As civilized people we have fundamental agreements that define the type of world in which we live and the type of people who we are. One of the, if not the most, fundamental agreements has to do with the state of Motherhood. Motherhood is an institution sacred to those of all faiths, or no faith. Mothers would rather face harm themselves than let anything happen to their child. So, anything that would contribute to a mother harming their own child must indeed be evil - the stuff of nightmares, found in science fiction and horror movies.
Well, such a thing does exist - and not just in fiction. It has infiltrated real life and the lives of many people around us. It is the most horrible thing that we could confront, and confront it we must. To avert future tragedies, we must know: what could turn a loving mother into a murderer? What could possibly induce a mother to kill her own child?
Statistical analyses, medical studies and studies of individual cases have shown that psychiatric drugs and other psychiatric practices create insanity and cause violence. People who have become violent, usually for the first time, after psychiatric treatment are reported in the newspapers with alarming frequency. Each of those cases was in psychiatric hands before committing his or her crime of violence. Each was a psychiatric failure. And each was victimized by destructive psychiatric practices capable of pushing persons toward violence.
A 1988 study documented the tendency of a major tranquilizer to increase hostile and violent behavior. According to the study, many persons who had no prior history of violence, “were significantly more violent while on [this drug.]” And a March 2004 FDA Public Health Advisory warned, “Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia [severe restlessness], hypomania [abnormal excitement, mild mania] and mania [psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur and overproduction of ideas], have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants…both psychiatric and non-psychiatric.”
These are only two studies of many linking psychiatric drugs to new aggressive behaviors in those taking them.
A New Zealand report stated that withdrawal from psychoactive drugs can cause new physical symptoms. Antidepressants, according to the report, can create “agitation, severe depression, hallucinations, aggressiveness, hypomania [abnormal excitement] and akathisia [severe restlessness].”
Using bogus labels with no medical or scientific diagnoses to back them up, psychiatrists are turning emotionally stressed mothers, who turn to them for help, into monsters who murder their own children.
October 2005: Relatives described Lashaun Harris as a devoted and loving mother whose life began spiraling out of control when she was labeled with a “mental illness” two years previously. A 23-year-old overwhelmed single mother, she sought help after the birth of her third child. She fell into the wrong hands, and they turned her into a killer.
Harris was labeled as “schizophrenic,” hospitalized and put on the same anti-psychotic drug that was the subject of the 1988 study linking it to increased hostile and violent behavior. Recently, she had stopped taking the drug - without medical supervision, and despite warnings that abrupt withdrawal can create new symptoms. Soon after, Harris stripped her three children naked, hoisted them over a safety rail and plunged them into San Francisco Bay's chilly waters.
November 2004: Dena Schlosser cut off the arms of her 11-month-old daughter, killing her. Schlosser had seen a psychiatrist and was hospitalized for “post-partum depression.”
October 2003: Rebekah Amaya, a 32-year-old Colorado woman, drowned her two kids in the bathtub. She had previously received mental health treatment.
May 2001: Texas mother Andrea Yates methodically drowned all five of her children in the family bathtub. Mrs. Yates had several suicide attempts, psychiatric treatments and was on antidepressants and antipsychotics. CCHR Texas obtained independent medical assessments of Mrs. Yates’ medical records. Science consultant Edward G. Ezrailson, Ph.D. reported that the cocktail of drugs prescribed to Mrs. Yates caused involuntary intoxication. The “overdose” of one antidepressant and “sudden high doses” of another “worsened her behavior,” Ezrailson said. This “led to murder.”
November 1997: Christina Riggs, a nurse, smothered her two children in their beds. Before suffocating her older child, she injected him with potassium chloride, the chemical used in death penalty executions. She had been prescribed an antidepressant after her marriage broke up.
October 1994: Susan Smith, a South Carolina mother, drowned her two children by driving her car into a lake. She had undergone family counseling and had been hospitalized in 1988 after her second suicide attempt.
No violation of human rights is greater than that which causes a mother kill her own child. No family should have to live through the horrors and traumas experienced by the Harris, Schlosser, Amaya, Yates, Riggs or Smith families.
From as early as 1990, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) asked the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for the inherent dangers in psychiatric drugs to be made evident to doctors, patients and patient families. CCHR worked exhaustively to make this data known. Finally the FDA issued the first “black box” warning for a psychiatric drug in October 2004.
This was followed by another 16 warnings and alerts from the FDA and other medical and regulatory agencies around the world. The recent CCHR White Paper, Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs, documents each of these warnings, as well as providing recommendations for non-psychiatric treatments for those with emotional distress.
It is vital that CCHR increase their actions in making known the brutal and terrifying practices that are psychiatry and today’s “mental health care” system now, before they turn more mothers into killers. We are the only group in existence that can accomplish this. Contribute now and help the final stages of the museum renovation and reconstruction. The museum is the core of our message that psychiatry is the industry of death, and that we will not allow any more innocent people to become gruesome statistics of their failures to “help.” We are willing to do whatever it takes, but we need your donations to make this possible. Help get us back into our headquarters and the museum open and spreading the word that psychiatry kills.
You CAN make the difference. Defend and help save families from psychiatric drugs and despair. We need you to play a vital role in making known the dangers of these psychiatric “treatments.” We appreciate any donation you can contribute to this action. But, please, donate generously - otherwise, we will be paying the cost with our children. We must act now if we are to succeed. And we can succeed.
It is imperative that we reach as many parents, groups, allies, policy makers and media as possible in order to bring about further safeguards and action by the voting body necessary for getting such psychiatric treatment outlawed.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Psychiatry: Tool of Fascist States
The release of political prisoner Wang Wanxing after 13 years in a Chinese psychiatric institution exposes another example of psychiatry's long tradition of using governments for its totalitarian purposes. Wanxing was picked up on the eve of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown for displaying a banner critical of the Communist Party and, having committed no criminal offense was sent to a psychiatric facility called an ankang where he was electroshocked and drugged. He watched other inmates die in the ankang.
Citizens Commission on Human Rights says the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) and psychiatrists in general falsely claim that the atrocities committed against political prisoners are the result of governments abusing psychiatry. However, psychiatry is a willing accomplice, and has been since they designed and operated the Nazi death camps and before.. They create death camps such as the gulags in Russia and psychiatric slave labor camps in South Africa and get paid for assaulting and killing patients. The WPA has an appalling track record of failing to address and discipline its members' ethics. It has ignored and stonewalled reports of psychiatric abuse until such time as external pressure makes it imperative, for its own reputation, to make claims that it has been abused.
Russian historian, Professor Anatoli Prokopenko, was commissioned by President Yeltsin to investigate the plight of Soviet political dissidents. According to Prokopenko:
"When I chronicled a purely historical analysis of the sources of Soviet punitive psychiatry I initially believed that psychiatry was a science. I thought that it was the totalitarian Bolshevist regime that exploited them in its own political interest.
"However, I realized that no matter what regime may be established, it was the psychiatric community that sought to be above the law, intimidating leaders of the states with fictitious statistics on the legions of the mentally ill and the need to control them. The Serbsky Psychiatric Research Institute, psychiatric gulags and the KGB were the basis of punitive psychiatry in the USSR. To this day, Soviet leaders of psychiatry have refused to publicly declare their responsibility in damaging the mental health and liberty of millions of citizens."
China's psychiatric abuse is not limited to political prisoners. Lobotomies and similar brain operations are reportedly performed on inmates each year. Because there is no science to psychiatry, practitioners have invented "diagnoses" such as "delusions of reform" and "political maniacs" to justify incarceration of the members pf the religious group, the Falun Gong and inmates have been punished with "intravenous injections that made their tongues bulge out of their mouths and by extremely painful acupuncture that applied an electric current to the sole of the foot."
Citizens Commission on Human Rights says the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) and psychiatrists in general falsely claim that the atrocities committed against political prisoners are the result of governments abusing psychiatry. However, psychiatry is a willing accomplice, and has been since they designed and operated the Nazi death camps and before.. They create death camps such as the gulags in Russia and psychiatric slave labor camps in South Africa and get paid for assaulting and killing patients. The WPA has an appalling track record of failing to address and discipline its members' ethics. It has ignored and stonewalled reports of psychiatric abuse until such time as external pressure makes it imperative, for its own reputation, to make claims that it has been abused.
Russian historian, Professor Anatoli Prokopenko, was commissioned by President Yeltsin to investigate the plight of Soviet political dissidents. According to Prokopenko:
"When I chronicled a purely historical analysis of the sources of Soviet punitive psychiatry I initially believed that psychiatry was a science. I thought that it was the totalitarian Bolshevist regime that exploited them in its own political interest.
"However, I realized that no matter what regime may be established, it was the psychiatric community that sought to be above the law, intimidating leaders of the states with fictitious statistics on the legions of the mentally ill and the need to control them. The Serbsky Psychiatric Research Institute, psychiatric gulags and the KGB were the basis of punitive psychiatry in the USSR. To this day, Soviet leaders of psychiatry have refused to publicly declare their responsibility in damaging the mental health and liberty of millions of citizens."
China's psychiatric abuse is not limited to political prisoners. Lobotomies and similar brain operations are reportedly performed on inmates each year. Because there is no science to psychiatry, practitioners have invented "diagnoses" such as "delusions of reform" and "political maniacs" to justify incarceration of the members pf the religious group, the Falun Gong and inmates have been punished with "intravenous injections that made their tongues bulge out of their mouths and by extremely painful acupuncture that applied an electric current to the sole of the foot."
Disconnect Between Ads and Scientific Literature
In the Old West the wagon selling Snake Oil as a cure for everything went from town to town, then got out before people realized it was a swindle.
Today the big drug companies are much more sophisticated. But as Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." And some of the people are catching on.
"Serotonin and Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Lieterature" is the name of a new essay by Jeffrey R. Lacasse and Jonathan Leo.
Their attack on the drug industry is brutal: "In the United States, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants are advertised directly to consumers. These highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns have largely revolved around the claim that SSRIs correct a chemical imbalance caused by a lack of serotonin. For instance, sertraline (Zoloft) was the sixth best-selling medication in the US in 2004, with over $3 billion in sales likely due, at least in part, to the widely disseminated advertising campaign starring Zoloft's miserably depressed ovoid creature. Research has demonstrated that class-wide SSRI advertising has expanded the size of the antidepressant market, and SSRIs are now among the best-selling drugs in medical practice," the report says, pointing up the fact that the antidepressant market is largely created, not preexisting.
The essay goes on to say that given the multifactorial nature of depression and anxiety, and the ambiguities inherent in psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, some have questioned whether the mass provision of SSRIs is the result of an over-medicalized society. These sentiments were voiced by Lord Warner, United Kingdom Health Minister, at a recent hearing: “…I have some concerns that sometimes we do, as a society, wish to put labels on things which are just part and parcel of the human condition."
Subsequently, British regulators have forbidden the use of SSRIs on patients under 18 years of age.
The essay says that sentiments such as Lord Warner's, about over-medicalization, are exactly what some pharmaceutical companies have sought to overcome with their advertising campaigns. For example, Pfizer's television advertisement for the antidepressant sertraline (Zoloft) stated that depression is a serious medical condition that may be due to a chemical imbalance, and that “Zoloft works to correct this imbalance”. Other SSRI advertising campaigns have also claimed that depression is linked with an imbalance of serotonin, and that SSRIs can correct this imbalance.
The shocking truth is that no one has ever discovered a way to measure such an imbalance or even to prove that it exists. It has never been anything more than a theory. And that's not because they haven't tried to prove it exists. There have been dozens of experiments and tests. Even the attempt to induce depression by artificially reducing the amount of serotonin didn't produce any significant results, and huge increases in serotonin were ineffective at relieving depression. Despite this, the industry still sells their snake oil on the basis that it "controls" the serotonin levels in the brain, thereby inducing sanity.
In short, there exists no rigorous corroboration of the serotonin theory, and a significant body of contradictory evidence. Far from being a radical line of thought, doubts about the serotonin hypothesis are well acknowledged by many researchers, including frank statements from prominent psychiatrists, according to the essay.
Consumer advertising for SSRI drugs started in 1998. Since then the specious theory of "chemical imbalance in the brain" as a source of mental illness has been widely promulgated, with cute bouncing animated figures and convincing scenarios with people suffering from symptoms said to be curable with SSRIs. But this very advertising may be the thing that backfires for Big Pharma. Eventually people see through the lies. Abe Lincoln had it right; sooner or later people are going to want to run snake oil salesman out of town on a rail.
Today the big drug companies are much more sophisticated. But as Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." And some of the people are catching on.
"Serotonin and Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Lieterature" is the name of a new essay by Jeffrey R. Lacasse and Jonathan Leo.
Their attack on the drug industry is brutal: "In the United States, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants are advertised directly to consumers. These highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns have largely revolved around the claim that SSRIs correct a chemical imbalance caused by a lack of serotonin. For instance, sertraline (Zoloft) was the sixth best-selling medication in the US in 2004, with over $3 billion in sales likely due, at least in part, to the widely disseminated advertising campaign starring Zoloft's miserably depressed ovoid creature. Research has demonstrated that class-wide SSRI advertising has expanded the size of the antidepressant market, and SSRIs are now among the best-selling drugs in medical practice," the report says, pointing up the fact that the antidepressant market is largely created, not preexisting.
The essay goes on to say that given the multifactorial nature of depression and anxiety, and the ambiguities inherent in psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, some have questioned whether the mass provision of SSRIs is the result of an over-medicalized society. These sentiments were voiced by Lord Warner, United Kingdom Health Minister, at a recent hearing: “…I have some concerns that sometimes we do, as a society, wish to put labels on things which are just part and parcel of the human condition."
Subsequently, British regulators have forbidden the use of SSRIs on patients under 18 years of age.
The essay says that sentiments such as Lord Warner's, about over-medicalization, are exactly what some pharmaceutical companies have sought to overcome with their advertising campaigns. For example, Pfizer's television advertisement for the antidepressant sertraline (Zoloft) stated that depression is a serious medical condition that may be due to a chemical imbalance, and that “Zoloft works to correct this imbalance”. Other SSRI advertising campaigns have also claimed that depression is linked with an imbalance of serotonin, and that SSRIs can correct this imbalance.
The shocking truth is that no one has ever discovered a way to measure such an imbalance or even to prove that it exists. It has never been anything more than a theory. And that's not because they haven't tried to prove it exists. There have been dozens of experiments and tests. Even the attempt to induce depression by artificially reducing the amount of serotonin didn't produce any significant results, and huge increases in serotonin were ineffective at relieving depression. Despite this, the industry still sells their snake oil on the basis that it "controls" the serotonin levels in the brain, thereby inducing sanity.
In short, there exists no rigorous corroboration of the serotonin theory, and a significant body of contradictory evidence. Far from being a radical line of thought, doubts about the serotonin hypothesis are well acknowledged by many researchers, including frank statements from prominent psychiatrists, according to the essay.
Consumer advertising for SSRI drugs started in 1998. Since then the specious theory of "chemical imbalance in the brain" as a source of mental illness has been widely promulgated, with cute bouncing animated figures and convincing scenarios with people suffering from symptoms said to be curable with SSRIs. But this very advertising may be the thing that backfires for Big Pharma. Eventually people see through the lies. Abe Lincoln had it right; sooner or later people are going to want to run snake oil salesman out of town on a rail.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Psych-Drug Crazed Mom Murders 3 Children In San Francisco
What is more dangerous around the house for children; a loaded gun or a mother on psychiatric drugs? We’d love to see the statistics on that one. And we’re not advocating keeping loaded guns around the house – unless it is to protect us against mothers on psychiatric drugs.
The world was shocked when it happened in Texas – a mother drowned her four children, one at a time, in the bathtub. Then another Texas mom chopped her children up with a meat axe. Just when we were starting to think our children were safe if they weren’t in Texas, the phenomenon began to replicate elsewhere; the soccer mom who took six psych drugs per day lost it when a ball hit her car near a school, so she charged over the curb in her SUV and ran the boys down – drive over them again and again, then got out of the car and calmly smoked a cigarette as others called for help. And now there’s La-shuan Ternice Harris of Oakland, California, who calmly told her family she was taking her children to the bay and feeding them to the sharks – then did exactly that, stripping them and throwing them in the water off a pier. One of the bodies has washed up, but the other two are still missing.
Ms. Harris had been on psychiatric drugs, and when she came off, she became so crazy the family tried to get the children taken away from her, but not quickly enough. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it was the psychiatric drugs that were keeping Ms. Harris “sane”. It is a well-known fact that these drugs are viciously addictive – despite the fact that the drug companies that produce them cover this up – and people are their most dangerous when they are trying to get off the drugs. The Internet is filled with heart-rending support sites for people who are trying to get off the drugs, including anecdotes about self-mutilation, and homicidal and suicidal thoughts while trying to “kick the habit”.
So it goes on. The grisly killing fields of the 21st Century are the homes of families who are only trying to get a little help with their depression or their upsets with life. Unwitting, they are lured into the offices of the high priests of psychiatry and psychology who give them the psychosis-inducing pills. Like wicked witches and warlocks cackling and rubbing their hands together, they smile and issue the prescription death warrants. “This will help you…”
The world was shocked when it happened in Texas – a mother drowned her four children, one at a time, in the bathtub. Then another Texas mom chopped her children up with a meat axe. Just when we were starting to think our children were safe if they weren’t in Texas, the phenomenon began to replicate elsewhere; the soccer mom who took six psych drugs per day lost it when a ball hit her car near a school, so she charged over the curb in her SUV and ran the boys down – drive over them again and again, then got out of the car and calmly smoked a cigarette as others called for help. And now there’s La-shuan Ternice Harris of Oakland, California, who calmly told her family she was taking her children to the bay and feeding them to the sharks – then did exactly that, stripping them and throwing them in the water off a pier. One of the bodies has washed up, but the other two are still missing.
Ms. Harris had been on psychiatric drugs, and when she came off, she became so crazy the family tried to get the children taken away from her, but not quickly enough. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it was the psychiatric drugs that were keeping Ms. Harris “sane”. It is a well-known fact that these drugs are viciously addictive – despite the fact that the drug companies that produce them cover this up – and people are their most dangerous when they are trying to get off the drugs. The Internet is filled with heart-rending support sites for people who are trying to get off the drugs, including anecdotes about self-mutilation, and homicidal and suicidal thoughts while trying to “kick the habit”.
So it goes on. The grisly killing fields of the 21st Century are the homes of families who are only trying to get a little help with their depression or their upsets with life. Unwitting, they are lured into the offices of the high priests of psychiatry and psychology who give them the psychosis-inducing pills. Like wicked witches and warlocks cackling and rubbing their hands together, they smile and issue the prescription death warrants. “This will help you…”
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
FDA Footdragging Attacked Re Prozac, Paxil
According to a story on U.S. Newswire, 125 medical practitioners have signed onto a joint letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), renewing a call to take immediate action on issuing stronger warnings for antidepressant and stimulant drugs, as a 3-day protest rages by consumer groups demanding Glaxo recall its $950 million antidepressant Paxil. The same letter, sent to FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford in July, 2005 and signed by 20 doctors, was left unanswered by the Commissioner prompting many to accuse the FDA of bureaucratic foot-dragging and procrastination. Senator Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa) who has spent months investigating the FDA, said the agency "demonstrated a too-cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry," and that "the opportunity to name a new commissioner is a chance to take the agency in the right direction."
The doctors' letters join recent efforts by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director of the International coalition for Drug Awareness (ICFDA) and Mrs. Bonnie Leitsch, founder of "Prozac Survivors Support Group" (PSSG) in calling for immediate federal action to warn the public that antidepressants can not only induce suicidality in adult patients - but also acts of violence, pointing out that the U.S. FDA has known of these effects since a 1991 public hearing on antidepressant drugs. Prompted by a spate of recent incidents of mothers murdering their own children while taking antidepressants, Dr. Tracy said, "These are extremely dangerous drugs that should have been banned, as similar drugs were in the past. Federal investigations into the violence- inducing effects of these drugs are long overdue." Mrs. Leitsch added, "In 1991, there was evidence of 500 deaths associated with antidepressants presented to an FDA Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee hearing investigating Prozac. The FDA's failure to issue timely warnings then has led to more suicides, homicides, school shootings and mothers killing their own children."
Concerned doctors are also pushing for FDA reform and action under new leadership. 25 European countries recently warned that antidepressants should not be used in patients under 18 due to the suicide and violence inducing effects of the drugs and recent clinical studies linked ADHD drugs to hallucinations, violence, psychosis, and suicide. Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D., and principal author of the letter says the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of these drugs makes further FDA procrastination unacceptable, "It is beyond debate that these drugs have extremely dangerous side effects and that the public is not being kept adequately informed about these dangers," states Whitaker, "It is our hope that the new Commissioner will take immediate and swift action to protect the public from these dangerous and too often deadly psychiatric drugs."
Fueled by $4.5 billion in direct consumer advertising, ADHD stimulant drug sales have quadrupled since 2000 while antidepressant sales have passed the $20 billion mark, prompting many to question how profit-driven vested interests may be involved in the FDA's failure to warn patients of the drugs risks. "With literally billions of dollars of profits at stake, we are not surprised when we hear stories of skewed clinical trials, suppressed study outcomes, pressure placed on reviewers, and a host of other abuses," stated Dr. Whitaker.
The doctors' letters join recent efforts by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director of the International coalition for Drug Awareness (ICFDA) and Mrs. Bonnie Leitsch, founder of "Prozac Survivors Support Group" (PSSG) in calling for immediate federal action to warn the public that antidepressants can not only induce suicidality in adult patients - but also acts of violence, pointing out that the U.S. FDA has known of these effects since a 1991 public hearing on antidepressant drugs. Prompted by a spate of recent incidents of mothers murdering their own children while taking antidepressants, Dr. Tracy said, "These are extremely dangerous drugs that should have been banned, as similar drugs were in the past. Federal investigations into the violence- inducing effects of these drugs are long overdue." Mrs. Leitsch added, "In 1991, there was evidence of 500 deaths associated with antidepressants presented to an FDA Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee hearing investigating Prozac. The FDA's failure to issue timely warnings then has led to more suicides, homicides, school shootings and mothers killing their own children."
Concerned doctors are also pushing for FDA reform and action under new leadership. 25 European countries recently warned that antidepressants should not be used in patients under 18 due to the suicide and violence inducing effects of the drugs and recent clinical studies linked ADHD drugs to hallucinations, violence, psychosis, and suicide. Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D., and principal author of the letter says the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of these drugs makes further FDA procrastination unacceptable, "It is beyond debate that these drugs have extremely dangerous side effects and that the public is not being kept adequately informed about these dangers," states Whitaker, "It is our hope that the new Commissioner will take immediate and swift action to protect the public from these dangerous and too often deadly psychiatric drugs."
Fueled by $4.5 billion in direct consumer advertising, ADHD stimulant drug sales have quadrupled since 2000 while antidepressant sales have passed the $20 billion mark, prompting many to question how profit-driven vested interests may be involved in the FDA's failure to warn patients of the drugs risks. "With literally billions of dollars of profits at stake, we are not surprised when we hear stories of skewed clinical trials, suppressed study outcomes, pressure placed on reviewers, and a host of other abuses," stated Dr. Whitaker.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Rock Icons Attack Ritalin
This L.A. Times article hits the nail on the head.
A Prescribed Threat
By Mary Eberstadt
MARY EBERSTADT is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of "Home-Alone America," newly released in paperback by Penguin/Sentinel.
September 25, 2005
WHEN TOM CRUISE and his fellow Scientologists took a hammering earlier this year for their public opposition to psychiatric drugs, neither they nor their critics could have anticipated the releases in July and August of two weighty reports offering evidence that at least some psychiatric prescription-writing has run amok.
If these two reports by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, or CASA, have it right, more kids than ever have their fingers — and sometimes their noses — in somebody else's psychiatric prescription pill bottle.
The July report ("Under the Counter: The Diversion and Abuse of Controlled Prescription Drugs in the U.S.") estimates that while self-reported use of prescription drugs by people of all ages nearly doubled between 1992 and 2003, abuse by teenagers during those years tripled.
Similar increases appear in the August report, "National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse X: Teens and Parents." Between April 2004 and June 2005, for example, "the percentage of teens who know a friend or classmate who has abused prescription drugs jumped 86%."
In his introduction to the July report, CASA Chairman and President Joseph A. Califano Jr. zeroes in on the problem: "Particularly alarming is the 212% increase from 1992 to 2003 in the number of 12- to 17-year-olds abusing controlled prescription drugs, and the number of teens trying these drugs for the first time."
Nor does Califano sugarcoat the question of just how close to home the problem hits: "The explosion in the prescription of addictive opioids, depressants and stimulants has, for many children, made the medicine cabinet a greater temptation and threat than the illegal street drug dealer, as some parents have become unwitting and passive pushers."
At a time when many doctors, teachers and parents swear by the beneficial effects of prescription stimulants for minors, words as unsparing as Califano's are likely to be dismissed as alarmist.
But these reports are not the only evidence of the harm done by these drugs to at least some kids. If we look at what kids say, sing and report about psychiatric medications, we learn that among the harshest critics of the child wonder-drug regimen are some of its intended beneficiaries and graduates.
Consider two music icons. The late grunge-rock guru Kurt Cobain appears in retrospect as a kind of anti-poster boy for child stimulants. Prescribed Ritalin from the age of 7, Cobain believed that the drug led to his later abuse of related substances. (He committed suicide by shotgun in 1994.)
Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, put the connection this way to biographer Charles R. Cross: "Kurt's own opinion, as he later told her, was that the drug was significant. Courtney, who also was prescribed Ritalin as a child, said: 'When you're a kid and you get this drug that makes you feel that [euphoric] feeling, where else are you going to turn when you're an adult?' "
Marshall Mathers, a.k.a. bad-boy rap superstar Eminem, is another prominent self-perceived child victim of the label-and-medicate momentum. In an article in Rolling Stone magazine, Howard Stern said that Eminem told him that his mother "misdiagnosed him with attention deficit disorder. 'My mother said I was a hyper kid, and I wasn't,' he said. 'She put me on Ritalin.' " One telling Eminem hit called "Cleaning Out My Closet" includes the lyric, "My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't."
It seems almost too perverse to be true: Cobain's and Eminem's fans might get a stronger anti-stimulant message from their icons' examples than from their own parents, teachers and doctors.
Criticism of the child-drug phenomenon also comes from writers who self-identify as members of "the Ritalin generation." One is Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the books "Prozac Nation" and "More, Now, Again." The latter detailed her harrowing descent into Ritalin addiction after a well-meaning doctor prescribed the drug to help her "focus" on writing.
Advocates of psychiatric medication for children often argue, and passionately, that these drugs alleviate the suffering of many children and families. But if that positive experience is to be a legitimate test, so too should the negative feelings and experiences of others be acknowledged.
"These [stimulants] are very safe medications," a child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School told a reporter in the wake of the July CASA report. "They have been used for 70 years, and we haven't had terrible catastrophes."
Yet it doesn't take a Scientologist to wonder whether "terrible catastrophe" is the most accurate measurement.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Prescribed Threat
By Mary Eberstadt
MARY EBERSTADT is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of "Home-Alone America," newly released in paperback by Penguin/Sentinel.
September 25, 2005
WHEN TOM CRUISE and his fellow Scientologists took a hammering earlier this year for their public opposition to psychiatric drugs, neither they nor their critics could have anticipated the releases in July and August of two weighty reports offering evidence that at least some psychiatric prescription-writing has run amok.
If these two reports by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, or CASA, have it right, more kids than ever have their fingers — and sometimes their noses — in somebody else's psychiatric prescription pill bottle.
The July report ("Under the Counter: The Diversion and Abuse of Controlled Prescription Drugs in the U.S.") estimates that while self-reported use of prescription drugs by people of all ages nearly doubled between 1992 and 2003, abuse by teenagers during those years tripled.
Similar increases appear in the August report, "National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse X: Teens and Parents." Between April 2004 and June 2005, for example, "the percentage of teens who know a friend or classmate who has abused prescription drugs jumped 86%."
In his introduction to the July report, CASA Chairman and President Joseph A. Califano Jr. zeroes in on the problem: "Particularly alarming is the 212% increase from 1992 to 2003 in the number of 12- to 17-year-olds abusing controlled prescription drugs, and the number of teens trying these drugs for the first time."
Nor does Califano sugarcoat the question of just how close to home the problem hits: "The explosion in the prescription of addictive opioids, depressants and stimulants has, for many children, made the medicine cabinet a greater temptation and threat than the illegal street drug dealer, as some parents have become unwitting and passive pushers."
At a time when many doctors, teachers and parents swear by the beneficial effects of prescription stimulants for minors, words as unsparing as Califano's are likely to be dismissed as alarmist.
But these reports are not the only evidence of the harm done by these drugs to at least some kids. If we look at what kids say, sing and report about psychiatric medications, we learn that among the harshest critics of the child wonder-drug regimen are some of its intended beneficiaries and graduates.
Consider two music icons. The late grunge-rock guru Kurt Cobain appears in retrospect as a kind of anti-poster boy for child stimulants. Prescribed Ritalin from the age of 7, Cobain believed that the drug led to his later abuse of related substances. (He committed suicide by shotgun in 1994.)
Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, put the connection this way to biographer Charles R. Cross: "Kurt's own opinion, as he later told her, was that the drug was significant. Courtney, who also was prescribed Ritalin as a child, said: 'When you're a kid and you get this drug that makes you feel that [euphoric] feeling, where else are you going to turn when you're an adult?' "
Marshall Mathers, a.k.a. bad-boy rap superstar Eminem, is another prominent self-perceived child victim of the label-and-medicate momentum. In an article in Rolling Stone magazine, Howard Stern said that Eminem told him that his mother "misdiagnosed him with attention deficit disorder. 'My mother said I was a hyper kid, and I wasn't,' he said. 'She put me on Ritalin.' " One telling Eminem hit called "Cleaning Out My Closet" includes the lyric, "My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't."
It seems almost too perverse to be true: Cobain's and Eminem's fans might get a stronger anti-stimulant message from their icons' examples than from their own parents, teachers and doctors.
Criticism of the child-drug phenomenon also comes from writers who self-identify as members of "the Ritalin generation." One is Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the books "Prozac Nation" and "More, Now, Again." The latter detailed her harrowing descent into Ritalin addiction after a well-meaning doctor prescribed the drug to help her "focus" on writing.
Advocates of psychiatric medication for children often argue, and passionately, that these drugs alleviate the suffering of many children and families. But if that positive experience is to be a legitimate test, so too should the negative feelings and experiences of others be acknowledged.
"These [stimulants] are very safe medications," a child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School told a reporter in the wake of the July CASA report. "They have been used for 70 years, and we haven't had terrible catastrophes."
Yet it doesn't take a Scientologist to wonder whether "terrible catastrophe" is the most accurate measurement.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Protect Your Children From Teen Screen
Teen Screen. Sounds friendly, helpful, upbeat, right? Well, it’s not. It is a marketing technique to addict and control our children by using bogus “suicide screening” questions and then, if a child identifies some of these universal experiences as their own, they are sucked into a vortex of procedure and misuse of professional words and ideas to make sure that huge numbers of children are doped and made dopey. Make them dopey enough, and you will make them damaged and dead, too. Oh, by the way, there is no need to have parental approval for this doping and dieing in more and more places, by the way. Object and you can loose your children to the power of the state. The list of abominations goes on and on and on here. Let me remind you that these psychoactive drugs are dangerous toxins and have never been tested for long term effects in human, especially not on the developing brains of children Six to 13 weeks is about average for a test protocol for psychoactive drugs despite the fact that these horrific substances are addictive and used for years on end on children. They are often used in combination, too, despite the absolute lack of clinical testing to assure anyone at all that these are safe procedures.
In case I did not mention it, I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist by training as well as an Adult Psychiatrist. I know whereof I speak because I practiced out-patient psychiatry without drugs for more than 35 years before I closed my practice in order to take on the Body Politic: health freedom. I know first hand what these drugs do and I know first hand what is, and is not, known about the use and damage of these powerful mind altering chemicals and their impact on brains in development. I also know with the certainty of long practice that orthomolecular psychiatry, NeuroBioFeedback, clean food and psychotherapy are powerful, non-toxic, empowering tools to help with real issues of cognition, affect and attention.
I know, too, that these techniques are not very good for the biggest, and meanest, business in the world, Big Pharma. Not good at all. How much does a bottle of B3 (Niacin) cost compared to any of the dangerous doping compounds the patent medicine companies have convinced us are essential for life and health? You do the math. Or, if you’d rather look at some really interesting math done by some pretty smart people, take a look at the real story on Teen Screen and, scrolling down, take a look at the $30B which the Teen Screen poisoning of our children’s brains and bodies will result in for Big Pharma!
Here is my advice for you if you have kids: Do Not Allow Teen Screen Anywhere Near Your Child. Teach your child to resist the blandishments, the Video coupons and the Pizza Parties that are used as inducements for this diabolical program. Just Say No! and teach your kids to say “NO!”, too.
If a child is mentally ill, there are ways to screen and to help him or her that do not involve blandishments and enticements and treatments that do not involve poisoning your child’s developing brain. Love your child. Keep him/her free of mind-bending poisons with addictive and other dangerous potentials. Please.
Yours in health and freedom from profitable poisons,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
In case I did not mention it, I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist by training as well as an Adult Psychiatrist. I know whereof I speak because I practiced out-patient psychiatry without drugs for more than 35 years before I closed my practice in order to take on the Body Politic: health freedom. I know first hand what these drugs do and I know first hand what is, and is not, known about the use and damage of these powerful mind altering chemicals and their impact on brains in development. I also know with the certainty of long practice that orthomolecular psychiatry, NeuroBioFeedback, clean food and psychotherapy are powerful, non-toxic, empowering tools to help with real issues of cognition, affect and attention.
I know, too, that these techniques are not very good for the biggest, and meanest, business in the world, Big Pharma. Not good at all. How much does a bottle of B3 (Niacin) cost compared to any of the dangerous doping compounds the patent medicine companies have convinced us are essential for life and health? You do the math. Or, if you’d rather look at some really interesting math done by some pretty smart people, take a look at the real story on Teen Screen and, scrolling down, take a look at the $30B which the Teen Screen poisoning of our children’s brains and bodies will result in for Big Pharma!
Here is my advice for you if you have kids: Do Not Allow Teen Screen Anywhere Near Your Child. Teach your child to resist the blandishments, the Video coupons and the Pizza Parties that are used as inducements for this diabolical program. Just Say No! and teach your kids to say “NO!”, too.
If a child is mentally ill, there are ways to screen and to help him or her that do not involve blandishments and enticements and treatments that do not involve poisoning your child’s developing brain. Love your child. Keep him/her free of mind-bending poisons with addictive and other dangerous potentials. Please.
Yours in health and freedom from profitable poisons,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Friday, September 16, 2005
Psychiatrists Recommended Putting The Children In A Cage
While many are shocked at news reports of a psychiatrist advising an Ohio couple to confine their 11 foster children in caged beds, the practice of caging patients in beds in not uncommon for the psychiatric industry.
In 2004, after young children and adults were found in Hungarian psychiatric wards, imprisoned in caged beds as punishment for “misbehavior,” such as getting out of bed in the night or taking food from the hospital refrigerator, the practice was banned in Hungary and the Czech Republic by the European Parliament. This was due to the dedicated efforts of human rights groups and Harry Potter author JK Rowling who demanded an end to this degrading and inhuman treatment of both adults and young children. Harry Potter Author JK Rowling slams psychiatrists use of cage beds.
As abusive and harmful as caging children may be, psychiatry's unrepentant use of such arcane practices spans more than 200 years.
Circa 1998: CCHR found Hungarian mental
patients forced to live in cages
Psychiatric cage beds date back
to the 1800s
To download images: http://www.cchr.org/news/index.htm
For more information on psychiatry's brutal treatment of children, including caged beds, heavy drugging and deadly restraint procedures that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American children over the past 10 years, read: Deadly Restraints—Psychiatry's 'Therapeutic' Assault
To find out how you can help Click here
In 2004, after young children and adults were found in Hungarian psychiatric wards, imprisoned in caged beds as punishment for “misbehavior,” such as getting out of bed in the night or taking food from the hospital refrigerator, the practice was banned in Hungary and the Czech Republic by the European Parliament. This was due to the dedicated efforts of human rights groups and Harry Potter author JK Rowling who demanded an end to this degrading and inhuman treatment of both adults and young children. Harry Potter Author JK Rowling slams psychiatrists use of cage beds.
As abusive and harmful as caging children may be, psychiatry's unrepentant use of such arcane practices spans more than 200 years.
Circa 1998: CCHR found Hungarian mental
patients forced to live in cages
Psychiatric cage beds date back
to the 1800s
To download images: http://www.cchr.org/news/index.htm
For more information on psychiatry's brutal treatment of children, including caged beds, heavy drugging and deadly restraint procedures that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American children over the past 10 years, read: Deadly Restraints—Psychiatry's 'Therapeutic' Assault
To find out how you can help Click here
Monday, September 12, 2005
Handling ADHD In Adults Without Prozac, Ritalin Or Other Drugs
An interesting essay by Dr. Mike Adams appeared recently. It is instructive on the issue of ADHD, especially in adults, which is apparently the variety Dr. Adams has experience with:
Adams doesn't buy the adult ADHD diagnosis. He says it's fictional. His solution is highly inventive. He says:
One of the toughest things about being a teacher is dealing with all the latest “syndromes” in our culture of victimization.
Often those fictional problems take the form of “disorders” like adult ADHD. I always know which of my students have been told that they suffer from adult ADHD. They are often late and sometimes leave class early to go potty, unlike most students who go potty before class begins. They blurt out the answers to my questions constantly – always without the courtesy of a raised hand. And, usually, they fall asleep in class (probably from exhaustion) after the fifteenth or twentieth interruption. Later, they are awakened by the cell phone they forgot to turn off before arriving in class.
After being diagnosed with ADHD, two things usually happen to the newly “disadvantaged” student. First, a psychologist tells the victim that he cannot pay attention nor control various impulses. Next, he is given a dosage of drugs. Neither one of these responses actually works. In fact, telling him that he cannot pay attention – rather than that he simply does not pay attention – usually reinforces the problem. The drugs don’t work because, again, the disorder is fictional.
But, fortunately, I have discovered a cure for students with this so-called disorder, which I am now sharing (free of charge, mind you) with my readers. Here’s how it works.
At the beginning of the semester I lay out a few ground rules with my students. For example, they are not to bring cell phones into my class. They are also forbidden from walking into class after the lecture has started. But I don’t just tell students not to do these things. I also make them sign an agreement (on the first day of class) that they will not do these things under penalty of writing a research paper if they break the promise.
The first student to ever violate the agreement was named Chris. After he walked into my class very late one day, then interrupted it approximately fifteen times by shouting out the (usually wrong) answer to a question, then fell asleep in class, then woke up and went potty (thankfully in the restroom, not in his seat), I sent him the following letter:
Chris: Your research paper this semester will take the form of an interview of either:
a) A teacher, or b) A psychologist.
If you choose "A," you will be asked to conduct an interview on how the teacher’s job is made more difficult when students 1) come to class late 2) sleep in class 3) interrupt the lecture by blurting out answers without a raised hand, and 4) get up and walk out in the middle of a lecture to go to the restroom.
If you choose "B," you will be asked to conduct an interview on the causes of the following behaviors: 1) coming to class late 2) sleeping in class 3) interrupting the lecture by blurting out answers without a raised hand, and 4) getting up and walking out in the middle of a lecture to go to the restroom.
Whether you choose "A" or "B," the paper must be, at present, one page long. It is due with your final exam. Between now and then, one more page will be added to the length of the paper, each time you 1) come to class late 2) sleep in class 3) interrupt the lecture by blurting out answers without a raised hand or 4) walk out of class during the lecture to go to the restroom.
Dr. Mike S. Adams
Of course, Chris did write back to say that a medical condition – adult ADHD -was responsible for his behavior. But I quickly informed him that his condition was a fiction and that the behavior was fully under his control. Thus, the assignment stood.
Chris made the choice to cooperate. And, wouldn’t you know it, every one of the disruptive behaviors he exhibited disappeared the very next class period. Of course, he made that choice simply because it was easier than writing a 600 page research paper to cover the projected pace of about 600 interruptions he had set during the first few classes.
Psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and social workers around the world will surely be angry with this present column – largely because it provides a rather simple solution to a rather simple problem. They will no doubt also be angry over my seemingly calloused attitude towards those who suffer from adult ADHD. But I choose not to pay attention to them – remember, paying attention is a choice for adults – until they answer a few simple questions. For example:
Why did my solution work so immediately and so effectively after, presumably, years of therapy and drug prescriptions failed?
Will you continue to use the term “irresistible impulse” to describe what is obviously merely an impulse not resisted?
Are you at all concerned that other fictional disorders will be exposed by other equally simple experiments?
How can one be a part of a helping profession, if he does not, first and foremost, help people to help themselves?
And, finally, what will happen if you ever win your war upon free will? Will you protect people from the prospect of failure? Or will you deprive people of the prospect of success?
Adams doesn't buy the adult ADHD diagnosis. He says it's fictional. His solution is highly inventive. He says:
One of the toughest things about being a teacher is dealing with all the latest “syndromes” in our culture of victimization.
Often those fictional problems take the form of “disorders” like adult ADHD. I always know which of my students have been told that they suffer from adult ADHD. They are often late and sometimes leave class early to go potty, unlike most students who go potty before class begins. They blurt out the answers to my questions constantly – always without the courtesy of a raised hand. And, usually, they fall asleep in class (probably from exhaustion) after the fifteenth or twentieth interruption. Later, they are awakened by the cell phone they forgot to turn off before arriving in class.
After being diagnosed with ADHD, two things usually happen to the newly “disadvantaged” student. First, a psychologist tells the victim that he cannot pay attention nor control various impulses. Next, he is given a dosage of drugs. Neither one of these responses actually works. In fact, telling him that he cannot pay attention – rather than that he simply does not pay attention – usually reinforces the problem. The drugs don’t work because, again, the disorder is fictional.
But, fortunately, I have discovered a cure for students with this so-called disorder, which I am now sharing (free of charge, mind you) with my readers. Here’s how it works.
At the beginning of the semester I lay out a few ground rules with my students. For example, they are not to bring cell phones into my class. They are also forbidden from walking into class after the lecture has started. But I don’t just tell students not to do these things. I also make them sign an agreement (on the first day of class) that they will not do these things under penalty of writing a research paper if they break the promise.
The first student to ever violate the agreement was named Chris. After he walked into my class very late one day, then interrupted it approximately fifteen times by shouting out the (usually wrong) answer to a question, then fell asleep in class, then woke up and went potty (thankfully in the restroom, not in his seat), I sent him the following letter:
Chris: Your research paper this semester will take the form of an interview of either:
a) A teacher, or b) A psychologist.
If you choose "A," you will be asked to conduct an interview on how the teacher’s job is made more difficult when students 1) come to class late 2) sleep in class 3) interrupt the lecture by blurting out answers without a raised hand, and 4) get up and walk out in the middle of a lecture to go to the restroom.
If you choose "B," you will be asked to conduct an interview on the causes of the following behaviors: 1) coming to class late 2) sleeping in class 3) interrupting the lecture by blurting out answers without a raised hand, and 4) getting up and walking out in the middle of a lecture to go to the restroom.
Whether you choose "A" or "B," the paper must be, at present, one page long. It is due with your final exam. Between now and then, one more page will be added to the length of the paper, each time you 1) come to class late 2) sleep in class 3) interrupt the lecture by blurting out answers without a raised hand or 4) walk out of class during the lecture to go to the restroom.
Dr. Mike S. Adams
Of course, Chris did write back to say that a medical condition – adult ADHD -was responsible for his behavior. But I quickly informed him that his condition was a fiction and that the behavior was fully under his control. Thus, the assignment stood.
Chris made the choice to cooperate. And, wouldn’t you know it, every one of the disruptive behaviors he exhibited disappeared the very next class period. Of course, he made that choice simply because it was easier than writing a 600 page research paper to cover the projected pace of about 600 interruptions he had set during the first few classes.
Psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and social workers around the world will surely be angry with this present column – largely because it provides a rather simple solution to a rather simple problem. They will no doubt also be angry over my seemingly calloused attitude towards those who suffer from adult ADHD. But I choose not to pay attention to them – remember, paying attention is a choice for adults – until they answer a few simple questions. For example:
Why did my solution work so immediately and so effectively after, presumably, years of therapy and drug prescriptions failed?
Will you continue to use the term “irresistible impulse” to describe what is obviously merely an impulse not resisted?
Are you at all concerned that other fictional disorders will be exposed by other equally simple experiments?
How can one be a part of a helping profession, if he does not, first and foremost, help people to help themselves?
And, finally, what will happen if you ever win your war upon free will? Will you protect people from the prospect of failure? Or will you deprive people of the prospect of success?
Friday, September 02, 2005
Kiddie-Porno Psychs
Another psychiatrist is accused of being a kiddie-porn freak. This one is in Salt Lake City. If there's anyone who is surprised that it was in a typical American city, not "New York" or "San Francisco", realize that psychiatrists have infiltrated all of America -- red states, blue states, small towns, big cities. They are endemic.
This one, named Bruce Guernsey, asked a friend to help him set up a computer. The friend was transferring files from an old computer and noticed child porn. So he call the FBI.
Here's the fun part -- and the reason why it's so frightening to have a psychiatrist committing this crime. He has been working at mental health hospitals! He was working for the government in a mental health capacity most recently.
That makes sense. Nobody but the government really supports these guys. Without government support most of them would be flipping burgers -- which would be a great place for them to ogle all the little kids, so maybe it's a good thing we use our tax money to keep them busy elsewhere.
This one, named Bruce Guernsey, asked a friend to help him set up a computer. The friend was transferring files from an old computer and noticed child porn. So he call the FBI.
Here's the fun part -- and the reason why it's so frightening to have a psychiatrist committing this crime. He has been working at mental health hospitals! He was working for the government in a mental health capacity most recently.
That makes sense. Nobody but the government really supports these guys. Without government support most of them would be flipping burgers -- which would be a great place for them to ogle all the little kids, so maybe it's a good thing we use our tax money to keep them busy elsewhere.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Europe Regulators: No More SSRI for Kids
This just in from a CCHR press release:
August 31 2005: Europe’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has just issued the strongest warnings against child antidepressant use to date following a review of clinical trials that showed the drugs cause “suicidal behavior, including suicide attempts and suicidal ideation and/or related behavior like self-harm, hostility (predominantly aggression, oppositional behavior and anger) and mood lability [instability] in children and adolescents.” Due to the drugs dangerous side effects, the agency said they should not be prescribed to any under 18-year-old.
Worldwide sales of antidepressants reached more than $19.5 billion in 2002, but evidence continues to mount that clinical trial data was withheld from drug regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the approval process.
An estimated 17 million children worldwide are prescribed some form of psychotropic (mind-altering) drug, with 8 million of these in the United States. Up to 2 million American children are prescribed the drugs condemned by the CHMP: Paxil, Effexor, Prozac, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, Remeron, and Strattera, another type of antidepressant, prescribed for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” a diagnosis plagued by controversy because there is no physical means to test for or diagnose it.
Since 1991, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a psychiatric watchdog group, and independent doctors and researchers have raised the alarm about many of these drugs causing suicide and violent behavior. Nine out of 13 school shooters in the United States were taking antidepressants or “ADHD” stimulants known to cause aggressive behavior. In October, the FDA finally ordered that a black box label be added to antidepressant information warning that the drugs cause suicide in children and adolescents.
August 31 2005: Europe’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has just issued the strongest warnings against child antidepressant use to date following a review of clinical trials that showed the drugs cause “suicidal behavior, including suicide attempts and suicidal ideation and/or related behavior like self-harm, hostility (predominantly aggression, oppositional behavior and anger) and mood lability [instability] in children and adolescents.” Due to the drugs dangerous side effects, the agency said they should not be prescribed to any under 18-year-old.
Worldwide sales of antidepressants reached more than $19.5 billion in 2002, but evidence continues to mount that clinical trial data was withheld from drug regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the approval process.
An estimated 17 million children worldwide are prescribed some form of psychotropic (mind-altering) drug, with 8 million of these in the United States. Up to 2 million American children are prescribed the drugs condemned by the CHMP: Paxil, Effexor, Prozac, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, Remeron, and Strattera, another type of antidepressant, prescribed for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” a diagnosis plagued by controversy because there is no physical means to test for or diagnose it.
Since 1991, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a psychiatric watchdog group, and independent doctors and researchers have raised the alarm about many of these drugs causing suicide and violent behavior. Nine out of 13 school shooters in the United States were taking antidepressants or “ADHD” stimulants known to cause aggressive behavior. In October, the FDA finally ordered that a black box label be added to antidepressant information warning that the drugs cause suicide in children and adolescents.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Vioxx
They came up with a cute new marketing gimmick -- the name Vioxx, with two exes. Very cute.
A jury in Texas says they did some marketing things they shouldn't have, though.
We're talking about Merck -- the drug company.
For instance, they targeted doctors that were not friendly to Vioxx to either bring them into the fold, or else to neutralize or discredit them. "Neutralize" meant get them to change their mind, said the head of Merck's epidemiology department. Notes subpoenaed from her department suggest that "neutralization" may take the form of payoffs and bribes -- or if you want to be polite, research grants -- to doctors. She said such grants are common.
Her definition of "discredit" was somewhat murkier.
The marketing department reportedly taught reps to handle antagonistic doctors with drills called "Dodge Ball". But the company representative said this doesn't mean they dodge questions.
The marketing department also downplayed or misrepresented Vioxx safety concerns in expensive and aggressive advertising campaigns, according to FDA warning letters exposed in the trial.
Now the jury in a Texas case says Vioxx was the cause of death for a 59-year-old produce manager at a Wal-Mart in Fort Worth. He wasn't a couch potato. He ran marathons and worked as a personal trainer. Then he died. After he took the Vioxx. So the jury says Merck needs to pay a lot of money to the man's survivors -- about a quarter of a million dollars.
Thus went the first of hundreds or perhaps thousands of lawsuits against Merck, being generated by survivors of people who died using the drug, which vascillated on and off the market over a period of a few years as the company ran roughshod over multiple evidences of heart trouble in users.
The risk of heart attack more than doubled when Vioxx was taken, according to a Swiss study in 2000. Swiss researchers say this should have caused Merck to pull the drug at that time.
Those who did that study say the data was ignored. They not only attacked Merck. They also attacked "drug licensing authorities" (read FDA in our case) who "did not evaluate the data available on Vioxx sooner."
This writer is normally something of a free market animal, and detests the idea of lawsuits dragging down hard-working business people and crashing commerce. But in the case of drug companies such suits are more than justified. We've seen the evidence in the world of SSRI psychiatric drugs and drugs like Ritalin -- products that reap obscene profits, which are used by the drug companies to counter or cover up the destructive effects of the drugs.
Today's Robber Barons are Big Pharma. But the world is catching on. Something tells us this is only a little first step in the avalanche to come. You can't fool all of the people all of the time.
A jury in Texas says they did some marketing things they shouldn't have, though.
We're talking about Merck -- the drug company.
For instance, they targeted doctors that were not friendly to Vioxx to either bring them into the fold, or else to neutralize or discredit them. "Neutralize" meant get them to change their mind, said the head of Merck's epidemiology department. Notes subpoenaed from her department suggest that "neutralization" may take the form of payoffs and bribes -- or if you want to be polite, research grants -- to doctors. She said such grants are common.
Her definition of "discredit" was somewhat murkier.
The marketing department reportedly taught reps to handle antagonistic doctors with drills called "Dodge Ball". But the company representative said this doesn't mean they dodge questions.
The marketing department also downplayed or misrepresented Vioxx safety concerns in expensive and aggressive advertising campaigns, according to FDA warning letters exposed in the trial.
Now the jury in a Texas case says Vioxx was the cause of death for a 59-year-old produce manager at a Wal-Mart in Fort Worth. He wasn't a couch potato. He ran marathons and worked as a personal trainer. Then he died. After he took the Vioxx. So the jury says Merck needs to pay a lot of money to the man's survivors -- about a quarter of a million dollars.
Thus went the first of hundreds or perhaps thousands of lawsuits against Merck, being generated by survivors of people who died using the drug, which vascillated on and off the market over a period of a few years as the company ran roughshod over multiple evidences of heart trouble in users.
The risk of heart attack more than doubled when Vioxx was taken, according to a Swiss study in 2000. Swiss researchers say this should have caused Merck to pull the drug at that time.
Those who did that study say the data was ignored. They not only attacked Merck. They also attacked "drug licensing authorities" (read FDA in our case) who "did not evaluate the data available on Vioxx sooner."
This writer is normally something of a free market animal, and detests the idea of lawsuits dragging down hard-working business people and crashing commerce. But in the case of drug companies such suits are more than justified. We've seen the evidence in the world of SSRI psychiatric drugs and drugs like Ritalin -- products that reap obscene profits, which are used by the drug companies to counter or cover up the destructive effects of the drugs.
Today's Robber Barons are Big Pharma. But the world is catching on. Something tells us this is only a little first step in the avalanche to come. You can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Authority Technique In Drug Sales
Drug companies and psychiatrists/psychologists are always dreaming up new subterfuges to sell their wares. The idea of a "screening" program for mental illness is one of the most clever and most seditious. If you "screen" people for something that can't be proven to exist or not exist, i.e. mental illness, you have no way to judge the "screen" except the opinion of one or more human beings. If you are mentally ill in the opinion of somebody with authority, the consequences could destroy your life.
The stinky part is that the people who are offering their opinion stand to gain financially by saying yes rather than no. Now that sucks, to use the vernacular. In other words, we are asking someone for his expert opinion on whether someone is sane, and he makes money if he says no, but makes no money if he says yes. Backed by Big Pharma, he is going to be looking for ways to say yes.
The nutty "teenscreen" program that was supposed to sweep the country's school systems is just such a recruiting program for the purveyors of Prozac and Ritalin. The "authority" tag of the psychs who administer such a program is more than a suggestion of what might help. It's a raw insistence, backed by threats in many cases. Parents have had their children taken away from them for refusing to give them psychiatric drugs.
It would seem that the biggest conflict here is the odd concept that someone with an opinion can establish the existence of a mental illness or deficiency where it cannot be proven or verified with any kind of science. Unlike measles, mumps and whooping cough, ADHD cannot be scientifically verified with a blood test or an x-ray or in any other way.
But the larger data inconsistency is the statistic that goes with the violence that all of this is supposed to solve or prevent -- the emergence of the phenomenon of the madman (or child) who shows up with a gun and shoots everyone in sight, including in many cases him or herself, just out of frustration, with no apparent clear cut motive of the type we used to associate with murder (i.e. large sums of money, etc.) The statistic is that this kind of violence is closely associated with psychiatric and psychological help and with psych drugs. The people who do this, at any age, are victims of psychiatry, psychology and psych drugs.
And make no mistake, this phenomenon is new. If you're not old enough to remember when this stuff never happened, talk to someone who is. It's a new phenomenon, it's not normal, and it correlates with the introduction of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs into the society. In 1955 there was almost never any such phenomenon in the public school system. Now it repeats and repeats. And the people who do it are usually hopped up on psych drugs.
And the sequence is the key. These people go crazy and start shooting after they get their anger management counseling and psychiatric drugs, not before.
So to "prevent" violence, we are subjecting people to the very social phenomenon that causes violence -- psychiatric counseling and drugs like Prozac, Ritalin, Zoloft, Paxil and others. These drugs make billions of dollars per year for the manufacturers, but the cost people their sanity and in many cases their lives.
The latest "screening program"? Massachusetts wants to screen veterans who return from service in Iraq. That oughta sell a lot of pills. Do you rest better knowing that some expert wants to authoritatively give an opinion based on nothing as to whether these veterans are sane? If Mr. Authority says they're not up to snuff, he's going to give them treatment that causes homicide and suicide in many cases. That's a great idea.
The army has a better view. They won't take a soldier who has been on psychiatric drugs. They know it causes these guys to become wild men who are too dangerous to trust with a gun. Eric Harris, the shooter that killed his fellow students at Columbine school in Colorado, had tried to join the army -- but they found out he was a psych patient, and they said no.
Let's just say no to these cretins that want to drug up our children and our soldiers. We only need one "screening" program. We need to screen out people who want to use their authority to push psychiatry on unsuspecting victims in our schools and in our society.
The stinky part is that the people who are offering their opinion stand to gain financially by saying yes rather than no. Now that sucks, to use the vernacular. In other words, we are asking someone for his expert opinion on whether someone is sane, and he makes money if he says no, but makes no money if he says yes. Backed by Big Pharma, he is going to be looking for ways to say yes.
The nutty "teenscreen" program that was supposed to sweep the country's school systems is just such a recruiting program for the purveyors of Prozac and Ritalin. The "authority" tag of the psychs who administer such a program is more than a suggestion of what might help. It's a raw insistence, backed by threats in many cases. Parents have had their children taken away from them for refusing to give them psychiatric drugs.
It would seem that the biggest conflict here is the odd concept that someone with an opinion can establish the existence of a mental illness or deficiency where it cannot be proven or verified with any kind of science. Unlike measles, mumps and whooping cough, ADHD cannot be scientifically verified with a blood test or an x-ray or in any other way.
But the larger data inconsistency is the statistic that goes with the violence that all of this is supposed to solve or prevent -- the emergence of the phenomenon of the madman (or child) who shows up with a gun and shoots everyone in sight, including in many cases him or herself, just out of frustration, with no apparent clear cut motive of the type we used to associate with murder (i.e. large sums of money, etc.) The statistic is that this kind of violence is closely associated with psychiatric and psychological help and with psych drugs. The people who do this, at any age, are victims of psychiatry, psychology and psych drugs.
And make no mistake, this phenomenon is new. If you're not old enough to remember when this stuff never happened, talk to someone who is. It's a new phenomenon, it's not normal, and it correlates with the introduction of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs into the society. In 1955 there was almost never any such phenomenon in the public school system. Now it repeats and repeats. And the people who do it are usually hopped up on psych drugs.
And the sequence is the key. These people go crazy and start shooting after they get their anger management counseling and psychiatric drugs, not before.
So to "prevent" violence, we are subjecting people to the very social phenomenon that causes violence -- psychiatric counseling and drugs like Prozac, Ritalin, Zoloft, Paxil and others. These drugs make billions of dollars per year for the manufacturers, but the cost people their sanity and in many cases their lives.
The latest "screening program"? Massachusetts wants to screen veterans who return from service in Iraq. That oughta sell a lot of pills. Do you rest better knowing that some expert wants to authoritatively give an opinion based on nothing as to whether these veterans are sane? If Mr. Authority says they're not up to snuff, he's going to give them treatment that causes homicide and suicide in many cases. That's a great idea.
The army has a better view. They won't take a soldier who has been on psychiatric drugs. They know it causes these guys to become wild men who are too dangerous to trust with a gun. Eric Harris, the shooter that killed his fellow students at Columbine school in Colorado, had tried to join the army -- but they found out he was a psych patient, and they said no.
Let's just say no to these cretins that want to drug up our children and our soldiers. We only need one "screening" program. We need to screen out people who want to use their authority to push psychiatry on unsuspecting victims in our schools and in our society.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Beverly Eakman On Psych-Based Education
This great article can be read in its entirety at http://www.newswithviews.com/Eakman/beverly31.htm
In the article, Eakman talks about the "brouhaha surrounding actor Tom Cruise and his Hollywood colleague, Brooke Shields, regarding their respective views on antidepressant drugs."
"Inevitably," she says, "psychotherapies in general became intertwined with the topic of mind-altering substances -- and so did Scientology, the bête noire of the psychiatric profession."
Eakman clarifies that she is not a Scientologist. She sayst that until Scientology’s spin-off organization, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, contacted her in 1996 concerning two of her books on education, she had only heard of it in passing and had never heard of CCHR.
She had, however, independently discovered that psych-based education was ruining the school system. In fact, she says it is why she quit her job as a teacher. "Long ago and quite independently, I had come to certain conclusions, the primary one being that psychology had compromised the educating process. That was why I left the teaching profession. The new emphasis on emotions meant that academics took a back seat. It inaugurated what I felt was a phony and counterproductive self-esteem movement. Finally, psychologized education brought in a counseling industry that undermined the moral authority of adults, with the consequence that teachers were handling little 'mob-ocracies' instead of kiddy cliques."
"With the arrival of the counselor-therapist," she says, "I got the sinking feeling that psychology in schools was 'morphing' into something more ominous: psychotherapy and drugs were replacing the discipline and character-building functions that had been the staples of education and childrearing."
Her suspicions were confirmed by the time reports started appearing, in the late 1980s, alleging that schools were intimidating parents into putting their children on psychiatric drugs.
She says, "Not only was real, scientific research on learning methods being scuttled, but I couldn’t find any hard, statistical validity behind the claims for psychiatric drugs that were being prescribed for behavioral problems. Eventually, renowned experts in government and on the boards of major pharmaceutical companies were blowing the whistle on unreported side-effects, unsubstantiated claims, and outright fraud -- and they weren’t Scientologists. Experts and authors like Drs. Peter Breggin, David Healy, Charles Medawar, and (more recently) former Pennsylvania Inspector General Allen Jones were, in many cases, actually hostile toward Scientology.
"Today, reports that many antidepressants have no more effect than a placebo are ubiquitous. Which brings up the question: Is the aggressive marketing of psychotropic drugs creating a market based on the power of suggestion?"
She says she takes most of what Hollywood stars say "with a grain of salt," and that Tom Cruise’s June 24th interview on NBC’s “Today Show” may not have been the most articulate discussion about drugs or that whole field technically known as “behavioral science.” She says Mr. Cruise was particularly blasted for suggesting that vitamins and exercise could serve as solutions for emotional and mental problems.
"But we must remember," she goes on, "that such interviews revolve around sound bites. That’s all television journalists really want: short sentences that explain little but are easily merged into a 7-minute topic segment that TV executives believe will keep viewers keep from changing channels. Hollywood’s stars know whatever they say must be condensed down to a sentence.
Experts increasingly are learning how to do that, too."
Her indictment is scathing. She says, "The fact is, there is nothing in the medical, scientific literature that confirms objective abnormality (“objective abnormality” equates to disease) in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Post-partum Depression, “math disorder” or hundreds of other “diseases” that psychiatrists swear up and down are “biological.” If they were biological, scientists would be able to see evidence in blood workups, x-rays, urinalyses, taps of spinal fluid, or something. But they can’t. No one knows, for example, how much serotonin (the chemical associated with depression) is normal, or how much is too much or not enough. But medical doctors can tell for sure if you have a vitamin deficiency, and they can tell you which vitamin, too. Vitamin deficiencies, allergies and sedentary lifestyles frequently do contribute adversely to mental function."
This is a former educator and a very articulate writer who sees the insanity being perpetrated on our school system by psychiatrists, psychologists and psych-based education.
The article is worth the read.
In the article, Eakman talks about the "brouhaha surrounding actor Tom Cruise and his Hollywood colleague, Brooke Shields, regarding their respective views on antidepressant drugs."
"Inevitably," she says, "psychotherapies in general became intertwined with the topic of mind-altering substances -- and so did Scientology, the bête noire of the psychiatric profession."
Eakman clarifies that she is not a Scientologist. She sayst that until Scientology’s spin-off organization, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, contacted her in 1996 concerning two of her books on education, she had only heard of it in passing and had never heard of CCHR.
She had, however, independently discovered that psych-based education was ruining the school system. In fact, she says it is why she quit her job as a teacher. "Long ago and quite independently, I had come to certain conclusions, the primary one being that psychology had compromised the educating process. That was why I left the teaching profession. The new emphasis on emotions meant that academics took a back seat. It inaugurated what I felt was a phony and counterproductive self-esteem movement. Finally, psychologized education brought in a counseling industry that undermined the moral authority of adults, with the consequence that teachers were handling little 'mob-ocracies' instead of kiddy cliques."
"With the arrival of the counselor-therapist," she says, "I got the sinking feeling that psychology in schools was 'morphing' into something more ominous: psychotherapy and drugs were replacing the discipline and character-building functions that had been the staples of education and childrearing."
Her suspicions were confirmed by the time reports started appearing, in the late 1980s, alleging that schools were intimidating parents into putting their children on psychiatric drugs.
She says, "Not only was real, scientific research on learning methods being scuttled, but I couldn’t find any hard, statistical validity behind the claims for psychiatric drugs that were being prescribed for behavioral problems. Eventually, renowned experts in government and on the boards of major pharmaceutical companies were blowing the whistle on unreported side-effects, unsubstantiated claims, and outright fraud -- and they weren’t Scientologists. Experts and authors like Drs. Peter Breggin, David Healy, Charles Medawar, and (more recently) former Pennsylvania Inspector General Allen Jones were, in many cases, actually hostile toward Scientology.
"Today, reports that many antidepressants have no more effect than a placebo are ubiquitous. Which brings up the question: Is the aggressive marketing of psychotropic drugs creating a market based on the power of suggestion?"
She says she takes most of what Hollywood stars say "with a grain of salt," and that Tom Cruise’s June 24th interview on NBC’s “Today Show” may not have been the most articulate discussion about drugs or that whole field technically known as “behavioral science.” She says Mr. Cruise was particularly blasted for suggesting that vitamins and exercise could serve as solutions for emotional and mental problems.
"But we must remember," she goes on, "that such interviews revolve around sound bites. That’s all television journalists really want: short sentences that explain little but are easily merged into a 7-minute topic segment that TV executives believe will keep viewers keep from changing channels. Hollywood’s stars know whatever they say must be condensed down to a sentence.
Experts increasingly are learning how to do that, too."
Her indictment is scathing. She says, "The fact is, there is nothing in the medical, scientific literature that confirms objective abnormality (“objective abnormality” equates to disease) in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Post-partum Depression, “math disorder” or hundreds of other “diseases” that psychiatrists swear up and down are “biological.” If they were biological, scientists would be able to see evidence in blood workups, x-rays, urinalyses, taps of spinal fluid, or something. But they can’t. No one knows, for example, how much serotonin (the chemical associated with depression) is normal, or how much is too much or not enough. But medical doctors can tell for sure if you have a vitamin deficiency, and they can tell you which vitamin, too. Vitamin deficiencies, allergies and sedentary lifestyles frequently do contribute adversely to mental function."
This is a former educator and a very articulate writer who sees the insanity being perpetrated on our school system by psychiatrists, psychologists and psych-based education.
The article is worth the read.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Another Prozac Murder
Another Prozac murder. Or maybe it's another anti-depressant, but Prozac is the most popular one. Which anti-depressant wasn't specified in the article. This one will make you wince:
In Brockton, Massachusetts a man lifting his infant daughter out of his car was killed in an apparent case of road rage by a motorist "who obviously exploded" and shot him four times at close range in front of dozens of witnesses, authorities said.
The victim's 10-month-old girl was covered with blood but uninjured when police found her in a car seat on the floor of the vehicle.
Walter R. Bishop, 60, who was taking medication for depression, was arrested Tuesday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Sandro Andrade. He pleaded innocent and was ordered held without bail; a hearing was scheduled for Aug. 26.
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said Bishop had made a calculated decision to "shoot a man in cold blood in broad daylight on the streets of Brockton."
Bishop told investigators he was driving his wife to the train station when Andrade's vehicle backed toward him on Main Street, Cruz said. The two exchanged heated words.
"He said his wife was scared, and he said he was angry at that encounter," Cruz said of Bishop. "He said he made up his mind right there that he had to do something."
After dropping his wife off, he allegedly returned to the scene of the confrontation, pointed a handgun through an open window and fired, police said.
Boy, think about how crazy Bishop would be if he wasn't taking his psychiatric drugs. No! Wait! He didn't kill anybody BEFORE he took the drugs!!! But the drugs are supposed to HELP you. Can it be that anti-depressants actually MAKE people insane????? Huh? Can it??
In Brockton, Massachusetts a man lifting his infant daughter out of his car was killed in an apparent case of road rage by a motorist "who obviously exploded" and shot him four times at close range in front of dozens of witnesses, authorities said.
The victim's 10-month-old girl was covered with blood but uninjured when police found her in a car seat on the floor of the vehicle.
Walter R. Bishop, 60, who was taking medication for depression, was arrested Tuesday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Sandro Andrade. He pleaded innocent and was ordered held without bail; a hearing was scheduled for Aug. 26.
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said Bishop had made a calculated decision to "shoot a man in cold blood in broad daylight on the streets of Brockton."
Bishop told investigators he was driving his wife to the train station when Andrade's vehicle backed toward him on Main Street, Cruz said. The two exchanged heated words.
"He said his wife was scared, and he said he was angry at that encounter," Cruz said of Bishop. "He said he made up his mind right there that he had to do something."
After dropping his wife off, he allegedly returned to the scene of the confrontation, pointed a handgun through an open window and fired, police said.
Boy, think about how crazy Bishop would be if he wasn't taking his psychiatric drugs. No! Wait! He didn't kill anybody BEFORE he took the drugs!!! But the drugs are supposed to HELP you. Can it be that anti-depressants actually MAKE people insane????? Huh? Can it??
Letter To South Florida Sentinel Newspaper
Regarding the latest hype about the drugging of America, I cannot believe how gullible people have become regarding mental illness. We're being snowed. Millions are spent on developing and advertising psychotropic drugs to get people to "feel" better. The drug companies and psychiatrists want a stoned population that can't really face anything. They've put billions of dollars in their pockets without coming up with any cures. Wouldn't it be better to have a population that can have a chance of solving its own problems by confronting them? We're in a society of legalized drug pushing.
Why? Because the psychiatrists put a label on an ordinary problem and the drug companies develop a drug to "treat" it. They certainly don't cure anything. Just read the letter by your writer whose wife has been on anti-depressants for 12 years. Kudos to the Scientologists. They're promoting finding ways to make people feel better without drugs. Now that's new!
Why? Because the psychiatrists put a label on an ordinary problem and the drug companies develop a drug to "treat" it. They certainly don't cure anything. Just read the letter by your writer whose wife has been on anti-depressants for 12 years. Kudos to the Scientologists. They're promoting finding ways to make people feel better without drugs. Now that's new!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
"Big Pharma" is using "Western Medicine" to Destroy America...
Opinion by consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
In the United States every company with over two hundred employees is required to provide full health insurance coverage to its employees. Since 1999, when the US FDA allowed "Big Pharma" to advertise directly to the American consumer, the cost of the average prescription drug has increased 500% - with no reason other than greed.
The same prescription drugs cost five to twenty times as much in the US as other countries. Because of this, the average cost of health insurance for a family of four, including the amount a company pays, and what the employee pays, is now $14,700 per year.
No company in the US can afford those increases in health care costs - so just to survive, at all, much less compete in a word-wide market, US companies are sending their labor requirements overseas - and shutting down US production facilities, laying off US workers, supervisors, managers, vice presidents, etc.
It's time America recognized "Big Pharma" for what it really is - the enemy of mankind - and does something about it.
To read the entire article, click on the URL below:
http://www.quackpotwatch.org/opinionpieces/big%20pharma%20destroying%20America.htm
In the United States every company with over two hundred employees is required to provide full health insurance coverage to its employees. Since 1999, when the US FDA allowed "Big Pharma" to advertise directly to the American consumer, the cost of the average prescription drug has increased 500% - with no reason other than greed.
The same prescription drugs cost five to twenty times as much in the US as other countries. Because of this, the average cost of health insurance for a family of four, including the amount a company pays, and what the employee pays, is now $14,700 per year.
No company in the US can afford those increases in health care costs - so just to survive, at all, much less compete in a word-wide market, US companies are sending their labor requirements overseas - and shutting down US production facilities, laying off US workers, supervisors, managers, vice presidents, etc.
It's time America recognized "Big Pharma" for what it really is - the enemy of mankind - and does something about it.
To read the entire article, click on the URL below:
http://www.quackpotwatch.org/opinionpieces/big%20pharma%20destroying%20America.htm
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Psychology Today Tells The Truth!
This partial article is from Psychology Today. You can read the whole article here.
PSYCHIATRIST LOREN MOSHER RECENTLY RESIGNED IN DISGUST FROM THE American Psychiatric Association, claiming that some of his colleagues are too quick to hand out drugs in what he terms an "unholy alliance" between psychiatrists and drug companies. A substantial number of cases of misdiagnosis and fraud support his view that patient care may be in jeopardy.
"I Want No Part of It Anymore"
The trouble began in the late 1970s when I conducted a controversial study: I opened a program--Soteria House--where newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients lived medication-free with a young, nonprofessional staff trained to listen to and understand them and provide companionship. The idea was that schizophrenia can often be overcome with the help of meaningful relationships, rather than with drugs, and that such treatment would eventually lead to unquestionably healthier lives.
The experiment worked better than expected. Over the initial six weeks, patients recovered as quickly as those treated with medication in hospitals.
The results of the study were published in scores of psychiatric journals, nursing journals and books, but the project lost its funding and the facility was closed. Amid the storm of controversy that followed, control of the research project was taken out of my hands. I also faced an investigation into my behavior as chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for Studies of Schizophrenia and was excluded from prestigious academic events. By 1980, I was removed from my post altogether. All of this occurred because of my strong stand against the overuse of medication and disregard for drug-free, psychological interventions to treat psychological disorders.
I soon found a less politically sensitive position at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland. Eight years later, I re-entered the political arena as the head of the public mental health system in Montgomery County, Md., but not without a fight from friends of the drug industry. The Maryland Psychiatric Society asked that a state pharmacy committee review my credentials and prescribing practices to make sure that Montgomery County patients would receive proper--read: drug--treatments. In addition, a pro-drug family advocacy organization arranged for more than 250 furious letters to be sent to the elected county executive who had hired me. Fortunately, my employers were not drug-industry-dominated, so I kept my position.
Why does the world of psychiatry find me so threatening? Because drug companies pour millions of dollars into the pockets of psychiatrists around the country, making them reluctant to recognize that drugs may not always be in the best interest of their patients. They are too busy enjoying drug company perks: consultant gigs, research grants, fine wine and fancy meals.
Pharmaceutical companies pay through the nose to get their message across to psychiatrists across the country. They finance major symposia at the two predominant annual psychiatric conventions, offer yummy treats and music to conventioneers, and pay $1,000-$2,000 per speaker to hock their wares. It is estimated that, in total, drug companies spend an average of $10,000 per physician, per year, on education.
And, of course, the doctors-for-hire tell only half the story. How widely is it known, for example, that Prozac and its successor antidepressants cause sexual dysfunction in as many as 70% of people taking them?
What's even scarier is the greed that is directing a good deal of drug testing today. It is estimated that drug manufacturers have, on average, 12 years to recoup costs and make profits on a given medication before a generic form can be made. So pressure to test new drugs mounts. In the field of psychiatric drug testing, organizations make a profit of as much as $40,000 for every patient who successfully completes a trial. And university psychiatry departments, private research clinics and some individual doctors live on this money.
The good news is that the press is catching on. The New York Times, Dallas News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and New York Post have recently run articles or series on how pharmaceutical companies use cash incentives to encourage doctors to prescribe their drugs.
This spring, the New York Post revealed that Columbia University has been cashing in. Its Office of Clinical Trials generates about $10 million a year testing new medications--much of which is granted to the Columbia Psychiatric Institute for implementing these tests. The director of the institute was being paid $140,000 a year by various drug companies to tour the country promoting their drugs. He also received payments of nearly $12,000 from a drug manufacturer to head up a study on panic disorders. How could he rate these drugs fairly when his livelihood was dependent on the success of the drug manufacturer? The director resigned in the aftermath of the article's publication.
At least one drug company, Wyeth-Ayerst Research, has spoken out against offering cash bonuses and other incentives to researchers. But company representatives admit it's difficult to stay competitive when other groups so eagerly violate ethical concerns.
The APA Connection
The American Psychiatric Association--representing the majority of psychiatrists in America, with about 40,000 members--is also unduly influenced by pharmaceutical dollars. The association:
o receives substantial rent from drug companies for huge symposia spaces at national conventions.
o derives an enormous percentage of its income from drug companies--30% of its total budget is from drug company advertising in its many publications.
o accepts a large number of unrestricted educational grants from drug companies.
This relationship is dangerous because researchers and psychiatrists then feel indebted to the drug companies, remain biased in favor of drug cures, downplay side effects and seldom try other types of interventions. And they know they have the unspoken blessing of the APA to do so.
Collectively, these practices aggressively promote reliance on prescription drug use-so much so that many people think drugs should be forced on those who refuse to take them. The APA supports the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which believes that mentally ill patients should be coerced to take medication. I am appalled by this level of social control. Mentally ill people should be given a choice to have their illness treated in alternative ways.
Over the last decade, ! have written a number of letters bringing my concerns to the APA's attention but have received no response. The association claims that what it's doing is in the "best interest of patients," but its strong ties to the drug industry suggest otherwise.
Recently, it was dues-paying time for the APA, and I sat there looking at the form. I thought about the unholy alliance between the association and the drug industry. I thought about how consumers are being affected by this alliance, about the overuse of medication, about side effects and about alternative treatments. I thought about how irresponsibly some of my colleagues are acting toward the general public and the mentally ill. And I realized, I want no part of it anymore.
Loren R. Mosher, M.D.
PSYCHIATRIST LOREN MOSHER RECENTLY RESIGNED IN DISGUST FROM THE American Psychiatric Association, claiming that some of his colleagues are too quick to hand out drugs in what he terms an "unholy alliance" between psychiatrists and drug companies. A substantial number of cases of misdiagnosis and fraud support his view that patient care may be in jeopardy.
"I Want No Part of It Anymore"
The trouble began in the late 1970s when I conducted a controversial study: I opened a program--Soteria House--where newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients lived medication-free with a young, nonprofessional staff trained to listen to and understand them and provide companionship. The idea was that schizophrenia can often be overcome with the help of meaningful relationships, rather than with drugs, and that such treatment would eventually lead to unquestionably healthier lives.
The experiment worked better than expected. Over the initial six weeks, patients recovered as quickly as those treated with medication in hospitals.
The results of the study were published in scores of psychiatric journals, nursing journals and books, but the project lost its funding and the facility was closed. Amid the storm of controversy that followed, control of the research project was taken out of my hands. I also faced an investigation into my behavior as chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for Studies of Schizophrenia and was excluded from prestigious academic events. By 1980, I was removed from my post altogether. All of this occurred because of my strong stand against the overuse of medication and disregard for drug-free, psychological interventions to treat psychological disorders.
I soon found a less politically sensitive position at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland. Eight years later, I re-entered the political arena as the head of the public mental health system in Montgomery County, Md., but not without a fight from friends of the drug industry. The Maryland Psychiatric Society asked that a state pharmacy committee review my credentials and prescribing practices to make sure that Montgomery County patients would receive proper--read: drug--treatments. In addition, a pro-drug family advocacy organization arranged for more than 250 furious letters to be sent to the elected county executive who had hired me. Fortunately, my employers were not drug-industry-dominated, so I kept my position.
Why does the world of psychiatry find me so threatening? Because drug companies pour millions of dollars into the pockets of psychiatrists around the country, making them reluctant to recognize that drugs may not always be in the best interest of their patients. They are too busy enjoying drug company perks: consultant gigs, research grants, fine wine and fancy meals.
Pharmaceutical companies pay through the nose to get their message across to psychiatrists across the country. They finance major symposia at the two predominant annual psychiatric conventions, offer yummy treats and music to conventioneers, and pay $1,000-$2,000 per speaker to hock their wares. It is estimated that, in total, drug companies spend an average of $10,000 per physician, per year, on education.
And, of course, the doctors-for-hire tell only half the story. How widely is it known, for example, that Prozac and its successor antidepressants cause sexual dysfunction in as many as 70% of people taking them?
What's even scarier is the greed that is directing a good deal of drug testing today. It is estimated that drug manufacturers have, on average, 12 years to recoup costs and make profits on a given medication before a generic form can be made. So pressure to test new drugs mounts. In the field of psychiatric drug testing, organizations make a profit of as much as $40,000 for every patient who successfully completes a trial. And university psychiatry departments, private research clinics and some individual doctors live on this money.
The good news is that the press is catching on. The New York Times, Dallas News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and New York Post have recently run articles or series on how pharmaceutical companies use cash incentives to encourage doctors to prescribe their drugs.
This spring, the New York Post revealed that Columbia University has been cashing in. Its Office of Clinical Trials generates about $10 million a year testing new medications--much of which is granted to the Columbia Psychiatric Institute for implementing these tests. The director of the institute was being paid $140,000 a year by various drug companies to tour the country promoting their drugs. He also received payments of nearly $12,000 from a drug manufacturer to head up a study on panic disorders. How could he rate these drugs fairly when his livelihood was dependent on the success of the drug manufacturer? The director resigned in the aftermath of the article's publication.
At least one drug company, Wyeth-Ayerst Research, has spoken out against offering cash bonuses and other incentives to researchers. But company representatives admit it's difficult to stay competitive when other groups so eagerly violate ethical concerns.
The APA Connection
The American Psychiatric Association--representing the majority of psychiatrists in America, with about 40,000 members--is also unduly influenced by pharmaceutical dollars. The association:
o receives substantial rent from drug companies for huge symposia spaces at national conventions.
o derives an enormous percentage of its income from drug companies--30% of its total budget is from drug company advertising in its many publications.
o accepts a large number of unrestricted educational grants from drug companies.
This relationship is dangerous because researchers and psychiatrists then feel indebted to the drug companies, remain biased in favor of drug cures, downplay side effects and seldom try other types of interventions. And they know they have the unspoken blessing of the APA to do so.
Collectively, these practices aggressively promote reliance on prescription drug use-so much so that many people think drugs should be forced on those who refuse to take them. The APA supports the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which believes that mentally ill patients should be coerced to take medication. I am appalled by this level of social control. Mentally ill people should be given a choice to have their illness treated in alternative ways.
Over the last decade, ! have written a number of letters bringing my concerns to the APA's attention but have received no response. The association claims that what it's doing is in the "best interest of patients," but its strong ties to the drug industry suggest otherwise.
Recently, it was dues-paying time for the APA, and I sat there looking at the form. I thought about the unholy alliance between the association and the drug industry. I thought about how consumers are being affected by this alliance, about the overuse of medication, about side effects and about alternative treatments. I thought about how irresponsibly some of my colleagues are acting toward the general public and the mentally ill. And I realized, I want no part of it anymore.
Loren R. Mosher, M.D.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Medical Society, Magazine Split Over Drug Company Influence
Medical societies like the American Medical Association and their journals have a history of influence by Big Pharma, often forwarding their own agenda (read that as Big Pharma's agenda) without regard for the opinions or best interests of individual physicians who make up the society they represent, much less the best interests of the general public. For half a century or more the agenda of the AMA was not closely aligned with the interests of doctors at all, but was intent on pushing surgical/pharmaceutical medicine as a monopoly, trying to push out by whatever means necessary any other type of help for health problems.
But in an interesting twist, the American Society of Hypertension, which represents docs that specialize in handling high blood pressure, is splitting with its journal, the American Journal of Hypertension, pulling its official support for the magazine. Why? Because the magazine is accusing the Society of being a Big Pharma sycophant, accepting drug company payoffs to promote drug solutions, presumably to the exclusion of non-drug solutions.
This is indeed a new phenomenon.
It's hard to tell the whole story from the outside, but it appears we have a magazine and its editor that wants to put in ethics on its group and has gotten into a fight over it.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Journal's Editor Dr. John Laragh, a researcher at Cornell University's Weill Medical College, has accused the society's leaders of being improperly influenced by financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry and becoming, in essence, marketers for drug companies, which pay them consulting and speaking fees.
Hmmm. It might not mean a lot. But it is part of a mounting body of evidence of a tear in the straitjacket Big Pharma has on the medical community. One of these days the straitjacket is going to come off. Big Pharma's days as an ethics-free power hungry industry that seeks social domination through the promulgation of drugs, whether they are needed or not, and whether or not they represent the best solution in all cases, is slowly coming to an end. It's not yet time to sell Lilly stock short, but it's certainly no time to buy it.
But in an interesting twist, the American Society of Hypertension, which represents docs that specialize in handling high blood pressure, is splitting with its journal, the American Journal of Hypertension, pulling its official support for the magazine. Why? Because the magazine is accusing the Society of being a Big Pharma sycophant, accepting drug company payoffs to promote drug solutions, presumably to the exclusion of non-drug solutions.
This is indeed a new phenomenon.
It's hard to tell the whole story from the outside, but it appears we have a magazine and its editor that wants to put in ethics on its group and has gotten into a fight over it.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Journal's Editor Dr. John Laragh, a researcher at Cornell University's Weill Medical College, has accused the society's leaders of being improperly influenced by financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry and becoming, in essence, marketers for drug companies, which pay them consulting and speaking fees.
Hmmm. It might not mean a lot. But it is part of a mounting body of evidence of a tear in the straitjacket Big Pharma has on the medical community. One of these days the straitjacket is going to come off. Big Pharma's days as an ethics-free power hungry industry that seeks social domination through the promulgation of drugs, whether they are needed or not, and whether or not they represent the best solution in all cases, is slowly coming to an end. It's not yet time to sell Lilly stock short, but it's certainly no time to buy it.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Psycho-Sadists Running Mental Institution In California
Here -- you read it. I don't think I could say it any better than this Associated Press writer...
By KIM CURTIS The Associated PressThursday, July 28, 2005; 8:55 PM
SAN FRANCISCO -- Patients at a state mental hospital overdosed on illegal drugs, were improperly restrained for hours on end and were forced to spend 12 hours in soiled diapers, according to a scathing report issued by the U.S. Justice Department.
The report said the problems were among "widespread and systematic deficiencies" at Napa State Hospital, including suicide and inadequate medical care. Some patients were bathed only very two to four weeks, the report said.
State officials were given until Aug. 15 to implement "minimum remedial measures" at the mental hospital, which has about 1,100 patients.
Lupe Rincon, a hospital spokeswoman, said many allegations were based on inaccurate information from family members, advocates and old surveys. But she said she could not respond to specific complaints.
"Releasing further information could compromise our negotiations for a settlement agreement" with the Justice Department, she said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office had no response to the report, contained in a June 27 letter to him, and directed inquiries to the state Department of Mental Health.
The Justice Department investigation began in January 2004. The California Department of Mental Health has refused to cooperate, repeatedly preventing access to the facility, said the letter from Bradley J. Schlozman, acting assistant attorney general. A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said Thursday the department did not deny access, but simply asked for a delay because an investigation is "a huge diversion of resources" and because time and money was already being spent on preparing for the hospital's reaccreditation, which takes place this fall.
"I'm not saying we're perfect on patient care," said Macintyre, who added that the department already has improved some of its problem areas. "But you have to present things in a fair light."
The report also said that hospital staff punished patients who sought release, failed to provide English interpreters and refused to intervene during violent episodes among patients.
Three patients also overdosed on methamphetamine or cocaine in the fall of 2004 and one died, according to the report. Three other patients were able to use heroin, the report said.
Restraints and seclusion also are overused at Napa, according to the Justice Department. The report cited one patient who was restrained for 369 consecutive hours.
By KIM CURTIS The Associated PressThursday, July 28, 2005; 8:55 PM
SAN FRANCISCO -- Patients at a state mental hospital overdosed on illegal drugs, were improperly restrained for hours on end and were forced to spend 12 hours in soiled diapers, according to a scathing report issued by the U.S. Justice Department.
The report said the problems were among "widespread and systematic deficiencies" at Napa State Hospital, including suicide and inadequate medical care. Some patients were bathed only very two to four weeks, the report said.
State officials were given until Aug. 15 to implement "minimum remedial measures" at the mental hospital, which has about 1,100 patients.
Lupe Rincon, a hospital spokeswoman, said many allegations were based on inaccurate information from family members, advocates and old surveys. But she said she could not respond to specific complaints.
"Releasing further information could compromise our negotiations for a settlement agreement" with the Justice Department, she said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office had no response to the report, contained in a June 27 letter to him, and directed inquiries to the state Department of Mental Health.
The Justice Department investigation began in January 2004. The California Department of Mental Health has refused to cooperate, repeatedly preventing access to the facility, said the letter from Bradley J. Schlozman, acting assistant attorney general. A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said Thursday the department did not deny access, but simply asked for a delay because an investigation is "a huge diversion of resources" and because time and money was already being spent on preparing for the hospital's reaccreditation, which takes place this fall.
"I'm not saying we're perfect on patient care," said Macintyre, who added that the department already has improved some of its problem areas. "But you have to present things in a fair light."
The report also said that hospital staff punished patients who sought release, failed to provide English interpreters and refused to intervene during violent episodes among patients.
Three patients also overdosed on methamphetamine or cocaine in the fall of 2004 and one died, according to the report. Three other patients were able to use heroin, the report said.
Restraints and seclusion also are overused at Napa, according to the Justice Department. The report cited one patient who was restrained for 369 consecutive hours.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)