Archive for September, 2009

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Think psych drugs aren’t as addictive as street drugs? Think again: Adderal, Ritalin: Drug Addiction Warning

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Atlanta Recovery Center
Trans World News
September 14, 2009

Prescription stimulants, such as Adderal, Dexedrine, Concerta, or Ritalin, have been prescribed for a number of reasons.

However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can be habit forming, if not addictive.

“Drug addiction takes many guises,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director for the Atlanta Recovery Center. “Whether a student who legally takes Adderal to help them stay awake at night to study, and find themselves hooked, to the housewife trying to lose a few pounds- stimulants are addictive and drug addiction can strike the wealthy, the poor, all social levels and classes. Stories of children trading their Ritalin for other drugs are common. Illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine are also stimulants and are also highly addictive.

“Don’t let someone you know become addicted to prescription stimulants- know the facts.”

Read entire article: http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=121767&cat=15

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Parents fight use of new psych meds for kids

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Martha Rosenberg
San Francisco Chronicle
September 13, 2009

As newly approved drugs harm and even kill children, more parents are fighting back.

The most dramatic moment for the 70 doctors and 200 spectators attending June FDA hearings about approving new psychiatric drugs for children came when two bereaved mothers approached the open mike.

Liza Ortiz of Austin, Texas, told the advisory panel her 13-year-old son died of Seroquel toxicity in an ICU days after being put on the antipsychotic. “His hands twisted in ways I never thought possible,” she said.

Next was Mary Kitchens of Bandera, Texas, who described Seroquel’s lasting effects on her 13-year-old son Evan after being given the antipsychotic without her knowledge or permission by a residential treatment center.

But for Kitchens the most dramatic moment came after the hearings when she approached Dr. Robert Temple, the FDA’s director of the Office of Drug Evaluation, who had officiated on the panel.

“Can I show you the stamp on these Seroquel samples that proves my son was given an unapproved drug in 2003?” she asked him, displaying the original drug packaging, which she also showed at open mike. “The panel is considering whether these drugs should be approved for children – and I can show you they’ve been marketed to kids for years!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am – I can’t talk to you,” replied Temple, making a quick getaway.

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Attention deficit drug Adderall implicated in sudden death of athlete

Friday, September 11th, 2009

CBS News
September 10, 2009

(CBS) A source has told CBS News that the defense team for a former football coach charged in the death of one of his players is planning to claim the amphetamine medication Adderall, prescribed for the player’s attention deficit disorder, could be to blame for his death.

Lawyers for Coach Jason Stinson, CBS News confirmed, plan to use the expert testimony of a former Kentucky medical examiner who will say Adderall is the likely cause of death.

Stinson, former coach of a Pleasure Ridge Park, Ky., school, is on trial for reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the death of Max Gilpin. Gilpin, a 15-year-old player, collapsed during football practice while running in 94-degree heat last August. He died three days later of complications from heatstroke.

Read entire article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/10/earlyshow/main5300870.shtml

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Psych journal “looks into” whether psychiatrist who endorsed antidepressants for preschoolers was getting Pharma $$

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Jim Edwards
bnet.com
September 10, 2009

The journal Archives of General Psychiatry will “look into” whether an author who recommended antidepressants for preschoolers failed to disclose her financial ties to Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and, companies which make such drugs, according to Philip Dawdy of Furious Seasons.

Dr. Joan Luby,  a professor of child psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has authored several papers asserting that children as young as three years old can suffer from depression and bipolar disorder, and that treatment with antidepressants and antipsychotics may be appropriate. In a recent paper of the AGP, she wrote:

Preschool depression, similar to childhood depression, is not a developmentally transient syndrome but rather shows chronicity and/or recurrence.

She did not disclose any ties to industry. However, Luby has past ties to J&J’s Janssen unit, AZ and Shire (makers of Risperdal, Seroquel and Adderall XR, respectively).

Read entire article: http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10004189/agp-to-probe-undisclosed-industry-ties-of-doc-who-recommends-antidepressants-for-3-year-olds/

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The growing trend to make Internet addiction a mental disorder (just another excuse to put kids on drugs)

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Bonnie Miller Rubin
Chicago Tribune
September 9, 2009

Though the nation’s first residential treatment center for Internet addiction opened this summer near Seattle, local experts say they’ve been treating the problem for some time.

“In the last few years, I’m hearing from more parents who are very concerned,” said Jeanette Spires, a Lake Forest-based educational consultant who matches troubled teens with the right therapeutic setting. “Their kids have stopped going to school … because they are just obsessed.”

The center, called reSTART, opened in July and is designed specifically for people who can’t kick their cyber-habit — be it Facebook, video poker or “World of Warcraft.” The cost? $14,000 for 45 days.

While the American Psychiatric Association has yet to recognize the preoccupation as a separate disorder, mental health professionals usually treat it under the broader umbrella of impulse control disorders.

Read entire article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-talk-internet-addictionsep09,0,7078258.story

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Medical Professionals ‘Led the Way’: The Psychologists of Torture

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Frederick Clarkson
thepeoplesvoice.org
September 8, 2009

Medical professionals designed and helped to implement Bush administration interrogation practices.

One of the key, if underreported, findings in the recent bombshell Senate report on the Bush-era treatment of U.S. military detainees was the role of civilian and military psychologists in devising, directing and overseeing the torture of prisoners.

While the report highlights the role of senior Bush administration officials in approving “aggressive” interrogation techniques, it also exposes how medical professionals helped to transform the Pentagon’s torture resistance program into tactics used against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and CIA “black” sites.

Understanding the role of these professionals should be a “specific focus” of an investigation into the use of these tactics, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which has condemned the tactics as illegal and medically unethical.

In a series of reports available on its Web site, PHR details the tactics, which it says include beating, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced nakedness, exposure to extreme temperatures, exploitation of phobias, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation.

Read entire article: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2009/09/08/medical-professionals-led-the-way-the-ps

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Public Citizen’s Dr. Sidney Wolfe calls off-label marketing of Zyprexa part of well-organized crime in the US

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Lynne Taylor
Pharma Times
September 9, 2009

The pharmaceutical industry has made major contributions to the health of the US public, but it must also be considered part of the nation’s well-organized crime, says an industry critic.

Last week’s $2.3 billion settlement between Pfizer and the US Justice Department for unlawful prescription drug promotion may sound large, but it is not enough to ensure drug companies will curb their bad behavior – in fact, it just shows there is competition in the pharmaceutical industry, according to Sidney Wolfe, director of US advocacy group Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

Pfizer has broken a record set by Eli Lilly in January for what was then described by the Justice Department as the “largest individual corporate criminal fine” in U.S. history – more than $500 million in criminal penalties for off-label promotion of Zyprexa (olanzapine), its treatment for psychotic conditions including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – but now, just seven months later, Pfizer has broken this record with a criminal fine of $1.2 billion, the largest ever imposed in the US for any matter, he says. The rest of the $2.3 billion represents civil penalties.

Read entire article: http://www.pharmatimes.com/WorldNews/article.aspx?id=16547

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Increasing numbers of college students abusing Ritalin and Adderall

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Caitlin Berry
The Temple News
September 8, 2009

Recent studies have shown that, in an alarming trend, students are now turning to prescription drugs to cope with the stresses of college life.

It is becoming a common story: It’s the week of midterms, and students have five exams and three papers crammed into four days, so they buy a few Adderall pills.

Once they’ve taken them, the pills allow them to stay awake longer and focus better on their work.

The pressures of college are enormous, and the stress on students is unmatched. Accompanying the assignments and due dates are all-nighters and last-minute cram sessions, and students are finding new ways to cope with the workload.

More than ever, college students are turning to drugs in attempts to achieve perfect grades and to keep up with their busy schedules.

Illegally buying and using prescription medications to help them study, students prefer drugs-of-choice Adderall and Ritalin, which are typically used to treat people who suffer from attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Read entire article: http://temple-news.com/2009/09/08/double-dosing/

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The Huffington Post “How It Is: Psychiatrists, Physicians, and Torture”

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Dan Agin
Huffington Post
April 22, 2009

Our current troubles with torture by agencies of our government, and the shock of many that medical doctors stood by or even assisted in such torture, will be with us for a while. There is never too much of knowledge, and usually too little of knowledge of the past, and our present time is apparently an illustration of our public failings.

To be clear about my own views, the publicized recent physical and psychological stresses used in the interrogation of prisoners in American hands, from the perspective of medicine, neuroscience, and psychiatry, were indeed torture. Various legal minds apparently twisted the meanings of words and phrases into knots in their attempts to provide cover for the use of terror in interrogations, but my guess is they and everyone around them knew the truth. And now various media hacks sound the same corrupted chant, more out of foolishness than any reasoned argument. It’s an ugly dance, a jig that reminds one of a crazy gavotte in Bedlam.

Maybe the saddest cut of all is that we’ve been here before. Too many people are bemused by the illusion that physicians are incapable of standing by or assisting in the mechanics of torture. Maybe most are, but to say that all are is a public lie — and how many psychiatrists and internist physicians do you need to help turn the rack or rip at the mind with terror? Not many. For the few hundred prisoners at a place like Guantanamo, a handful of assisting psychiatrists and internists would be sufficient, both psychiatrists and internists already on the agency payroll and committed to agency operations.

Physicians of various kinds have always been involved in government interrogations. and it’s a bit silly to pretend otherwise.

Read entire article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-agin/how-it-is-psychiatrists-p_b_189271.html

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New books detail complete failure of psychiatry: The science is bogus, kindness & empathy are absent & drugs dominate

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Liz Else
New Scientist
September 4, 2009

AT THE bottom of Pandora’s box was hope – a thought worth hanging onto when reading about psychiatry. But read we should, since up to a third of us may at some time sport a label from the psychiatrists’ bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM). And the World Health Organization reckons that by 2020 depression will be the second largest contributor to the global burden of disease.

Treatment and its failures are the burden of Irving Kirsch’s The Emperor’s New Drugs and Richard Bentall’s Doctoring the Mind. The books’ subtitles signal intent: Kirsch’s is a ballistic “Exploding the antidepressant myth”. Bentall’s, interestingly, differs between US and UK editions: “Why psychiatric treatments fail” for the UK, and “Is our current treatment of mental illness really any good?” for the US.

The latter’s tentative tone may be a wise move since the US psychiatric community seems to be in even more serious meltdown than its British counterpart. Big Pharma faces legal action over the effects of antidepressants, Congress is demanding financial transparency from psychiatrists working on the DSM V due out in 2011, individuals scour the net for help, and activists struggle to find viable alternatives to drugs.

Read entire article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327241.400-review-the-emperors-new-drugs-and-doctoring-the-mind.html

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