Dr. David Healy: Psychotropic Drugs Cause Violent Behavior

via Sodahead

via WND:

Top Psychiatrist: Meds Behind school Massacres
Society conducting 'vast social experiment' without knowing its end

by JEROME R. CORSI 

If lawmakers and authorities are truly concerned about stopping gun violence in schools, they need to take a close look at the prescription of psychotropic drugs for children and young people, says a leading psychiatrist.

In an exclusive in-person interview in New York City with WND, London-based Dr. David Healy criticized pharmaceutical companies that have made billions of dollars marketing Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, known as SSRIs.

Psychotropic drugs “prescribed for school children cause violent behavior,” Healy stated.

The drugs are widely used in the U.S. as antidepressants by doctors working in the mental health field and increasingly by primary care doctors, he noted.

Healy insisted the problem today is that doctors working with schools to control the behavior of children are inclined to prescribe SSRI drugs without serious consideration of adverse consequences.

“The pharmaceutical companies made these drugs with the idea of making money,” he said. “There’s a wide range of problems when it comes to looking at these drugs for children. Very few children have serious problems that warrant treatment with pills that have the risks SSRI drugs have.”

The drugs can make children “aggressive and hostile,” he noted.

“Children taking SSRI drugs are more likely to harm or to injure other children at school,” said Healy. “The child may be made suicidal.

“We are giving drugs to children who are passing through critical development stages, and as a society we are really conducting a vast experiment and no one really knows what the outcome of that will be.”

Healy cautioned that there is a very high correlation between mass shootings and use of the drugs.

“When roughly nine out of every 10 cases in these school shootings and mass shootings involve these drugs being prescribed, then at least a significant proportion of these cases were either caused by the drugs or the drugs made a significant contribution to the problem,” he said.

President Obama, in a series of 23 presidential memoranda and proclamations signed last week, called for the Centers for Disease control to undertake research to examine gun violence and to explore medical means to control the problem.

WND contended that putting more mental illness screening into schools would actually increase the incidence of school shootings, not reduce the violence.

“You can draw a line between the number of child psychiatrists in the United States and the number of school shootings, and you will find that both have gone up in the same direction at the same time,” he said.

He sees a “propaganda campaign” being conducted in the U.S. in the wake of the Aurora, Colo., cinema shooting and the Newtown, Conn., school shooting asserting gun violence is being caused by mental illness and could be stopped by additional school programs that screen for it.

“If school children are screened for mental illness problems, this presumably will lead more medical doctors to put more students on more pills,” he said. “I would predict then the outcome of more school screenings for mental illness will be more mass killings, even if the guns are taken away and the mass killings are not done with guns.”

He cautioned shareholders of pharmaceutical companies to realize share prices can be adversely affected should judges and juries determine the companies bear legal liabilities. Law enforcement investigators could conclude one of the company’s medications was prescribed to a child who ended up perpetrating a school shooting.

Healy cautioned that medical doctors who prescribe pills do not necessarily cure mental illness problems.

Dr. David Healy

He argued that today medical doctors are inclined to solve a wide range of health problems by prescribing drugs. In previous generations, however, extended families were capable of providing a context of family history to understand behavioral problems and to identify a wide range of problem-solving treatments. The families understood the issue as a developmental problem better treated by family intervention than by medicine.

Read more at WND.com

What is a trialogue?

via Slideshare:

Trialogue Michaela Amering Sept 2012 from trialoguedcu

Dorothea Buck 70 Years of Coercion in German Psychiatric Institutions

hat tip: Talla Trialogue

Standard Mal-Practice in Psychiatry

“ . . . No one is really paying attention to what’s going on. . . The issue is how many Medicaid kids are being drugged to death, not how many kids in fostercare are being over medicated."
Grace E. Jackson, M.D., Author: Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent
and Drug-Induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime

via Newswise:

National Study Cites Increased Off Label Antipsychotic Drug Use Among Children

Released: 9/10/2012 9:15 AM EDT
Source: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Newswise — Philadelphia ⎯ A national study conducted by researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) shows increased use of powerful antipsychotic drugs to treat publicly insured children over the last decade. The study, published today in the journal Health Services Research, found a 62 percent increase in the number of Medicaid-enrolled children ages 3 to 18 taking antipsychotics, reaching a total of 354,000 children by 2007.

Increased antipsychotic use was observed across a wide range of mental health diagnoses, and was particularly high for children with ADHD or conduct disorder, although the FDA has not approved the drugs to treat these conditions in children. In total, 65% of children prescribed antipsychotics in 2007 were using the drugs “off-label,” or without FDA safety and efficacy data to support their use to treat young patients. The CHOP study is the second released this month that focuses on the use of antipsychotic drug use in children and is largest of its kind, representing 35% of children in the country.

“Given the significant proportion of off-label use of antipsychotics in children, it is reassuring that these drugs have been recognized as a priority for pediatric research by the National Institutes of Health,” said David M. Rubin, MD, MSCE, a senior author of the study, attending pediatrician, and co-director of CHOP’s PolicyLab. “If a child is prescribed an antipsychotic, it’s important for doctors to inform parents and caregivers if the drug is being prescribed off-label, of potential side effects, and of counseling therapies that might be offered as an alternative to medication.”

The frequent off-label use of antipsychotics has raised concern among many health care providers, especially in light of evidence linking antipsychotics with an increased risk of serious metabolic side effects in children, including weight gain and diabetes. (emphasis mine)

The researchers note that the increase in antipsychotic use is due to in part to an overall increase in the number of mental health diagnoses assigned to children. Researchers found a 28 percent increase in the number of children with a mental health diagnosis, but this alone did not account for the spike in prescriptions.  read the rest here

Let's be real off label prescriptions for a class of drugs that are not very effective for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, the diagnosis the drugs were originally approved and prescribed for, have become the most prescribed drugs for children on Medicaid due to FRAUD and UNETHICAL medical practice, and because Medicaid is seen as a sure source of income by the corrupt drug companies...

< French neuroleptique, equivalent to neuro- neuro- +-leptique < Greek lēptikós disposed to take, equivalent to lēp- (verbid stem of lambánein to seize) + -tikos -tic;

So what we have is criminal medical professionals who have decided it's ok to give children drugs that seize the nerves and cause serious iatrogenic, i.e. physician caused, neurological and physiological impairments. We are being told that this has "raised concern" among professionals. Well it's done much more than raised my concern!  I am outraged. When are people going to wake up to the fact that statements like "it is reassuring that these drugs have been recognized as a priority for pediatric research by the National Institutes of Health" mean that the prescribing of the neuroleptic drugs off label is without any evidence to support it!!!!  and conducting drug trials to collect evidence to support what is being done in STANDARD PRACTICE is UNETHICAL and is backwards!!! Theoretically standards are derived from empirical evidence; in reality, they are  implemented by a vote and are without definitive empirical support of a drug's effectiveness or safety when prescribed off label to children.  

My son's childhood was ruined by these drugs, he is a Risperdal victim, who was a victim of violent crime, needed the recommended treatment for his PTSD and his BRAIN INJURY. Instead, he was drugged into a state of disability. Does that sound like evidence-based mental health care or a "best practice" to you? 

Let's be clear: the neuroleptic drugs cause more than metabolic issues; they cause brain damage, cardio-vascular damage, hormonal dysfunction, among other things.  Children have dropped dead as a result of psychiatry's Standard Practice of using teratogenic psychotropic drugs off label.  

via psychrights.org

Who Is Not Fit To Practice Medicine?

via The Alliance for Human Research Protection:

Wednesday, 09 May 2012
At a minimum, the practice of responsible medicine requires that physicians who prescribe drugs whose known severe adverse side effects are likely to cause their patients irreversible harm, requires that those physicians follow monitoring guidelines to ensure their patients' safety.

A British Parliamentary Committee Report deemed Rupert Murdoch "not a fit person" to run a major news reporting company based on his organizations illegal phone hacking activities.

Here is a compelling reason why psychiatrists who prescribe antipsychotic drugs are "not fit" to practice medicine.

At a minimum, the practice of responsible medicine requires that physicians who prescribe drugs whose known severe adverse side effects are likely to cause their patients irreversible harm, requires that those physicians follow monitoring guidelines to ensure their patients' safety.

The second generation neuroleptics (antipsychotics such as Clozaril, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Guiedon, Seroquel, Abilify) are known to cause severe, potentially lethal adverse effects. These include rapid metabolic changes, including acute weight gain, and interference with normal glucose metabolism. These changes lead to increased rates of cardiovascular disease and premature deaths.

In 2003, the FDA required a warning label about the diabetes risk for people prescribed second-generation antipsychotic drugs. The American Diabetes Association and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recommended glucose and lipid screening and monitoring for all patients starting these drugs.

The drugs are widely misprescribed even for young children, whose safety is at high risk from those drug-induced metabolic changes.

Yet, studies examining monitoring rates for patients--young and old--who are prescribed these drugs, have consistently shown that psychiatrists fail to screen or monitor for either glucose or lipid levels in patients for whom they prescribe these drugs. In 2008, Dr. Dan Haupt of Washington University, St. Louis, found that only 20% of patients prescribed antipsychotics were monitored for glucose levels, and only 10% had their lipids monitored.

The latest such study (Abstract NR7-51) was presented by Dr. Christina Mangurian , a University of California at San Francisco psychiatrist, at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 7, 2012. Her findings confirm the lack of metabolic screening and monitoring of patients prescribed antipsychotic drugs by psychiatrists--even as psychiatrists acknowledged that they should be doing the monitoring.

Dr. Haupt suggested that psychiatry suffers from an "identity crisis ," noting that:
"Historically these are people who have gone to medical school but have not viewed themselves as physicians in the same way as an internist would."

1. Metabolic Screening in Antipsychotic Users: Whose Job Is It? by Megan Brooks, Medscape, May 8, 2012

2. ADA: Metabolic Monitoring Guidelines for Antipsychotics Largely Unheeded By Crystal Phend, MedPage Today, June 10, 2008

Vera Sharav read here

hat tip: Justice Lover

photo found at Bonkers Institute

Therapeutic Means to Stop Over Prescription of Antipsychotic Medication to Children

via PsychRights channel on youtube:

from psychrights:
Presentation by adult and child psychiatrist, Tony Stanton, describing the extremely successful Seneca program in Northern California, which had a 100% success rate in getting the most difficult and over-medicated children and youth off psychiatric drugs and successfully engaging in life.

The Drugging of Our Children

In the absence of any objective medical tests to determine who has ADD or ADHD, doctors rely in part on standardized assessments and the impressions of teachers and guardians while the they administer leave little room for other causes or exacerbating factors, such as diet and environment, for instance. Hence, diagnosing a child or adolescent with ADD or ADHD is often the outcome, although no organic basis for either diagnosis has been found. Psychiatrists may then prescribe psychotropic drugs for the children without first without making it clear to parents that these medications can have severe side-effects including insomnia, loss of appetite, headaches, psychotic symptoms and even potentially fatal adverse reactions, such as cardiac arrhythmia. Many school systems actually work with government agencies to coerce parents into drugging their children; and even threaten to have their children taken from them.

via Insight:

Insight into how pharma manipulates research evidence: a case study

SKB knew eight adolescents self-harmed or reported emergent suicidal ideas compared to only one in the placebo group but hid this.
Michael Valli

TRANSPARENCY AND MEDICINE – A series examining issues from ethics to the evidence in evidence-based medicine, the influence of medical journals to the role of Big Pharma in our present and future health.

Here Jon Jureidini explains what he encountered while examining internal documents as an expert witness in a case against a pharmaceutical company.

It’s well known that academic literature on medication in psychiatry is distorted by selective publication – failing to publish studies with negative results or selectively publishing only positive results from studies with mixed outcomes.

I had the unusual opportunity to see inside the process of how the marketing department of a pharmaceutical company controls and distorts information in the medical literature. This chance arose when I was provided with access to a huge number of internal documents because I acted as an expert witness for a US law firm.

Between 1993 and 1998, SmithKline Beecham (SKB, subsequently GlaxoSmithKline) provided $5 million to various academic institutions to fund research into paroxetine (also known as Aropax, Paxil (GSK) or Seroxat), led by Martin Keller. Keller was from Brown University and received $800,000 for participation in the project.

The results were published in 2001 by Keller et al. in the journal article, “Efficacy of paroxetine in the treatment of adolescent major depression: a randomized, controlled trial”, in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP). The article concluded that “paroxetine is generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents”.

This was a serious misrepresentation of both the effectiveness and safety of the drug. In fact, when SKB set out their methodology for their proposed study protocol, they had specified two primary and six secondary outcome measures. All eight proved negative, that is, on none of those measures did children on paroxetine do better than those on placebo.

HmanJp/ Wikimedia Commons

The published article misrepresented one of the primary outcomes so that it appeared positive, and deleted all six pre-specified secondary outcomes, replacing them with more favourable measures.

SKB papers also revealed that at least eight adolescents in the paroxetine group had self-harmed or reported emergent suicidal ideas compared to only one in the placebo group. But these adverse events were not properly reported in the published paper. Instead, some were described as “emotional liability” while others were left out altogether.

Although published in Keller’s name, the article was ghostwritten by agents of SKB, and the company maintained tight control of the article’s content throughout its development.

GlaxoSmithKline’s internal documents, disclosed in litigation, show that company staff were aware that the study didn’t support the claim of efficacy but decided it would be “unacceptable commercially” to reveal that.

According to a company position paper, the data were selectively reported in Keller et al.’s article, in order to “effectively manage the dissemination of these data in order to minimise any potential negative commercial impact”.

Ano Lobb/Flickr

As it turns out, the Keller et al. article was used by GlaxoSmithKline to ward off potential damage to the profile of paroxetine and to promote off-label prescribing to children and adolescents.

While problems with the study and the Keller et al paper have been thoroughly exposed in legal actions, the bioethical and medical literature, a book, and a BBC Panorama documentary, the paper continues to be cited uncritically as evidence of the efficacy of paroxetine for treatment of adolescent depression.

Repeated attempts to get JAACAP to retract the offending paper have been unsuccessful.

For paroxetine, the concern is that adolescents are being harmed because well-intentioned physicians have been misled about its safety and effectiveness.

But more broadly, the case raises questions about how widespread such dubious practice is in the academic community, and in the editorial practices of “scientific” journals.

This is the ninth part of Transparency and Medicine. You can read the previous instalment by clicking the link below:

Part One: Power and duty: is the social contract in medicine still relevant?

Part Two: Big debts in small packages – the dangers of pens and post-it notes

Part Three: Show and tell: conflicts of interest undeclared for clinical guidelines

Part Four: Eminence or evidence? The ethics of using untested treatments

Part Five: Don’t show me the money: the dangers of non-financial conflicts

Part Six: Ghosts in the machine: better definition of author may stem bias

Part Seven: Clearing the air: why more retractions are good for science

Part Eight: Pharma’s influence over published clinical evidence




This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Yakima Valley System of Care Reports and Scheduled Meetings

via yakimavalleysoc.org

The fundamental flaws outlined in the SAMHSA report from the November site visit are not addressed in the Yakima County Response/plan of action; it is the proverbial elephant in the  room.  Ignoring it will bury the true positive potential of the children and families who have yet to be invited to the table in what is supposed to be an effort lead by them.  Yakima County received a grant to fund a COMMUNITY DRIVEN Mental Health REFORM project.  The children and families who are to directly benefit are intended to be at the center of this project, with the parents and caretakers driving the systemic changes necessary to more effectively serve the needs of youth with a high level of need in this community. 

Yakima County Human Services Department has historically failed the children and families in this community. In my son's case, well over $1 million dollars of inappropriate, ineffective and ultimately disabling care, was paid for by with Federal Medicaid and Child Welfare funds; at times this 'care' was forced upon without my son's or my consent or approval.  Much of it was fraudulently billed to the Federal Medicaid program.  Inappropriate, unethical care including dangerous neuroleptic, or 'antipsychotic' drugs which were not approved; and not tested for safety or efficacy for use on children, by son was used as a human guinea pig.  Teratogenic drugs were forced on my traumatized son; in spite of my vehement protests.  I was told I had 'no say' by the Medical Director of Child Study and Treatment Center, Jon McClellan, who claimed I had no say because my son was a ward of the State of Washington.  State Law then and now states a parent's right to make medical decisions for a child are not diminished or altered.

These drugs are known to cause the very conditions my son now has; conditions which have disabled him.  Neither my son nor I were warned of these risks.  My once normal, brilliant son is now cognitively, physically and neurologically impaired.  To say I am still outraged, is putting it mildly.  I protested to no avail. In effect, the State of Washington local Child Welfare office 'legally kidnapped' my son; claiming he needed to become a State Ward in order to continue having his mental health care paid for by Medicaid.  This was patently false; and it was in fact illegal.  It is fraud.  My son's eligibility for Medicaid was never at risk; he had been on Medicaid and SSI for over five years, due to severe PTSD by the time this claim was made...

However, what was done to my son, is not the issue.  The issue is the children and their families who need help now.  These children and their families are the reason I continue to speak up.  I do not want any child to experience what my son has endured.  I want families to know there is hope, there is help, and that they are supposed to be directing the mental health care provided to and for their children and families.  

The fundamental failure is that families have not been invited to the table.  The community's children and families who should be  included, and who need to be leading this opportunity are unaware of the opportunity which is intentionally being denied to them.  In over three years since Yakima County received the grant, it has been in the local paper, the Yakima Herald, two times.  This project does not "belong" to the people who work for Yakima County, or to Central Washington Comprehensive Mental Health, the two entities who have been directing the project thus far... The grant should be recognized as belonging to the children who need the care they are not getting; and to their families who are without hope of getting the help they desperately need for their children with emotional and behavioral difficulties.  When looked at from this perspective, it is impossible not to recognize the enormity of the ongoing deprivation and loss. 

here is the site visit report from SAMHSA

QUARTERLY MEETING NOTICES

Posted on March 28, 2012

GOVERNANCE BOARD meetings are held every 2^nd Tuesday of each month from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Children’s Village, 3801 Kern Road, Yakima, WA .  Refreshment and childcare are provided.  Please RSVP at 574-2977 Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. to insure adequate childcare provider to child ratio and sufficient food are available, and if there is a need for interpreting services.

 The next scheduled meetings are:

April 10, 2012

May 8, 2012

June 12, 2012

FAMILY VOICE meetings are held the 1^st Thursday of each month from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Children’s Village, 3801 Kern Road, Yakima, WA.  Refreshment and childcare are provided.  Please RSVP at 574-2977 Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. to insure adequate childcare provider to child ratio and sufficient food are available, and if there is a need for interpreting services.

 The next scheduled meetings are:

April 5, 2012

May 3, 2012

June 7, 2012

Youth for Community Growth Teens Reviving Equality for Everyone (YCG T.R.E.E.) youth meetings are held on the 1^st and 3^rd Sundays of every month from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the System of Care office located in the Liberty Building, 32 N. 3^rd Street, Suite 410, Yakima, WA.  Refreshment is provided.  Please RSVP at 574-2977 Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. to insure an adequate quantity of food is available, and if there is a need for interpreting services.

The next scheduled meetings are:

April 1, 2012 April 15, 2012

May 6, 2012 May 20, 2012

June 3, 2012 June 17, 2012

Cultural & Linguistics Competence Team meetings are held the 1^st Wednesday of each month from 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. and will rotate meeting locations (see below).  Please RSVP at 574-2977 Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. if there is a need for interpreting services.

The next scheduled meetings are:

April 4, 2012 Washington State  Migrant Council 1100 S. 4th Street Sunnyside, WA  98944

May 2, 2012 Yakima Valley Farm Worker Toppenish Medical Center Tom Cerna Boardroom 518 West First Street Toppenish, WA  98948

June 6, 2012 System of Care office 32 N. 3rd Street, Suite 410 Yakima, WA  98901

The doctor doth protest too much...

Cipramil advertisement, 2001

He got lost and fell asleep in the woods. Now he has the head of an ass and the queen of the fairies wants to marry him. The last thing he needs is more complications. Do you dream of an uncomplicated antidepressant? Chances are you're dreaming of Cipramil. It's effective, well tolerated and associated with a low risk of drug interactions. In other words, Cipramil helps to make treating depression or panic disorder less of a performance.  CIPRAMIL citalopram   Antidepression not antipatient   Lundbeck

warning: very long post...

I don't think it takes any special kind of expertise to acknowledge that the FDA is failing to do it's duty to regulate the pharmaceutical industry; worse it's failing to protect people from dangerous drugs it approves on shoddy evidence. The facts are plain, the failure permeates all of medicine. 

The excuses offered by psychiatrists for the real world outcomes of psychiatric patients sound like the ill-conceived justifications offered by misbehaving juvenile delinquents. To realistically assert one's professional integrity, requires a record for demonstrating ethical behavior. Ethical integrity is not an affectation. Professional opinions and treatment recommendations need to be based on more than a professional's subjective experiences; without empirical support, a subjective opinion is still the weakest, most fallible type of scientific "evidence." For this reason, subjective observation is used only to support empirical data in ethical scientific research. Diagnoses are not consistently reliable among psychiatric professionals; therefore they are not verifiable or replicable. Psychiatric treatment recommendations are not supported by empirical data, but are more reliant upon consensus. A consensus of well-educated opinions is evidence of agreement; it is not evidence of diagnostic validity or treatment safety and effectiveness. Pretending that a consensus is a valid or sufficient substitute for evidence serves to add insult to the iatrogenic injuries caused by consensus-based psychiatric medicine.

to paraphrase William Shakespeare: The doctor doth protest too much...

via Psychiatric Times: 
Psychiatry’s New Brain-Mind and the Legend of the “Chemical Imbalance”

By Ronald Pies, MD | July 11, 2011 an excerpt:

"In short, we cannot afford to view our patients’ afflictions in the balkanized terms of “mental” vs. “physical”, “mind” vs. “body”, “psyche” vs. “soma”. Neither can we afford the luxury of supposing that only one type of treatment—medication or psychotherapy—will be effective for the illnesses we treat." here

in the comment section  Ronald PiesSeptember 01, 2011 
More on the So-called Chemical Imbalance Theory
an excerpt:
"My usual practice is to ignore crackpot bloggers who misrepresent psychiatric writing in general, or my own writing, in particular. However, when an academician with some influence over public opinion radically misreads-and misrepresents-my views, I find myself with no alternative but to rebut the errors." (emphasis mine)

Nine months later, Pies wants to clarify exactly who he did not characterize as being "crackpots" and "predictably irresponsible bloggers." Incredibly, it's not Jonathan Leo, even though it is Leo, Pies complains of in his comment enumerating the instances Pies believes that Leo, "misreads-and misrepresents-my views." Apparently, Pies' lengthy enumeration of perceived slights he complained of, were unrelated to do the "crackpot bloggers who misrepresent psychiatric writing in general, or my own writing, in particular" comment which preceded the list of slights. Pies makes it as clear as mud by stating, "With respect to my comments dated Sept 1, 2011, I would like to clarify one statement. My allusion to "crackpot bloggers" was not intended to apply to anyone in particular. Rather, I wanted to contrast such predictably irresponsible bloggers with established academic writers, such as Prof. Jonathan Leo. I regret any confusion or misunderstanding arising from my wording.

"And, to reiterate a point I have made on numerous--bordering on "innumerable"! --occasions: I do not advocate, and never have advocated, the use of antidepressant medication for ordinary, "adaptive" grief or sadness, as typically encountered with uncomplicated bereavement. For further review of the bereavement exclusion controversy, please see the recent publications by Zisook at al, in :

Depress Anxiety. 2012 May;29(5):425-43; and Lancet. 2012 Apr 28;379(9826):1590 Best regards, Ronald Pies, MD"  June 08, 2012 8:52 PM EDT

Reading the second comment, particularly the second to last sentence 

almost broke my trusty bullshit meter:

via The New York Times:

Redefining Depression as Mere Sadness

By RONALD PIES, M.D

Published: September 15, 2008

an excerpt:

"Third, and perhaps most troubling, is the implication that a recent major loss makes it more likely that the person’s depressive symptoms will follow a benign and limited course, and therefore do not need medical treatment. This has never been demonstrated, to my knowledge, in any well-designed studies. And what has been demonstrated, in a study by Dr. Sidney Zisook, is that antidepressants may help patients with major depressive symptoms occurring just after the death of a loved one.

"Yes, most psychiatrists would concede that in the space of a brief “managed care” appointment, it’s very hard to understand much about the context of the patient’s depressive complaints. And yes, under such conditions, some doctors are tempted to write that prescription for Prozac or Zoloft and move on to the next patient.

But the vexing issue of when bereavement or sadness becomes a disorder, and how it should be treated, requires much more study. Most psychiatrists believe that undertreatment of severe depression is a more pressing problem than overtreatment of “normal sadness.” Until solid research persuades me otherwise, I will most likely see people like my jilted patient as clinically depressed, not just “normally sad” — and I will provide him with whatever psychiatric treatment he needs to feel better."

Ronald Pies is a professor of psychiatry at Tufts and SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse.

via Psych Central:

Why Psychiatry Needs to Scrap the DSM System:

An Immodest Proposal By RONALD PIES, M.D.

Why is this so? Well, on the one hand, none of the major DSM psychiatric disorders, such as Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, is linked to any specific biological abnormality or “biomarker” — the proverbial “lab test” so many in my profession have been seeking. This is nobody’s fault: it simply reflects our limited (though growing) biological knowledge in what is still a relatively young science.  read here


brief excerpts about schizophrenia and bipolar on PsychCentral:

"Since schizophrenia may not be a single condition and its causes are not yet known, current treatment methods are based on both clinical research and experience. These approaches are chosen on the basis of their ability to reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia and to lessen the chances that symptoms will return." here

"The cause of bipolar disorder is not entirely known. Genetic, neurochemical and environmental factors probably interact at many levels to play a role in the onset and progression of bipolar disorder. The current thinking is that this is a predominantly biological disorder that occurs in a specific part of the brain and is due to a malfunction of the neurotransmitters (chemical messengers in the brain). As a biological disorder, it may lie dormant and be activated spontaneously or it may be triggered by stressors in life. Although, no one is quite sure about the exact causes of bipolar disorder." here

via Mad in America:

Psychiatry’s Grand Confession Posted on January 23, 2012 by Jonathan Leo, Ph.D. / Jeffrey Lacasse, Ph.D. an few excerpts: "Given the enormous marketing programs that pushed this theory combined with the media’s lack of skepticism, we were sympathetic to the general public who could hardly be faulted for thinking that theory had some foundation in fact. Following the publication of our piece a reporter contacted us and suggested that we were attacking a well accepted theory. We pointed out to the reporter that we weren’t attacking a sacred cow but that instead we were pointing out the mainstream psychiatry didn’t even accept this theory. We urged the reporter to contact the FDA, NIMH, APA, etc and ask them about the science behind the advertisements. He did, and as expected, an expert from the FDA explained that the theory was really just a metaphor. The problem is that patients who heard their physician explain the serotonin theory thought they were hearing real science. They weren’t told it was a metaphor and hence thought it was a fact." read here
via: TELOSscope

Is Talk Therapy Dead? by Nicole Burgoyne

an excerpt:

"Leo takes a closer look at the idea that mental illnesses are just like other diseases, chemical imbalances that should be rectified by introducing ameliorating substances.

"Aside from pointing out that nearly all scientific studies that establish a direct relationship between behavioral problems and chemical treatment have later been called into question, or found unsatisfactory in terms of replication, Leo also hits on a more insidious aspect of the trend toward biological psychiatry, the problem of successful corporate marketing:

"In their marketing efforts to promote the biological explanations of mental illness, pharmaceutical companies have stretched their fingers into patient advocacy groups, consensus panels, continuing education for psychiatrists, and even major medical journals. Most problematic is the way funding drives research. Because they hold the purse strings, the pharmaceutical companies dictate what gets studied, resulting in little investigation into the role of psychosocial factors in the etiology of mental illness. Worse yet, doctors in search of information about a drug are much more likely to read a pharmaceutical company brochure than scientific journals." read here

It is my impression that Ronald Pies called Jonathan Leo a "crack pot blogger" and my perception is that Pies seemed to feel justified in calling him that since Pies believed that Leo had misrepresented what Pies had written.  Although Pies states he usually ignores bloggers who according to him, "misrepresent psychiatric writing in general, or my own writing, in particular."   It seems obvious to this crackpot blogger that Dr. Pies, is disrespectful and less than honest.  It's a fine example of how academic debate is actively discouraged.  

What is most troubling to me however, is the lack of personal responsibility of psychiatists  in general. In particular, responsibility for the adoption of a bio-disease paradigm; without any definitive evidence to support the decision, or the skeptical claim that mental illnesses are caused by biological diseases and genetic defects.  In the absence of evidence for the disease hypothesis, absence of evidence supporting the prolific use of teratogenic drugs that psychiatrists claim actually "treat" cognitive and emotional reactions of human beings to distress.  Without evidence,  psychiatrists claims are simply a means of perpetrating fraud.  Psychiatrists have mis-treated millions; and encouraged other medical professionals to use unethical standards of care not empirically validated but standardized by agreement among psychiatrists. Psychiatry appears to lack an understanding of scientific principles, and do not seem to value medical ethics enough to exercise ethical medical judgement in the best interests of their patients enough to find out what the patient's interests are... 

Psychiatry disseminated it's pseudo-medical, pseudo-scientific specialty through professional Journal articles, practice parameters, clinical guidelines and treatment algorithims.  The general public and other medical professionals, including  psychiatrists who practiced psychoanalysis, assumed that these articles, parameters and algorithims were based on empirical data ethically collected and ethically reported.  It is now known that this is an erroneous assumption.  All of the diagnoses and all of the psychopharmacological treatment standards are ratified in committee; then validated by a vote of the membership of the American Psychiatric Association.  Psychiatry is a medical profession in name only; the methods relied upon developing both the diagnostic criteria and the treatment standards are political; ergo, not scientific.

The academic psychiatrists who allowed their names to be put on educational materials disseminated to other professionals, are not unwitting victims; but are in fact willing participants in fraud.  The manner in which mainstream bio-psychiatry developed is not simply due to the undue influences of "BigPharma," and "managed care;" it is ludicrous and insulting for psychiatric professionals to claim they are merely victims or pawns in this charade. While the aforementioned entities indeed contributed to and influenced the wholesale adoption of the bio-disease model, it was only made possible by working collaboratively with academic psychiatrists who are willing collaborators; not unwitting victims.  Pharmaceutical company executives, the HMO executives and insurance companies may have an undue influence, but it is psychiatrists who write the prescriptions and the treatment guidelines. 

The fact is the proliferation of the bio-disease model requires the willing and active complicity of psychiatrists who are members of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  Dr. Pies is not exceptional in his abdicating any personal responsibility, or unique in blaming BigPharma and managed care for the damage done because of the seriously flawed bio-disease paradigm of care.  It is common for psychiatric "experts" to abdicate responsibility for the harm caused psychiatric patients who defend their professional status and their right, i.e. priveledge to continue to use seriously flawed diagnostic criteria and unethical clinical standards of care; with the excuse, "It's what we have, as if this is the case by accident.  I would be willing to bet that not a single drug company executive, sales person, or  managed care executive wrote those prescriptions...  

While much of mainstream psychiatry's information and advocacy literature states that a combination of psychosocial, cognitive behavioral therapies, educational support, and prescription drugs are necessary for effective treatment; the fact remains that in real world practice, there is a bias favoring pharmacological treatment, and more often than not, it's all that is available.  Many psychiatrists claim that psychiatry had nothing to do with the current clinical lanscape and it's bias for using drugs first and recommending drugs for life...

As if the bias favoring biological treatment has nothing to do with the APA and AACAP selling the bio-disease pardigm!  It is simply unbelievable; this claim adds insult to injury.  In effect, this claim is predicated on the notion that psychiatrists are unwitting victims, not active and passive participants who are complicit. Defending a bio-disease bias without scientific support is exacerbating the damage caused from an abject failure to be accountable individually and collectively as a profession. It is a definitive abdication of a physician's primary ethical duty: to serve the best interests of the patient, according to the patient's morals and values repecting and supporting the patient's self-determined goals. 
  

It took the active willing participation of practicing academic psychiatrists to manipulate the scientific data, and clinical psychiatrists to coerce and manipulate patients and families in order to gain treatment compliance; to maintain psychiatric authority.  It took active participation to formulate public policies and lobby for the legislation that gave psychiatry Police Powers to detain and forcibly treat unwilling patients.  It was only psychiatrists cast votes for the validation of diagnoses and treatments.  It was only psychiatrists who voted to adopt coercive, manipulative social control strategies as tools used in this "medical" specialty. 

What matters now for any psychiatrist to regain any lost respect and trust is defending the patients who are being harmed, attending to instead of denigrating and invalidating survivors.  A psychiatrist who endeavors to regain lost trust and respect by defending himself or herself, defending pseudo-scientific methodology, defending social control strategies disguised as treatment protocols, will only further erode psychiatry's diminished integrity.

The reason I state this is that while psychiatrists are busy defending their professional integrity (it seems more of a defense of their own EGOs) they are abdicating responsibility to the people who are being grievously harmed.  The harm is real and it is inevitable as long as psychiatrists believe that therapeutic treatment is something that can be forced on human beings without Informed Consent. As long as psychiatrists reclassify the traumatic iatrogenic injuries as "tolerable side effects" and iatroginic drug-induced death as "natural death" due to the inability or the unwillingness to actually believe every patient is humanity suffering. 

None of this would in fact be possible without stigma being part and parcel an intrinsic aspect of a psychiatric diagnosis.  The biological defect/disease HYPOTHESIS is the source; it is used to propogate fear and perpetrate medical fraud. It is used to deprive patients of their basic Human Rights, among other crimes...  All of this required the willing and ongoing participation of psychiatrists. A physician's professional integrity requires having respect and empathy for all patients, it requires being honest with patients and their family members; it requires ethical integrity. The ethical principles of science and medicine are necessities that are indispensable. Medicine is both science and art; it requires a great deal of humility to be a 'good' doctor. A physician's primary duty is to serve the patient; it is not to serve his colleagues, her profession, the general public or to feed his ego or  her wallet...

Psychiatrists who are in the APA and/or the AACAP, but who are failing to take personal responsibility, and who are not encouraging collective responsibility of APA and AACAP members active and passive participation in the selling of the bio-disease paradigm of care lack fortitude and humility. Bio-psychiatry is reliant upon deceit, coercion, emotional manipulation and abuse of power, these are methods of maintaining political control, not any way to provide ethical medical treatment.  The biological treatments were standardized and implemented as clinical care standards without being supported by any definitive empirical  evidence, most still don't have empirical support years and decades later.

The APA, the NIMH and the AACAP and the FDA have worked collaboratively with the pharmceutical industry.  The direct to consumer and professional marketing of FDA approved drugs is supposed to be regulated by the FDA---The FDA is utterly and completely failing it's supposed mission to protect the public. In approving drugs based on sub-standard and outright fraudulent data and abdicating it's ethical duty to warn about known risks of FDA approved drugs, the FDA protects BigPharma. The have a lot of help...

Obviously this has been forgotten by more than a few psychopharmacologists:

"We have to remember that we are not treating diseases with this drug. 
We are using a neuropharmacologic agent to produce a specific effect." 
~ Dr. E. H. Parsons, 1955 

on clorpromazine