The new screening requirement stems from a lawsuit, Rosie D. v. Romney, that accused the state of falling down on its obligations to poor, mentally ill children. The federal judge in the case ruled in January 2006 that Massachusetts must improve its care, and the new requirement is the first step in the state's court-ordered remedy plan.

Families may decline the screening if they wish. If a screen turns up signs of potential trouble, it is also up to the family whether to pursue further help and an official diagnosis.
The new requirement applies to the 460,000 children and young adults covered by MassHealth, the state Medicaid program, at annual checkups from birth to age 21.

The state's private insurers generally already reimburse children's doctors for such written screens, and Medicaid will now pay $9.73 to cover the testing.

The majority of pediatricians still rely on conversational questions such as "How are you doing in school?" or "Does your child have friends?" But research shows that written questionnaires are more accurate at picking up potential problems.

The tests can also home in on children whose problems might otherwise be missed. According to national estimates, about 10 percent of children have some sort of significant psycho-social problem, from hyperactivity to anxiety to stress from living amid domestic violence.

"The earlier we intervene, the more impact we can have on brain development," DeMaso said.

The screening is not meant to produce a diagnosis, but rather to act as a "check engine light," calling attention to a potential problem, said Lisa Lambert, executive director of the Parent/Professional Advocacy League, which represents families with mentally ill children.

"If it lights up, you need to call your mechanic, find out what the problem is and if it needs to be repaired," she said.

One of the league's family support specialists, Kathy Hamelin of Fitchburg, said her own experience as the mother of an autistic son has convinced her that expanded early screening is one of the best things to come out of the Rosie D. case.

When her now 17-year-old son, Kevin, was a toddler, she said, he would scream and cry all the time, smash his head against the wall when frustrated, and flap his hands bizarrely. When she asked her pediatrician about the hand-flapping, he said, "That's nothing. That's just an excitement reflex and he'll outgrow it." In fact, she said, it is a classic autism trait. Kevin's diagnosis and treatment came only years later.

If the pediatrician had used an autism screening tool, it might have sounded an early alarm.

"Our family suffered tremendously because of this," she said, "and I just feel like if he had had early diagnosis, not only the pain and frustration we felt as overwhelmed parents would have been less, but we would have received early intervention," which "would have put him in a much better position than he is now."

As the routine screening gets underway, the state will be tracking how many children are tested and how many screens indicate a need for follow-up, said Emily Sherwood, who is overseeing the state's remedy for the Rosie D. case as director of its Children's Behavioral Health Interagency Initiatives. The state also plans to expand mental health services for children and make them more family friendly.

She said parents and clinicians may decide on a variety of responses to worrisome scores: to wait and watch a while. To handle the problems themselves. Or to seek a referral to a mental health specialist.

The screenings in doctors' offices "help us understand mental health as a part of health," she said. "It's really up to parents and primary care clinicians how they want to use this tool."
Medicaid law already requires that children be screened annually for various problems, such as hearing and vision loss, as well as for mental illness. This new requirement specifies the method of screening for mental health problems, asking clinicians to choose from among eight standard tools for the screening. Each screen is geared toward a target age; some look for specific problems, such as substance abuse and autism.

Research suggests that the screens will boost the number of children referred to mental health providers - but not overwhelmingly.

Dr. Karen Hacker, executive director of the Institute for Community Health at Cambridge Health Alliance, has used and researched mental health screening for four years, and has found that between 5 percent and 7 percent of children score high enough to cause concern. Other practices have found rates as high as 12 percent.

But, she pointed out, many of those children were already in counseling. Some families decided not to pursue further help, and of those who did, many did not show up at appointments. She has not seen a dramatic uptick in the use of psychiatric medications since the screens were added to routine care, she said, though she understands that is a cause for concern.

"We're going to have to see how this unfolds," she said.

Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg@globe.com.

Patients Sue, Say Drug Is Addictive

2007-12-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

The Daily Mail (UK)

17 November, 2007

Sufferers Sue 'Happy Pill' Firm for 30 million GBP

*GBP: In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the British Pound.

Pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-SmithKline is facing a £30million damages claim from users of its anti-depressant Seroxat.

Lawyers representing patients who insist the bestselling drug is addictive have issued the first of 600 High Court writs against the company, each seeking compensation of up to £50,000.

Since first prescribed in Britain in 1990, Seroxat has been linked to at least 50 suicides of adults and children.

GSK, which makes up to £1billion a year from the drug, is already embroiled in lawsuits with American users...

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=494678&in_page_id=1770

Counselor cited for phony billing to hide an affair

2007-12-13T09:56:00.000-08:00

Counselor cited for phony billing to hide an affair with ex-patient

Dec. 13, 2007

BY JOE VANHOOSE
STAR-BANNER

OCALA - The Florida Department of Health has disciplined an Ocala mental health counselor accused of phony billing designed to hide an extramarital affair with a former patient.

His wife - now his ex-wife - kept the books.

Michael Kean Weaver, 52, was reprimanded on Nov. 19 by the State Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling. He currently practices at Rapha Counseling Center in Ocala.

His alleged actions violated a state law prohibiting "misleading, deceptive, untrue, or fraudulent representations in the practice of mental health counseling."

He was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $3,368 in costs and complete 12 hours of ethics classes.

According to the administrative complaint, Weaver had a physical relationship with a former patient from July 2002 through March 2004. Weaver had counseled the patient from June 1997 to April 2000.

Relationships like this, according to an investigator for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida, are occurring more and more frequently.

"I've run into all kinds of cases with psychologists or counselors having sex with their patients, probably over 100 over the last few years," said Ken Kramer, an investigator for the commission who monitors state reports daily. "But what's really interesting about this case is that he faked documents to cover up his affair. I've never seen that before."

To keep his wife from finding out about his extramarital relationship, Weaver created billing records that indicated the patient received treatment through March 2004, according to the complaint.

In a settlement signed Sept. 12, Weaver acknowledged probable cause for the case against him but did not accept or deny the allegations. He refused to comment Wednesday to the Star-Banner.

Kramer believes that Weaver got off too easy.

"There's a lot more the board could have done, like take away his license," Kramer said. "If you sleep with a current patient, that's a felony. He changed his records to make her a current patient."

Read the original article here.

Watchdog Says Omaha Mall Shootings Reflect Why They Launched Startling PSAs

2007-12-10T03:38:00.000-08:00

How Many Antidepressant-Induced Massacres Will It Take To Get Federal Investigation?

LOS ANGELES: 19-year-old Robert Hawkins, who killed eight people and wounded five before committing suicide in an Omaha, Nebraska mall, appears to be the latest kid killer under the influence of psychiatric drugs (click here for CNN video) documented to cause violence, mania, psychosis, suicide and “homicidal ideation.” With ten recent school shooters under the influence of psychiatric drugs, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) a mental health watchdog, says the government can no longer ignore the violence inducing effects of these drugs and must launch a federal investigation. With 39 dead and 84 wounded from these ten recent drug-induced shootings alone, CCHR produced a series of three startling new PSAs, called “Get the Facts - Fight Back”, depicting the consequences of prescribing violence and suicide inducing psychiatric drugs to children and teens (click here to watch PSAs).

The groups says the evidence of drugs causing violence, murder and homicide is overwhelming – yet ignored due to billions in drug company/psychiatric profits. In September 2006, Dr. David Healy, director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine, and colleagues published the findings of their study of the antidepressant, Paxil, in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine stating: “We've got good evidence that the drugs can make people violent and you'd have to reason from that that there may be more episodes of violence.” (link)

Fox National News reporter Douglas Kennedy exposed the link between school shooters and antidepressant/psychiatric drug use in his ground breaking expose “Deadly Drugs” as far back as 2002. (link)

Despite the deadly side effects, antidepressants are commonly prescribed to children and teens, raking in $20.6 billion in profits worldwide in 2006. In the meantime, the senseless drug-induced violence continues, taking a heavy toll on our nation’s children and teens.

CCHR launched the PSAs to help galvanize the public to demand a federal investigation of the violence inducing effects of psychiatric drugs before more children and innocent bystanders are murdered. The group fought for more than a decade against vested psychiatric and pharmaceutical interests to have black box suicide warnings added to antidepressants, and was the first to expose the suicidal effects of the drugs in 1991 – 13 years before the government took action and finally issued the black box suicide warnings on all antidepressant drugs in 2004. Click here to watch a video of the 1991 FDA hearing on antidepressants and violence/suicide.

CCHR has also published a report Psychiatric Drugs and Anger Management Curricula—A Perspective on School Violence, which can be found by clicking here.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Contact CCHR's Media Department at 800-869-2247 or humanrights@cchr.org.

Omaha Shooter Robert Hawkins Had Been "Treated" For ADHD, Depression

2007-12-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

Read this right-on article about the shooting in Omaha by Mike Adams. It's at http://www.newstarget.com/022330.html

Adams says (NewsTarget) America seems shocked that, yet again, a young male would pick up an assault rifle and murder his fellow citizens, then take his own life. This is what happened last night in Omaha, Nebraska, where the 19-year-old Hawkins killed himself and eight other people with an assault rifle. Those lacking keen observation skills are quick to blame guns for this tragedy, but others who are familiar with the history of such violent acts by young males instantly recognize a more sinister connection: A history of treatment with psychiatric drugs for depression and ADHD.

It all started in Columbine, Colorado, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold massacred their way into the history books on April 20, 1999 by killing 12 and wounding 23 people. The mainstream media virtually glorified the event, yet utterly failed to report the connection between violence in young men and treatment with psychiatric drugs. (Both Harris and Klebold were taking antidepressant drugs.)

It's a little known fact that antidepressant drugs have never been tested on children nor approved by the FDA for use on children. It is well established in the scientific literature, however, that such drugs cause young men to think violent thoughts and commit violent acts. This is precisely why the U.K. has outright banned the prescribing of such drugs to children. Yet here in the United States -- the capitol of gun violence by kids on depression drugs -- the FDA and drug companies pretend that mind-altering drugs have no link whatsoever to behavior.

Adams goes on to cite enormous evidence linking mind-altering drugs with violent acts.

The truth is coming out.

New CCHR Interview with Former Eli Lilly Drug Chemist

2007-12-04T04:21:00.000-08:00

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) U.S. President Bruce Wiseman interviews chemist Shane Ellison in this new “Take America Back” radio show exposing the corruption within the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries. (link)

Ellison abandoned his career in manufacturing drugs for Eli Lilly when he discovered that the drugs he was making were not intended to cure real diseases. Instead, he discovered that “illnesses,” including ADHD and depression, were being invented and marketed to the population so that drugs could be sold to virtually any healthy individual. Ellison explains that the drugs often cause the very symptoms they are supposed to “cure”. After leaving the pharmaceutical industry, Ellison became an authority on therapeutic nutrition, starting a company that offers nutritional supplements and writing a book called Health Myths Exposed.

Wiseman points out that the black box warnings on antidepressants exemplifies how the drugs can cause serious side effects, including what they allegedly cure—antidepressants allegedly alleviate depression but in fact can cause suicidal thoughts and behavior. Confirming that none of the drugs are curing depression whatsoever, Ellison likens antidepressants to a chemical lobotomy.

With Pharma money and their lobbyists heavily influencing politicians, the host warns that two bills are currently pending in Congress forwarding the profitable lie that psychiatric diagnoses are real and need “treatment”.

Wiseman urges listeners to contact their federal representatives and insist that these measures are not passed: The Mental Health Parity Bill, which mandates that insurance cover psychiatric treatment equally with physical treatment, and the Mother’s Act, which supports “mental health screening” of new moms.

Click here to listen to the show.

Bipolar Kids or Bad Parents?

2007-12-03T15:35:00.001-08:00

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07322/834548-109.stm

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Bipolar kids or bad parents?

At the urging of parents, doctors are medicating far too many kids who just need a better upbringing, according to

Dr. Elizabeth J. Roberts who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and the author of "Should You Medicate Your Child's Mind?"

Sunday, November 18, 2007

On Dec. 13, 2006, 4-year-old Rebecca Riley died, drowning in her own lung secretions. Her death was the direct result of psychiatric medications which had been prescribed to her for a presumed diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- a diagnosis first given to her when she was only 2 years old.

In September 2007, researchers at Columbia University reported that there had been a 40-fold increase in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder from 1994 to 2003 -- an increase which has shown no signs of slowing.

Worse than the current frenzy to diagnose children with bipolar disorder is the practice of medicating kids as young as 2 with the kinds of psychiatric medications that were once prescribed only to psychotic adults. The shocking reality is that the use of these potent anti-psychotic drugs in children increased more than 500 percent between 1993 and 2002.

This dramatic rise in childhood bipolar disorder has spurred a raging debate in the mental health field. Some psychiatrists insist that this incredible increase is entirely due to the identification of mentally ill children who had been previously overlooked.

Yet a 4,000 percent increase in childhood mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, is simply implausible and difficult to justify based solely on improved diagnostic techniques. To the contrary, in the 30-plus years that I have been treating, educating and caring for children -- half of that time as a child psychiatrist -- I have found that the approach to diagnostics in psychiatry clearly has deteriorated over time, not improved.

There was a time when doctors insisted on hours of evaluation with a child and his parents before venturing a psychiatric diagnosis or prescribing a medication. Today many of my colleagues brag that they can complete an initial assessment of a child and write a prescription in less than 20 minutes. Many parents have told me it took a previous doctor less than five minutes to diagnose and medicate their child.

How, then, is it possible that in 2007 doctors are now able to identify hundreds of thousands of previously missed cases of bipolar disorder in children by reducing the time they spend with patients from multiple hours to just a few minutes?

On the other hand, there simply is no possible way that the number of children who actually have bipolar disorder has increased from approximately 20,000 to 800,000 in a nine-year period. Yet the arguments of skeptics are being dismissed by academics in psychiatry. Research psychiatrists appear to be more invested in defending their research conclusions -- funded by pharmaceutical companies -- than engaging in a meaningful discussion to examine these preposterous demographics.

What I find more astounding than the claim that there are 800,000 American children with bipolar disorder is the fact that there are that many children whose conduct is so aberrant that their parents are seeking psychiatric treatment for them.

The symptoms, which are regarded as evidence of bipolar disorder, usually are what most people recognize as ordinary belligerence. Children who have anger outbursts, who refuse to go to bed, who are moody and self-centered under the current standard of care in child psychiatry are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To most rational human beings, these behaviors describe an ill-mannered, immature and poorly disciplined child. Nonetheless, the temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized by doctors as the mood swings of bipolar disorder.

The over-indulgent parenting practices of the past 20 years have created a generation of dysfunctional children who are becoming increasingly more entitled, defiant and oppositional. In a poll by Associated Press-Ipsos, 93 percent of people surveyed said that today's parents are not doing a good job when it comes to teaching their kids to behave. According to Dan Kindlon, a Harvard psychologist, 50 percent of the parents he interviewed described themselves as more permissive than their parents had been.

The permissive parents of spoiled children seek refuge from blame by using the excuse that their child's angry outbursts are the result of a chemical imbalance. Since a psychiatric condition is completely beyond a parent's control, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder is the perfect alibi. Once a child has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a parent feels absolved of guilt or responsibility for the child's misbehavior and therefore, the parents' discipline practices cannot be called into question.

Parents looking for a psychiatric explanation for their child's misbehavior will find an abundance of support in the media and on the Web for the conclusion that their child's temper tantrums are due to a psychiatric disease rather than the result of bad parenting. Psychiatrists, for their part, are more than willing to accept, without question, the assessment offered by a parent. Doctors have found it easier and less contentious to comply with a parent's wish to have their child diagnosed with a psychiatric condition than to confront the parent with the notion that their own weak parenting is the root cause of the child's aberrant behavior.

Using the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, doctors then justify the sedation of these children with powerful psychiatric drugs. Even though some children treated with anti-psychotics may be temporarily sedated, their belligerent attitude continues unchanged. Of the many children I treat every year who had been previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, not one of them stopped throwing tantrums after being treated with psychiatric medications. Yet doctors continue to misdiagnose and overmedicate children to appease frustrated parents in spite of the many serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.

Tragically, as in the death of Rebecca Riley, her parents administered the multiple medications prescribed by their psychiatrist for Rebecca's "bipolar disorder" until the meds killed her. A few weeks ago, in an interview on 60 Minutes, Rebecca's mother told Katie Couric that she now believes that her four-year-old daughter had been misdiagnosed, had never been bipolar, and that Rebecca was simply mischievous.

When it comes to misdiagnosing and overmedicating children, doctors have an unwitting, though not unwilling, accomplice -- the parent. Ultimately, it is the parent who is the gatekeeper for their child's health-care delivery. It is the parent who pursues psychiatric treatment for their child, fills the prescriptions and administers the medications. Parents have a duty to protect their children from the folly of this disastrous approach to childhood behavior problems.

Instead of grooming, feeding and educating the next generation of Americans to be the fittest, brightest, most competent contributors on the planet, we have indulged, placated and spoiled our children into dysfunctional misfits. We are teaching our children to use a psychiatric diagnosis to excuse their antisocial behaviors. This will inevitably lead to a greater reliance on psychiatric medications, which unfortunately do not endow an individual with improved self-control or maturity.

Under the guise of treating childhood bipolar disorder, the spoiling of American children not only undermines their healthy social development, but it also puts them at great risk for the serious medical complications inherent in the use of psychiatric medications, including death.

Another Psychiatrist Child-Abuser Goes To Jail

2007-11-13T12:19:00.001-08:00

Texas Psych Rape Law Bags Another Mental Health Provider

McAllen, Texas - A Hidalgo County jury today sentenced licensed professional counselor Sigifredo Flores, 52, of Progreso Lakes, to 27 years in prison for sexually assaulting patients in his care. An investigation by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) revealed that Flores sexually abused two children and two adults during counseling sessions. This is the latest prosecution under Texas’s psych rape law, which makes it a criminal offense for mental health professionals to have sexual relations with patients.

“For a mental health practitioner to take sexual liberties with a patient is one of the more reprehensible acts of psychiatric abuse,” said Jerry Boswell, President of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights Texas. “I have to say that a long sentence like this was the end result we envisioned when we helped get the psych rape law passed in the early 1990’s. When you think of the incredible position of power and trust that these people hold, and the utterly dependent nature of their patients, we must send a strong message that if you work in mental health and engage in such egregious behavior, you will go to jail for a very long time.”

Psychiatrists Reach For The Jackpot

2007-11-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

Psychiatrists are presently trying to push through Congress a bill called "Mental Health Parity" which puts mental health on a footing with conventional medical care. This is in spite of the fact that mental "diseases" are a matter of opinion, and can't be proven or disproven scientifically. With a free ticket to treat anyone who has a mental disease, all any mental health practitioner has to do is opinionate that someone has xxx wrong with them, and the bill gets paid by insurance companies. It would be impossible, or at least fraud, for a doctor to claim you have appendicitis when you don't and charge for an operation. But in the murky world of mental health, the situation is much more ambiguous. Here's a letter from the president of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights regarding lobbying efforts to defeat this bill. It includes a request for help. Do so if you can.

The billing bible would be DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Edition IV) which lists all the supposed psychiatric illnesses. The disorders in this manual are put there by vote, literally. By a show of hands. Someone makes a speech about some new mental syndrome at a national convention, then the people present vote on whether that syndrome should be included as a legitimate psychiatric disease! No blood test, no CT Scan, nothing. Just opinion.

Dear Friend and Supporter,

The federal Mental Health Parity bill is rearing its ugly head once again – and this time it’s closer than ever to being passed. In fact, the Senate has already passed their version of the bill, and the House has passed it through one subcommittee and a full committee. It is expected to come to the floor of the House for a vote within the next two weeks! Mental Health Parity in the House bill (H.R. 1424) would mean that insurance should be mandated to cover treatment of all 374 mental disorders in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) at a cost of more than $23 billion to taxpayers over the next 10 years.

Psychiatrists now market the bogus idea that DSM-IV disorders such as “Expressive Writing Disorder,” “Mathematics Disorder,” “Caffeine Withdrawal,” “Phase of Life Problem,” and “Sibling Relational Problem,” are as legitimate as cancer and diabetes. By lobbying heavily for the political enforcement of these diagnoses through mandated mental health parity, psychiatry makes certain that millions of lives conform to its standard for "treatment" with drugs.

While these "disorders" could be considered laughable by any rational individual, if mandated mental health parity goes through with DSM-IV in it, psychiatry will be doing the laughing—all the way to the bank. None of the disorders can be medically proven.

Enormous pressure has been brought to bear on politicians by psychiatry's alarmist statements and statistics about the state of mental health in our nation. Members of the Senate passed their version of mental health parity, sensibly without covering the entire DSM-IV. However, the House version does contain DSM-IV and we need help to get it taken out of the bill!

Don’t underestimate the power that you as an individual can add to this forward push right now. With your help CCHR can take very aggressive action toward stopping this bill in its tracks as it is written.

To right this atrocity, we’re organizing professionals to go and educate members of Congress immediately with data on how absurd it would be to cover the entire DSM-IV. We’re also producing an updated White Paper on Mental Health Parity that will need to be printed and sent to every member of the House (all 435) early next week so they have the true data on what this bill, as is, will do.

This is a major battle. Win this one and we have a very substantial win for our families, our futures, and ourselves. Thus, we need as much help as we can get to pull it off. Donations of $1,000 or more receive a special commendation. Your donation could actually make the difference in whether or not we have that win.

Sincerely,

Bruce Wiseman
President CCHR for U.S.

Make a Donation by Calling
800-869-2247

Or go to www.cchr.org/donate

Prozac and Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Causes Internal Bleeding

2007-11-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

A drug from the class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil, added to a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), such as Motrin, Aspirin or Celebrex, can interact to increase the risk of upper gastrointestinal bleeding, according to a report in current issue of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

"Before I did this study, I didn't worry at all when I saw patients who were on combination SSRIs and NSAIDs," Dr. Yoon K. Loke from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK told Reuters Health. "Now that I have seen the fairly substantial excess risk (beyond even what I had imagined beforehand), physicians should carefully review the patients' charts — do they need to be on these drugs (at all), or are there safer alternatives?"

Loke and colleagues conducted a review to investigate the risk of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage with SSRIs and to evaluate the possibility of an interaction between SSRIs and NSAIDs contributing to such bleeding.

The researchers analyzed the findings of four studies containing 153,000 patients and found that those taking SSRIs alone had 2.4-times the risk of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage and those taking NSAIDs alone had 3.2-times the risk. However, in patients taking both SSRIs and NSAIDs the risk of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage was 6.3-times greater than normal.

Based on these findings, the investigators estimate that a patient would most likely develop a problem after taking an SSRI 318 times per year. However, for those taking both drugs, they would only need to take them 82 times before an adverse evident would occur, Lok's group predicts.

For those with other risk factors for gastrointestinal bleeding, the number would be even lower, the researchers estimate.

In postmarketing reports to regulatory agencies, the average time to occurrence of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage was after 25 weeks of SSRI treatment, with 38 percent of the reported cases occurring in patients younger than 60 years.

"Fewer people might be harmed from drug overdose with SSRIs (than with tricyclic antidepressants), but this is very likely to be counterbalanced by an excess of admissions with GI bleeding (thus increasing the costs and workload of the health service, and reducing the cost-effectiveness of the drug)," Loke said.

If a patient had "depression and arthritis, (both of which are very common), alarm bells would now ring in my mind and I would think carefully about which drugs to use," Loke said. "The benefit-to-harm profile needs to be thoroughly considered, given the substantial risks of harm here."

SOURCE: Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, October 5, 2007.

Pharma Hand Seen Behind Alarmist Suicide Statistics

2007-10-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Best Syndication ran the article, "Pharma Hand Seen Behind Alarmist Suicide Statistics" regarding the fact that long before The New York Times reported this month that youth suicides were up 8% from 2003 to 2004 and experts blamed an "antidepressant deficiency," Big Pharma was trying to plant the story.

The suicide increases actually correlated with a period of increased use of antidepressants, not decreased use.

The article covers the series of articles in scientific publications that set the stage for the final American Journal of Psychiatry study (that has now been discredited in other media reports) entitled "Early Evidence on the Effects of Regulators' Suicidality Warnings on SSRI Prescriptions and Suicide in Children and Adolescents." In her article, Martha Rosenberg exposes the financial conflicts of interest that many of the psychiatrists who wrote the reports had with the pharmaceutical industry. The first article in the series was written by a consultant to Eli Lilly, and was followed by an article written by four representatives of a private "drug development services" company called Quintiles Transnational.
http://newsblaze.com/story/20070921070012rose.nb/
newsblaze/OPINIONS/Opinions.html

2007-10-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

FYI: CHADD is one the biggest Pharma front groups around. Read the following article which is by a colleague of mine and pass it far and wide. The heavy metals, allergies, and nutritional testing is definitely the way to go for ADHD symptoms. The ADHD pharmacologics have never been proven effective and are extremely dangerous to our children as you know! --Gwen

http://psychiatrized.org/Articles/why_was_steve_plog_fired_by_chad.htm

Why was Steve Plog fired by ChADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder) for talking about lab tests & nutrition?

My name is Steven Plog. In Jan of 2006, I served as the Las Vegas coordinator for ChADD
My position lasted just 30 days.

I'm 52 now, but at the age of 39 in a 30 minute interview with a psychiatrist recommended to me
by ChADD in Chicago, I was diagnosed by a visual evaluation as having "so-called ADD" and
given a prescription of Ritalin. Later I found out I was toxic and suffering from nutrient depletions,
not a neurotransmitter malfunction in my brain, that was diagnosed by simply talking to me.

ChADD claims to be a grass-roots support group for persons with “so-called” ADD, like me.
My firing for talking about nutrition proves that ChADD, in fact, is not a grass-roots group at
all, but is simply a front group for the psycho-pharmaceutical industry and drug companies,
working to forward their specific messages and increase profits.

I'm now founder of The Results Project www.resultsproject.net a non-profit organization who
is dedicated to getting people a proper diagnosis using lab tests, not visual evaluations.

In Sept of 2005 Heather Rockow then ChADD Coordinator for Las Vegas came to my meeting
where I presented lab test for symptoms of hyperactivity, depression, mood swings, attention
span etc.(With information from the lab tests, nutrition is the next step, not drugs. FYI)

Heather realized I had better information and better science than she was being sent by
ChADD and joined my 4 month program to help her husband, who was on 7 prescription
drugs per day and had been for 20 years. Turns out he was high in toxic metals and suffered
from multiple delayed food allergies. Dr. Robert Ellsworth, the doctor who orders the tests
said that after looking at the lab results stated that none of these results could be treated
with drugs, in fact they would make them worse.

Later, Heather stepped down from ChADD and recommenced me for the position.

I became the ChADD Chapter Coordinator for Las Vegas on January 1, 2006. Thinking
that other ChADD Coordinators might want this information like Heather did I called ChADD
HQ and asked if I could put a full page, full color ad in their ChADD magazine for a full year
about nutrition and lab tests.They said, "No".

When I asked why, they said all of their magazines are donated, and only the donors get their
info published. Big Pharma, selling Ritalin, Adderall etc., is the donor.

I then asked if I could donate an alternative magazine that I fund and send to ChADD Coordinators
to distribute for free to parents with info on lab tests and nutrition just like the drug companies.
They said, "No".

When I asked why, ChADD contends that they only distribute information that has science behind it,
and nutrition has none. Zero, Zip, Zilch. I said, "What about the over 100,000 published research
papers in major medical journals like JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, www.pubmed.gov of which many are by Nobel Prize Winners in Medicine?"

ChADD replied that the subject is closed for discussion and hung up on me.

Later they found out I was talking about lab tests and nutrition in my ChADD weekly meetings in
Vegas and terminated me as the Coordinator.

Ruth Hughes Deputy CEO of ChADD personally called me up to fire me. We talked for an hour and I
brought up multiple references such as:

American Naturopathic Medical Association (ANMA) (www.anma.com)
American Association of Orthomolecular Physicians ( www.orthomolecular.org)
Institute for Traditional Medicine ( www.itmonline.org )
American Nutraceutical Association (ANA) (www.ana-jana.org )

I told Ruth there's more proof from labs that nutrition works than there is proof that Lincoln was ever
president of the US. For an hour I brought up fact after fact that she couldn't dispute so she would
say; "We'll have to agree to disagree."

I also pointed out the ChADD Motto right out of their Coordinator Manual states:

"It is the philosophy of ChADD that persons seeking information, non-judgmental support and education
about AD/HD be able to participate in a setting which is non-discriminatory and promotes recognized
best practices." Link from Manual http://www.resultsproject.net/gfx/CHADD1.png

When I asked, "Wouldn't lab tests recognized by the FDA, AMA and NIH as "best practices" qualify to
be presented to parents in an unbiased ChADD meeting?"

She said, "We'll have to agree to disagree."

When I asked if I could bring outside materials to the open meetings Ruth said, "No products can be
sold in ChADD meetings." I asked why then meetings I've been to in Orlando & Dallas had drug reps
in the meeting presenting?" Ruth said, "We'll have to agree to disagree," fired me and hung up.
Termination Letter: http://www.resultsproject.net/gfx/CHADD2.png Last week I sent out an invitation to over 100 ChADD Coordinators across America after getting their
contact info from their website inviting them to my EXPO featuring speakers from top labs in the country.

This EXPO is open to parents, teachers, doctors and child advocates dealing with "so-called ADD"
What's Causing My Symptoms? http://www.whatcausedmysymptoms.com/ Sept. 14th Las Vegas.
(If you would like to attend the Vegas EXPO click the above link)

The invitation stated that as a ChADD Coordinator they could attend for FREE and then I gave them a
link with all the speakers. ( www.whatcausedmysymptoms.com/html/speakers.html )

These labs provide tests to measure sugar levels, food allergies, hormone levels, metal toxicity, nutrient
depletions, serotonin levels and anti-oxidants. These lab tests can point to physical causes for symptoms
such as bad memory, low attention span, hyperactivity, mood swings, anger, depression, fatigue,
restlessness, headaches, insomnia.

They also show that Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta & Prozac are not needed at all. Once the nutritional
deficiencies are addressed, most if not all of the symptoms disappear.

Their response? 100% turned me down and 5 threatened me for emailing them the invitation. Why would
100% of the people who supposedly care about children, not want to see evidence based solutions to
safely reverse a child's symptoms?

ChADD is a big supporter of TeenScreen another Big Pharma backed program that will have children
take a simple 20 question test and then if the laymen who scores it gets the score they want, that
child will be sent to a psychiatrist who will give them a visual evaluation with no lab testing and then
according to the latest study by, J AM Academy Adolescent Psychiatry 2002; 41:123-130
"9 out of 10 new psychiatrist will be put those children on drugs."

ChADD is just another front group for Big Pharma, which uses psychiatry to sell unnecessary,
dangerous, mind-altering drugs to children. They have over 20,000 members who are being told
that lab tests are unreliable and a psychiatrist visual evaluation is science and the drugs are
for an unseen mental problem.

If your doctor looked at you and said you had cancer (without conducting any tests) would you believe the diagnosis? Why then when a psychiatrist looks at you and says you need Ritalin, do you believe it?

Story Of A Small Boy

2007-10-17T18:05:00.001-07:00

I just got this email. It's not really on line with our core message, which is the fact that SSRI anti-depressants, far from healing people mentally, make homicidal and suicidal killing machines. But this message certainly communicates the insanity that has infiltrated our society and our school system. It illustrates the problem with psych-oriented society and education:

Another success story- Many more need our help!

This young boy was only 2 years old when the pre-school teacher told his mom that he was not "fitting in". He was not willing to sing his "ABC" song, although he knew his alphabet perfectly. He apparently didn't glue things "correctly" on a page, and that was unsatisfactory to the teacher.

This young boy was put on an amphetamine drug that caused him to have severe weight loss, sleepless nights and his heart beating out of his chest, all upon the recommendation of a psychologist who said her son had ADHD.

This type of thing occurs on a regular basis!

This mom was fortunate in that she recognized the need to seek an alternative health practitioner who could help her son to safely get off of the drug and to get on a natural protocol to help heal the body.

This mom is now one of CCHR Florida's biggest and most helpful advocates!

I am asking you to come by my office or call me. I would like to have the opportunity to fill you in on what we are doing, as a team, to eradicate the harmful practices in the field of mental health.

One more person can make a difference and you can be that one person to join our team!

CCHR Florida has many different projects that can be done in life, at home, in our office, yet these projects need to be manned up.

Experience the pride of working with a team that gets the job done!

Call now or come by the office!

Laurie Anspach

Executive Director

CCHR Florida

1217 N. Ft. Harrison Ave., Clearwater

727-442-8820

Court Records Show Psych Drugs Involved In School Shooting

2007-10-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

COURT RECORDS SHED NEW LIGHT ON OHIO SCHOOL SHOOTER

Asa Coon May Be Another Teen Under

the Influence of Psychiatric Drugs Resulting

in 29 Dead and 68 Wounded.

Cleveland juvenile court records obtained by the psychiatric watchdog group Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) show that Asa Coon, the 14-year-old Ohio school shooter who wounded four before taking his own life on Wednesday, had been prescribed psychiatric drugs including Trazodone, an antidepressant, and Clonidine, prescribed for “ADHD.” Although The New York Times reported that Coon had refused to take his “medication,” it failed to mention that the court records also state that the “Child shall be evaluated by a psychiatrist to review his medication and he shall follow all recommendations, including taking medications as prescribed.” This was in June 2006, and by November, the court determined that these conditions were met and the boy’s probation was consequently terminated.

CCHR’s long-standing investigation into the correlation between suicidal and homicidal effects of antidepressant drugs, predating the FDA's black box suicide warnings by more than 15 years, maintains that the drugs are often linked to acts of senseless violence yet this fact is often swept under the rug. Recent school shootings by teens under the influence of psychiatric drugs, documented by the FDA to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and “homicidal ideation,” have resulted in 29 dead and 68 wounded. With many other school shooters, their psychiatric drug use has never received the investigation merited by the violence-inducing effects of the drugs. Frequently, toxicology reports or medical records are never disclosed, or in the case of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, toxicology tests were only done on blood and not tissue, which would reveal if the shooter was experiencing violent withdrawal symptoms. A thorough toxicology report was merited by Cho’s former roommate’s observation of the shooter taking “prescription medication” as part of his daily routine, along with the fact that Cho’s records reveal he was prescribed psychiatric drugs in high school.

School shootings committed by individuals under the influence of psychiatric drugs include:

March 21, 2005: Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota: 16-year-old Jeff Weise, reportedly under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac, went on a shooting rampage at home and at his school, killing nine people and wounding seven before committing suicide.

April 10, 2001: Wahluke, Washington: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school, and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage while on a high dose of the antidepressant Effexor.

March 22, 2001: El Cajon, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants, Effexor and Celexa, when he opened fire at his California high school wounding five.

May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded 6 of his classmates.

April 20, 1999: Columbine, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others before taking their own lives. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in his system through toxicology reports while Dylan Klebold’s autopsy was never made public.

May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac.

Following the Red Lake Indian Reservation shooting in September 2005, the National Foundation of Women Legislators, together with American Indian tribal leaders, called for a Congressional investigation into the correlation between psychiatric drug use and school massacres. However, Congress has yet to investigate the psychiatric drug link to these senseless acts of violence. According to CCHR, an immediate Congressional investigation into this link is necessary to help prevent further tragedies in our nation’s schools.

For more information, read CCHR’s publication, Psychiatric Drugs and Anger Management Curricula—A Perspective on School Violence.

More Psychiatrists In Hot Water

2007-10-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

There are now over 1700 entries on the public records page: http://www.psychsearch.net/public_records.html

State suspends Vero Beach psychiatrist's license after NYC charges revealed

By James Kirley
October 5, 2007

Vero Beach

The Florida Department of Health issued an emergency suspension of a Vero Beach psychiatrist's medical license this week after learning the doctor pleaded "not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect" to charges that he tried to kidnap a 2-year-old from his mother in New York City last year.

The doctor later told a court he thought the mother was from outer space. Dr. William John Johns III, 35, has been incarcerated in New York since his arrest in July 2006. "He believed he was a character in a movie and that other people were actually actors observing him," the order reads. Some time later, Johns reportedly drove to New York City. Along the way he tore a medication patch from his arm, heard voices and thought he was Jesus Christ, the order states

Psychiatrist Reprimanded!?!? in 2002 Drug Intoxication Death

Dr. Charles Dack of Lakeland must pay a $6,000 fine and attend classes.
By Robin Williams Adams

October 6, 2007
The Ledger - Orlando

A Lakeland psychiatrist brought before the Florida Board of Medicine on Friday after one of his patients died of "multiple drug intoxication" will get a reprimand, pay a $6,000 fine and attend classes intended to prevent similar situations.

Dack treated a woman for seven years for depression and back pain. Before her death in March 2002, the state's administrative complaint said, she was on 1,300 milligrams of morphine a day and on 300 milligrams a day of Elavil, an antidepressant that also can be used to treat chronic pain. In addition to those drugs, Dack also prescribed other medicines.

Story here: http://www.theledger.com/article/20071006/NEWS/710060417/1134

A Congressman Speaks Out On Big Pharma's Pet Plan

2007-10-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul's

Texas Straight Talk

A Weekly Column

9/30/2007

Congressional Control of Health Care is Dangerous for Children

This week Congress is again grasping for more control over the health of American children with the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Parents who think federally subsidized health care might be a good idea should be careful what they wish for.

Despite political rhetoric about a War on Drugs, federally-funded programs result in far more teenage drug use than the most successful pill pusher on the playground. These pills are given out as a result of dubious universal mental health screening programs for school children, supposedly directed toward finding mental disorders or suicidal tendencies. The use of antipsychotic medication in children has increased fivefold between 1995 and 2002. More than 2.5 million children are now taking these medications, and many children are taking multiple drugs at one time.

With universal mental health screening being implemented in schools, pharmaceutical companies stand to increase their customer base even more, and many parents are rightfully concerned. Opponents of one such program called TeenScreen, claim it wrongly diagnoses children as much as 84% of the time, often incorrectly labeling them, resulting in the assigning of medications that can be very damaging. While we are still awaiting evidence that there are benefits to mental health screening programs, evidence that these drugs actually cause violent psychotic episodes is mounting.

Many parents have very valid concerns about the drugs to which a child labeled as “suicidal” or “depressed,” or even ADHD, could be subjected. Of further concern is the subjectivity of diagnosis of mental health disorders. The symptoms of ADHD are strikingly similar to indications that a child is gifted, and bored in an unchallenging classroom. In fact, these programs, and many of the syndromes they attempt to screen for, are highly questionable. Parents are wise to question them.

As it stands now, parental consent is required for these screening programs, but in some cases mere passive consent is legal. Passive consent is obtained when a parent receives a consent form and fails to object to the screening. In other words, failure to reply is considered affirmative consent. In fact, TeenScreen advocates incorporating their program into the curriculum as a way to by-pass any consent requirement. These universal, or mandatory, screening programs being called for by TeenScreen and the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health should be resisted.

Consent must be express, written, voluntary and informed. Programs that refuse to give parents this amount of respect, should not receive federal funding. Moreover, parents should not be pressured into screening or drugging their children with the threat that not doing so constitutes child abuse or neglect. My bill, The Parental Consent Act of 2007 is aimed at stopping federal funding of these programs.

We don’t need a village, a bureaucrat, or the pharmaceutical industry raising our children. That’s what parents need to be doing.

Bad Drugs Getting Bad Press

2007-10-05T09:45:00.001-07:00

The press is catching on about Prozac and other psychiatric drugs and their ill effects. Here are some examples of recent articles:

. The New York Times ran an article entitled "Senators Seek Public Listing of Payments to Doctors" regarding the bill introduced by Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) that require the makers of drugs and medical devices to report publicly nearly all payments and gifts to doctors. The bill results from growing concerns that free meals and consulting payments-which in some cases have exceeded $100,000 annually-lead doctors to prescribe more expensive drugs and devices, increasing the costs of health care and sometimes endangering patients. Companies with at least $100 million in annual revenues would have to make quarterly disclosures of gifts or payments that exceed $25, and the reports would be posted on a website. "Right now, the public has no way to know whether a doctor's been given money that might affect prescribing habits," said Senator Charles E.
Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and one of the bill's authors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/washington/07doctors.html?ref=us

. The Chicago Tribune published an article entitled, "Drug-related deaths, injuries reported to FDA surged between 1998-2005, study finds:
Report expected to add momentum to push in Washington to reform the federal government's monitoring of prescription drugs." A new study in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine found that the number of serious drug injuries and deaths reported to the FDA have already more than doubled between 1998 and 2005. This information adds to a growing momentum for Congress to enact strong monitoring of prescription drugs by the FDA.
Senator Charles Grassley stated, "This report is another indication that the FDA's post-market review of drugs must be rigorous and timely. The FDA needs to commit itself to considering and acting on the additional data gathered from more adverse events being reported considering the deaths associated with these adverse drug events."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070910fda,0,1014894.story

. Pharmalot.com ran an article entitled "Antidepressant Use and Conflicts of Interest" about the controversy over the financial conflicts of interest between the pharmaceutical and psychiatric industries. The journalist, Ed Silverman, points out that (at least) two of the authors of a recent pro-psych study have ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/09/antidepressants-suicide-and-conflicts-of-interest/

. RxPG News ran an article entitled "Depression: SSRI anti-depressants may cause stillbirth" about how women who take antidepressants during pregnancy face the risk of a stillborn baby, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Canadian researchers at the University of Ottawa compared the health of babies born to
972 women taking SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) with that of babies born to mothers who did not use anti-depressants. They found that women using the drugs were twice as likely to have a stillbirth, and were twice as likely to have a low birth weight baby and also more likely to have seizures.
http://www.rxpgnews.com/antidepressants/SSRI_anti- depressants_may_cause_stillbirth_3965_3965.shtml

. FOX News ran an article on its website entitled "Anna Nicole Smith Psychiatrist Forced to Close Office Amid Financial Woes" regarding how Dr.
Khristine Eroshevic, who wrote 11 different prescriptions for Smith, has already closed one of her offices due to a current Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation. The psychiatrist blames it on bad press and the fallout from being accused of filling a medicine cabinet on behalf of Smith.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295785,00.html

. Forbes.com ran an article entitled "Food Additives Could Fuel Hyperactivity in Kids-Study makes first link between colorings, preservatives and behavioral woes" that covers how British researchers found some common food colorings and preservatives appear to increase the risk of hyperactive behavior among children. The link between food additives and hyperactivity has long been suspected, but this is the first study to show a direct connection. In the study, published in the Sept. 6 issue of The Lancet, researchers gave drinks containing additives to 297 children. The children were in two groups: 3 year olds and 8 and 9 year olds. The drinks contained artificial food coloring and additives such as sodium benzoate, a preservative. As a control, some children were given drinks without additives. Over the six weeks of the trial, researchers found that children in both age groups who drank the drinks containing additives displayed significantly more hyperactive behavior. These children also had shorter attention spans.
http://www.forbes.com/health/feeds/hscout/2007/09/06/hscout608014.html

Another State Sues Eli Lilly Over Zyprexa

2007-09-22T16:56:00.001-07:00

Arkansas is planning a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Astra Zeneca for “improper and unlawful marketing” of anti-psychotic drugs. The drugs in question are Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel. The Medicaid program of Arkansas has spent $200 million on those drugs over the last eight years and, under Arkansas’ Medicaid fraud law, the state could collect three times that much.

You can find copies of the lawsuits other states have filed here: www.psychsearch.net/lawsuits.html along with newspaper articles.

The tally so far?

8 States have sued Eli Lilly regarding Zyprexa: Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia.

3 states have sued Janssen regarding Risperdal: Louisiana, Texas and Pennsylvania

1 state has sued AstraZeneca regarding Seroquel: Pennsylvania

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/202128/

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

State plans lawsuit against drug firms

BY SETH BLOMELEY

September 22, 2007

Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel told lawmakers Friday he’s planning a lawsuit against three major pharmaceutical manufacturers over a “marketing scheme” for anti-psychotic drugs paid for by the state Medicaid program.

Some taking the drugs shouldn’t have been given them and have developed side effects, he said.

McDaniel told the Legislative Council he could seek as much as $ 600 million for the state and that he’s taking the unusual step of contracting with a private law firm to take the lead in the litigation. He said the firm, Bailey Perrin Bailey LLP of Houston, will bear all the expenses and its fee will be 15 percent of the award.

“It’s extraordinarily reasonable for the quality of work we’re going to get,” McDaniel said. “This particular matter is so large that frankly the AG’s office could not handle it internally. If [the suit ] is not successful we don’t owe a dollar.”

He said the firm is handling similar litigation for six other states.

A national coalition of about 30 state attorneys general is involved in a similar investigation of anti-psychotic drug marketing but McDaniel said he declined to join that effort because he feared Arkansas would “be lost in the shuffle.”

McDaniel said Gov. Mike Beebe was satisfied that the state needed outside help in the case. Lawmakers voiced no objections.

The lawsuit should be filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court within three to four weeks, a spokesman for McDaniel said.

A letter McDaniel wrote to the council says “substantial evidence” exists to support a claim by the state for “improper and unlawful marketing” of anti-psychiotic drugs by Eli Lilly & Co. of Indianapolis; Janssen Pharmaceutica of Titusville, N. J.; and Astra Zeneca, an international company formed by the union of a United Kingdom firm and a Swedish firm.

The drugs in question are Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel.

Officials with those companies didn’t return telephone messages left by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

McDaniel told reporters after the meeting that researchers have known since the 1950 s that anti-psychotic drugs had serious side effects, including weight gain, hypoglycemia and Type II diabetes.

“What [the three companies ] did was intentionally hide that and downplayed the efficacy of alternatives,” he said.

McDaniel said the companies engaged in a “marketing scheme that was very effective to where a drug that was never approved by the [federal Food and Drug Administration ] for children... the elderly... or run of the mill behavioral disorders like depression, all of a sudden was touted to America’s doctors, Arkansas ’ doctors, as a miracle drug. So, a child that has [attention deficit disorder ] is taking a drug that was never authorized for that child, causing serious complications... that could last a lifetime.”

He said the state Medicaid program has spent $ 200 million on those drugs over the last eight years and, under Arkansas’ Medicaid fraud law, the state could collect three times that much.

But it’s unclear at this point what percentage of those Medicaid prescriptions were necessary and what percentage were improper, said McDaniel’s chief deputy, Justin Allen.

A McDaniel spokesman couldn’t say late Friday what the statute of limitations is on Medicaid fraud cases.

McDaniel said what generally happens is that pharmaceutical representatives will push doctors to prescribe the drugs based on what the company tells them.

“Technically, does the doctor have liability if he thereafter prescribes it ? Maybe, but the concern for the state is the overall marketing scheme, and those who made profit over it,” he said. “The [state ] Medical Board should certainly give consideration regarding how much trust is placed in pharmaceutical reps.”

McDaniel said the prescriptions in questions were “off-label.”

Scott Smith, a lobbyist for the Arkansas Medical Society, a doctors’ trade association, said that means for uses not approved by the FDA.

“It’s my understanding that physicians can prescribe medicines for uses not approved by the FDA for a particular ailment but the distinction is that pharmaceutical companies are not supposed to be marketing physicians for that,” Smith said.

Waiting for FDA approval before prescribing the drugs can take years and waiting could mean “life or death” for some patients, he said.

Smith said he hasn’t heard of any problems with Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel in Arkansas.

Officials at the Arkansas State Medicaid Board couldn’t be reached for comment late Friday.

According to a St. Petersburg Times report in July, the Medicaid program in Florida last year spent $ 27. 5 million on anti-psychotic drugs for children, an increase of nearly 500 percent over the last seven years.

That report said that Medicaid and insurance programs have pushed the drugs as a less costly alternative to psychotherapy for children, but some psychiatrists say the drugs are too risky for children because the young patients’ brains are still developing.

Arkansas Medicaid Director Roy Jeffus and a Department of Human Services spokesman didn’t return messages Friday.

During the legislative meeting, Sen. Ruth Whitaker, R-Cedarville, asked McDaniel about the law firm’s qualifications.

McDaniel said he started working on the issue in the days before he was sworn in in January. He said only about eight firms nationwide are qualified to handle such litigation. He said he interviewed applicants for the contract “exhaustively” and the Houston firm rose to the top because it is already working on the issue in representing Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Alaska, New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The other firms that applied for the contract were: The Miller Firm LLC of Orange, Va. Allen L. Rothenbert P. C. of Yardley, Pa. Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler LLP of Radnor, Pa. Heninger Garrison Davis LLC of Birmingham, Ala.

“This is going to be massive litigation and it was not selected willy-nilly,” he told Whitaker.

McDaniel emphasized that his office, not the Houston firm, would have final say on major decisions involving the lawsuit.

Problems arose in 1998 when former Attorney General Winston Bryant arranged for a San Diego firm to help him in the state’s litigation against tobacco companies. But Bryant never used the firm and settled the litigation along with other states. Arkansas’ expected take was between $ 50 million and $ 60 million a year. The firm sued the state, saying it had done work for Arkansas and deserved to be compensated, but the state prevailed in court.

Since then, the attorney general’s office has only used one private firm on a contingency basis and that was under Attorney General Mark Pryor and involved asbestos claims. That was Dies & Hile LLP of Orange, Texas, said spokesman Gabe Holmstrom.

McDaniel said he expects no problems with the Houston firm.

“This law firm has never contributed to my campaigns... nor the lawyers in the firm, nor their spouses, nor their kids, I think,” he told reporters. “If there is a kid or a cousin that slipped through we didn’t know about it.” Information for this article was contributed by Laura Kellams of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Ban ADHD Drugs, Not Tag

2007-09-19T12:55:00.001-07:00

Ban ADHD Drugs, Not Tag
by Tony Zizza

It appears the last good thing coming out of the state of Colorado is Coors beer. Everything else has taken a horrible left hand turn down the drain.

Does the mountain air in Colorado have a way of turning their education system into a circus?

Colorado is home to the infamous college professor/goon Ward Churchill, and it is home to a high school education system where guest speakers/programs ramble on and on about the pleasures of sex and drugs. There is no shame. There is no standards. There is no accountability. One would think things could not go off the deep end any further in Colorado.

Oh, but they can. And they have.

The Associated Press reported on September 2nd that an "elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will."

Color me cynical, but these are just the kind of children who will only become, well, adult children. I'm sure their parents (if you can call them that) are a bunch of wimps. This is a terribly unfunny joke. The world is laughing at us.

According to Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school, tag "causes a lot of conflict on the playground." And the issue is - what? Life in the form of human relationships is a constant crash course in conflict. Conflict is how you work things out. Grow. Cooperate. Negotiate. Give up. Ms. Fegen must think that children who do not experience conflict in elementary school outside play will somehow have an inside track on never experiencing conflict in the adult world. Oops. I forgot. My bad. Ms. Fegen and her Discovery Canyon warriors will never know what it's like to be a full grown adult.

Banning tag on an elementary school playground? This is social engineering run amok, and run right out of a sewer.

But it brings a great idea to mind. It's an idea that should be brought to fruition. It could save thousands and thousands of young minds, not just in "Hey, anything goes!" Colorado, but in schools all across this dynamic country of ours.

Ban ADHD drugs, not tag. That's right. You would have to be a moron with a capital M if you do not realize that the emotional impact of tag on an elementary school student is a hell of a lot less severe than the emotional and physical impact ADHD drugs have on students whose minds and bodies are still - growing. Did you hear me? Still growing!

Are these weasels who rail on about tag and how it must be banned, also willing to ban ADHD drugs? I mean, doesn't every school in America have several drug free zone signs in the front entrance for everyone to see, already? What kind of parent or teacher could support ramming Methylphenidate down the throat of an innocent child, but could not support that same child engaging in a simple game of tag?

We're awful teachers and parents if we give tag the boot, but continue to welcome in Big Pharma to our schools and homes. We welcome in Big Pharma in the form of subjective mental disorders, the acceptance of their drugs, and the constant advertising of the ADHD lie in the form of advertising in magazines such as Woman's Day, Redbook and Family Circle. Millions of parents and teachers read these magazines, and see the slick ADHD machine at work.

How sad. Picture a parent-teacher conference or a family dinner (rare, these days) where voices carry to ban the emotional evil of tag, but the mighty label of ADHD is accepted without question. Without debate. Without a wonder. Without a second thought as to the real damage an ADHD diagnosis/drug does to the heart and mind of a small innocent child. Well, at least lousy parents (more interested in their careers or tennis) are relieved with the comfort their child's eventual compliance brings.

So, what kind of parent/teacher are you? Are you against the simple game of tag, but for a child being schooled in ADHD doublespeak and dangerous drugs? Where does your soul weigh in on this one?

Come on, this one is a no brainer.

Ban ADHD drugs, not tag.

Read the original article at

http://www.therealitycheck.org/GuestColumnist/tzizza090307.htm

Drug Companies Paying Docs To Over-Prescribe Psych Drugs

2007-09-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

The New York Times found that psychiatrists who took the most money from makers of antipsychotic drugs tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often. These and other stories have helped to fuel a growing interest among state and federal officials to document and restrict payments to doctors from drug makers.

A new federal bill called the "Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2007" has been filed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/washington/07doctors.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

New York Times
Senators Seek Public Listing of Payments to Doctors
By GARDINER HARRIS
September 7, 2007

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — Makers of drugs and medical devices would be required to report publicly nearly all payments and gifts to doctors under legislation introduced Thursday in the Senate.

“Right now, the public has no way to know whether a doctor’s been given money that might affect prescribing habits,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and one of the bill’s authors.

Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, said drug and medical device makers had long defended their payments and gifts to doctors as appropriate.

“If that is the case, full disclosure will only serve to prove them right,” Mr. Kohl said.

Ken Johnson, senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, “A new law is not necessary when pharmaceutical marketing is already heavily regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.”

The F.D.A. does not regulate the gifts or consulting arrangements drug and device makers routinely provide doctors, and it reviews only a fraction of the scripted marketing talks doctors make on companies’ behalf.

The bill results from growing concerns that free meals and consulting payments — which in some cases have exceeded $100,000 annually — lead doctors to prescribe more expensive drugs and devices, increasing the costs of health care and sometimes endangering patients.

Minnesota and Vermont require disclosures, and the legislatures of Maine and West Virginia have passed measures that may soon require them. Other states are considering similar measures.

The bill introduced Thursday is more comprehensive than any state measure. It includes medical device companies, not just drug makers, and has a more inclusive list of gifts and benefits that must be disclosed.

For instance, any payments or benefits made “directly, indirectly, through an agent, subsidiary or other third party” would have to be disclosed. That could include payments by universities and an array of small companies that, with industry financing, set up conferences for influential doctors at expensive hotels. Such payments have never been disclosed on a widespread basis.

The bill would also require the disclosure of financing for continuing medical education. Drug and device makers now underwrite much of the continuing education that is required of nearly all doctors.

Companies with at least $100 million in annual revenues would have to make quarterly disclosures of gifts or payments that exceed $25, and the reports would be posted on a Web site. Companies failing to make the disclosures — and many have not complied with the laws in Minnesota and Vermont — would be fined at least $10,000 per infraction.
Under the bill, the provision of free drug samples and financing for clinical trials would not have to be disclosed.

Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group that works to eliminate conflicts of interest in medicine, said some academic medical centers already restricted gifts to faculty members. Greater disclosures would lead to more such restrictions, Mr. Restuccia said.

22,975 petition signatures against TeenScreen: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY

Message From AbleChild.org (Owen Wilson Data Included)

2007-09-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

A Message From AbleChild.org:

We have learned that the Psychiatric and Drug Companies want to repeal the Black Box Suicide Warning that we all worked so hard to obtain. Trusting parents believed that placing their loved ones onto antidepressants was the right thing to do. No one ever told them about the deadly side effects of antidepressant-induced suicide. We only have to look at the recent Suicide Attempt of Owen Wilson, who was being treated with ANTIDEPRESSANTS to understand the fact that antidepressants are ineffective and dangerous. ("he did not overdose, "an attorney for Wilson told Access Hollywood. The attorney also said the actor did not have his stomach pumped. The attorney said Wilson had been taking antidepressants, but was not aware of any other drugs in his system at the time of the incident.). We need to ensure that the Black Box Warning remains on this product. We can no longer believe slanted studies paid for by those who profit from the very same product they are trying to sell. We question the findings of this study based on the fact that toxicity reports on the suicide victims were not release nor their medical records to indicate whether they were already using antidepressants. Take a moment for all suicide victims and take the vote. Should the Black Box be repealed or should it remain on the product?

A quick vote: Do you think the Drug Companies and Psychiatric Industry should be allowed to repeal the Black Box Warning. Vote Here

Thank you for all of your support and donations !

Respectfully,

Sheila Matthews
Co-Founder

Copyright 2001- 2007 Ablechild (Parents for Label and Drug Free Education). All rights reserved.
Ablechild is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, Section 501(c) (3) charitable organization,
and donations are deductible under the provisions of the IRS Tax Code.
Ablechild and the Ablechild logo is a Trademark of Ablechild, Inc.

The Truth About Increases In Suicide

2007-09-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of "noise" running in the press about how suicides have gone up since the black box warnings for antidepressants were issued. It is total B.S.

^{The CDC (Center for Disease Control) reports an increase in youth suicide from 2003 to 2004 and some "experts" are blaming this increase on the decline in antidepressant use among youth. However, the Black Box Warning on SSRI-Class psychiatric drugs was not approved until September 2004, didn't go into affect until Jan/Feb 2005.}

From Rosie Mysenberg (SSRI stories):

1) Across the country, the media are publishing an article concerning statistics on antidepressant use among youth in 2003 and 2004. They report a decrease in antidepressant use among youth and an increase in suicides. However, the report which came out from the American Psychiatric Association in 2004 reported an increase of 8% in antidepressant use among 19's and under. This statistic was for the first six months of 2004. [Note: the Black Box Warnings were not approved until September 2004]

2) Paragraph 11 reads: "In 2003, U.S. physicians wrote 15 million antidepressant prescriptionsfor patients under age 18, according to FDA data. In the firstsix months of 2004, antidepressant prescriptions for childrenincreased by almost 8 percent, despite the new drug labeling."[Again, the Black Box Warnings were not approved until September 2004]

3) This is data from Medco Health Solutions, which manages pharmacy benefit programs. on 2005-2006. Notice the numbers.

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20070517/prescription-drug-use-up-in-teen-girls

List of growth in prescription drug claims for 2001-2006 in girls and boys aged 10-19:

IT SHOWS ANTIDEPRESSANT RATES SINCE 2006 HAVE BEEN RISING NOT FALLING!

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs. Up nearly 74% for girls and 37% for boys
Antidepressants. Up more than 9% in girls and less than 1% in boys
Antipsychotics. Up more than 117% in girls and almost 71% in boys
Sleep aids. Up more than 80% in girls and about 64% in boys

Back To School: Pencils, Pens and Meds

2007-09-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

Full story here: http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/admark/la-oe-klein20aug20,1,5517982.story?coll=la-headlines-business-advert
Los Angeles Times
August 20, 2007
Pencils, pens, meds
As kids head to class, pharmaceutical companies ramp up their drug marketing

Back-to-school season is in full swing. Time to pick out a backpack, sneakers and a stimulant medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Nearly 2 million children in the United States are diagnosed with ADHD...

Besides time off from school, many kids with ADHD get a summer "vacation" from the prescription medications...

Children in the U.S. are 10 times more likely to take a stimulant medication for ADHD than are kids in Europe.

The U.S., ...consumes about 85% of the stimulants manufactured for ADHD.

More: Drug Companies Employ Ethics-Challenged Docs

2007-09-02T12:11:00.001-07:00

The St. Petersburg Times exposed a couple of Florida psychiatrists today in an article entitled:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/02/Worldandnation/Who_s_judging_drugs.shtml

Who's judging drugs?

St. Petersburg Times

September 2, 2007

"You might think that when pharmaceutical companies hire a doctor to test new drugs, they automatically would reject someone disciplined for "gross or repeated malpractice." You would be wrong. A St. Petersburg Times analysis of public databases identified several doctors who have conducted clinical trials despite run-ins with the Florida Board of Medicine. "

Clinical trial - a process in which a medication or other medical treatment is tested for its safety and effectiveness

The Times wrote about:

Psychiatrist Serge Vilvar of North Miami Beach

Reprimanded, fined $50,000, suspended for 6 months, and put on a 1 year probation after the Florida Health Department found that he gave $3-million worth of unnecessary therapy to at least 14 patients. He worked on clinical trials after the Health Department initiated disciplinary action.

Psychiatrist Abbey Strauss of Boca Raton

Fined $15,000 for prescribing painkillers to a patient in excessive and inappropriate quantities which endangered the patient's health

Strauss has also conducted clinical trials after the Health Department initiated disciplinary action.

A Note From Congressman Dan Burton

2007-08-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

Parental consent for mental health screens

I am a co-sponsor of the “Parental Consent Act of 2007”(H.R. 2387) which seeks to essentially prohibit any student mental health screening program that allows mental health screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual involved.

I appreciate the value of having mental health problems diagnosed and treated early but I have serious concerns about universal or mandatory mental health screening. I am worried that federally funded universal or mandatory mental health screening in schools without parental consent could potentially lead to labeling more children as “ADD” or “hyperactive” and thus force more kids into taking possibly dangerous psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin, against their parents' wishes. Many children have already suffered harmful side effects from using psychotropic drugs. These side effects can include mania, violence, dependence, and weight gain. Furthermore, it is known that parents have been threatened by school districts with child abuse charges if they resist efforts to drug their children.

I know that some people believe that my concerns are overblown but I feel very strongly that parents' have a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit and that includes making decision about evaluation and treatment of mental health conditions.

Indiana 5th District
Congressman Dan Burton

Plaintiffs Find Payday Elusive in Vioxx Cases

2007-08-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

By ALEX BERENSON

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/alex_berenson/index.html?inline=nyt-per

KEENE, Tex. - In Carol Ernst's eyes, two years ago she won a measure of justice.

On Aug. 19, 2005, a Texas jury awarded Mrs. Ernst $253.5 million after concluding that Merck & Company and its painkiller Vioxx had caused the death of her husband, Robert, in 2001. At a news conference after the verdict, Mrs. Ernst said she was pleased that jurors had punished Merck for hiding Vioxx's heart risks. "This has been a long road," she said. "I just know that it was a road that I had to run and I had to finish."

But her comfort was premature. Merck, the third-largest American drug maker, appealed the verdict - which Texas laws on punitive damages automatically reduced to $26.1 million. Until higher courts rule on the appeal, Merck is not obligated to pay. So Mrs. Ernst, 62, has yet to receive any money.

In fact, none of the 45,000 people who have sued Merck, contending that they or their loved ones suffered heart attacks or strokes after taking Vioxx, have received payments from the company. The lawsuits continue, for now in a state of legal limbo, with little prospect of resolution.

In combating the litigation, Merck has made an aggressive, and so far successful, bet that forcing plaintiffs to trial will reduce the number of Vioxx lawsuits and, ultimately, its liability.

Promising to contest every case, Merck has spent more than $1 billion over the last three years in legal fees. It has refused, at least publicly, to consider even the possibility of an overall settlement to resolve all the lawsuits at once.

The strategy's successes, from the view of Merck and its shareholders, are clear. In the last year, the company has won most of Vioxx cases that have reached juries. Though its stock plunged immediately after the Robert Ernst verdict, it has since risen 80 percent, easily outpacing those of other big drug makers. And estimates of Merck's ultimate liability, once as high as $25 billion, are now closer to $5 billion, said C. Anthony Butler of Lehman Brothers .

The Merck executive most closely associated with the company's strategy, Kenneth Frazier, its general counsel, has prospered. In July, Mr. Frazier was promoted to president of the global human health division, where he oversees the marketing and sales forces, half of Merck's 60,000 employees.

When Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in 2004, after a clinical trial found that the drug increased the risk of heart attacks when taken for 18 months or more, some predicted the company's doom. More than 20 million people in the United States had taken Vioxx, and some scientists estimated that as many as 100,000 might have suffered heart attacks. Merck said it had adequately warned patients and doctors of Vioxx's heart risks and that it never knowingly endangered patients.

The pace of Vioxx-related lawsuits, after soaring in 2005 and 2006, has fallen slightly this year, as plaintiffs' lawyers shy away from cases where they lack strong evidence that their clients took Vioxx for several months before having a heart attack. Lawyers have withdrawn several cases as they were about to go to trial.

"It seems to have worked quite well," Peter Schuck, a professor at Yale Law School who specializes in complex litigation, said of Merck's strategy. "They have discouraged the plaintiffs' bar from litigating these cases." The legal system is not set up to try thousands of cases at once, and nearly all Vioxx lawsuits are caught up in the pretrial process.

Plaintiffs' lawyers have tried to get the courts to combine all the potential suits into a single class action. But judges have rejected that tactic. Because the facts of individual cases can vary greatly, each case must be tried separately, courts have ruled.

So far, fewer than 20 Vioxx suits have reached juries, an average of 9 in each of the last two years. At this rate, the backlog of Vioxx cases will take years to work through and many plaintiffs may die before they get their day in court.

Even if they win, it will take years for plaintiffs to be compensated. Merck has appealed every case it has lost. In the case of Mrs.

Ernst, if her award is upheld, she will not be paid before 2010 at the earliest, her lawyer, W. Mark Lanier of Houston, said.

After the 2005 verdict, analysts wondered how Merck would overcome evidence presented in the case, showing that the company had been concerned about Vioxx's potential heart risks as early as 1997, two years before it began selling the drug.

"The possibility of increased C.V. events is of great concern," a Merck scientist, Dr. Alise Reicin, wrote in a 1997 e-mail message." "C.V. events" is medical shorthand for cardiovascular incidents like heart attacks. "I just can't wait to be the one to present those results to senior management," Dr. Reicin's message continued.

Other documents offered at the trial showed that in March 2000, Dr. Edward M. Scolnick, then Merck's top scientist, said a clinical trial had confirmed Vioxx's risks. Documents also showed that Merck resisted efforts at the Food and Drug Administration to add clear warnings to Vioxx's label.

Even after losing the Ernst case, Merck did not back down from its strategy of fighting every case. The company may have felt it had little choice, said Benjamin Zipursky, a law professor at Fordham University, who has followed the Vioxx litigation. Heart attacks are the most common cause of death in the United States, and more than 105 million Vioxx prescriptions were written in the five years before Merck stopped selling the drug. If it had not taken a hard line, Mr. Zipursky said, Merck would have faced an essentially unlimited pool of plaintiffs.

Merck has said it could not be certain that Vioxx caused heart attacks before seeing the results of a clinical trial in 2004. The company has also focused on making plaintiffs prove, with prescription records, that they took Vioxx continuously for months or years before a heart attack. It has also pointed out at trial that patients had other risk factors, like obesity or high cholesterol.

"We're continuing our strategy of looking at each case on the individual facts," said Theodore V. H. Mayer, a partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, the law firm coordinating Merck's defense. "Did they really have a heart attack? Did they really take the medicine? Did they take the medicine in proximity to the heart attack?"

Mr. Mayer said Merck was trying to clear the backlog of 45,000 cases. The company is moving through pretrial discovery - the process of learning the basic facts in a case - in 500 lawsuits in New Jersey alone, he said. The company faces 16,000 lawsuits in New Jersey.

Mr. Mayer said Merck had not yet found a single case where it believed that Vioxx caused a heart attack. Heart attacks are "a very, very common injury that occurs with or without medicine in many people," he said.

It is that attitude that infuriates the plaintiffs' lawyers. They say that since Merck has acknowledged that Vioxx can cause heart attacks in people who take it for more than 18 months, the company should be moving to settle some cases.

"Merck's goal is to manipulate the legal system to deprive justice to tens of thousands of people whose cases can never be heard," said Mr. Lanier, the lawyer who represented Mrs. Ernst. "Justice delayed is justice denied." He and other leading plaintiffs' lawyers say they will continue to pursue cases against Merck.

Robert J. Gordon, a partner at the law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York, which represents about 3,300 Vioxx plaintiffs, maintains that pressure on Merck to reach a broad settlement may increase in 2008.

Judge Eldon E. Fallon in New Orleans, who is overseeing the 8,000 federal lawsuits filed against Merck, and Judge Carol E. Higbee in Atlantic City, who is overseeing state court suits in New Jersey, may be tiring of Merck's refusal to settle, Mr. Gordon said. "The courts are in the business of removing cases from their dockets," he noted.

But Mr. Schuck, the Yale law professor, said that plaintiffs might be disappointed if they think that pressure from judges will get Merck to settle. A faster trial calendar might actually benefit the company, which can coordinate its defense experts and trial teams more easily than the plaintiffs can, he said. And Merck's recent run of successes - it has won five of the last six cases and seven of the last nine, including one mistrial - has given it the upper hand, Mr. Schuck said. "Nobody can make them settle," he said.

Of course, the case against Vioxx is not settled either, and Merck's exposure continues. In the cases the company has lost, it has faced large damage awards. And it still faces the possibility of a class-action lawsuit from the insurers, states and other third-party groups that provided insurance coverage. The New Jersey Supreme Court, for instance, is considering whether a lawsuit should be allowed to proceed as a class action or whether different insurers should be forced to bring separate suits.

Several state attorneys general have sued the company, and federal prosecutors continue to investigate.

That leaves plaintiffs like Carol Ernst with little to do but wait."They could have all of their money and everything I own if they would just give him back to me," she said of her husband. "But they can't do that."

The "Constant Gardener" Is Quite Real

2007-08-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen the film The Constant Gardener starring Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, be sure to rent it. If you have seen it, you know how it depicts the ruthless way in which major drug companies exploit third-world countries as guinea-pig areas for drugs, covering up their occasional disasters by paying off the right people to make the problem go away.

But here's a real-life version of the same thing: It's at http://www.physorg.com/news106016990.html

Here's part of the article:

Pfizer Facing 4 Court Cases in Nigeria

By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer

Anas Mustapha foreground who was one of the children tested with the meningitis epidemic experimental drug and now suffering brain damage stands near the entrance of their house in Kano, Nigeria Thursday, July 19, 2007 New York-based Pfizer is facing four court cases two filed by the federal government , two by the state in Nigeria over a decade-old drug trial in the northern Muslim city of Kano. It is accused of using a 1996 meningitis epidemic to push through a sloppily managed study without the full understanding of the parents or the proper regulatory approval. AP Photo/George Osodi)

(AP) -- A security guard in this dusty Nigerian city is living with tragedy - a 14-year-old son whose dazed eyes, slow speech and uneven gait signal brain damage. Mustapha Mohammed says he knows who to blame - Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker.

New York-based Pfizer is facing four court cases - two filed by the Nigerian government and two by officials in the northern Nigerian state where Mohammed lives - over a decade-old drug study that included Mohammed's son.

The company, which denies any wrongdoing, is accused of using a 1996 meningitis epidemic to push through a sloppily managed drug study that contributed to death in some and infirmities in others.

The fallout provides a case study of the ethical dilemmas that arise when Western medical priorities run into Third World poverty and ignorance. The communication gap between those handing out medical alms and those receiving has bred mistrust and anger in Kano - with damaging, far-reaching effect.

The Pfizer case was cited as one reason residents of Kano and the state of the same name boycotted a polio vaccine in 2003, fearing it was a plot to make Africans infertile. Polio exploded in Nigeria and eventually spread to 25 previously polio-free countries.

Though the meningitis epidemic is long over and the polio vaccination program is back on track, misinformation and suspicion persist.

READ THE REST AT THE LINK ABOVE...

Lawmaker Calls for Registry of Drug Firms' Payments to Doctors

2007-08-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

New York Times
Lawmaker Calls for Registry of Drug Firms Paying Doctors
By GARDINER HARRIS
August 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — An influential Republican senator says he will propose legislation requiring drug makers to disclose the payments they make to doctors for services like consulting, lectures and attendance at seminars.

The lawmaker, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, cited as an example the case of a prominent child psychiatrist, who he said made $180,000 over just two years from the maker of an antipsychotic drug now widely prescribed for children.

Mr. Grassley is one of several lawmakers to propose a federal registry of such payments. Minnesota, Vermont and Maine already have similar registries, and other states are considering them.

The proposals are a response to growing concerns that payments from drug makers can affect doctors’ prescribing habits, increase the cost of health care and, in some cases, endanger patients’ health.

The drug industry opposes such registries, saying they would discourage doctors from receiving needed education. John Bentivoglio, a lawyer in Washington who represents drug makers, said the registries would be a burden for the companies and might be misinterpreted.

“One of the concerns is that these payments are seen as bribes,” Mr. Bentivoglio said. “That’s not the case. The vast majority are lawful payments for services.”

In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Mr. Grassley said he had started an investigation into these practices. Noting that most universities require academic researchers to disclose such payments, he said, “I have sent letters to a handful of universities to understand how well such a reporting system actually works.”

These letters have uncovered several problems, Mr. Grassley said. First, universities do not verify the information filed by their professors, so “the only person who knows if the reported income is accurate and complete is the doctor who is receiving the money.”

Also, the universities generally keep this information secret from patients, who have no way of knowing whether their doctor is on a drug maker’s payroll, he said.

“So if there is a doctor getting thousands of dollars from a drug company — payments that might be affecting his or her objectivity — the only people outside the pharmaceutical industry who will probably ever know about this are the people at that very university,” he said.

Mr. Grassley said that he had asked how much the child psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa DelBello at the University of Cincinnati, made from AstraZeneca, the London-based drug giant that manufactures the antipsychotic Seroquel.

Dr. DelBello’s studies of Seroquel in children have helped to fuel the widespread pediatric use of antipsychotic medicines. Those studies were inconclusive, but she has described them as demonstrating that Seroquel is effective in some children.

Asked in a past newspaper interview how much she was paid by AstraZeneca to help market Seroquel, she had said, “Trust me, I don’t make very much.” Mr. Grassley said this week that her disclosure forms at the University of Cincinnati show she received $100,000 from AstraZeneca in 2003 and $80,000 in 2004. Dr. DelBello consults for seven other drug makers as well. She did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Richard Puff, a university spokesman, said he did not know how much Dr. DelBello made in combined payments from all eight drug makers. Asked if the institution did anything to verify its professors’ financial disclosures, he replied, “We do trust our faculty when they’re making these disclosures.”

Mr. Grassley said he would propose that drug makers make public any payments made to doctors who bill the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, which would include nearly all doctors.

Noting that voters can easily look up the contributions made to elected officials, he asked, “Shouldn’t we hold doctors to similar standards?”

Bill To Drug Pregnant Women! Help Stop It.

2007-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

YOUR URGENT ACTION IS NEEDED on a bill quickly moving through Congress called "The Mother's Act" (H.R. 20) that calls for pregnant women to be screened for mental disorders and new mothers to be screened for "postpartum depression," resulting in their being prescribed dangerous antidepressants or other psychiatric drugs.

1) Click here: http://www.capwiz.com/cchr/issues/alert/?alertid=10099911 to make your voice heard!

2) Just put in your zip code, click on pre-written paragraphs of your choice and the letter will be directed to your US Congressman! If you are a mother, please let your Representative know this. The software makes it very fast and easy.

3) Please forward to your friends to do the same.

Russian activist says held in psychiatric clinic

2007-07-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

From Reuters News Service

By Olesya Dmitracova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian opposition activist told Reuters on Tuesday from inside a psychiatric hospital that she was being held there against her will because she had blown the whistle on abuse in mental health care.

Larisa Arap of the anti-Kremlin group United Civil Front and her colleagues say she is a victim of a local vendetta by healthcare workers after she gave an account to a newspaper alleging patients at another psychiatric unit in the same region were beaten and raped.

The full details of the case are not known, but Arap's detention has caused an outcry among Kremlin opponents who say it echoes the Soviet practice of confining political dissidents in mental institutions to keep them quiet.

Sounding exhausted but coherent, Arap spoke to Reuters on a mobile telephone from the psychiatric ward near the city of Murmansk, on the edge of the Arctic Circle, where she has been since July 5.

She said her problems began when she went to see a doctor to get a certificate testifying she was in sound mental health -- a standard requirement in Russia for renewing a driver's license.

"She (the doctor) called the police. They kept me by force, then an ambulance was called, they bundled me in there and brought me here where I was beaten," Arap said on the telephone she had borrowed from a visitor.

"I feel unwell but I am trying to hold out. But my strength is dying away," Arap said.

Yelena Vasilyeva, a fellow opposition activist who has visited Arap in hospital, said doctors had forcibly injected Arap with drugs... This article continues here.

Kids on drugs - by prescription

2007-07-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

Read today's St. Petersburg Times article about kids on antidepressants.

People are starting to agree that the emperor has not clothes. In the last week, we saw Lindsey Lohan get out of a psychiatric-style drug rehab institution, and within 11 days she was up on charges for driving under the influence of alcohol and cocaine was found on her person.

Psychiatric solutions don't work.

WSJ Says Backlash Against Antidepressants

2007-07-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118428285736265304.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Unmedicated Mind

Backlash against antidepressants is fueling new interest in alternative treatments.

By NANCY KEATES
July 13, 2007

From lobotomies with ice picks to early antidepressants that caused brain hemorrhaging, Americans have a complicated and ever-changing approach to treating mental illness. Now, spurred by the growing disenchantment with antidepressants, an increasing number of people are seeking treatment for depression, anxiety and eating disorders from naturopaths, acupuncturists and even chiropractors. At the same time, more traditional psychiatrists are incorporating massage and meditation in their practices.

The treatments go beyond needles and spinal manipulation. They include Emotional Freedom Techniques -- tapping on the body's "energy meridians" as the patient thinks about upsetting incidents -- and craniosacral therapy, which involves a gentle rocking of the head, neck, spine and pelvis. In cranial electrotherapy stimulation, a AA-battery-powered device sends mild electrical currents to the brain. (The procedure has its roots in ancient Greek medicine, when electric eels were used.) Clinicians are also prescribing supplements like omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish oil, or amino acids like L-theanine, found in green tea.

Sarah Spring had been in therapy with a psychiatrist and on the antidepressant Wellbutrin for four years to work through a childhood trauma, but felt she wasn't making any progress. So she went to a naturopath -- a practitioner trained in holistic therapy and alternative treatments like herbal medicine and nutrition. (They attend a four-year naturopathic school -- a bachelor's degree is a prerequisite -- but only 15 states license naturopaths.) After two sessions of Emotional Freedom Techniques, the tapping treatment that is meant to clear emotions and restore balance, Ms. Spring says she doesn't get the same shortness of breath and accelerated heart rate she used to. "It's remarkable," says the Portland, Ore., marketing manager, who just started to decrease her dose of Wellbutrin.

To address the growing interest from professionals, Harvard Medical School's Department of Continuing Education will have three classes on complementary and alternative medicine in psychiatry over the next year, up from one a year since the class was introduced in 2003. David Mischoulon, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard, says doctors who have attended the class report that more patients are asking for alternative treatments -- due to the side effects of antidepressants, as well as a lack of response to the medication. Only about half of patients who take antidepressants respond, he says. "It is time to broaden the horizons," he says.

But there is no proof that many of these methods work for treating mental illness. One large study found Emotional Freedom Techniques were no more effective than a placebo, while evidence is limited for acupuncture and fish oil (thought to reduce some types of depression) in the treatment of mental health problems. Using herbal supplements with conventional medicine can be dangerous, psychiatrists say. "There are always snake oil salesmen," says Carolyn Rabinowitz, president of the American Psychiatric Association.

Psychiatrist Ronald Parks combines conventional and alternative medicine.

Traditional therapists worry that alternative treatments might sway patients to give up conventional treatments too quickly. "People with very little data often say, 'This works,' " says Philip Muskin, Chief of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. A psychiatrist and trained hypnotist, Dr. Muskin believes that wellness techniques like yoga, herbs and acupuncture can make people feel better psychologically. But he says alternative providers don't have adequate training to diagnose or treat severe mental-health disorders. "Many think if you get your liver and spleen into the right balance that will help," he says.

Safety Concerns

In any one-year period, 9.5% of the population, or about 20.9 million American adults, suffer from a mood disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. A study by the World Health Organization, Harvard University School of Public Health and the World Bank found that by the year 2030, depression will be second only to HIV/AIDS in terms of disability caused world-wide.

A backlash against antidepressants sparked by concerns about their safety, efficacy and side effects is helping drive patients to alternative methods. Some 80% of antidepressants are currently prescribed by primary doctors who often diagnose depression in a 20-minute visit and don't provide accompanying therapy or help manage side effects.

Sales of all classes of antidepressants were $13.5 billion in 2006, down from a peak of $13.8 billion in 2004, according to IMS Health, a health-care information company. Usage of selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) dropped in 2005 after warnings about side effects -- particularly the risk of suicidal behavior in people aged 25 and under, which prompted the Food and Drug Administration to order drug makers to add warnings to their packaging in 2004. The introduction of generics onto the market (most recently, for Zoloft) also contributed to lower sales.

A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America says pharmaceuticals like antidepressants undergo a rigorous assessment of benefits and risks by the FDA. Other methods have been used to treat depression historically, he says, but pharmaceuticals do and will continue to play a large role in therapy.

At the same time, the rise of managed care and changes in Medicaid and Medicare have resulted in companies paying far less for mental health coverage. Employer spending on mental health care dropped to 1.3% of an employee's medical care costs in 2006, from 10.9% in 1988, according to employee-benefits firm Towers Perrin. While most employees with health insurance have some mental-health coverage, only 13% have coverage for an unlimited number of outpatient visits to providers such as psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, says a 2006 survey of employers by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That's down from 19% in 2004. Most insurance policies pay for a limited number of visits, often 20 or 30 per year, and some put a cap on the dollars they'll pay.

Over the past decade, insurers have started covering more alternative procedures. Plans vary, from unlimited visits to 12 or 20 visits per year, according to Doug Metz, Chief Health Services Officer at American Specialty Health, which runs complementary medicine benefits plans for insurance companies. Co-payments typically run $10 to $20, and plans limit the reasons for visits to scientifically proven techniques -- which generally does not include treatments for mental health. While coverage for visits to naturopaths is mandated by law in Connecticut, Vermont and Washington, employers can still limit the number of visits and restrict it to a network.

Aetna, for one, will cover acupuncture used to treat migraine headaches or chronic lower back pain, but not for depression; it will cover biofeedback for migraines, but not stress. The options are growing: Starting this month, members can get at least 25% off standard fees for visits to an approved list of 19,000 credentialed "natural therapy professionals," including massage therapists and dietetic counselors, for any condition. (Standard fees for a first-time acupuncturist visit can be $90 to $120.)

The shift comes as scientific research sheds new light on the causes of depression. The use of SSRIs, introduced in the 1980s, aim to increase levels of serotonin in the brain. More recent research suggests that a range of factors -- including genetic predisposition and hormones linked to stress -- can play a role.

Proponents of alternative medicine say the wide range of treatments used address broader causes like hormonal imbalances and stress. Treatment can mean spending time talking to patients about their physical and emotional problems, examining their diet and exercise habits, and doing blood tests to look for medical or environmental causes for depression, such as Lyme disease, toxic chemicals or mold.

In Los Angeles, naturopath Holly Lucille has seen 30% more patients in the past two years whose chief complaint is mental-health-related, while Sara Thyr, a naturopath in Manchester and Concord, N.H., has seen a 20% rise. Margot Longenecker's naturopathy practice in Branford and Wallingford, Conn., now has half of its patients come for anxiety and depression, compared with 25% three years ago.

"Half the time you feel like you have a psychiatric degree more than a chiropractic degree," says Basking Ridge, N.J., chiropractor Jerry Szych, who's seen a 25% rise in patients seeking counseling services over the same period. Columbus, Ohio, chiropractor Ronald Farabaugh says he has seen an increase of 20% over the past three years in those cases.

Melissa Mannon, a 36-year-old photographer in Bedford, N.H., saw psychologists for years about her depression and anxiety. Then she visited a naturopath for help with infertility, and was diagnosed with an intolerance to 90 different foods, including gluten. She changed her diet and within seven months, she got pregnant and most of her anxiety and depression went away, she says. She still sees her naturopath if she's feeling down and to discuss what's happening in her life. "She understands me," says Ms. Mannon.

Some say the extra time and intimacy of the treatments can encourage patients to open up. Naturopath Mark Sanders, who has seen the number of patients coming for mental health rise threefold to about 60% since he started his practice five years ago, says patients tend to open up when he performs craniosacral therapy. (It is meant to ease stress and improve physical movement.) "I've had people tell me stuff they don't tell their therapist," he says.

'I don't dig into childhood stuff,' says naturopath Samantha Brody.

Stanford University Medical School clinical professor of medicine Kenneth Pelletier says chiropractors and naturopaths aren't adequately trained to recognize true psychopathology. But Dr. Pelletier believes most of these practitioners are ethical about remaining within the scope of their practice and refer patients to licensed mental-health-care practitioners when they think the diagnoses are severe.

That's what Portland, Ore., naturopath Samantha Brody has been doing as she increasingly sees patients with eating disorders, anxiety and depression. While the stigma of seeing a shrink may have declined in cities like New York and Los Angeles, it is alive and well in Portland, and some patients won't follow up on her referrals. Still, Ms. Brody steers away from serious counseling. "I don't dig into childhood stuff," she says.

Cheryl Higgins started seeing Ms. Brody three years ago for acupuncture because her back hurt. She was also driving her friends crazy by trying to use them as therapists and needed an outlet for her anxiety and depression. "I spilled my guts to her at the first session," says the 26-year-old office manager. Her treatment: chemical and amino-acid supplements, plus acupuncture three times a week.

Ms. Higgins hesitated to follow Ms. Brody's referral to a psychologist, but eventually she did see one who recommended that her primary care doctor put her on an antidepressant. She went on Lexapro for nine months, then went back to the naturopath to help her get off of it. "It made me yawn all the time," she says.

While the research is limited, some studies have shown promise in using alternative methods to treat mental illness. A recent study at Boston University School of Medicine and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., showed a neurochemical response to the practice of yoga that's similar to neurochemical responses seen when people are treated with antidepressants.

Even pharmaceutical companies are starting to look at ingredients that have traditionally been part of natural medicine. Last year, Novartis bought the U.S. rights to a drug called agomelatine -- a melatonin-related agonist that is thought to influence mood in part through the sleep-wake cycle.

Of course, alternative medicine has been used for mental health issues for years. A 2001 study by Ron Kessler and David Eisenberg at Harvard Medical School found that among those with anxiety and or depression, more than half used alternative medicine therapies; among those who sought the treatment of a licensed conventional provider, two-thirds also used alternative medicine during the prior year. The perceived helpfulness of the alternative therapies was similar to the perceived helpfulness of conventional therapies.

Some critics say the growing interest is, in a sense, a step backwards. As people become frustrated with the shortcomings of new treatments, they become more inclined to try age-old therapies, regardless of whether they've been rigorously tested. The treatment of depression is "a constant succession of hyped theories and overall pathetically little progress," says John Horgan, director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

Serious Applications

Now, community clinics are using the approach. The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester, N.H. -- which combines traditional psychiatry with naturopathic treatments for seriously mentally ill patients -- received a two-year grant last summer from the New York-based Ittleson Foundation to promote the intermingling of naturopathy and psychiatry. "It's just a better way to approach the problem," says Ronald Parks, an internist and psychiatrist in Asheville, N.C., who uses alternative methods and was just approached to create a community-based model near his practice.

Aliza Sherman Risdahl agrees. She began experiencing uncontrollable rage, irritation and anxiety after the birth of her daughter. Though the 42-year-old Anchorage, Alaska, consultant was already seeing a therapist, she didn't want to go on antidepressants. She turned to a naturopath, who diagnosed her with overactive adrenal glands and suggested an amino acid to spray under her tongue.

Now she's no longer throwing dirty plates from the dinner table up in the air, screaming at her husband to "give me the baby, you can't keep her from me!" and running through the house slamming doors and cursing at him. "I am so grateful," she says.

Suicide Victims Are Soaked With Psych Drugs

2007-07-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

New Study Adds to Heated Debate over
Suicide Risks of Antidepressants

May 28, 2007

Analysis Reveals Suicide Victims Have Psych Drugs in Blood Stream

The findings of a study presented at the annual American Psychiatric Association (APA) conference in San Diego and published in Psychiatric Times may incite another firestorm in the heated debate over the correlation between antidepressants and suicide.

The psychiatric watchdog group, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), says that in spite of psychiatric vested interests downplaying the suicidal side effects of antidepressants, which they have known about for more than a decade and a half (see video), new evidence has forced psychiatrists to acknowledge a link between antidepressants and suicide.

The study, "Antidepressants and Suicide in Children and Adolescents in Virginia: Toxicology Findings," analyzed toxicology reports in "unnatural" deaths from the Virginia Medical Examiner's Office, and was presented to the APA last week.

Researcher Dr. Antony Fernandez and colleagues found that youth suicide victims were significantly more likely to have SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) antidepressants in their bloodstream than were victims of other unnatural deaths. SSRIs were found in the bloodstream of at least 56 of the Virginia youth suicide victims whose toxicology results were available-the suicides ranged from poisoning to hanging and gunshots.

These findings follow a 2004 warning by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that children and teens are twice as likely to experience "suicidal thoughts and behaviors" than they are on placebo. The APA has yet to acknowledge that eight recent adolescents committing homicide in school shootings were in fact under the influence of antidepressants-documented to cause mania, psychosis, depersonalization, and in some cases, "homicidal ideation."

Despite mounting evidence of a link between antidepressants and suicide/violence, psychiatrists indiscriminately prescribe the drugs to millions, based on subjective diagnoses made without any physical tests-such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays-and try to obscure the dangerous side effects of the drugs in order to protect billions in profit from drug sales.

Psychiatrist David Brent, one of the researchers in a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that pushed that the "benefits" of antidepressants for kids trumped suicidal side effects, urged the FDA to moderate the black box suicide warning on antidepressants - - although many parents' rights activists say this warning is imperative in upholding their right to informed consent. Another leading psychiatrist, John Mann of Columbia University, further attempted to diminish the negative publicity on such profitable drugs by claiming, "The idea that antidepressants are responsible for suicides isn't supported by the data."

CCHR says human rights activists, parents, experts and others who have been insisting that the public be warned about the suicidal side effects of antidepressants are once again vindicated by this new study on SSRIs in suicide victims. Because these findings are so alarming, the Psychiatric Times published "action points"-in effect, suggestions on how psychiatrists can assuage parents' fears that may prevent them from purchasing the drugs for their children-including telling consumers that the study "represents an association rather than causation..." and that "These data and conclusions should be considered preliminary...."

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

For more information, contact CCHR at 800-782-2878 or
email: laurie@cchrflorida.org.

Citizens Commission On Human Rights of Florida
1217 N. Ft. Harrison
Dunedin, FL 33755

Nevada TeenScreen Pusher Up On Ethics Charges

2007-07-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

The entire article is reproduced below. To see it in its original setting, click here.

July 11, 2007
by Joe Enge

As reported by Samantha Stone with KOH Radio this morning, 2 of the 4 charges Joe Enge with EdWatch Nevada filed against state board member Gary Waters in June of 2006 in trying to implement TeenScreen have been upheld to warrant a formal hearing with the Nevada Commission on Ethics in September. Waters is no longer a board member, his final term ended in December of 2006. Waters set up The Center for Health & Learning as a non-profit to implement TeenScreen. I questioned whether it is legal for a state board member to set up a non-profit and use Nevada Department of Education equipment and office.

TeenScreen is a highly controversial mental health screen that asserts it can identify students from the 5th to 12th grades who are suicidal. Critics nationally point out TeenScreen does more harm than good with their self-admitted 84% rate of false positives and makes end runs around the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment without obtaining proper, positive consent from parents. You can read details about TeenScreen on my former EdWatch Nevada Web site at: www.campaignsitebuilder.com/templates/displayfiles1/Tmpl34.asp?id=19383.

Also available at http://www.edwatchnevada.com/ is one of the actual TeenScreen exams. Much to their chagrin, TeenScreen’s “super secret” exam is now public. The exam is listed under the heading of “Downloads.”

The two charges for setting up the non-profit were dropped. The Nevada Commission on Ethics came to the conclusion that it is legal for a non-profit, set up by a Nevada State Board of Education member, to use government equipment and offices. What’s legal is not always what’s right. I questioned also how this could be done without formal State Board of Education approval. They concluded the State Superintendent of Instruction, Keith Rheault, could do this on his own authority. They also concluded Waters did not make any money. $71,000 was awarded to the Center for Health & Learning, but he did not receive any of it.

My information shows Waters intended to start collecting money from a far larger federal grant of $1.2 million after he left office in December of 2006, the very reason he set up the non-profit. I suspect the publicity and scrutiny of my filing these Ethics charges in June of 2006 threw a monkey wrench into those plans. The federal $1.2 million grant has a table on page 29 showing a list of staff who will participate in the project with their role and level of effort. Waters is listed as director of the Center for Health & Learning and 100% FTE (full time equivalent). The center is also listed as a sub-grantee for funding. He can’t be convicted of his intentions once out of office since he was forced by these charges not to carry it out.

The Nevada Commission of Ethics did find just and sufficient cause exists to hold a hearing and render an opinion regarding whether Waters did not properly disclose his commitment, interests, or business relationship at the March, April, and June 2006 Nevada State Board of Education meetings at the time proposed standards for supplemental mental health and suicide were discussed, violating {NRS 281.501 (4)}. They also found just and sufficient cause exists to hear whether Waters acting on the same issues at these meetings violated {NRS 281.501 (2)}. The Nevada Commission on Ethics is scheduled to hear this matter on September 12, 2007 in Las Vegas at the Grant Sawyer State Building, room 4401.

Given it is legal in Nevada for non-profits to use government equipment and facilities, I think I will request an office in the Nevada Department of Education building in Carson City on behalf of EdWatch Nevada to better oversee their activities. I wonder what their reply will be.

+++
Joe Enge serves as an education analyst with NPRI, as chairman of EdWatch Nevada, and as a member of the Carson City School Board. Author of two world history textbooks, columnist for Liberty Watch Magazine, Joe was a high school teacher in Nevada from 1988 to 2006 and a Fulbright teacher to the former Soviet Union. He was named a Madison Fellow in 2005

2007-07-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

1-1/2 minute video here: http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/07/paxil-settlement-on-you-tube-watch-here

Paxil Settlement On… You Tube;

July 10th, 2007

By Ed Silverman

In an unusual move, the Public Citizen advocacy group has posted a video on YouTube to alert parents to a $48 million settlement of a lawsuit concerning Glaxo’s Paxil antidepressant and side effects. The drugmaker was required to announce the settlement terms last October, but wasn’t to publicize that the terms were improved and simplified in April, the group notes.

Even without receipts, parents can recover up to $100, but any money that isn’t claimed prior to the August 31, 2007, deadline will revert back to Glaxo. Although it’s not clear, Public Citizen may be correct in noting this is the first time such a class-action settlement uses YouTube to publicize terms.

The video, which is just a minute and a half, resembles a public service announcment read by a news anchor, who says: “Now, $48 million is sitting in a fund waiting to pay back parents whose children were on Paxil before their 18th birthday.” You can visit www.paxilpayback.org

See here: www.paxilpayback.org


You are entitled to this money if:: • you live in the U.S. and; • you purchased Paxil or Paxil CR for someone under the age of 18.

If you qualify, you MUST fill out a claim form and mail it to the Paxil Pediatric Settlement Administrator in order to receive compensation. The claims must be received by August 31, 2007.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights Newsletter

2007-06-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has been an energetic watchdog on the subject of psychiatric abuses for decades. They continue to grow in size and effectiveness. In tribute to their efforts I am publishing their latest newsletter here, in full. If the urge to help them overtakes you, or if you need their help, there is contact information in the newsletter.

Please feel free to forward this News Update to anybody who you think will be interested in this information.

Precedent setting reports released this week exposed financial conflicts of interest between the pharmaceutical and psychiatric industry. Other media reports came out exploiting the dangers of psychiatric drugs and pointed out the criminal behavior of professionals charged with the responsibility of administering care to their patients. This week's media reports included stories of fraud, negligence and abuse:

• The New York Times ran an article entitled "Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts" showing that as states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty. How drug company money is influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most controversial issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed drugs such as Zyprexa to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved. Currently, there is no federal law requiring such disclosure of payments, only a few state laws. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa stated, "A federal law requiring public disclosure of payments to doctors could be very effective if it was carefully monitored and consistently applied."
http://www .nytimes.com/2007/06/27/health/psychology/27doctors.html?ref=us

• A Washington Post article on the same subject entitled, "Conflict Alleged in Drug Firms' Education Role," tied in the vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry using the annual American Psychiatric Association convention to illustrate how psychiatrists are entrenched in drug company money. The article states, "Last year's meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Toronto, the field's biggest educational conference, reflects the extent of corporate sponsorship. In that meeting program, a voluntary listing of the financial ties to drug firms of the physicians who served as instructors covered 14 pages. Some instructors were sponsored by at least a dozen companies."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/06/26/AR2007062601963.html

• Indianapolis Star published an article, "Judge sets date for first Zyprexa trial," which reports that Eli Lilly may be facing its first trial this fall in personal injury lawsuits over its top selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein said he will try about 30 Zyprexa suits at one time. The article mentions that at least eight states have filed suit against Lilly and the company has paid out more than $1 billion to settle lawsuits relating to the adverse effects of Zyprexa.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20070623/BUSINESS/706230434/1 003/BUSINESS

• Boston Globe published an article entitled "Backlash on bipolar diagnoses in children: MGH [Massachusetts General Hospital] psychiatrist's work stirs debate" about the heavy backlash against the psychiatric industry following the death of a 4-year-old girl named Rebecca Riley in Michigan last year from a combination of psychiatric drugs prescribed by her psychiatrist. The article points out the responsibility of "one of the world's most influential child psychiatrists," Joseph Biederman of MGH, in connection with Riley's death. Biederman's work helped fuel a surge in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder over the past 15 years, and the psychiatrist who prescribed the combination of powerful drugs to the toddler has admitted that she was influenced by the work of Biederman and his assistant, Dr. Janet Wozniak. In the article, Dr. Lawrence Diller, a California behavioral pediatrician stated, "I find Biederman and his group to be morally responsible in part…he provided all the quote, 'scientific justification' to address a public health issue by drugging little kids."
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/
articles/2007/06/17/backlash_on_b ipolar_diagnoses_in_children/

• An Associated Press article entitled "Psychiatrist indicted for fraud in Paxil trials" exposes the crimes of psychiatrist Maria Carmen Palazzo who was indicted by a federal grand jury on 55 counts of health care fraud and false documentation in connection with a clinical trial of Paxil in children and adolescents. Palazzo defrauded Medicare by submitting fraudulent invoices to a local hospital for services that she claimed to have rendered to patients in the psychiatric program there. The indictment also charges that Palazzo defrauded Medicare because it paid her over $653,000 she was not entitled to receive.
http://www.wdsu.com/news/13508696/detail.html

• The Sunday Express (UK) ran an article entitled "NHS Spends Millions On Drug That Turns Children Into 'Drones'," about how the British National Health Service (NHS) is spending more than £1 million a month on Ritalin and writing almost 7,500 prescriptions a week for the mind-altering drug. Information obtained from the Freedom of Information Act show that the prescriptions will cost taxpayers about £12.48 million this year alone. The report comes after new figures reveal at least 11 deaths are being linked to Ritalin or similar drugs. The Sunday Express also reports that doctors link 73 blood disorder reactions, 39 heart disorders, and 80 stomach disorders as some of the side effects of Ritalin. Dr. Sami Timimi, an expert in child behavior, says that "We could be storing up big problems for this generation of youngsters."
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/10244/
NHS+spends+millions+on+drug+that+turns +children+into+'drones'

• The Philadephia Inquirer published an article entitled "Another life lost on DHS's watch." This story is about a 17-year-old boy, named Omega Leach, who was sent to Chad Youth Enhancement Center outside Nashville, Tennessee. The Center is a mental-health facility for troubled teenagers approved by the city's Department of Human Services. Leach was sent there on June 3rd after stealing a car, and a month later he died after a physical confrontation with staff that used restraint procedures.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/
20070624_Another_life_lost_on_DHSs_wat ch.html

• The Independent (UK) ran an article entitled "Ministers in U-turn on shock therapy" about how the government is making amendments to its controversial "Mental Health Bill" which originally pushed for electroshock on minors. Because of overwhelming opposition against the bill from concerned organizations, the government has agreed to a series of compromises. One of the most important changes is curbing the use of electroshock on minors. These changes to the bill are considered an improvement, but it's still said to be "not fit for the 21st Century."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2666412.ece

For decades, CCHR has fought to expose the dangers and fraud of the psycho-pharmaceutical industry despite the objections of vested interests that profit from keeping the truth concealed.

If you would like to make a donation to CCHR to assist with our public awareness campaigns, click here: https://www.cchr.org/donate

Letter to Editor Says It All

2007-06-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

This is a letter to the editor of the Fort Wayne Indiana News-Sentinel in response to an article about TeenScreen:

---

The article, "Help to ensure happy, healthy kids," by Jennifer L. Boen, barely scratches the surface over the controversy of mental health screening. Before the author goes touting supposed benefits, the pitfalls need to be examined. Why? Because it's a child's life that hangs in the balance.

To date there has been no study or documentation that proves that screening "benefits children," and there is no scientific study that shows that "early intervention can also spare a life." But there is plenty of evidence showing otherwise.

Experts say there is no evidence to support that TeenScreen does anything other than guarantee that a large number of children will end up on drugs. In May, 2004, after an in-depth investigation, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued a report with findings that said:

1. There is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality; 2. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk; 3. There is insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.

A 2006 study that investigated TeenScreen, said that mental health screening should be considered only investigational in nature, and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) labels screening as "experimental."

According to another 2006 peer-reviewed study: "Simply Asking Questions Can Increase Risky Behaviors" - the title says it all.

Then of course, there is the matter of TeenScreen's 10-minute questionnaire, a survey that asks questions such as:

1. Have you often felt very nervous or uncomfortable when you have been with a group of children or young people - say, like in the lunchroom at school or at a party?

2. Have you often felt very nervous when you've had to do things in front of people?

3. Have you often worried a lot before you were going to play a sport or game or do some other activity?

4. Has there been a time when you had less energy then you usually do?

5. Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do anything well or that you weren't as good-looking or as smart as other people?

6. Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren't interested in anything?

Hmm, sounds like normal behavior and thoughts are being labeled as pathological.

The screening "tools" have an 84 percent false-positive rate, meaning that 84 percent of the children screened were falsely identified. The developer of TeenScreen says that the false-positive rate can overwhelm a school with the number of students identified and acknowledges that his screening tool "would deliver many who were not at risk for suicide, and that could reduce the acceptability of a school-based prevention program."

TeenScreen is set up to "arrange treatment" - their words. TeenScreen claims throughout their literature that "The TeenScreen Program makes no treatment recommendations," yet "treatment" is the long-term goal for TeenScreen, according to their director. The TeenScreen developer says, "The main role is to motivate the student and their parents to seek treatment and to connect the adolescent to a mental health service in their community."

There are ways to help our children but screening them for mental health is not one of them.

Susan Weibert

This One Speaks For Itself

2007-06-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

Original link click here.

Boston Globe

Misguided standards of care

By Lawrence Diller

June 19, 2007

AS A doctor, I did the nearly unthinkable at a recent conference on bipoloar disorder in children. I charged another doctor with moral responsibility in the death last December of Rebecca Riley, a 4 -year-old girl from Hull. Naming names in medicine is just not done very often -- and I knew the personal and professional risks I was taking. Yet I felt compelled to name Joseph Biederman, head of the Massachusetts General Hospital's Pediatric Psychopharmacology clinic, as morally culpable in providing the "science" that allowed Rebecca to die.

Rebecca's parents have been jailed and charged in her death. They are accused of intentionally overdosing her with clonidine, an anti hypertensive and sedative drug -- one of three psychiatric medications prescribed by a Tufts-New England Medical Center child psychiatrist. Rebecca had been treated with these medications since the age of 2 1/2 for the purported diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- the new name for manic-depression.

While the psychiatrist involved has withheld comment on the case, both her lawyer and the medical center have defended her actions as "within the standards of care." Biederman and his colleagues at Harvard are the professionals most responsible for developing and promoting those standards of care -- which include diagnosing preschool children as young as 2 with bipolar disorder and treating them with multiple medications.

Biederman shocked the child psychiatric world in 1996 by announcing that nearly a quarter of the children he was treating for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also met his criteria for bipolar disorder. Up until then bipolar disorder was rarely diagnosed in teenagers and unheard of in prepubertal children. Biederman could justify his findings by simply broadening the semantic definitions of a previously more circumscribed condition contained within American psychiatry's bible -- the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders."

Biederman has produced a number of studies and papers purporting to demonstrate the validity of his diagnosis and treatment. His research has always epitomized the best of what the DSM model of psychiatry could expect. But the diagnoses in the manual, in concept, are closely linked to the medical model of biologically based psychiatric disorders and focus exclusively on the individual.

While the manual provides helpful clinical guidance in adults, it begins to unravel with its assumptions about discrete and specific disorders in children and ignores the families and environments in which children live. The ultimate absurdity of this scientific model is diagnosing bipolar disorder in 2 year olds and linking it to the adult disorder with the same name -- in the process saddling young children as chronic mental patients condemned to a lifetime of psychiatric drugs.

Even the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry -- in its recent parameters on the diagnosis in children -- eschews the bipolar diagnosis and its consequent medical treatment in children under 6. Still there are thousands of potential Rebecca Rileys being treated with multiple psychiatric drugs because Biederman has said it's OK and necessary. Supported by millions of dollars of drug industry promotional funding, Biederman and his colleagues circle the globe offering professional medical "education" for their singular point of view.

Finally, it's sad but true -- the field of child psychiatry is afraid of Biederman. One can hear the worries and fears whispered in the academic halls and clinics over where Biederman has taken the profession. Yet to politely challenge Biederman in public is to risk public retribution and ridicule from him and his team. Also academic researchers in child psychiatry risk losing their funding if they criticize this darling of the pharmaceutical industry, which provides most of the money these days for psychiatric research.

The silence was deafening -- and Rebecca's death pushed me over the edge -- because for over a decade I've have been uncomfortable about these practices in young children. I am not against psychiatric drugs for children. I've written prescriptions for children for 30 years in a clinical practice not tied to the drug industry.

I risk personal censure and loss of credibility in an advocacy for a broader concept and treatment for children with behavior problems in naming this doctor. But this time, Dr. Biederman, you have gone far.

Dr. Lawrence Diller practices behavioral/developmental pediatrics in Walnut Creek, Calif., and is the author of "The Last Normal Child: Essays on the Intersection of Kids, Culture and Psychiatric Drugs."

FDA Panel Rejects A Bad Drug (Finally)

2007-06-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- A Food and Drug Administration panel Wednesday unanimously rejected Acomplia, a weight-loss drug from Sanofi-Aventis SA, due to concerns the drug increases the number of psychiatric events like depression and suicidal thinking among users.

The panel's decision is a potential blow to the Paris-based drug maker, which was hoping it could sell Acomplia on the U.S. market. The FDA typically follows its panels' advice but isn't required to do so. The FDA is set to make a final decision on whether to approve the drug by the end of July.

Analysts believe the FDA will reject Acomplia, which is known generically as rimonabant, as the agency has been under fire from Congress about its handling of various drug-safety issues including recent concerns that GlaxoSmithKline PLC's diabetes drug Avandia raises heart-attack risks.

...

Earlier, Richard Gural, Sanofi's vice president of drug development and scientific affairs, had told the panel that Acomplia shouldn't be given to patients being treated for depression or a history of depression. He also said the company hasn't seen an increase in psychiatric problems associated with the drug in post-marketing reports.

The FDA has been concerned about psychiatric side effects such as depression. The agency also said there was a doubling of the rate of suicidal thoughts and behaviors seen in clinical studies of the drug. Last February, the FDA rejected Acomplia as a smoking-cessation product and said it needed more information on psychiatric side effects before it would consider approving the drug as a weight-loss treatment.

A Sanofi analysis of the data showed a lower "suicidality rate," finding a rate about 1.3 times higher than the rate seen in patients receiving a placebo, or fake drug. Company officials also said all of the incidences were associated with underlying depression and don't appear to be caused by rimonabant itself. Suicidality is an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors and doesn't refer to acts of suicide. The actual "suicidality" numbers are small, with 88 reports out of about 16,500 patients studied.

...

Rimonabant is designed to help block a chemical in the endocannabinoid system, a physiological system in the body that is believed to play a role in how the body regulates food intake. The FDA is concerned, however, that blocking the same chemical could increase the risk for other problems including mood disorders and neurodegenerative disorders like multiple sclerosis.

Psychs Paid By Big Pharma To Prescribe Drugs

2007-06-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times:

When Anya Bailey developed an eating disorder after her 12th birthday, her mother took her to a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who prescribed a powerful antipsychotic drug called Risperdal.

Prescription for Influence

Beyond the Label

Created for schizophrenia, Risperdal is not approved to treat eating disorders, but increased appetite is a common side effect and doctors may prescribe drugs as they see fit. Anya gained weight but within two years developed a crippling knot in her back. She now receives regular injections of Botox to unclench her back muscles. She often awakens crying in pain.

Isabella Bailey, Anya’s mother, said she had no idea that children might be especially susceptible to Risperdal’s side effects. Nor did she know that Risperdal and similar medicines were not approved at the time to treat children, or that medical trials often cited to justify the use of such drugs had as few as eight children taking the drug by the end.

Just as surprising, Ms. Bailey said, was learning that the university psychiatrist who supervised Anya’s care received more than $7,000 from 2003 to 2004 from Johnson & Johnson, Risperdal’s maker, in return for lectures about one of the company’s drugs.

Doctors, including Anya Bailey’s, maintain that payments from drug companies do not influence what they prescribe for patients.

But the intersection of money and medicine, and its effect on the well-being of patients, has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. Nowhere is that more true than in psychiatry, where increasing payments to doctors have coincided with the growing use in children of a relatively new class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics.

These best-selling drugs, including Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Abilify and Geodon, are now being prescribed to more than half a million children in the United States to help parents deal with behavior problems despite profound risks and almost no approved uses for minors.

A New York Times analysis of records in Minnesota, the only state that requires public reports of all drug company marketing payments to doctors, provides rare documentation of how financial relationships between doctors and drug makers correspond to the growing use of atypicals in children.

From 2000 to 2005, drug maker payments to Minnesota psychiatrists rose more than sixfold, to $1.6 million. During those same years, prescriptions of antipsychotics for children in Minnesota’s Medicaid program rose more than ninefold.

Those who took the most money from makers of atypicals tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often, the data suggest. On average, Minnesota psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from atypical makers from 2000 to 2005 appear to have written three times as many atypical prescriptions for children as psychiatrists who received less or no money.

The Times analysis focused on prescriptions written for about one-third of Minnesota’s Medicaid population, almost all of whom are disabled. Some doctors were misidentified by pharmacists, but the information provides a rough guide to prescribing patterns in the state.

Drug makers underwrite decision makers at every level of care. They pay doctors who prescribe and recommend drugs, teach about the underlying diseases, perform studies and write guidelines that other doctors often feel bound to follow.

But studies present strong evidence that financial interests can affect decisions, often without people knowing it.

In Minnesota, psychiatrists collected more money from drug makers from 2000 to 2005 than doctors in any other specialty. Total payments to individual psychiatrists ranged from $51 to more than $689,000, with a median of $1,750. Since the records are incomplete, these figures probably underestimate doctors’ actual incomes.

Such payments could encourage psychiatrists to use drugs in ways that endanger patients’ physical health, said Dr. Steven E. Hyman, the provost of Harvard University and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health. The growing use of atypicals in children is the most troubling example of this, Dr. Hyman said.

“There’s an irony that psychiatrists ask patients to have insights into themselves, but we don’t connect the wires in our own lives about how money is affecting our profession and putting our patients at risk,” he said.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/health/10psyche.html?ex=1181707200&en=4e5eec4661c15400&ei=5070

Drug Companies Employ Ethics-Challenged Docs

2007-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

New York Times

By Gardiner Harris and JANET ROBERTS

June 3, 2007

After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay

A decade ago the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice accused Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab of a “reckless, if not willful, disregard” for the welfare of 46 patients, 5 of whom died in his care or shortly afterward. The board suspended his license for seven months and restricted it for two years after that.

But Dr. Abuzzahab, a Minneapolis psychiatrist, is still overseeing the testing of drugs on patients and is being paid by pharmaceutical companies for the work. At least a dozen have paid him for research or marketing since he was disciplined.

Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab

Medical ethicists have long argued that doctors who give experimental medicines should be chosen with care. Indeed, the drug industry’s own guidelines for clinical trials state, “Investigators are selected based on qualifications, training, research or clinical expertise in relevant fields.” Yet Dr. Abuzzahab is far from the only doctor to have been disciplined or criticized by a medical board but later paid by drug makers.

An analysis of state records by The New York Times found more than 100 such doctors in Minnesota, at least two with criminal fraud convictions. While Minnesota is the only state to make its records publicly available, the problem, experts say, is national.

One of Dr. Abuzzahab’s patients was David Olson, whom the psychiatrist tried repeatedly to recruit for clinical trials. Drug makers paid Dr. Abuzzahab thousands of dollars for every patient he recruited. In July 1997, when Mr. Olson again refused to be a test subject, Dr. Abuzzahab discharged him from the hospital even though he was suicidal, records show. Mr. Olson committed suicide two weeks later.

In its disciplinary action against Dr. Abuzzahab, the state medical board referred to Mr. Olson as Patient No. 46.

“Dr. Abuzzahab failed to appreciate the risks of taking Patient No. 46 off Clozaril, failed to respond appropriately to the patient’s rapid deterioration and virtually ignored this patient’s suicidality,” the board found.

In an interview, Dr. Abuzzahab dismissed the findings as “without heft” and said drug makers were aware of his record. He said he had helped study many of the most popular drugs in psychiatry, including Paxil, Prozac, Risperdal, Seroquel, Zoloft and Zyprexa.

The Times’s examination of Minnesota’s trove of records on drug company payments to doctors found that from 1997 to 2005, at least 103 doctors who had been disciplined or criticized by the state medical board received a total of $1.7 million from drug makers. The median payment over that period was $1,250; the largest was $479,000.

The sanctions by the board ranged from reprimands to demands for retraining to suspension of licenses. Of those 103 doctors, 39 had been penalized for inappropriate prescribing practices, 21 for substance abuse, 12 for substandard care and 3 for mismanagement of drug studies. A few cases received national news media coverage, but drug makers hired the doctors anyway.

The Times included in its analysis any doctor who received drug company payments within 10 years of being under medical board sanction. At least 38 doctors received a combined $140,000 while they were still under sanction. Dr. Abuzzahab received more than $55,000 from 1997 to 2005.

Drug makers refused to comment, said they relied on doctors to report disciplinary or criminal cases, or said they were considering changing their hiring systems.

Asked about the Minnesota analysis, the deputy commissioner and chief medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said the federal government needed to overhaul regulations governing clinical trials and the doctors who oversaw them.

“We recognize that we need to modernize the F.D.A. approach in keeping people safe in clinical trials,” Dr. Woodcock said.

Drug makers are not required to inform the agency when they discover that investigators are falsifying data, and indeed some have failed to do so in the past. The F.D.A. plans to require such disclosures, Dr. Woodcock said. The agency inspects at most 1 percent of all clinical trials, she said.

Karl Uhlendorf, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the trade group would not comment on The Times’s findings.

The records most likely understate the extent of the problem because they are incomplete. And the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice disciplines a smaller share of the state’s doctors than almost any other medical board in the country, according to rankings by Public Citizen, an advocacy group based in Washington.

Dr. David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, said the Times analysis revealed a national problem. “There’s no reason to think Minnesota is unique,” Dr. Rothman said.

“Clinical trial investigators must be culled from only the finest physicians in the country,” he said, “since they work on the frontiers of new knowledge. That drug makers are scraping the bottom of the medical barrel is an outrage.”

Payments by drug companies to doctors, whether or not the doctors have been disciplined, are a matter of much debate. Drug makers and doctors say the money finances vital research and helps educate doctors about helpful medicines. But others in the medical profession say the payments are thinly disguised incentives for doctors to prescribe more, and more expensive, drugs.

Among the other doctors who were disciplined or criticized by the board and paid by pharmaceutical companies:

Dr. Barry Garfinkel, a child psychiatrist from Minneapolis who was convicted in federal court in 1993 of fraud involving a study for Ciba-Geigy. His criminal case made headlines across the state. From 2002 to 2004, Eli Lilly paid him more than $5,500 in honoraria, according to state records.

Dr. Garfinkel said in an interview that he had wondered why drug makers would hire him as a speaker considering his statewide notoriety. He decided that “they’re hiring me to influence my prescribing habits,” so he quit giving sponsored talks and taking money from drug makers, he said.

Dr. John Simon, a Minneapolis psychiatrist who for years shared an office with Dr. Abuzzahab and was told by the state medical board in 1994 to complete a clinical training program after it concluded in a report that he “frequently makes abrupt and drastic changes in type and dosage of medication which seem erratic, not well considered and poorly integrated with nonmedication strategies.” He prescribed addictive drugs to addicts and failed to stop giving medicines to patients suffering severe drug side effects, the board concluded.

Dr. Simon earned more than $350,000 from five drug makers from 1998 to 2005 for consulting and giving drug marketing talks. Of this, Eli Lilly paid more than $314,000. Dr. Simon said in an interview that the board’s action was a learning experience, and that drug makers continued to hire him to speak because “I am respected by my peers.”

Asked about Drs. Garfinkel and Simon, Phil Belt, a spokesman for Eli Lilly, said that both doctors were licensed to practice medicine and that the company relied on doctors to report disciplinary actions or criminal convictions against them.

Dr. Ronald Hardrict, a psychiatrist from Minneapolis who pleaded guilty in 2003 to Medicaid fraud. In 2004 and 2005, he collected more than $63,000 in marketing payments from seven drug makers. In an interview, Dr. Hardrict said it was “insulting” and “ridiculous” to suggest that income from drug makers might influence doctors’ prescribing habits.

“I bought the Mercedes because it has air bags, and I use Risperdal because it works,” Dr. Hardrict said, referring to an antipsychotic medicine for schizophrenia. Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Risperdal, paid Dr. Hardrict more than $30,000 in 2003 and 2004.

Srikant Ramaswami, a spokesman for Johnson & Johnson, said the company removed Dr. Hardrict as a speaker in 2004 when, as a result of his conviction, his name appeared in a government database.

Asked why other drug makers continue to hire him despite a fraud conviction, Dr. Hardrict responded with an e-mail message stating only, “I will pray for you daily.”

In cases involving Dr. Abuzzahab over 15 years in the 1980s and ’90s, the medical board found that he repeatedly prescribed narcotics and other controlled substances to addicts, renewing one patient’s prescriptions six weeks after the patient was jailed and telling another that his addictive pills should be thought of as “Hamburger Helper.” He prescribed narcotics to pregnant patients, one of whom prematurely delivered a baby who soon died.

In explaining his abrupt discharge of the suicidal Mr. Olson, Dr. Abuzzahab told the medical board that “if a patient is determined to kill himself, he can’t be prevented from doing it and hospitalization postpones the event,” records show.

Mr. Olson’s sister, Susie Olson, said Dr. Abuzzahab “had no time for my brother unless David agreed to get into a drug study. He said, ‘You’re wasting my time and the hospital’s.’ It was all about money.”

Separately, the F.D.A. in 1979 and 1984 concluded that Dr. Abuzzahab had violated the protocols of every study he led that they audited, and reported inaccurate data to drug makers. He routinely oversaw four to eight drug trials simultaneously, often moved patients from one study to another, sometimes gave experimental medicines to patients at their first consultation, and once hospitalized a patient for the sole purpose of enrolling him in a study, the F.D.A. found.

Dr. Abuzzahab, 74, was president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society and two decades ago was chairman of its continuing education and ethics committees. He would not discuss the specifics of his disciplinary record, saying he did not have the time. But in 1998 he signed an agreement with the board saying that his conduct “constitutes a reasonable basis in law and fact to justify the disciplinary action.”

A simple Google search reveals Dr. Abuzzahab’s 1998 medical board disciplinary file, which was reported at the time by a local newspaper and a TV station. In 1998, The Boston Globe featured Dr. Abuzzahab in a front-page article questioning the safety of psychiatric drug experiments. And in 1999, the NBC program “Dateline” did a segment about a woman who committed suicide while in a drug experiment he supervised.

In June 2006, the medical board criticized Dr. Abuzzahab, this time for writing narcotics prescriptions for patients he knew were using false names, a violation of federal narcotics laws.

Despite all this, drug makers continued to hire him. Dr. Abuzzahab’s résumé lists 11 publications or research presentations since 2000, when the medical board lifted its restrictions on his license.

Takeda, a Japanese drug maker, confirmed that Dr. Abuzzahab was doing a study financed by the company on its sleep medicine, Rozerem. Eisai, another Japanese drug maker, said that although Dr. Abuzzahab had signed a clinical trial agreement with the company to study its Alzheimer’s drug, Aricept, it told him two days after a reporter asked for comment on the case that he was not qualified to be an investigator. And at AstraZeneca, for which Dr. Abuzzahab said he had performed clinical trials and still gave drug marketing lectures, a spokesman said the company was “concerned” about Dr. Abuzzahab’s disciplinary record.

“We have our own internal processes for dealing with these matters, which are under way,” said Jim Minnick, an AstraZeneca spokesman.

The Minnesota records often fail to distinguish between drug company payments to doctors for research and for marketing, so it is sometimes impossible to determine why doctors were paid. Some doctors, like Dr. Abuzzahab, clearly performed both research and marketing.

Gene Carbona, who left Merck on good terms in 2001 as a regional sales manager after 12 years in drug sales, said the only thing the company considered when hiring doctors to give marketing lectures was “the volume or potential volume of prescribing that doctor could do.”

A Merck spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Carbona, now executive director of sales for The Medical Letter, which reviews drugs, said that had he known that a doctor had a disciplinary record for excessive prescribing, “I would have been more inclined to use them as a speaker.”

Here is one example of how much damage one psych can do in an hour.

2007-06-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

I Never Thought This Could Happen
by James Robison

"I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately."

That was the message preached by clinical psychologist Joel Becker at a recent mandatory high school assembly in Boulder , Colorado . Children as young as 14 sat captive in the audience while other school administrators listened in silent consent.

"Now, what is healthy sexual behavior? Well, I don't care if it's with men and men, women and women, men and women -- whatever combination you would like to put together," Becker said in an event labeled, "STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs."

I am shocked and outraged that our culture has become so depraved that school officials require children to attend an assembly where supposed “experts” advocate rampant sexual relationships, including homosexuality and group sex. Abstinence was dismissed as unwise and indicative of “religious hang-ups."

But it gets even worse.

"We all experiment,” Becker was recorded as saying. “It's very natural for young people to experiment with same-sex relationships. When you are 13, 12... one of the most appropriate sexual behaviors would be masturbation. Even today, there are psychiatrists who will do sessions under the influence of ecstasy. If I had some maybe I'd do it with someone, but you know."

The nationwide outcry has been lukewarm at best. Compared to Don Imus’ racially offensive comment, there has been little media coverage or public upheaval. Apparently, rude comments are taboo, but pedophilic psychology is no big deal.

Words are not strong enough to express my disgust with this blatant manipulation of children to convince them that immoral acts should not only be considered normal, but perfectly acceptable. This predatory tactic lays the foundation for irresponsibility and abuse. Colorado ’s public school officials mentally molested these children by sanctioning dangerous and destructive behavior.

One parent that objected to the indoctrination was Priscilla White, whose daughter is a sophomore at Boulder High.

"The panel discussion was a completely irresponsible and dangerous invitation to Boulder High students to have sex and take drugs," White told the Boulder Valley school board. She read the transcript of the assembly, but was asked to stop because the language was “inappropriate.”

"But it was at Boulder High School ," Priscilla White told the board members. "If they can listen to it, I think you can listen to it."

Board members agreed that they should “investigate.” Investigate? Are you kidding me? I’ll tell you what should happen. Those who approved this assembly should be fired immediately. The Conference on World Affairs, which puts together these types of assemblies, should be banned from all public schools. (Jim Palmer, who heads the CWA, defended the presentation by saying, “When you're talking to high school students about these issues, I think there is a responsibility on the part of adults to be informed and to be candid.")

It is tough enough for parents to raise children without public schools holding them hostage to lessons promoting the very things that most families find unwholesome and damaging. Young people face enough temptation in their lives learning to control appetites and desires. They struggle with right and wrong as they face situations that will impact them forever. Will the Boulder school district take responsibility when a student contracts AIDS after a night of “normal experimentation”? Will the Conference on World Affairs comfort the family of a student who dies of an overdose?

The sickness of this mentality absolutely staggers my mind. I cannot imagine the entire community not being up in arms and literally protesting in mass. An old proverb says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Joel Becker is that man and Boulder High has paved the path for its students.

Sources: The Denver Channel, WorldNet Daily, The Denver Post.

Big Pharma At Work

2007-05-25T16:36:00.001-07:00

(CBS) Jim and Star Chavez didn't think twice when their doctor prescribed Advair for their son Ethan.

Inhaled daily, Advair was supposed to prevent his occasional mild asthma attacks. Instead, as CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports, shortly after he started using Advair, Ethan collapsed.

"He was totally lifeless," says Jim Chavez. "His eyes were rolled back in his head, and it was really terrifying."

"I shook him, and I kept on shaking him and kept on yelling his name, 'Ethan, Ethan, wake up, wake up,' and he wouldn't respond at all," says Star Chavez.

They didn't know it then, but asthma patients taking the same medicine in a study were dying in unexpected numbers.

Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline led a study of Salmeterol, the medicine in Advair and another Glaxo asthma product, Serevent. Designed to relieve asthma, it seemed to trigger fatal attacks in some. Three times more patients taking the medicine died of asthma than those not taking it.

A safety monitoring board took one look at the deaths and shut down Glaxo's study. The FDA recently forced Glaxo to disclose the small but significant risk of death in a black box warning on its medicine and in ads: "Rare but serious asthma episodes and asthma related fatalities occurred."

In the study, Glaxo found deaths among blacks were the highest, though white deaths were also elevated. Glaxo then sent out a carefully worded message that led some to believe white patients need not worry: "These risks may be greater in African-Americans."

Yet CBS News has learned a study ten years ago of only white patients also found an increase in asthma deaths. Glaxo dismissed the deaths back then as "probably due to the disease rather than the treatment."

Most people who use Advair have no serious problems, and the FDA says benefits outweigh risks. And despite the new warnings, sales have increased, approaching $2 billion a year.

And that black box warning ordered for Advair four months ago still isn't on the product. The FDA says Glaxo negotiated when it will be but won't tell CBS News the date.

Ethan has fully recovered from his trauma, and the whole family is breathing easier without the asthma remedy that may have been worse than the disease.

New Proposed Bill In Congress - Please Support It

2007-05-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

You can find the federal bill here http://thomas.loc.gov/ by typing in HR 2387

Parental Consent Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 2387

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 17, 2007

Mr. PAUL (for himself, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. TANCREDO, and Mr. DOOLITTLE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Parental Consent Act of 2007'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds as follows:

(1) The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued findings and recommendations against screening for suicide that corroborate those of the Canadian Preventive Services Task Force. `USPSTF found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primary care setting, including tools to identify those at high risk.'.

(2) The 1999 Surgeon General's report on mental health admitted the serious conflicts in the medical literature regarding the definitions of mental health and mental illness when it said, `In other words, what it means to be mentally healthy is subject to many different interpretations that are rooted in value judgments that may vary across cultures. The challenge of defining mental health has stalled the development of programs to foster mental health (Secker, 1998). . . .'.

(3) A 2005 report by the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy admitted, with respect to the psychiatric screening of children from birth to age 5, the following: `We have mentioned a number of the problems for the new field of IMH [Infant Mental Health] throughout this paper, and many of them complicate examining outcomes.'. Briefly, such problems include:

(A) Lack of baseline

(B) Lack of agreement about diagnosis.

(D) Lack of longitudinal outcome studies.

(E) Appropriate assessment and treatment requires multiple informants involved with the young child: parents, clinicians, child care staff, preschool staff, medical personnel, and other service providers.

(F) Broad parameters for determining socioemotional outcomes are not clearly defined, although much attention is now being given to school readiness.

(4) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, admit that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are vague, saying, `DSM-IV criteria remain a consensus without clear empirical data supporting the number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Furthermore, the behavioral characteristics specified in DSM-IV, despite efforts to standardize them, remain subjective. . . .' (American Psychiatric Association Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV 1994), pp. 1162-1163).

(5) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's political beliefs a mental disorder.

(6) Efforts are underway to add a diagnosis of `extreme intolerance' to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Prisoners in the California State penal system judged to have this extreme intolerance based on race or sexual orientation are considered to be delusional and are being medicated with anti-psychotic drugs. (Washington Post 12/10/05)

(7) At least one federally-funded school violence prevention program has suggested that a child who shares his or her parent's traditional values may be likely to instigate school violence.

(8) Despite many statements in the popular press and by groups promoting the psychiatric labeling and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference said, `. . . further research is necessary to firmly establish ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not unique to ADHD, but applies as well to most psychiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such as schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diagnostic test for ADHD does not exist. . . . Finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative.'.

(9) There has been a precipitous increase in the prescription rates of psychiatric drugs in children:

(A) The use of antipsychotic medication in children has increased nearly fivefold between 1995 and 2002 with more than 2.5 million children receiving these medications, the youngest being 18 months old. (Vanderbilt University, 2006)

(B) More than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic drug at one time with no scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness. (Medco Health Solutions, 2006)

(C) More money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on antibiotics or asthma medication in 2003. (Medco Trends, 2004)

(10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Administration hearing found that more than two-thirds of studies of antidepressants given to depressed children showed that they were no more effective than placebo, or sugar pills, and that only the positive trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. The lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been known by the Food and Drug Administration since at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug Administration Background Comments on Pediatric Depression, Robert Temple of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowledged the `preponderance of negative studies of antidepressants in pediatric populations'. The Surgeon General's report said of stimulant medication like Ritalin, `However, psychostimulants do not appear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or school achievement.'.

(11) The Food and Drug Administration finally acknowledged by issuing its most severe Black Box Warnings in September 2004, that the newer antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and actions in children and that this data was hidden for years. A confirmatory review of that data published in 2006 by Columbia University's department of psychiatry, which is also the originator of the TeenScreen instrument, found that `in children and adolescents (aged 6-18 years), antidepressant drug treatment was significantly associated with suicide attempts . . . and suicide deaths. . . . '. The Food and Drug Administration had over 2000 reports of completed suicides from 1987 to 1995 for the drug Prozac alone, which by the agency's own calculations represent but a fraction of the suicides. Prozac is the only such drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in children.

(12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric medication used in children include mania, violence, dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the newer antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including lethal arrhythmias from the older antidepressants; growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psychotic medications.

(13) Parents are already being coerced to put their children on psychiatric medications and some children are dying because of it. Universal or mandatory mental health screening and the accompanying treatments recommended by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health will only increase that problem. Across the country, Patricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston Family, and the Salazar Family were all charged or threatened with child abuse charges for refusing or taking their children off of psychiatric medications.

(14) The United States Supreme Court in Pierce versus Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510 (1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

(15) Universal or mandatory mental health screening violates the right of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children.

(16) Federal funds should never be used to support programs that could lead to the increased over-medication of children, the stigmatization of children and adults as mentally disturbed based on their political or other beliefs, or the violation of the liberty and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to invasive `mental health screening' (the results of which are placed in medical records which are available to government officials and special interests without the patient's consent).

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING.

(a) Universal or Mandatory Mental Health Screening Program- No Federal funds may be used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

(b) Refusal to Consent as Basis of a Charge of Child Abuse or Education Neglect- No Federal education funds may be paid to any local educational agency or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, written, voluntary, informed consent to mental health screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of child abuse, child neglect, medical neglect, or education neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of such a charge.

(c) Definition- For purposes of this Act, the term `universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program'--

(1) means any mental health screening program in which a set of individuals (other than members of the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is automatically screened without regard to whether there was a prior indication of a need for mental health treatment; and

(2) includes--

(A) any program of State incentive grants for transformation to implement recommendations in the July 2003 report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System, grants for TeenScreen, and the Foundations for Learning Grants; and

(B) any student mental health screening program that allows mental health screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual involved.

It's Not A "Party" Issue

2007-05-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

Fox National News exposes the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings:

Click here to watch 3 min. video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-7aNPf33A

Filmmaker Michael Moore calls for a federal investigation into school shooters and psychiatric drugs:

Click here to watch 3 min. video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZ9YTnSkLc

In September 2005, following confirmation that Red Lake Indian Reservation school shooter, Jeff Weise, was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac, the National Foundation of Women Legislators called for a Congressional investigation into the
correlation between psychiatric drug use and school massacres.

Congress has yet to investigate the role of psychiatric drugs relating to school shootings despite international drug regulators warning these drugs can cause mania, psychosis, hallucinations, suicide and homicidal ideation.

At least eight of the recent school shooters were under the influence of such drugs, and according to media reports, investigators working on the Virginia Tech school shootings claim Cho Seung-Hui may also have been taking
drugs for "depression."

Click here to send a form letter to your Congressman (and Speaker Pelosi) requesting they act and call for a full investigation.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11069

Cho Seungo-Hui Toxicology Report

2007-05-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Governor of Virginia has commissioned an independent "Virginia Tech Incident Review Panel" to review all data regarding the Virginia Tech shooting.

The coroner has yet to release the the toxicology report of the shooter (Cho Seung-Hui). THIS MUST BE DONE. In addition, the panel needs to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings.

Investigators reportedly found anti-depression drugs among Cho's belongings -- drugs documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and "homicidal ideation."

If Cho Seung-Hui's psychiatric drug use is confirmed, it would bring the total to 61 killed and 77 wounded by psychiatric drug-induced school shootings. See list of 8 other school shooters (below) and the link to psychiatric drugs.

Please take 2 minutes and click here
http://www.vtreviewpanel.org/CitizenComments/# to send your request that the toxicology report be released and a full investigation be conducted into the link between psychiatric drugs and the school shootings:

Please forward to your friends and family to do the same,

In eight recent school shootings, psychiatric drugs were the common factor, in other instances, the shooter's medical records were never made public and their psychiatric drug use remains in question.

a.. September 28, 2006: Bailey, Colorado: Duane Morrison, 53, entered Platte Canyon High School and shot and killed one girl, and sexually assaulted 6 others. Antidepressants were found in his vehicle.

b.. March 21, 2005: Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota: 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

c.. April 10, 2001: Wahluke, Washington: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school, and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage while on a high dose of the antidepressant Effexor.

d.. March 22, 2001: El Cajon, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants, Effexor and Celexa, when he opened fire at his California high school wounding five.

e.. March 7, 2000: Williamsport, Pennsylvania: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was on the antidepressant Prozac when she blasted away at fellow students in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, wounding one.

f.. May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded 6 of his classmates.

g.. April 20, 1999: Columbine, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others before taking their own lives in the bloodiest school massacre to date. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in his system through toxicology reports while Dylan Klebold's autopsy was never made public.

h.. April 16, 1999: Notus, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school narrowly missing students; he was taking a mix of antidepressants.

i.. May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac.

Are meds to blame for Cho's rampage?

2007-05-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

Cho Seung-Hui

Cho Seung-Hui's murderous rampage – during which he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech – is prompting research into gun laws, resident aliens and graphically violent writings. Investigators also may want to check his medicine cabinet, because psychiatric drugs have been linked to hundreds of violent episodes, including most of the school shootings in the last two decades.

The New York Times has reported the killer was on a prescription medication, and authorities have said he was confined briefly several years ago for a mental episode. They also have confirmed that the "prescription drugs" found among his effects related to the treatment of psychological problems.

Dr. Peter Breggin, a prominent critic of psychiatric drugs and founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, said even if Cho wasn't taking psychiatric drugs the day of the shooting, "he might have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft."

While media reports have focused on guns and gun laws, Cho's violent writings and autistic behavior at Virginia Tech and the delay in notifying students and faculty of the beginnings of the shootings, there are those who say the focus should be on his medical history.

"In my book 'Reclaiming Our Children,' I analyzed the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox and I've also testified to the same under oath in depositions in a case related to Columbine," Breggin wrote, referring to the 1999 tragedy when Harris and classmate Dylan Klebold shot and bombed students at the Colorado school until a dozen were dead.

"In my book "The Antidepressant Fact Book," I also warned that stopping antidepressants can be as dangerous as starting them, since they can cause very disturbing and painful withdrawal reactions," he added.

The TeenScreenTruth website, dealing with the campaign to "screen" children for "problems" and then prescribe drugs, has documented an extended list of violent episodes believed connected to the use of psychiatric drugs.

They range as far back as 1985, when Atlanta postal worker Steven W. Brownlee, who had been getting psychotropic drugs, pulled a gun and shot and killed a supervisor and a clerk.

Among the specifically school-related attacks the site documents are:

In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann, who had been taking Anafranil and Lithium, walked into a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., and began shooting. One child was killed and six wounded.

Later that same year, 19-year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at the Greenwood, S.C., Elementary School and killed two 8-year-old girls and wounded seven others. He'd been on Xanax, Valium and five other drugs.

Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old of Springfield, Ore., in 1998 murdered his parents and proceeded to his high school where he went on a rampage killing two students and wounding 22 others. Kinkel had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.

Patrick Purdy, 25, in 1989 opened fire on a school yard filled with children in Stockton, Calif. Five kids were killed and 30 wounded. He been treated with Thorazine and Amitriptyline.

Steve Lieth of Chelsea, Mich., in 1993 walked into a school meeting and shot and killed the school superintendent, wounding two others, while on Prozac.

10-year-old Tommy Becton in 1996 grabbed his 3-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy who accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. He'd been put on Prozac.

Michael Carneal, 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in Heath High in West Paducah, Ky. Three died and one was paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.

In 1998, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson apparently faked a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., and shot at students as they left the building. Four students and a teacher were killed. The boys were believed to be on Ritalin.

In 1999, Shawn Cooper, 15, of Notus, Idaho, took a shotgun to school and injured one student. He had been taking Ritalin.

April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 24 others. Harris had been taking Luvox.

Todd Smith walked into as high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada in 1999 with a shotgun and killed one and injured a second student. He has been given a drug after a five-minute phone consultation with a psychiatrist.

Steven Abrams drove his car into a preschool playground in 1999 in Costa Mesa., Calif., killing two. He was on probation with a requirement to take Lithium.

In 2000, T.J. Solomon, 15, opened fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., while on a mix of antidepressants. Six were wounded.

The same year Seth Trickey of Gibson, Okla., 13, was on a variety of prescriptions when he opened fire on his middle-school class, injuring five.

Elizabeth Bush, 14, was on Prozac. She shot and wounded another student at Bishop Neumann High in Williamsport, Pa.

Jason Hoffman, 18, in 2001 was on Effexor and Celexa, both antidepressants, when he wounded two teachers at California's Granite Hills High School.

In Wahluke, Wash., Cory Baadsgaard, 16, took a rifle to his high schooland held 23 classmates hostage in 2001. He has been taking Paxil and Effexor.

In Tokyo in 2001, Mamoru Takuma, 37, went into a second-grade classroom and started stabbing students. He killed eight. He had taken 10 times his normal dosage of an antidepressant.

Duane Morrison, 53, shot and killed a girl at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado in 2006. Antidepressants later were found in his vehicle.

In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

Another case involving a school-age youth – although not at a school – happened in 1986, when 14-year-old Rod Mathews of Canton, Mass., beat a classmate to death with a baseball bat while on Ritalin.

And just a few among the dozens of incidents cited, but not apparently related to schools:

William Cruse in 1987 was charged with killing six people in Palm Bay, Fla., after taking psychiatric drugs for "several years."

The same year, Bartley James Dobben killed his two young sons by throwing them into a 1,300-degree foundry ladle. He been on a "regimen" of psychiatric drugs.

Joseph T. WesBecker, 47, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

In 1991, 61-year-old Barbara Mortenson, on Prozac for two weeks, "cannibalized her 87-year-old mother …"

In 1992, Lynnwood Drake III, shot and killed six in San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay. Prozac and Valium were found in his system.

Sixteen-year-old Victor Brancaccio attacked and killed an 81-year-old woman, covered her corpse with red spray-paint. He was two months into a Zoloft regimen.

While on four medications including Prozac, Dr. Debora Green in 1995 set her Prairie Village, Mo., home on fire, killing her children, ages 6 and 13.

Kurt Danysh, 18, shot and killed his father in 1996, 17 days after his first dose of Prozac. "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done. … This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."

In 1998, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Paxil, was ordered to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members after Donald Schnell, 60, just 48 hours after taking Paxil, flew into a rage and killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter.

The website also cites psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, in a speech advocating for the treatment of children and youth.

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, towards our elected officials, towards his parents, towards a belief in a supernatural being, and towards the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future," Pierce told a 1973 childhood seminar.

Breggin's conclusion that whatever mental manifestations were causing Cho's dangerous behavior, resulting in a professor asking for him to be removed from her class and two complaints of stalking, there was a solution.

"The answer to vengeful, violent people is not more mental health screening or more potent mental health interventions. Reliance on the whole range of this system from counseling to involuntary treatment failed. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that locking people up against their will or otherwise 'treating' them reduces violence. As we'll see, quite the opposite is true," he wrote. "So what was needed? Police intervention."

He wrote that "it's not politically correct to bring criminal charges against someone who is 'mentally ill' and it's not politically correct to prosecute him or to remove him from the campus. Yet that's what was needed to protect the students. Two known episodes of stalking, setting a fire, and his threatening behavior in class should have been more than enough for the university administration to bring charges against him and to send him off campus."

He continued with a warning, "And what about drugs for the treatment of violence? The FDA has not approved any medications for the control of violence because there are no such medications. Yes, it is possible to temporarily immobilize mind and body alike with a shot of an 'antipsychotic' drug like Haldol; but that only works as long as the person is virtually paralyzed and confined – and forced drugging invariably breeds more resentment.

"Instead of offering the promise of reducing violence, all psychiatric drugs carry the potential risk of driving the individual into violent madness. For example, both the newer antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa, and the antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal and Zyprexa, cause a disorder caused akathisia – a terrible inner sensation of agitation accompanied by a compulsion to move about. Akathisia is known to drive people to suicide and to aggression."

He said he's been writing for more than 15 years about the capacity for psychiatric drugs to cause mayhem, murder and suicide, but it wasn't until 2005 when the FDA issued a warning that such drugs produce "anxiety, agitation, panic attacks …"

He said in the Columbine case, Harris "looks the most like Cho. Both were very emotionally disturbed in an extremely violent fashion for a prolonged period of time."

Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department, said Cho's writings were so disturbing he was referred to the school's counselors.

"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," she said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

In a statement posted on the TeenScreen opposition site, Sidney Taurel of Eli Lilly noted that it would be "unreasonable" to expect "that there is such a thing as a risk-free drug."

Another website concerning the psychiatric drugs, called RitalinDeath, also documents some of these cases, as well as additional ones.

Dr. John Breeding concluded in a report shortly after Columbine that there were about five million school children now being given psychiatric drugs, and the number had been doubling every 10 years since the 1970s.

"This has got to be a cause for major alarm in all adults," he said. "The bottom line is that we are giving stronger and stronger psychiatric drugs to more and more children. Many of our children are taking more than one of these drugs at a time, and many of these drugs were never even tested and approved for children."

Top Psychiatrists Admit Their Profession is Compromised

2007-05-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

Mental Health Watchdog Group Says Psychiatric Industry Will Implode

While evidence of the inherent problems within the psychiatric industry mounts, leading psychiatrists are beginning to concede the undue influence pharmaceuticals have on their field. Recent national media attention on unscientific diagnoses, patient deaths and conflicts of interest with drug companies has riddled the mental health field with sharp, public criticism.

Steven Sharfstein, former president of the American Psychiatric Association, admitted in a front-page New York Times (NYT) article Thursday that psychiatrists have become too cozy with drug makers. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says that even this admission by a high-ranking psychiatrist is a substantial understatement. “The horrible consequences of pushing dangerous drugs on unsuspecting patients by psychiatric vested interests to treat invented ‘disorders’ will cause the industry to implode,” said Bruce Wiseman, President of CCHR for the U.S.

Sharfstein’s comment follows similar statements this week by other top psychiatrists:

· Daniel J. Carlat, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, told the Boston Globe on Monday, “Our [psychiatric] field as a whole is progressively being purchased lock, stock, and barrel by the drug companies: this includes the diagnoses, the treatment guidelines, and the national meetings."

· Steven E. Hyman, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health and provost of Harvard University, stated, “There’s an irony that psychiatrists ask patients to have insights into themselves, but we don’t connect the wires in our own lives about how money is affecting our profession and putting our patients at risk.”

Figures from a NYT analysis of drug company payments to psychiatrists in Minnesota (the only state which requires these records to be made public) reveal that drug company money guides psychiatric diagnoses as well as drug prescriptions, and that psychiatrists are the most financially compromised medical profession. This analysis found, for example, that between 2000 and 2005, payments to Minnesota psychiatrists by pharmaceutical companies increased more than six fold, to $1.6 million. Correspondingly, antipsychotic prescriptions for children increased more than nine fold.

Psychotropic drugs, including powerful antipsychotics, are prescribed to 10 million children, although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that the drugs cause mania, psychosis, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, homicidal ideation, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. A USA Today study of adverse events reported to the FDA between 2000-2004 found at least 45 child deaths in which antipsychotics were listed as the "primary suspect," in addition to 1,328 reports of serious, even life-threatening, side effects. More recently, in 2006, the FDA received reports of at least 29 child deaths linked to these drugs, and another 165 serious side effects.

CCHR warns that psychiatrists are prescribing these potentially deadly, mind-altering drugs based on diagnoses that cannot be confirmed with any objective physical tests. In other words, the “disorders” are just psychiatric “opinion” listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and billions of dollars are being made off of this fraudulent “science” while patients are put at serious risk.

“No blood tests exist for the disorders in the DSM. It relies on judgments from practitioners who rely on the manual,” said Lisa Cosgrove of the University of Massachusetts Boston. Cosgrove was the co-researcher in a 2006 study published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, which found that a majority (56%) of the panel members responsible for revisions to psychiatry’s billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), had one or more financial ties to drug companies.

Due to the lack of physical evidence to prove the existence of any mental disorder, there have been increasing challenges to the psychiatric diagnoses themselves. Two studies have come out recently, one in the U.S. and one in the UK, which found that large numbers of people are erroneously being classified with a mental disorder—one study admits a 60% misdiagnosis rate, the other 25%. People suffering from normal emotions such as sadness, divorce, rejection and economic misfortune are diagnosed with “depression” after answering simplistic questions.

NY Times: Psychs Paid By Drug Companies To Prescribe Drugs

2007-05-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Anya Bailey is among a growing number of children given antipsychotic drugs by doctors who are paid by the makers of those drugs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/health/10psyche.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5089&en=027f7584ba3fc3c4&ex=1336449600&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

The New York Times

Psychiatrists, Children and Drug Industry’s Role

By GARDINER HARRIS, BENEDICT CAREY and JANET ROBERTS

May 10, 2007

Doctors, including Anya Bailey’s, maintain that payments from drug companies do not influence what they prescribe for patients.

But studies present strong evidence that financial interests can affect decisions, often without people knowing it.

The Prescription

Anya Bailey is a 15-year-old high school freshman from East Grand Forks, Minn., with pictures of the actor Chad Michael Murray on her bedroom wall. She has constant discomfort in her neck that leads her to twist it in a birdlike fashion. Last year, a boy mimicked her in the lunch room.

“The first time, I laughed it off,” Anya said. “I said: ‘That’s so funny. I think I’ll laugh with you.’ Then it got annoying, and I decided to hide it. I don’t want to be made fun of.”

Now she slumps when seated at school to pressure her clenched muscles, she said.

It all began in 2003 when Anya became dangerously thin. “Nothing tasted good to her,” Ms. Bailey said.

Psychiatrists at the University of Minnesota, overseen by Dr. George M. Realmuto, settled on Risperdal, not for its calming effects but for its normally unwelcome side effect of increasing appetite and weight gain, Ms. Bailey said. Anya had other issues that may have recommended Risperdal to doctors, including occasional angry outbursts and having twice heard voices over the previous five years, Ms. Bailey said.

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Anya Bailey has a painful nerve condition called dystonia, in which the muscles in her back clench as a result of taking an antipsychotic drug.

Anya Bailey with her younger sister, Melanie, and her mother, Isabella.

Dr. Realmuto said he did not remember Anya’s case, but speaking generally he defended his unapproved use of Risperdal to counter an eating disorder despite the drug’s risks. “When things are dangerous, you use extraordinary measures,” he said.

Ten years ago, Dr. Realmuto helped conduct a study of Concerta, an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug marketed by Johnson & Johnson, which also makes Risperdal. When Concerta was approved, the company hired him to lecture about it.

He said he gives marketing lectures for several reasons.

“To the extent that a drug is useful, I want to be seen as a leader in my specialty and that I was involved in a scientific study,” he said.

The money is nice, too, he said. Dr. Realmuto’s university salary is $196,310.

“Academics don’t get paid very much,” he said. “If I was an entertainer, I think I would certainly do a lot better.”

In 2003, the year Anya came to his clinic, Dr. Realmuto earned $5,000 from Johnson & Johnson for giving three talks about Concerta. Dr. Realmuto said he could understand someone’s worrying that his Concerta lecture fees would influence him to prescribe Concerta but not a different drug from the same company, like Risperdal.

In general, he conceded, his relationship with a drug company might prompt him to try a drug. Whether he continued to use it, though, would depend entirely on the results.

As the interview continued, Dr. Realmuto said that upon reflection his payments from drug companies had probably opened his door to useless visits from a drug salesman, and he said he would stop giving sponsored lectures in the future.

Kara Russell, a Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman, said that the company selects speakers who have used the drug in patients and have either undertaken research or are aware of the studies. “Dr. Realmuto met these criteria,” Ms. Russell said.

When asked whether these payments may influence doctors’ prescribing habits, Ms. Russell said that the talks “provide an educational opportunity for physicians.”

No one has proved that psychiatrists prescribe atypicals to children because of drug company payments. Indeed, some who frequently prescribe the drugs to children earn no drug industry money. And nearly all psychiatrists who accept payments say they remain independent. Some say they prescribed and extolled the benefits of such drugs before ever receiving payments to speak to other doctors about them.

“If someone takes the point of view that your doctor can be bought, why would you go to an E. R. with your injured child and say, ‘Can you help me?’ ” said Dr. Suzanne A. Albrecht, a psychiatrist from Edina, Minn., who earned more than $188,000 from 2002 to 2005 giving drug marketing talks.

The Industry Campaign

It is illegal for drug makers to pay doctors directly to prescribe specific products. Federal rules also bar manufacturers from promoting unapproved, or off-label, uses for drugs.

But doctors are free to prescribe as they see fit, and drug companies can sidestep marketing prohibitions by paying doctors to give lectures in which, if asked, they may discuss unapproved uses.

The drug industry and many doctors say that these promotional lectures provide the field with invaluable education. Critics say the payments and lectures, often at expensive restaurants, are disguised kickbacks that encourage potentially dangerous drug uses. The issue is particularly important in psychiatry, because mental problems are not well understood, treatment often involves trial and error, and off-label prescribing is common.

The analysis of Minnesota records shows that from 1997 through 2005, more than a third of Minnesota’s licensed psychiatrists took money from drug makers, including the last eight presidents of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society.

The psychiatrist receiving the most from drug companies was Dr. Annette M. Smick, who lives outside Rochester, Minn., and was paid more than $689,000 by drug makers from 1998 to 2004. At one point Dr. Smick was doing so many sponsored talks that “it was hard for me to find time to see patients in my clinical practice,” she said.

“I was providing an educational benefit, and I like teaching,” Dr. Smick said.

Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, immediate past president of the American Psychiatric Association, said psychiatrists have become too cozy with drug makers. One example of this, he said, involves Lexapro, made by Forest Laboratories, which is now the most widely used antidepressant in the country even though there are cheaper alternatives, including generic versions of Prozac.

“Prozac is just as good if not better, and yet we are migrating to the expensive drug instead of the generics,” Dr. Sharfstein said. “I think it’s the marketing.”

Atypicals have become popular because they can settle almost any extreme behavior, often in minutes, and doctors have few other answers for desperate families.

Their growing use in children is closely tied to the increasingly common and controversial diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, a mood problem marked by aggravation, euphoria, depression and, in some cases, violent outbursts. The drugs, sometimes called major tranquilizers, act by numbing brain cells to surges of dopamine, a chemical that has been linked to euphoria and psychotic delusions.

Suzette Scheele of Burnsville, Minn., said her 17-year-old son, Matt, was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder four years ago because of intense mood swings, and now takes Seroquel and Abilify, which have caused substantial weight gain.

“But I don’t have to worry about his rages; he’s appropriate; he’s pleasant to be around,” Ms. Scheele said.

The sudden popularity of pediatric bipolar diagnosis has coincided with a shift from antidepressants like Prozac to far more expensive atypicals. In 2000, Minnesota spent more than $521,000 buying antipsychotic drugs, most of it on atypicals, for children on Medicaid. In 2005, the cost was more than $7.1 million, a 14-fold increase.

The drugs, which can cost $1,000 to $8,000 for a year’s supply, are huge sellers worldwide. In 2006, Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, had $4.36 billion in sales, Risperdal $4.18 billion and Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca, $3.42 billion.

Many Minnesota doctors, including the president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society, said drug makers and their intermediaries are now paying them almost exclusively to talk about bipolar disorder.

The Diagnoses

Yet childhood bipolar disorder is an increasingly controversial diagnosis. Even doctors who believe it is common disagree about its telltale symptoms. Others suspect it is a fad. And the scientific evidence that atypicals improve these children’s lives is scarce.

One of the first and perhaps most influential studies was financed by AstraZeneca and performed by Dr. Melissa DelBello, a child and adult psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. DelBello led a research team that tracked for six weeks the moods of 30 adolescents who had received diagnoses of bipolar disorder. Half of the teenagers took Depakote, an antiseizure drug used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder in adults. The other half took Seroquel and Depakote.

The two groups did about equally well until the last few days of the study, when those in the Seroquel group scored lower on a standard measure of mania. By then, almost half of the teenagers getting Seroquel had dropped out because they missed appointments or the drugs did not work. Just eight of them completed the trial.

In an interview, Dr. DelBello acknowledged that the study was not conclusive. In the 2002 published paper, however, she and her co-authors reported that Seroquel in combination with Depakote “is more effective for the treatment of adolescent bipolar mania” than Depakote alone.

In 2005, a committee of prominent experts from across the country examined all of the studies of treatment for pediatric bipolar disorder and decided that Dr. DelBello’s was the only study involving atypicals in bipolar children that deserved its highest rating for scientific rigor. The panel concluded that doctors should consider atypicals as a first-line treatment for some children. The guidelines were published in The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Three of the four doctors on the panel served as speakers or consultants to makers of atypicals, according to disclosures in the guidelines. In an interview, Dr. Robert A. Kowatch, a psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the lead author of the guidelines, said the drug makers’ support had no influence on the conclusions.

AstraZeneca hired Dr. DelBello and Dr. Kowatch to give sponsored talks. They later undertook another study comparing Seroquel and Depakote in bipolar children and found no difference. Dr. DelBello, who earns $183,500 annually from the University of Cincinnati, would not discuss how much she is paid by AstraZeneca.

“Trust me, I don’t make much,” she said. Drug company payments did not affect her study or her talks, she said. In a recent disclosure, Dr. DelBello said that she received marketing or consulting income from eight drug companies, including all five makers of atypicals.

Dr. Realmuto has heard Dr. DelBello speak several times, and her talks persuaded him to use combinations of Depakote and atypicals in bipolar children, he said. “She’s the leader in terms of doing studies on bipolar,” Dr. Realmuto said.

Some psychiatrists who advocate use of atypicals in children acknowledge that the evidence supporting this use is thin. But they say children should not go untreated simply because scientists have failed to confirm what clinicians already know.

“We don’t have time to wait for them to prove us right,” said Dr. Kent G. Brockmann, a psychiatrist from the Twin Cities who made more than $16,000 from 2003 to 2005 doing drug talks and one-on-one sales meetings, and last year was a leading prescriber of atypicals to Medicaid children.

The Reaction

For Anya Bailey, treatment with an atypical helped her regain her appetite and put on weight, but also heavily sedated her, her mother said. She developed the disabling knot in her back, the result of a nerve condition called dystonia, in 2005.

The reaction was rare but not unknown. Atypicals have side effects that are not easy to predict in any one patient. These include rapid weight gain and blood sugar problems, both risk factors for diabetes; disfiguring tics, dystonia and in rare cases heart attacks and sudden death in the elderly.

In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration received reports of at least 29 children dying and at least 165 more suffering serious side effects in which an antipsychotic was listed as the “primary suspect.” That was a substantial jump from 2000, when there were at least 10 deaths and 85 serious side effects among children linked to the drugs. Since reporting of bad drug effects is mostly voluntary, these numbers likely represent a fraction of the toll.

Jim Minnick, a spokesman for AstraZeneca, said that the company carefully monitors reported problems with Seroquel. “AstraZeneca believes that Seroquel is safe,” Mr. Minnick said.

Other psychiatrists renewed Anya’s prescriptions for Risperdal until Ms. Bailey took Anya last year to the Mayo Clinic, where a doctor insisted that Ms. Bailey stop the drug. Unlike most universities and hospitals, the Mayo Clinic restricts doctors from giving drug marketing lectures.

Ms. Bailey said she wished she had waited to see whether counseling would help Anya before trying drugs. Anya’s weight is now normal without the help of drugs, and her counseling ended in March. An experimental drug, her mother said, has recently helped the pain in her back.

Pass the word: 21,324 signatures on the TeenScreen petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

Legislators speak out against mass mental screening here: http://www.youtube.com/profile_favorites?user=TeenScreenDemo

Convicted Psychiatrist Remained on Federal Payroll for Months: LA Times

2007-05-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Convicted Psychiatrist Remained on Federal Payroll for Months: LA Times

According to the Los Angeles Times Wenesday, psychiatrist Trey Sunderland, a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and “a lasting symbol of the agency’s entanglements with drug companies,” remained on the federal payroll several months after he pleaded guilty to a federal conflict-of-interest charge relating to hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from pharmaceutical companies. Last December, a U.S. District Judge fined Sunderland $300,000 and sentenced him to two years of supervised probation and 400 hours of community service. Representative Joe L. Barton called the NIH "an ethical Potemkin village [something that appears effective but isn't], where a hollow system appears to provide the illusion of integrity, but transgressors never leave."

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights says that criminality is rife within the mental health system, so much so that it has tracked more than 1,000 convictions of psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health workers and created a database as a public warning. Found at www.psychcrime.org, it was established as a public service to law enforcement agencies, health care fraud investigators, medical and psychological licensing boards and the general public.

The LA Times story follows Massachusetts psychiatrist Daniel J. Carlat’s admission to the Boston Globe this week, stating: “Our [psychiatric] field as a whole is progressively being purchased lock, stock, and barrel by the drug companies: this includes the diagnoses, the treatment guidelines, and the national meetings.”

To read more about conflicts of interest in the mental health field, read CCHR’s publication, Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.

You can contact CCHR at (800) 869-2247 or email humanrights@cchr.org.

Drug Company Verdict Costs Them More Than Half A Billion

2007-05-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

This from the Wall Street Journal. The idea of holding drug company execs and employees responsible for misleading the public just brought a 600 million dollar verdict. Soon we'll see the day when the drug company people responsible for pushing so-called "anti-depressants" that actually cause depression will be indicted for manslaughter.

ROANOKE, Va. -- The maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin and three of its current and former executives pleaded guilty Thursday to misleading the public about the drug's risk of addiction, a federal prosecutor and the company said.

Purdue Pharma LP and the executives will pay $634.5 million in fines, U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said in the news release.

Earlier this week, Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $19.5 million to 26 states and the District of Columbia to settle complaints over its promotion of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, especially to doctors, the company said.

The states complained the Stamford, Conn., drug maker had been encouraging physicians to prescribe the drug for use every eight hours, instead of the 12-hour dose approved by the Food and Drug Administration. OxyContin is a time-release painkiller that can be highly addictive. Designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours, the pills can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and then swallowed, snorted or injected.