THE 14TH BLOG FOR THE OUTLAW OF PSYCHIATRY NOW !

2008-07-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

ON THE COMPLETE ALTERNATIVE TO PSYCHIATRY
By Justice Lover

There is a singular, one alternative to psychiatry, and it is political. It requires profound changes in the political systems under which humanity lives. These changes must come, and they had better come early, because psychiatry is only one aspect of the horrendous crisis to which we presently are increasingly exposed - a crisis which is worsening with every passing year - namely, the ecological, political, social and economical disintegration of the status quo on our planet. Our planet can no longer continue to sustain life under the rule of big business; therefore it is in the urgent interests of humanity to replace the existing plutocracy system with a direct and participatory democracy.

Previous posts in this series have exposed the atrocities and horrendous injustices perpetrated by the combine of Big Pharma and psychiatry with the approval of the entire ruling class. In this blog there is one post which lists over 30 alternatives to psychiatric “treatment”. Our concern here ,on this post,goes far beyond that, because psychiatry - being the fascist quackery that it is - does not offer any real therapy to people in emotional crisis. Instead, and in line with its fundamental fraud of “mental illness”,its shrinks torture and kill people under the pretext of coercive psychiatric “treatment”. Psychiatry is actually the cause of most of the psychiatric “illnesses” it claims to “treat” under the false pretences of a Medical Specialty. Therefore, alternatives to that “treatment” offer only temporary relief which ,although far better than the psychiatric “treatment”, do not offer a long term solution, much less prevent such problems from occurring in the first place.

Plutocracy, the regime under which we live, has been continuously generating all kinds of existential problems for individuals, as for society as a whole. Based on profit making, exploitation, and power grab the system is essentially inhuman and depressing. As a result, the vast majority of the people are powerless, depressed and unhappy. Yet , psychiatry would tell the suffering individuals that there is something wrong with them, rather than with the system. Having defined the suffering individuals as sick, the shrinks then force on them their “treatment” : psychiatric drugs, electric shocks and “psycho-surgery”. It is obviously, no treatment, and much less is it a therapy. It is torture - compulsory torture leading to permanent damage to the brain, and/or other forms of maiming, or death !

Human beings are social animals - the most social of all animals on our planet. Like a living tissue, where every cell is dependent on the well being of each cell in the entire tissue, and the entire tissue is dependent for its well being on that of each cell ,no person can survive separately, outside society. Even monks who seek solitary life have got their own small scale society. From birth to grave we are dependent on each other and on society for our well being. Therefore any individual who is rejected by and ejected from society is bound to suffer ,as a result, from a severe emotional crisis, and it is bound to affect the rest of the society.

To solve such problems society must establish its own mechanism, which would be the body to approach by any suffering individual before the onset of the crisis, and when it occurs. Such a social body would represent the entire society, and by embracing the individual back into the fold it would send a very strong message to the individual, namely, that he/she is wanted back into the fold of society ( rather than condemn the suffering individual with the present psychiatric stigma ). Such a message is a message of love and cooperation on an equal basis. It cannot exist under a regime which is unjust, exploitative and devoid of love, hence the need to change the political regime first. There was an historic precedent for the successful implementation such an alternative to psychiatry, but it was short lived because the world forces of capitalism have crushed it to death shortly after it had began.

The historic precedent took place in the People’s Republic of China, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966- 1976). Then all psychiatric institutions in China were closed down and all the psychiatrists were sent to the countryside for manual work and re-education, so that they could experience the daily life of the peasants and learn from them. In the cities neighbourhood committees sprang up, made up of elected local residents, and one of their important functions was to embrace the local individuals who were “treated” as “mental patients” by the shrinks. The committee members embraced them, empowered them, and treated them as equals,so as to enable their unhindered return to society. No psycho-therapy can match such power of love and cooperation between human beings. Needless to say that with such an alternative political system very few people, if any, would find themselves in need of any emotional/mental therapy, because the source which generates the crisis would be completely eliminated !

2008-07-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2008/07/did-drug-company-gifts-kill-gift-ban.html

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

"Did Drug Company Gifts Kill the Gift Ban?

In April, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a total ban on all drug company gifts to physicians (see my post here). Spearheaded by Senate President Therese Murray and supported by many others, the ban appeared certain to be approved in some form by the House, and Massachusetts could have bragged about taking the hardest line of any state against this form of legalized bribery.

But in what must go down as one of the greatest ironies in political history, the legislators visited BIO 2008, a massive Biotech conference in San Diego and one of the last of the great dug company swagfests--and now even Senator Murray wonders whether gifts might be necessary for good medicine. According the the State News Service, covered here in the Policy and Medicine Blog, Senator Murray said researchers in San Diego told her the ban would prevent productive interactions between doctors and researchers who are trying to treat the same diseases. “It’s something that we didn’t discuss when we did it, because we were looking purely at gifts to doctors,” Murray said in a telephone interview with the News Service. “But the fact is that some of these companies do bring researchers and doctors together to go over the latest research.”

Wow. Something happened at the convention to hoodwink our finest legislators into believing that doctors can't learn about research without being given free lunches. I didn't attend BIO 2008, but my colleague Harry Tracy did. Dr. Tracy is the writer and publisher of NeuroInvestment, quite possibly the best single source of cutting edge information for those investing in the pharmaceutical industry. Here is his review of BIO 2008, reprinted with his permission from his latest newsletter:

“At the BIO International Convention, 24,000 attendees had the opportunity to watch companies who were limited to fifteen minute sound bites, and much of the fun was to be had in the Exhibits area, where various companies, countries, and municipalities handed out tapas, wine, single-malt scotch, novelty pens, and miniature stuffed koalas, while holding raffles for everything from laptops to trips to London. Indeed, the local paper of record, the San Diego Union-Tribune, devoted a high-profile article to the bounty of "swag" available to attendees. Apparently they overlooked the gift available at the State of New Hampshire booth, which was a plastic band-aid dispenser. While we will treasure ours forever, this stretches the definition of "swag" beyond recognition. But these silly 'Freebies' are just a minor symptom of a larger problem with public relations and perception. San Diego, as it does for other large conventions, literally walled off for an afternoon and evening a five block section of the Gaslamp District, for a BIO-only party. There were three soundstages and seemingly acres of free food laid out for the occasionally semi-intoxicated revelers. Of course, those without a BIO badge were not allowed in, the party was only for "VIP's." As much as NI enjoys VIP treatment, there was something unsettling about seeing the excluded public peering over the barriers at the party-goers. At a time when the pharma industry is widely perceived as concerned with profit rather than with patient care, at a time that the industry is under siege by the Charles Grassley's of the world who believe that the industry deserves to be taken down a notch, this seems unwise. It is probably naive to think that the industry will police its excesses, but if it does not, its losses in the court of public opinion will continue to mount, and few in the audience will protest when the guillotines are brought out.”

I don't mean to imply that Senator Murray, or any other legislators, accepted any of these freebies in San Diego. But there's no question that they allowed their opinions to be influenced in a carnival of swag. Meanwhile, BIO 2008 has announced that Massachusetts Deval Patrick is their "Governor of the Year" on the strength of his support for a $1 billion Life Sciences initiative. I assume they will honor the Massachusetts Legislature with a similar award, depending on the outcome of the vote on S 2660.

Posted by Daniel Carlat, M.D"

2008-07-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVES TO PSYCHIATRIC "TREATMENT", EVEN WITHOUT CONSIDERING PSYCHIATRIC DOGMA AS QUACKERY'S CRAP, WHICH IT IS OF COURSE
by Justice Lover

As we have seen in this and in the preceding 13 blogs, the daily atrocities perpetrated by shrinks in the name of medical treatment have no justification whatsoever, not even from a psychiatric point of view. Yet, in most of the world's countries the shrinks have the legal power to force their "treatments" on their patient-victims, and with very little accountability. They can and did get away with murders (covered up by their "mental illness" lies). They do collaborate with Big Pharma to the detriment of their patients, and they get away with accepting bribes from Big Pharma in return for the colossal profits they amass for Big Pharma with their prescriptions and coercion.

There is now plenty of proof, scientific proof, that the Antipsychotics - like the Antidepressants - are useless from a psychiatric point of view, therefore prescribing them is one huge racket for the benefits of Big Pharma. We are accepting for argument sake that "mental illness"does exist, and similarly we are accepting that there are "psychotic patients" who require treatment to help the patients recover. However , psychiatric "treatment" does not work, is very dangerous ( likely to cause permanent brain damage or even death), is causing daily suffering, shortens life by 25 years, and stigmatising the patients for the rest of their lives !

The following list of effective alternative treatments was compiled by people who accept the psychiatric dogma of "mental illness", but they are realistic enough to conclude that what the shrinks force on people in emotional crisis, namely, psychiatric drugs, electric shocks and "psycho-surgery" do not help people. The shrinks torture them rather than provide a helpful treatment. Consequently, by offering effective alternatives to the shrinks' torture no justification
(if there ever was one) is left for coercive psychiatry. It must be outlawed now !

http://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/Effective/effective.htm

Effective Non-Neuroleptic Treatment

Factors Involved in Outcome and Recovery in Schizophrenia Patients Not on Antipsychotic Medications: A 15-Year Multifollow-Up Study, A longitudinal study of 145 patients found a 40% recovery rate for those who did not take antipsychotics, versus a 5% rate for those who did, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol 195, May, 2007, No. 5: 407-414
Five-year experience of first-episode nonaffective psychosis in open-dialogue approach: Treatment principles, follow-up outcomes, and two case studies, by Jaakko Seikkula1, Jukka Aaltonen, Birgittu Alakare, Kauko Haarakangas, Jyrki Kera¨Nen, & Klaus Lehtinen, Psychotherapy Research, March 2006; 16(2): 214/228. This study of the Open Dialogue approach in Finland that used as little neuroleptics as possible found that in a group of 42 patients, 82% did not have psychotic symptoms at the end of five years, 86% had returned to their studies or jobs, and only 14% were on disability allowance. Only 29% had ever been exposed to a neuroleptic medication at all during the five years, and only 17% were on neuroleptics at the end of five years. Other studies of this program are:
- Open Dialogue Approach: Treatment Principles and Preliminary Results of a Two- year Follow-up on First Episode Schizophrenia, by Jaakko Seikkula, Birgitta Alakare, Jukka Aaltonen Juha Holma and Anu Rasinkangas, Ethical and Human Sciences and Services, 2003, 5(3), 163-182.
- Open Dialogue in Psychosis II: A Comparison of Good and Poor Outcome Cases, by Jaakko Seikkula, Birgitta Alakare and Jukka Aaltonen, Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 14:267-284, 2001.
Recurrent Psychotic Depression Is Treatable by Psychoanalytic Therapy Without Medication, by Bertram P. Karon, PhD, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. Volume 7. Number I . SIJring 2005
Treatment of Schizophrenia Without Neuroleptics: Psychosocial Interventions Versus Neuroleptic Treatment, by Matt Irwin, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer 2004.
Remember Our Heritage, by Cloe Madanes, Psychotherapy Networker, November/December 2004. 2.2 Megabytes.
Reversal of Schizophrenia Without Neuroleptics, by Matt Irwin, Howard University Hospital, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 6, Number I, Spring 2004
The Tragedy of Schizophrenia without Psychotherapy, by Bertram P. Karon, PhD, Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis und Dynamic Psychiatry, 31(1), 89- 118, 2003.
Soteria and Other Alternatives to Acute Psychiatric Hospitalization A Personal and Professional Review, by Loren R. Mosher, M.D., The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 187:142-149, 1999.
Cognitive Therapy for the Prevention of Psychosis in People at Ultra-High Risk: Randomised Controlled trial, by Anthony P. Morrison, Paul French, Lara Walford, Shon W. Lewis, Aoiffe Kilcommons, Joanne Green, Sophie Parker and Richard P. Bentall, British Journal of Psychiatry, 2004;185, 291-7.
The Michigan State Psychotherapy Project study compared standard medication treatment for those diagnosed with severe schizophrenia with quality controlled psychotherapy both alone and with medication as an adjunct. The study demonstrated extremely more favorable long-term outcomes (at lower cost) for those receiving psychotherapy alone from psychotherapists with relevant training and experience.
Treatment of Acute Psychosis Without Neuroleptics: Two-Year Outcomes from the Soteria Project by John R. Bola, Ph.D., and Loren R. Mosher, M.D., Journal of Nervous Mental Disease, 191 (2003):219-29, finds that a relationally focused therapeutic milieu with minimal use of antipsychotic drugs, rather than drug treatment in the hospital, should be a preferred treatment for persons newly diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
Luc Ciompi, M.D., Professor Emeritus, MD, Switzerland
- The Soteria-concept. Theoretical bases and practical 13-yearexperience with a milieu-therapeutic approach of acute schizophrenia, Special lecture given at the 93 Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tokyo, May 29th-31th, 1997, published in Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica 99: 634-650, 1997.
- The Concept of Affect Logic: An Integrative Psycho-Socio-Biological Approach to Understanding and Treatment of Schizophrenia, Psychiatry, Vol. 60, Summer 1997.
The Effects of Medicating or Not Medicating on the Treatment Process by Bertram P. Karon, Ph.D. discusses both the harm caused by neuroleptics and the efficacy of a psycho-dynamic process (2003). Longer version presented at Division of Psychoanalysis (39), American Psychological Association, New York, NY, April, 2002.
Psychotherapy with "Schizophrenia": Analysis of Metaphor to Reveal Trauma and Conflict, by Richard Shulman, PhD, Co-published simultaneously in The Psychotherapy Patient (The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 9, No. 3/4, 1996, pp. 75-106; and: Psychosocial Approaches to Deeply Disturbed Persons (eds: Peter R. Breggin, and E. Mark Stern) The Hawthorn Press, Inc., 1996, pp.75-106.
The Benefits of Individual Psychotherapy for People Diagnosed with Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analytic Review by William H. Gottdiener and Nick Haslam, Ethical Human Sciences and Services, (2002) 4 (3), pp. 163-187. This comprehensive review of the literature finds that psychotherapy is as effective as medication and that adding medication does not increase effectiveness.
How Non-Diagnostic Listening Led to Rapid "Recovery:" from Paranoid Schizophrenia: What is Wrong With Psychiatry? by Al Sieberts, Ph.D. In this paper, Dr. Sieberts finds that Psychiatry lacks insight into its own behavior, invalidates constructive criticism, avoids the kind of self-examination it urges on "patients," shows little interest in accounts of successes with schizophrenic" individuals, erroneously lumps all the schizophrenias (plural) together in research studies, feels helpless and hopeless about schizophrenia, dismisses evidence that contradicts its inaccurate beliefs, and misrepresents what is known about "schizophrenia" to the public and to patients.
The Soteria Project: Twenty Five Years of Swimming Upriver, Loren R. Mosher, John R. Bola, Complexity and Change, (2000) 9: 68-74. This paper identifies the key ingredients to Soteria's success in treating patients diagnosed with schizophrenia without or with minimal medication.
Approaches to Madness Shared by Cross-Cultural Healing Systems and Strategic Family Therapy, by Madeleine Richeport-Haley, Journal of Family Psychotherapy, Vol 9(4), 61-75, 1998.
Recovery: The Lived Experience of Rehabilitation, by Patricia E. Deegan, Ph.D., revised version of paper originally published in Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 1988, 11(4), 11-19. This very important paper describes in moving, personal terms the importance of hope in recovery. And willingness. And responsible action. It also provides very important information on how to structure a program to achieve recovery.
Soteria-California and Its Successors: Therapeutic Ingredients By Loren R. Mosher M.D., suggests that the strikingly beneficial effects of the Soteria type treatment are likely due to (a) the milieu, (b) attitudes of staff and residents, (c) quality of relationships, and (d) supportive social processes. Dr. Mosher also discusses how leadership effects the success of these programs.
Soteria Project: Final Progress Report, by Loren Mosher and Bob Vallone, 3/14/92. (9 megabytes)
William Carpenter, Jr., "The treatment of acute schizophrenia without drugs: an investigation of some current assumptions," American Journal of Psychiatry, 134 (1977), 14-20.
New Hope for People with Schizophrenia, Monitor on Psychology, Volume 31, No. 2, February 2000 discusses the growing evidence that people can and do recover from serious mental illness with the critical ingredient being psychosocial rehabilitation.
Psychoanalysis and Psychosis: Trends and Developments by Ann-Louise S. Silver, M.D Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, Vol 31, No. 1, Spring 2001. Psychodynamic work is too often dismissed as outmoded, while no theory has been developed that rivals it in effectiveness or in ability to offer cohesive theory.
Maurice Rappaport, "Are there schizophrenics for whom drugs may be unnecessary or contraindicated?" International Pharmacopsychiatry, 13 (1978), 100-111, concludes Many un-medicated-while-in-hospital patients showed greater long-term improvement, less pathology at follow-up, fewer re-hospitalizations and better overall function in the community than patients who were given chlorpromazine while in the hospital.
Psychoanalysis and Psychosis: Players and History in the United States, by Ann-Louise Silver M.D., Psychoanalysis and History 4(1), 2002. In this paper, Dr. Silver outlines how psychoanalysis has had significant success in treating schizophrenia and other psychoses since the early 1900's in the United States.
Treatment at Soteria House: A Manual for the Practice of Interpersonal Phenomenology, by Loren Mosher, Robert Vallone & Alma Menn,1992.
Deinstitutionalized Residential Care for the Mentally Disordered: The Soteria House Approach, by Holly Skodo Tilson, 1982, Grune & Stratton, Inc. Beware: 39 Megabytes.
Susan Mathews, “A non-neuroleptic treatment for schizophrenia: analysis of the two-year postdischarge risk of relapse,” Schizophrenia Bulletin, 5 (1979), 322-332 finds that at 12 months postdischarge, the cumulative probability of remaining well significantly favors the alternative Soteria program over the standard use of neuroleptics.
A Child Welfare Agency Project: Therapy for Families of Status Offenders, by Kenneth W. Michaels & Robert H. Green, Child Welfare, Vol LVIII. No.3:216-219 (1979).
Consumer Operated Support Programs
Traditional community resources for mental health: a report of temple healing from India, by R Raguram, A Venkateswaran, Jayashree Ramakrishna, Mitchell G Weiss, British Medical Journal, v325 p38, 6 JULY 2002 bmj.com
Loren Mosher, “Community residential treatment for schizophrenia: two year followup,” Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 29 (1978), 715-723 finding that two years after discharge while the alternative Soteria program patients didn't show significantly different readmission rates or symptoms, they received medications significantly less often, used less outpatient care, showed significantly better occupational levels and were more able to live independently.
Effective Psychotherapy of Chronic Schizophrenia, by Nathaniel S. Lehrman, M.D., American Journal of Psychoanalysis, (1982), Vol.42, No. 2: 121-131. This 1982 paper presents the evidence already existing that over-reliance on neuroleptics was worsening outcomes. In this paper Dr. Lehrman discusses how individually tailored psychotherapy can get people who have chronically suffered schizophrenia well and back out into the community as a full member.

2008-06-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

MORE TOP SHRINKS ARE INVESTIGATED IN THE USA FOR ACCEPTING HEAVY BRIBES FROM BIG PHARMA
by Justice Lover

The following report was emailed to me today :

Grassley Outs Stanford Psychiatrist, Alan Schatzberg: Undisclosed $6 Million Shares in Abortion

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

The latest prominent psychiatrist to be outed for concealing financial conflicts of interest by Senator Charles Grassley's investigation is the chair of Stanford University department of psychiatry, Alan Schatzberg MD. http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/12/contemporary-hucksters-in-psychiatry.html

According to Sen. Grassley, Dr. Schatzberg disclosed ownership of more than $100,000 of stock in Corcept, manufacturer of the abortion pill, RU-86(mifepristone) which Dr. Schatzberg is testing and promoting for the treatment of depression. In 2002, Dr. Schatzberg has stated that treatment of psychotically depressed patients with the abortion drug, RU-486, "may be the equivalent of shock treatments in a pill."http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/12/contemporary-hucksters-in-psychiatry.html

Disclosure of $100,000 financial interest does not qualify as "full disclosure" when he actually owns $6 million in company stock. Bernard Carroll, MD, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University, is not impressed with the current vogue in disclosure statements which merely give the appearance of disclosure but fail to disclose the most salient financial conflicts of interest. "You can give a laundry list of what you'reconnected with - but buried in that, and unrecognized by the average reader,is really salient information about how close your association is with acompany," Carroll said.

Peter Whitehouse, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and bioethics, CaseWestern, is a world recognized authority on the aging brain and Alzheimer'sdisease. For twenty-five years he served as an academic consultant for drug companies conducting: scientific (basic research), clinical (tested newdrugs) and organizational / ethical areas (organized international conferences). Dr. Whitehouse was instrumental in the development of AD drugs, earning him millions of dollars. He no longer recommends the drugs and has severed his ties to industry.

In a recent article, Dr. Whitehouse explains why he no longer consults for drug companies. See: Peter Whitehouse, Why I No Longer Consult for Drug Companies, in Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 2008, vol.32:4-10 (excerpt below) Dr. Whitehouse states that he grew increasingly concerned about being a KOL(key opinion leader) when he realized how drug companies were manipulating academics like himself into promoting disease and drugs rather than seeking their independent science-based opinions.

"I earned over $50,000 of personal income per year (on average) for 20 years from the pharmaceutical industry and several millions of dollars in research and educational grants with my work in the Alzheimer field. I have recently moved as close to zero income as is possible from drug companies, but the pervasiveness of industry funding is so great it is hard to know how thoroughly it has been laundered through professional organizations and universities. I have stopped consulting for the pharmaceutical industry because I do not want to help them control not only our healthcare system but our very conceptions of health and illth."

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-06-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

AN UPDATE : THE PSYCHIATRIC TORTURE OF REBECCA MERHAV CONTINUES, HER WAY TO RECOVERY BLOCKED, AND RISKS TO HER SURVIVAL INCREASE BY THE DAY AS A RESULT OF THE SHRINKS' INTRANSIGENCE
by Justice lover

In a letter to Rebecca's father received today the Chief Psychiatrist continues to ignore and/or reject all the complaints made to him on behalf of Rebecca. As if more than 30 years of Rebecca's suffering under compulsory psychiatric "treatment" are not enough, the Chief Psychiatrist insists that the "treatment" (350 mg Clozapine daily, 75mg Risperdal injections every 10 days, and daily Cogenten tablets to counter the involuntary muscle movements caused by the two Antipsychotics) is "clinically appropriate". He therefore concludes that the complaints made on behalf of Rebecca are now "formally closed", meaning that he does not want to get any more complaints from her or on her behalf.

As for the official ban on contacts and information imposed by the shrinks on Rebecca's father, the Chief Psychiatrist supports them too, and he blames Rebecca's father rather than the shrinks under him as follows :

"I am aware that you and Rebecca's treating service have reached a communication impasse...
I remain hopeful that you will in the future, be able to develope a positive relationship with the treating team as this will be in Rebecca's best interests."

Is this a new threat by the shrinks - with the approval of the Chief Psychiatrist - namely : comply with our irrational psychiatric torture of Rebecca, or else we will make her suffer more ?

On the 21st June, 2008, Rebecca's father emailed a complaint to the Minister for Mental Health as follows :

Hon Lisa Neville, MP
Minister for Mental Health
Melbourne, Victoria.

Dear Minister,

I have had no reply whatsoever from the Chief Psychiatrist to my email to him on behalf of my daughter.
As you would see for yourself (no need for any knowledge of psychiatry, just plain common sense), the article below (with emphasis added by myself ) by Dr. Fred Baughman, a veteran American neurologist, who has researched psychiatry for many years, points to the latest psychiatric atrocities in the USA, which had claimed the lives of four young men, following their consumption of psychiatric drugs. One of those drugs, the Antipsychotic drug Seoquel, which Dr. Baughman defines as "the most toxic", causing the death of the 4 young men, Rebecca was forced to consume by her capricious treating psychiatrist. Moreover, she had ordered Rebecca's incarceration at the Alfred Psychiatric Ward on the 9th of March, 2008, so that she could force an increase of the poison from 400mg per day to 600mg per day on Rebecca (on top of the 75mg Risperdal every 10 days injected into her).

Does Rebecca have to die too before they stop her psychiatric deadly torture ?

Looking forward to your early reply, Benjamin Merhav

on behalf of Rebecca Merhav

http://health.einnews.com/article.php?nid=519196

A Cluster of Veterans' Deaths; By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

June 20, 2008
EL CAJON, Calif., June 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently four Charleston, WV-area veterans -- Derek Johnson, 22, Andrew White, 23, Eric Layne, 29, and Nicholas Endicott, with "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD), treated with the Paxil, Klonopin, and Seroquel -- died in their sleep. All were said to be in good health. (Julie Robinson, Charleston Gazette, May 24, 2008).
In a democracy, we have a right to "informed consent." Physicians have a legal obligation to tell us the facts regarding (1) diagnosis and (2) treatment. Regarding diagnosis: Is there a disease or isn't there? Which disease? If there is no disease, that leaves emotional or psychological. Regarding treatment, physicians have a duty to tell us the facts, about all available treatments, not just the treatment they prefer. The choice is ours. This is informed consent.
Were these veterans and their families told by their psychiatrists that PTSD, bipolar disorder, clinical depression and other mythical psychiatric "diagnoses" are "disorders," "diseases," or "chemical imbalances" of the brain? Were these the reasons, according to their psychiatrists, that they needed psychiatric drugs? If they were told this to gain their "informed consent" to treat, then they were lied to, and their right to informed consent was denied.
In fact, there is no such thing in the annals of medicine as a psychiatric disease. In 1948 neurology and psychiatry were made into separate specialties -- neurology to deal with actual diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, epilepsy, etc. -- and psychiatry to deal with emotional and behavioral problems, none actual medical diseases.

By definition, the terms "disorder" and "disease" mean an objective physical abnormality is present. Never the case in psychiatry. And yet it is standard practice in psychiatry today, to tell patients they have "chemical imbalances" of the brain; "chemical imbalances" needing "chemical balancers" -- pills.

In the DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association (Introduction, page xxi, Definition of Mental Disorder), we read: "Although this volume is titled the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the term mental disorder unfortunately implies a distinction between 'mental' disorders and 'physical' disorders that is a reductionistic anachronism of mind/body dualism. A compelling literature documents that there is much 'physical' in 'mental' disorders and much 'mental' in 'physical' disorders."
Here, the APA, unabashedly claims that psychiatric diagnoses are as much diseases as those in all other medical specialties. Saying a "compelling literature" makes it so, they reference not a single proof in the medical-scientific literature, making a single psychiatric entity an actual disease.
Because psychiatric diagnoses are not actual diseases, they must be psychological or psychiatric, not medical. This means they could not cause physical complications including death.
On the other hand, all drugs, even penicillin, are exogenous chemicals, and are poisons. The pivotal question in medicine is: Are they more helpful than harmful? Of the drugs the four veterans were on, the antipsychotic, Seroquel, is the most toxic.

All antipsychotics carry this ominous black box warning: "Elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis are at an increased risk of death." "Warnings/Precautions" include: "neuroleptic-malignant syndrome" (usually fatal), "tardive dyskinesia" (permanent, grotesque, movements of the face, tongue, head, neck and body), "cerebrovascular events" "cardiovascular events," "diabetes," "obesity," "gynecomastia" (male breast development needing mastectomy), "suicidal tendencies," "impaired temperature control," "dysphagia" (trouble swallowing), "aspiration pneumonia," and "death." Nor are the other two drugs -- Paxil and Klonopin without their own long lists of side effects. The more drugs given simultaneously, the less the science and the greater the risks of injury and death. Only in psychiatry do patients end up with multiple "diagnoses" (none of them diseases), on multiple drugs.

"I want to know the cause of death," said Ray Johnson, Derek Johnson's father. "Stacie said he was fine. Everything was normal. He kissed her goodnight and went to sleep." All that is certain, he never woke up.
Because there is no such thing as a psychiatric disease, none of the veterans mentioned in this article could possibly have died from a psychiatric "disease." By process of elimination, it can be assumed that they may have died from their drugs; from their "treatments" for diseases that do not exist.
Their loved ones should begin their painful quest for justice by writing the president of the APA, Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, (American Psychiatric Association, 1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1825, Arlington, VA 22209) and, to the current director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel, (National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8184, MSC 9663, Bethesda, MD 20892-9663) and ask them for proof that PTSD or any of their psychiatric diagnoses or "disorders" are actual diseases, having, as they must a confirming, objective, physical abnormality, gross (visible to the naked eye), microscopic -- as in a Pap smear or biopsy, or, chemical -- as in the chemical abnormalities of diabetes, galactosemia, gout or phenyketonuria. I suggest they do this now, copying their US Representative, their own US Senator, Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and Senator Charles Grassley, R-IA.
*Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, has discovered and described real diseases. He assumes full responsibility for all statements herein.

     Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
    fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
    1303 HIDDEN MOUNTAIN DRIVE
    EL CAJON, CA 92019
    Tele: (619) 440-8236
    Fax: (619) 442-1932

SOURCE Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

2008-06-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

PSYCHIATRY - BOTH ITS DOGMA AND ITS ATROCITIES - CANNOT BE REFORMED. PSYCHIATRY MUST BE OUTLAWED NOW !
by Justice Lover

The following press release was emailed to me today by the Green Party in Northern Ireland .
While it is good news to have their proposed bill made law, it is only a small beginning ! So please keep it up !

From: Green Party Press Office [mailto:greenparty.press.office@gmail.com]
Sent: 25 June 2008 13:57
To: Green Party
Subject: Mental health reform: Greens seek end to forced shock therapy and lobotomies

25 June 2008

Mental health reform: Greens seek end to forced shock therapy and lobotomies

Green Party Senators Deirdre de Burca and Dan Boyle will this evening in Seanad Éireann introduce a Private Member's Bill aimed at ceasing the practice of forced electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and psycho-surgery, more popularly known as 'lobotomy.'

"The issue of informed consent is critical where the use of controversial psychiatric procedures such as ECT are concerned," said Senator de Burca. "Our Private Members Bill – "Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008 – aims to prohibit the involuntary use of ECT and ends the practice of psycho-surgery."

Senator Dan Boyle added: "Seanad Éireann is an appropriate forum to initiate debates of this nature and to reform aspects of legislation in ways that Dáil Éireann cannot. This Bill gives the Seanad the opportunity of acting independently in addition to allowing the Green Party Senators to show our ability to act on our own initiative in progressing important policy decisions."

[ENDS]

Information:
Senator Deirdre de Burca, 086 8061450
Senator Dan Boyle, 087 2772701

2008-06-25T13:52:00.001-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/health/24deme.html?scp=1&sq=antipsychotics
&st=cse

June 24, 2008

Doctors Say Medication Is Overused in Dementia

By LAURIE TARKAN

Ramona Lamascola thought she was losing her 88-year-old mother to dementia. Instead, she was losing her to overmedication.

Last fall her mother, Theresa Lamascola, of the Bronx, suffering from anxiety and confusion, was put on the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. When she had trouble walking, her daughter took her to another doctor — the younger Ms. Lamascola’s own physician — who found that she had unrecognized hypothyroidism, a disorder that can contribute to dementia.

Theresa Lamascola was moved to a nursing home to get these problems under control. But things only got worse. “My mother was screaming and out of it, drooling on herself and twitching,” said Ms. Lamascola, a pediatric nurse. The psychiatrist in the nursing home stopped the Risperdal, which can cause twitching and vocal tics, and prescribed a sedative and two other antipsychotics.

“I knew the drugs were doing this to her,” her daughter said. “I told him to stop the medications and stay away from Mom.”

Not until yet another doctor took Mrs. Lamascola off the drugs did she begin to improve.

The use of antipsychotic drugs to tamp down the agitation, combative behavior and outbursts of dementia patients has soared, especially in the elderly. Sales of newer antipsychotics like Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa totaled $13.1 billion in 2007, up from $4 billion in 2000, according to IMS Health, a health care information company.

Part of this increase can be traced to prescriptions in nursing homes. Researchers estimate that about a third of all nursing home patients have been given antipsychotic drugs.

The increases continue despite a drumbeat of bad publicity. A 2006 study of Alzheimer’s patients found that for most patients, antipsychotics provided no significant improvement over placebos in treating aggression and delusions.

In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration ordered that the newer drugs carry a “black box” label warning of an increased risk of death. Last week, the F.D.A. required a similar warning on the labels of older antipsychotics.

The agency has not approved marketing of these drugs for older people with dementia, but they are commonly prescribed to these patients “off label.” Several states are suing the top sellers of antipsychotics on charges of false and misleading marketing.

Ambre Morley, a spokeswoman for Janssen, the division of Johnson & Johnson that manufactures Risperdal, would not comment on the suits, but said: “As with any medication, the prescribing of a medication is up to a physician. We only promote our products for F.D.A.-approved indications.”

Nevertheless, many doctors say misuse of the drugs is widespread. “These antipsychotics can be overused and abused,” said Dr. Johnny Matson, a professor of psychology at Louisiana State University. “And there’s a lot of abuse going on in a lot of these places.”

Dr. William D. Smucker, a member of the American Medical Directors Association, a group of health professionals who work in nursing homes, agreed. Though the group encourages doctors to conduct a thorough assessment and prescribe antipsychotics only as a last resort, he said, “Many physicians are absent without leave in the nursing home and don’t take an active role in the assessment of the patient.”

Some nursing homes are trying a different approach, so-called environmental intervention. The strategies include reducing boredom, providing intellectual and physical stimulation, exercise, calming music, bringing in pets for therapy and improving how the staff approaches and talks to dementia patients.

At the Margaret Teitz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Queens, social workers do life reviews of patients to understand their interests, lifestyle and former occupations.

“I had a patient who used to be in fashion,” said Nancy Goldwasser, the director of social services. “So we got her fabric samples. And she’d sit and look through the books, touch the fabric, and it would calm her.”

But such approaches are time consuming, they do not help all patients, they can be prohibitively expensive and they will be more difficult to provide as Alzheimer’s continues to increase.

“Our health care system isn’t set up to address the mental, emotional and behavioral problems of the elderly,” said Dr. Gary S. Moak, president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

Nursing homes are short staffed, and insurers do not generally pay for the attentive medical care and hands-on psychosocial therapy that advocates recommend. It is much easier to use sedatives and antipsychotics, despite their side effects.

The first generation of antipsychotics, like Haldol, carry a significant risk of repetitive movement disorders and sedation. Second-generation antipsychotics, also called atypicals, are more commonly prescribed because the risk of movement disorders is lower. But they, too, can cause sedation, and they contribute to weight gain and diabetes.

Used correctly, the drugs do have a role in treating some seriously demented patients, who may be incapacitated by paranoia or are self-destructive or violent. Taking the edge off the behavior can keep them safe and living at home, rather than in a nursing home.

If patients are prescribed an antipsychotic, it should be a very low dose for the shortest period necessary, said Dr. Dillip V. Jeste, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego.

It may take a few weeks or months to control behavior. In many cases, the patient can then be weaned off of the drugs or kept at a very low dose.

Some experts say another group of medications — antidementia drugs like Aricept, Exelon and Namenda — are underused. Research shows that 10 to 20 percent of Alzheimer’s patients had noticeable positive responses to the drugs, and 40 percent more showed some cognitive improvement, even if it was not noticeable to an observer.

“Sometimes, it’s enough to take the edge off the behavioral problems, so the family and patient can live with it and you don’t expose people to much risk,” said Dr. Gary J. Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Other experts cite a lack of research backing these drugs for behavioral problems.

If patients begin showing behavioral symptoms of dementia, doctors said, they should have complete medical and psychiatric workups first, especially if symptoms develop suddenly.

“Just because someone is 95 does not mean one should not do a workup, especially if she’s been healthy,” Dr. Kennedy said.

Common causes of the symptoms include ministrokes, reparable brain hemorrhage from a mild bump on the head, hypothyroidism, dehydration, malnourishment, depression and sleep disorders.

Some doctors point out that simply paying attention to a nursing home patient can ease dementia symptoms. They note that in randomized trials of antipsychotic drugs for dementia, 30 to 60 percent of patients in the placebo groups improved.

“That’s mind boggling,” Dr. Jeste said. “These severely demented patients are not responding to the power of suggestion. They’re responding to the attention they get when they participate in a clinical trial.

“They receive both T.L.C. and good general medical and humane care, which they did not receive until now. That’s a sad commentary on the way we treat dementia patients.”

To family members looking at a nursing home for an aging parent, experts recommend seeking out homes with low staff turnover, a high ratio of staff members to patients, and programs with psychosocial components.

The Medicare Web site has basic information on individual homes at www.medicare.gov/NHcompare. The National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, at www.nccnhr.org, offers a consumer guide to choosing a nursing home.

If medications are necessary, a family member should communicate with the prescribing doctor, learn the goal of each medication and be involved in making the decision.

Dr. Moak, of the psychiatry association, emphasized seeking out the doctor. Family members, he said, “often speak through the nursing staff, and that’s a huge mistake.”

Family members who are not convinced that a relative is receiving the best care should get a second opinion, as Ramona Lamascola did.

The physician she consulted, Dr. Kennedy of Montefiore, stopped her mother’s antipsychotics and sedatives and prescribed Aricept.

“It’s not clear whether it was getting her hypothyroid and other medical issues finally under control or getting rid of the offending medications,” he said. “But she had a miraculous turnaround.”

Theresa Lamascola still has dementia, but she went from confinement in a wheelchair — unable to sit still and screaming out in fear — to being able to walk with help, sit peacefully, have some memory and ability to communicate, understand subtleties of conversations and even make jokes.

Or, as her daughter put it, “I got my mother back.”

2008-06-23T20:48:00.001-07:00

MORE ON THE CRUELTY AND INHUMANITY INHERENT IN COERCIVE PSYCHIATRY,AND ON THE SADISM OF SOME STATE PSYCHIATRISTS
by Justice Lover

The following is a brief but excellent article by Bettineolive@AOL.com. The author is hitting the nail on the head already by the title of the article, with the rhetorical "question", namely, "are psychiatrists cruel ?" Of course they are, or else there would be no coercive psychiatry, no electric shocks "therapy",no "psycho-surgery", no Antipsychotic drugs torture, no Antidepressants racket, no complicity in Big Pharma's crimes against humanity ! There would be no fascist quackery to the detriment of humanity !

The original emphasis is in blue and in purple. Mine is in red.

http://journals.aol.co.uk/bettineolive/Pesticidesinblood/entries/2008/06/23/are-psychiatrists-cruel/1150

24 June 2008
Are psychiatrists cruel?

Judging by these paragraphs I have copied from Malcolm Hooper's document on the Satori website, some psychiatrists are not just cruel - they are sadistic.

First, here is the opinion of an eminent Queen's Counsel:

"A leading QC and a member of the House of Lords was asked for an opinion on the Wessely School approach to ME. That opinion is unequivocal. It states:

"On the document you have sent me there is an overwhelming case for the setting up of an immediate independent investigation as to whether the nature, cause and treatment of ME as considered by the Wessely School is acceptable or consistent with good and safe medical practice. there is substantial doubt as to whether such could be the case. A formal request should be made to set up an enquiry. It is essential that a reputable firm of solicitors should be instructed."

Then, under the heading "Are psychiatrists cruel?" Dr. John Diamond; a founding member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, in an extract from his recent book "Facets of a Diamond 2003" in the October 2003 issue of the journal "What doctors don't tell you", Diamond says: "I am no longer a psychiatrist. I renounce it because I believe cruelty is at the core of the profession (and) I believe that there is something inherent in the profession that tends to bring out any cruelty lurking within. I have long wondered why this profession - which ought to be so compassionate - has, it seems to me, turned its back on humanity."

Later in the chapter, Malcolm Hooper gives two instances of the implementation of Wessely School policy. This is one of them:

1. The case of Ean Proctor.

In 1988, a formerly healthy 12 year old boy named Ean Proctor from the Isle of Man had been suffering from ME since the autumn of 1986. His symptoms included total exhaustion, feeling extremely ill, abdominal pain, persistent nausea, drenching sweats, headaches, recurrent sore throat, heightened sensitivity to noise and light and loss of balance. He was also dragging his right leg. In 1987 his condition had rapidly deteriorated; he had gradually (not suddenly, as may occur in hysterical disorders) lost his speech and was almost completely paralysed (which lasted for two years). He had been seen by Dr. Morgan-Hughes, a senior consultant neurologist at the National Hospital in London, who had reaffirmed the diagnosis of ME and advised the parents that ME patients usually respond poorly to exercise until their muscle strength begins to improve; he also advised that drugs could make the situation worse.

Although he did not obtain his MBCPsych until 1986, during one visit by the Proctors to the National Hospital in 1988, Wessely (then a Senior Registrar in Psychiatry) entered the room and asked Ean's parents if he could become involved in his case. Desperate for help, they readily agreed. Wessely soon informed them that children do not get ME and, unknown to them, on 3rd June 1988 he wrote to the Principal Social Worker at Douglas, Isle of Man (Mrs. Jean Manson) that, "Ean presented with a history of an ability (sic) to use any muscle group which amounted to a paraplegia, together with elective mutatism (sic). I did not perform a physical examination but was told that there was no evidence of physical pathology...I was in no doubt that the primary problem was psychiatric (and) that his apparent illness was out of all proportion to the original cause. I feel that Ean's parents are very over-involved in his care. I have considerable experience in the subject of 'myalgic encephalomyelitis' and am absolutely certain that it did not apply to Ean. I feel that Ean needs a long period of rehabilitation (which will involve separation from his parents providing an escape from his "ill" world. For this reason, I support the application made by your department for wardship."

On 10th June 1988, Wessely provided another report on Ean Proctor for Messrs Simcocks & Co., Solicitors for the Child Care Department on the Isle of Man. Although Wessely had never once interviewed or examined the child, he wrote, "I did not order any investigations...Ean cannot be suffering from any primary organic illness, be it myalgic encephalomyelitis or any other. Ean has a primary psychological illness causing him to become mute and immobile. Ean requires skilled rehabilitat ion to regain lost function. I therefore support the efforts being made to ensure Ean receives appropriate treatment." Under his signature, Wessely wrote, "Approved under Section 12, Mental Health Act 1983"

In that same month (June 1988), without ever having spoken to his parents, social workers supported by psychiatrists and armed with a Court Order specially signed by a magistrate on a Sunday, removed the child under police presence from his distraught and disbelieving parents and placed him into "care" because psychiatrists beieved his illness was psychological and was being maintained by an "over-protective mother". Everything possible was done to censor communication between the child and his parents, who did not even know if their son knew why they were not allowed to visit him.

In this "care", the sick child was forcibly thrown into a hospital swimming pool with no floating aids because psychiatrists wanted to prove that he could use his limbs and that he would be forced to do so to save himself from drowning. He could not save himself and sank to the bottom of the pool. The terrified child was also dragged out of the hospital ward and taken on a ghost train because psychiatrists were determined to prove that he could speak and they believed he would cry out in fear and panic and this would prove them right. Another part of this "care" included keeping the boy alone in a side ward and leaving him intentionally unattended for over seven hours at a time with no means of communication because the call bell had been deliberately disconnected. The side ward was next to the lavatories and the staff believed he would take himself to the lavatory when he was desperate enough. He was unable to do so and wet himself but was left for many hours at a time sitting in urine-soaked clothes in a wet chair. Another part of the "care" involved the child being raced in his wheelchair up and down corridors by a male nurse who would stop abruptly without warning, supposedly to make the boy hold on to the chair sides to prevent himself from being tipped out; he was unable to do so and was projected out of the wheelchair onto the floor, which on one occasion resulted in injury to his back. This was regarded as a huge joke by the staff;" (end of quote)

Yes. Cruel. Unbelievably cruel. I think the 'nurses' and 'doctors' in this account were in the profession of psychiatry, just like Simon Wessely is, in order to exert power over ill people. Raw power over other humans. Like the gestapo had fifty years ago.

There is a DVD put out by an organisation - I forget the name - but they are subsidised by the religion that Tom Cruise belongs to. The DVD is a documentary about the history of psychiatry from its beginnings to the present day. It is very revealing as to the cruelties that were perpetrated on innocent, ill people - from Bedlam in London onwards to the present day. It is hard to believe that any human can be so cruel to another human - but then the Holocaust and other genocidal events in the twentieth century has proved that there is no limit to the cruelty that some people will wreak on other people.

The Wessely school of psychiatrists have been described in the eBMJ (N. Portman, 3rd December 2003) as, "a small clique of undemocratic, unaccountable, self-serving psychiatrists who have managed to monopolise most of the research funding in this field and, thanks to their prejudices, have been its downfall every since"

It took 25 years to expose and discredit Roy Meadows. When will Simon Wessely be kicked out? Don't hold your breath; the government, the health insurance companies and the drug companies all prefer the diagnosis of ME as a mental illness. - despite the fact that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified ME in the International Classification of Disease (ICD) as a neurological disorder

Good health to you! Bettineolive@AOL.com

2008-06-21T18:51:00.001-07:00

MORE ON BRIBED SHRINKS ,ON CORRUPT "EXPERTS"AND ON THEIR VICTIMS
by Justice Lover

The following report was emailed to me today :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

An "expert consensus" process is convening next week in Florida to formulate
revised recommendations regarding the use of atypical antipsychotics in the
treatment of ADHD in Florida children.

The landscape had changed in the two years since the Florida Behavioral
Health Collaborative set treatment guidelines favoring atypical
antipsychotic drugs.

Tens of thousands of patients have successfully sued drug companies that
made atypicals. The academic community is more divided about the safety and
efficacy of these drugs. The government-sponsored CATIE study findings
debunked the false claims of drug manufacturers as well their paid academic
consultants who proclaimed the atypical antipsychotics to be "safe and
effective." Another government sponsored analysis of state mental health
data has raised concern that the drugs cut short lives by as many as 25
years! See: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2006/apr/05_0180.htm And a
15-year follow-up study (2007) confirms that the drugs worsen patient
outcomes: 40% of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who were NOT on
antipsychotic drugs showed periods of recovery and better global functioning
compared to only 5% of patients taking antipsychotics (p=.001). See:
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/15-year-follow-up-schizophrenia-study.html
and http://tinyurl.com/3xausr

Despite all the evidence, children--as young as two years old--are being
aggressively prescribed antipsychotics based on recommendations by prominent
academic child psychiatrists at U.S. universities such as Harvard,
Cincinnati, Washington, and Columbia. All of them have substantial financial
ties to these drugs manufacturers raising doubts about their professional
integrity.
See:
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/psychiatrists-retained-by-drug-industry.htm
l
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2008/06/front-page-article-in-new-york-times-by.htm
l

http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2008/06/follow-upharvard-conflicts-of-interest.html

The hard-hitting investigative reports by journalist Rob Farley (the St
Petersburg Times) who laid bare drug industry influence behind
recommendations of key influential psychiatrists whose financial interests
rather than scientific evidence appears to have led them to recommend the
wide use of atypical antipsychotics despite the life-threatening risks they
pose. Indeed, simply by describing the composition of Florida's expert panel
which met last year, the case is made. All of the selected experts were paid
consultants who voted to keep the atypicals as first line recommended
treatment. See: http://tampabay.com/news/health/article454391.ece below.
Farley will be present at Wednesday's gathering.

Another investigative reporter who exposed some of the shenanigans that led
the most toxic drugs to become blockbuster profit makers is Mary Moewe of
the Daytona Beach News Journal who will also be there. See:
http://www.healthyplace.com/news_2008/antipsychotics_02.asp

Dr. Robert Rosenheck, a prominent Yale professor who participated in the
CATIE study said the science doesn't support those claims.
Indeed, he acknowledged that the science does not justify their use as first
line treatment:

"There was never any evidence that warranted the amount of money we spend on
atypicals. If you look at it independently, it is very clear the results
say there is no benefit' to atypicals over typicals."

Yet the pharmaceutical companies persuaded state mental health officials to
make them the drugs of choice:

"They leverage every single angle they can to persuade every person to
secure the opinion that their products are superior," Rosenheck said. "Every
possible source of opinion, they use money to establish a relationship with
them."

We concur fully with Dr. Rosenheck's assessment:

"The issue is not, 'Were these people influenced?' There is nobody who is
not influenced."

Which is why we need independent validation about the safety and efficacy of
a medical treatment by scientists who do not have a financial stake in
promoting that treatment.

The conference call will be held on Wednesday between 12:30 and 1:30 PM.
If you wish to participate --or just listen in-- call:
Conference Call Dial-in Number 1(888)808-6959 Conference Code: 8509227702

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-06-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

http://health.einnews.com/article.php?nid=519196

A Cluster of Veterans' Deaths; By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

June 20, 2008

EL CAJON, Calif., June 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently four Charleston, WV-area veterans -- Derek Johnson, 22, Andrew White, 23, Eric Layne, 29, and Nicholas Endicott, with "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD), treated with the Paxil, Klonopin, and Seroquel -- died in their sleep. All were said to be in good health. (Julie Robinson, Charleston Gazette, May 24, 2008).

In a democracy, we have a right to "informed consent." Physicians have a legal obligation to tell us the facts regarding (1) diagnosis and (2) treatment. Regarding diagnosis: Is there a disease or isn't there? Which disease? If there is no disease, that leaves emotional or psychological. Regarding treatment, physicians have a duty to tell us the facts, about all available treatments, not just the treatment they prefer. The choice is ours. This is informed consent.

Were these veterans and their families told by their psychiatrists that PTSD, bipolar disorder, clinical depression and other mythical psychiatric "diagnoses" are "disorders," "diseases," or "chemical imbalances" of the brain? Were these the reasons, according to their psychiatrists, that they needed psychiatric drugs? If they were told this to gain their "informed consent" to treat, then they were lied to, and their right to informed consent was denied.

In fact, there is no such thing in the annals of medicine as a psychiatric disease. In 1948 neurology and psychiatry were made into separate specialties -- neurology to deal with actual diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, epilepsy, etc. -- and psychiatry to deal with emotional and behavioral problems, none actual medical diseases.

By definition, the terms "disorder" and "disease" mean an objective physical abnormality is present. Never the case in psychiatry. And yet it is standard practice in psychiatry today, to tell patients they have "chemical imbalances" of the brain; "chemical imbalances" needing "chemical balancers" -- pills.

In the DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association (Introduction, page xxi, Definition of Mental Disorder), we read: "Although this volume is titled the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the term mental disorder unfortunately implies a distinction between 'mental' disorders and 'physical' disorders that is a reductionistic anachronism of mind/body dualism. A compelling literature documents that there is much 'physical' in 'mental' disorders and much 'mental' in 'physical' disorders."

Here, the APA, unabashedly claims that psychiatric diagnoses are as much diseases as those in all other medical specialties. Saying a "compelling literature" makes it so, they reference not a single proof in the medical-scientific literature, making a single psychiatric entity an actual disease.

Because psychiatric diagnoses are not actual diseases, they must be psychological or psychiatric, not medical. This means they could not cause physical complications including death.

On the other hand, all drugs, even penicillin, are exogenous chemicals, and are poisons. The pivotal question in medicine is: Are they more helpful than harmful? Of the drugs the four veterans were on, the antipsychotic, Seroquel, is the most toxic.

Because there is no such thing as a psychiatric disease, none of the veterans mentioned in this article could possibly have died from a psychiatric "disease." By process of elimination, it can be assumed that they may have died from their drugs; from their "treatments" for diseases that do not exist.

Their loved ones should begin their painful quest for justice by writing the president of the APA, Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, (American Psychiatric Association, 1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1825, Arlington, VA 22209) and, to the current director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel, (National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8184, MSC 9663, Bethesda, MD 20892-9663) and ask them for proof that PTSD or any of their psychiatric diagnoses or "disorders" are actual diseases, having, as they must a confirming, objective, physical abnormality, gross (visible to the naked eye), microscopic -- as in a Pap smear or biopsy, or, chemical -- as in the chemical abnormalities of diabetes, galactosemia, gout or phenyketonuria. I suggest they do this now, copying their US Representative, their own US Senator, Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and Senator Charles Grassley, R-IA.

*Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, has discovered and described real diseases. He assumes full responsibility for all statements herein.

     Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
    fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
    1303 HIDDEN MOUNTAIN DRIVE
    EL CAJON, CA 92019
    Tele: (619) 440-8236
    Fax: (619) 442-1932

SOURCE Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

2008-06-18T02:56:00.000-07:00

EXPOSED : HARVARD SHRINK GETS RICH LABELING KIDS BIPOLAR

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on June 18, 2008, Printed on June 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/88333/

What Dick Cheney is to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, psychiatrist Joseph Biederman is to the explosion of psychiatric medications in American children. Recently, Biederman was nailed by congressional investigators and the New York Times for overestimating just how greedy an elite shrink is entitled to be. Beyond a peek into the corruption of psychiatry at its highest levels, the scandal is an opportunity to reconsider the Big Pharma financed view of why kids become disruptive and destructive.

On June 8, 2008, the New York Times reported the following about Joseph Biederman: "A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful anti-psychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given congressional investigators."

Due in part to Biederman's influence, the number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003, and as Bloomberg News reported (September 2007), "The expanded use of bipolar as a pediatric diagnosis has made children the fastest-growing part of the $11.5 billion U.S. market for anti-psychotic drugs."

Pediatrician and author Lawrence Diller notes about Biederman, "He single-handedly put pediatric bipolar disorder on the map." Biederman has been in a position to convince many doctors to diagnose bipolar disorder in children and to medicate them with anti-psychotic drugs. In addition to being a professor at Harvard, Biederman is also chief of research in pediatric psychopharmacology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which publishes more than 30 papers yearly on psychiatric disorders. And Biederman himself has authored and co-authored approximately 500 articles, 70 book chapters, and more than 450 scientific abstracts, as well as being on the editorial board of many professional journals.

Biederman (and two of his colleagues in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School who received an additional $2.6 million from drug companies from 2000 to 2007), by failing to report income from drug companies while at the same time receiving federal funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), violated rules designed to police conflicts of interest, according to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley concluded, "Obviously, if a researcher is taking money from a drug company while also receiving federal dollars to research that company's product, then there is a conflict of interest." In one example, Biederman neglected to report his 2001 income from Johnson & Johnson (makers of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal); Johnson & Johnson reported to Grassley that it had paid Biederman $58,169 in 2001.

In addition to his popularization of bipolar disorder for children, Biederman is one of the most significant forces behind the commonplace diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Congressional investigators also found that Biederman conducted studies of Eli Lilly's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Strattera that were funded by NIH at the same time he was receiving money from Lilly that exceeded the maximum amount permitted.

NIH rules state that researchers cannot take more than $20,000 in payments from a drug company whose drug they are funded by NIH to research and that researchers must disclose any payment received from a drug company of $10,000 or more. Apparently, for drug researchers taking federal funding from NIH, there is no law against being on the take from drug companies, but there are rules against greed.

Mental health treatment in the United States is now a multibillion-dollar industry, and all the rules of industrial complexes apply. Not only does Big Pharma have influential psychiatrists such as Biederman in their pocket, virtually every mental health institution from which doctors, the press, and the general public receive their mental health information is financially interconnected with Big Pharma. The American Psychiatric Association, psychiatry's professional organization, is hugely dependent on drug company grants, and this is also true for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and other so-called consumer organizations. Harvard and other prestigious university psychiatry departments take millions of dollars from drug companies, and the National Institute of Mental Health funds researchers who are financially connected with drug companies.

The corporate media, dependent on drug company advertising, occasionally reports on egregious scandals, but the corporate media is generally timid in reporting the big picture of how drug companies spread around millions of dollars to make billions of dollars.

There are certainly many troubled and disruptive American children who are sometimes extremely destructive to themselves or others. However, any attempt to understand these kids will be corrupted by financial dependency on drug companies, which have a vested interest in viewing all attentional, emotional, and behavioral difficulties as diseases that can be fixed with drugs.

There are several commonsense nondisease reasons why children become troubled and behave disruptively and destructively. For more than two decades, I have worked with annoying, disruptive, and destructive children. Many of these children had been previously diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, bipolar disorder, and other serious psychiatric diagnoses, and they were routinely given a variety of drug combinations. Their parents most often reported that drugs were prescribed after being questioned by doctors about symptoms but without any exploration of reasons as to why their children were behaving as they did.

In America's assembly-line medicine, drug prescriptions are routinely written without any exploration of commonsense reasons as to why a child might be behaving problematically. Is the child resentful over a perceived injustice? Is the child experiencing deep emotional pain? Is the child simply bored? Does the child feel powerless? Does the child have low self-worth because a lack of life skills and thus behaves immaturely so no expectations are placed on him or her? Is the child starving for attention? Has the child lost respect for his or her parents because these adults have not acted like adults? Has the child's basic physical needs -- such as proper nutrition, physical activity, or sleep -- not been met? Routinely, few if any of these areas are explored before a prescription is written.

One of the most common reasons that children behave problematically is that well-meaning parents are having difficulty relating to their child's personality. Perhaps the parents are, by nature, compliant and conformist, and their child has a nonconformist and rebellious temperament. Good parents feel guilty when they have difficulty relating to their child, but all of us -- including doctors -- are human, and we all need to admit our limitations. The reality is that children who feel that nobody "gets them" are more likely to be troubled and disruptive. In another era, if a parent had difficulty relating to his or her child, there would more likely be at least one grandparent, uncle, aunt, friend, or other adult in the community who could easily relate. In our increasingly disconnected society (see Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone for a detailed picture of the destruction of American community), there are increasing numbers of children without even one adult who they believe relates to them.

Moreover, as society demands increasing machinelike efficiency, more of us -- children and adults -- will not be able to fit in; but a corporate media cannot confront a corporate culture that produces widespread painful alienation, which in turn creates a variety of attentional, emotional and behavioral problems. The corporate media may at times report on egregious corruption of an individual or an institution, but it does not ask this question: In an increasingly homogenized and standardized society, should we drug those who do not neatly fit in -- or should we consider transforming such a society?

Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green, 2007).

THE 14TH BLOG FOR THE OUTLAW OF PSYCHIATRY NOW !

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

"Did Drug Company Gifts Kill the Gift Ban?

http://health.einnews.com/article.php?nid=519196

A Cluster of Veterans' Deaths; By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

Doctors Say Medication Is Overused in Dementia

http://health.einnews.com/article.php?nid=519196

A Cluster of Veterans' Deaths; By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

EXPOSED : HARVARD SHRINK GETS RICH LABELING KIDS BIPOLAR

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNetPosted on June 18, 2008, Printed on June 18, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/88333/

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on June 18, 2008, Printed on June 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/88333/