Russian activist says held in psychiatric clinic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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Citizens Commission on Human Rights Newsletter

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

© 2007 CCHR. All Rights Reserved. CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, CCHR and the CCHR logo are trademarks and service marks owned by Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Letter to Editor Says It All

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

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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

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)

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

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

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.

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

(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.