Archive for February, 2010

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Best Selling Author & Pulitzer Prize Nominee Questions Book Author’s Glowing Endorsement of Child Drugging

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

The Faster Times
By Alison Bass
February 25,2010

The glowing review of Judith Warner’s new book, We’ve Got Issues, in The New York Times this week didn’t exactly catch me by surprise — anyone who has read Warner’s guest columns in recent years knows her take on psychiatric drugs — but it did bewilder me.

Why, I wondered, did the Times choose that particular book to review so prominently in its science section; was it because Warner has such a cozy relationship with the paper, having been a guest columnist for many years?

The reviewer says that Warner “sallied forth to interview all the pushy parents, irresponsible doctors and over-medicated children she could find – and lo, she could barely find any.” And that made me wonder just who did Warner actually interview for the book (which, let me admit right off, I have not read). Did she only talk to the parents of children with “issues” and the doctors who prescribed meds for them, as the review makes it sound? If so, she seems to have missed half the story. After all, parents who put their kids on psychoactive drugs and the doctors who prescribed them are probably quite earnest in believing they did the right thing. As a parent myself, I know: it’s very hard to admit publicly that you may have done the wrong thing; ditto for the medical profession.

What I want to know is: did Warner bother to interview any of the folks who were forced to take powerful psychoactive drugs as children and grew up to be psychiatric survivors who have since turned to more effective, alternative methods of healing?

Read entire article:  http://thefastertimes.com/healthinvestigations/2010/02/25/is-judith-warner-right-about-kids-and-psychiatric-drugs/

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The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth—Debunking the Chemical Imbalance Theory & Drug Efficacy

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

PopMatters
By Chris Barsanti
February 24, 2010

What if antidepressants were not just too easily available and overly prescribed by doctors—as has been argued in many venues for years now, though to no discernible effect—but didn’t even work? That’s the takeaway premise of psychology professor Irving Kirsch, Ph.D., in his new book, The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth.

By examining a broad spectrum of research, using both the published drug studies and the deep well of unpublished research which many drug companies would prefer stay hidden, Kirsch presents the all-too-plausible theory that there is essentially no positive effect from taking antidepressants. In fact, comparing test results between patients taking antidepressants and those taking active placebos (a drug that isn’t an antidepressant but has other, noticeable side effects, so that the patient can tell something is working on them), Kirsch found no statistically significant difference. Actually, he found that it didn’t seem to matter what drug patients were taking, as long as they knew they had ingested some kind of active drug, they improved by about the same degree. So much for the last few decades’ great advances in pharmacology, it would seem.

If what Kirsch is saying is true, then not only are untold millions being wasted on essentially worthless drugs, but an entire school of psychological thought is utterly wrong. Kirsch spends an entire chapter of his tightly argued book tearing down the oft-recited belief that depression is frequently or always caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. After relating several studies which purport to show that drugs which increase, decrease, or have no effect on the serotonin levels in patients brains (something long described as crucial to pharmacological therapy) all have about the same effect, Kirsch concludes very simply that “the data just do not fit the theory”.

Read entire article:  http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/121266-the-emperors-new-drugs-exploding-the-antidepressant-myth/

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US Should Follow UK in Crackdown on Killer Tranquilizers (Xanax, Valium, Ativan, etc) after 33 % increase in deaths

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Express.co.uk
Lucy Johnston
February 7, 2010

A RANGE of powerful tranquillisers could be put under strict controls after being linked to a series of high-profile deaths.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to investigate the harm caused by the drugs, which have been linked to the deaths of Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy and Goldsmith heiress Robyn Whitehead.

The news comes as official figures show the number of deaths associated with tranquillisers has hit 230 – a 33 per cent increase over three years.

Up to one and a half million patients are prescribed tranquillisers on a long-term basis, while many others are using them illegally as recreational drugs.

Labour MP Jim Dobbin, chairman of the all-party Parliamentary Group on Involuntary Tranquilliser Addiction, said: “Thousands of people are addicted to tranquillisers and hundreds have died. We want these drugs seen as agents that people need to be warned about.” It is now being proposed that all tranquillisers should be reclassified from class C to class A substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act which would mean users or suppliers could face prison.

Read entire article:  http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/156700/Crackdown-on-the-killer-tranquillisers-

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Psychiatry’s Own Psychosis: Labeling everything a mental disorder

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Troy Media
By Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd
February 21, 2010

Psychiatrists are currently debating whether “sex addiction” should be added to the catalogue of psychological disorders that can be reliably diagnosed and treated.

On the one hand, some are saying that sexual addiction, in the true sense of a diagnosis, is a real disorder and anyone who works with sex addicts know that they have a long array of behaviours. Others, however, believe the term is simply used to excuse bad behaviour.

Next in line will be the Tiger Woods syndrome, along with catastrophic views on the environment, an addiction to Starbucks, liking Barry Manilow and singing the praises of Rush Limbaugh. Soon all of our lives will be illness states, with some of us coping better than others in managing our daily diagnostics and treating ourselves through counselling, psychiatry and self-medication.

Everything is problematic

The quest to add sex addiction to the catalogue of recognized illness states is just a part of the desire of psychiatrists to identify everything as problematic. The handbook for diagnosis, known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), now in its 4th edition, is the bible of mental illness. If you want to call in sick, go to the library and find a copy – it’s a treasure trove of sick-day opportunities. A new edition, the fifth, is due in 2013.

Read entire article:  http://www.troymedia.com/?p=8409

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Grassley Probes WebMd’s Ties To Eli Lilly for running TV ad encouraging depression screening—sponsored by Eli Lilly

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Pharmalot
By Ed Silverman
February 19, 2010

Grassley, who is the ranking Republican on the US Senate Finance Committee, is investigating the relationship between WebMD and drugmakers after learning the web site is running a TV ad that encourage people to take a depression-screening test sponsored by Eli Lilly, which sells Cymbalta.

So he wants WebMD, which lots of folks visit for medical info, to disclose its ties to the industry, in general, because the Lilly sponsorship raises questions about WebMD’s “independence,” according to this Feb. 18 letter to WebMD exec Wayne Gattinella. The ad encourages people to visit WebMD’s site to take a depression-screening test.

Read entire article:  http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/02/grassley-probes-webmd-ties-to-eli-lilly/

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Taking Antidepressants During Pregnancy Doubles Heart Defect Risk of Newborns

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Natural News
By David Gutierrez
February 19, 2010

Women who take certain antidepressant drugs while pregnant may double their child’s risk of being born with a certain variety of heart defect, according to a study conducted by researchers from Aarhaus University in Denmark and published in the medical journal BMJ.

“Anyone who is pregnant or considering becoming pregnant and has any concerns about the treatment for depression should speak to their doctor,” said Cathy Ross of the British Heart Foundation.

Researchers compared the risk of birth defects in 1,370 children born to women who took at least one selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) while pregnant with the risk in 400,000 other children whose mothers had not taken any SSRIs while pregnant. They found that the drugs fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac), sertraline (marketed as Zoloft) and citalopram (marketed as Celexa) all significantly increased the risk that a child would be born with a defect in the septum, which separates the right and left halves of the heart.

Septum defects include a variety of conditions from minor blood vessel problems to outright holes in the heart. The researchers found that one extra septum defect would develop for every 246 pregnant women taking an SSRI during the time period from 28 days before through 112 days after conception.

Taking more than one SSRI drastically increased the risk of septum defects. While the risk of the defects was 0.5 percent in mothers not taking the drugs and 0.9 percent in those taking one drug (an 80 percent increase), it was 2.1 percent in mothers taking two or more (a more than 300 percent increase).

Read entire article:  http://www.naturalnews.com/028202_antidepressants_heart_defects.html

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Paxil Birth Defect Litigation – 600 Cases Pending

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Scoop Independent News
By Evelyn Pringle
February 18, 2010

GlaxoSmithKline has paid out close to $1 billion to resolve lawsuits involving Paxil since the drug came on the market in 1992, according to a December 14, 2009 Bloomberg report. But the billion dollars does not cover the more than 600 Paxil birth defect cases currently pending in multi-litigation in Pennsylvania.

Glaxo has settled about 10 birth defect cases, according to Sean Tracey, a Houston attorney who represented the family of a child victim in the first jury trial that decided in favor of the plaintiff on October 13, 2009, Bloomberg reports. The settlements in those lawsuits averaged about $4 million, people familiar with the cases told the new service.

First Trial A Bust for Glaxo

The first trial, in the case of Kilker v Glaxo, ended with a jury in Philadelphia finding that Glaxo “negligently failed to warn” the doctor treating Lyam Kilker’s mother about Paxil’s risks and the drug was a “factual cause” of Lyam’s heart defects. The jury awarded the family $2.5 million in compensatory damages.

After the trial, juror Joe Mellon told Bloomberg that Glaxo did not conduct adequate studies on Paxil. “There were a couple of what I thought were safety signals and what the plaintiffs presented as safety signals that they should have maybe looked into further,” he said.

On October 14, 2009, the American Lawyer reported that the plaintiff’s lead attorney, Sean Tracey, had quizzed the jurors about what swayed their decision. “They said the fact that GSK never adequately studied their own drug was a big deal,” Tracey said. “The animal testing they did showed that they had a potential problem, and they didn’t follow up with adequate studies on animals or humans.”

Read entire article:  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1002/S00128.htm

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New Study Exposes Psycho/Pharma Myth: Kids On ADHD Drugs Do Not Do Better in School—They Do 10 Times Worse

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

The Australian
By Stephen Lunn
February 17, 2010

CHILDREN with ADHD who use prescription drugs to manage their condition are 10 times more likely to perform poorly at school than ADHD kids who avoid medication, a new report reveals.

The report also finds stimulant drugs such as Ritalin and dexamphetamine make no significant difference to the level of depression, self-perception and social functioning of a 14-year-old with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Those consistently using medication had significantly higher blood pressure at age 14 than children who had never taken drugs, a side-effect that could increase the risk of heart attack and stroke even into adulthood.

The report’s co-author, Lou Landau, said the world-first study into the long-term effects of stimulant medication on children with ADHD, to be published today, showed “drugs over the long term don’t have an impact on improving performance”.

“They don’t improve outcomes for those with ADHD, they make no difference to levels of depression, social functioning and self-perception, and for those on medication it is 10 times as likely that classroom performance will be below average,” he said.

Read entire article:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/kids-on-adhd-drugs-poor-at-school/story-e6frg6nf-1225831116701

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The Daily Mail “Psychiatrists want to call being angry a mental illness. How utterly mad!”

Monday, February 15th, 2010

The Daily Mail
By Jerome Burne
February 15, 2010

Do you live surrounded by clutter – ancient copies of magazines, your children’s old toys, articles you’ve clipped out of newspapers over the years?

If you find it hard to throw out things of limited or no value, you could be suffering from hoarding disorder.

‘Hoarding’ is just one of the new mental conditions being added to the psychiatrists’ bible, or the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM), to give it its proper name.

Other new conditions identified as possibly needing professional help include binge eating – which is said to affect many people who are seriously obese – and ‘cognitive tempo disorder’, which seems very like laziness (symptoms include dreaminess and sluggishness).

There’s also ‘intermittent explosive disorder’, which involves occasionally becoming very angry suddenly.

Most bizarre of the proposed additions is one defined as ‘getting a thrill at being outraged by pornography’.

It was also described as Whitehouse syndrome after the campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who objected to sexual content on TV.

The DSM is a large book that lists all psychiatric disorders and describes their symptoms. If a condition is in there, it means it’s considered a mental illness.

But some of the new entries are controversial, not least because of fears they will result in many more people being put on drugs that could be ineffective or dangerous.

Read entire article:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1251309/Psychiatrists-want-angry-mental-illness-How-utterly-mad.html

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Colleges faced with new type of drug abuse — 5 to 25% of students admit illicit use of drugs like Ritalin & Adderall

Monday, February 15th, 2010

The San Diego Union Tribune
By Eleanor Yan Su
February 15, 2010

San Diego State University senior Chris Kershaw first used Adderall two years ago to help cram for a final exam.

The economics major doesn’t have attention-deficit disorder, which the drug is most commonly prescribed to treat. But Kershaw, like many college students, occasionally buys the drug from friends to help him study.

“It’s like steroids for the brain,” said Kershaw, 22, of Agoura Hills. “It helped me focus. I was able to stay up until 4 or 5 a.m. studying.”

The drug misuse isn’t new — educators say prescription stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin have been growing in prevalence on college campuses for a decade. Between 5 percent and 25 percent of students admit abuse of the drugs, depending on the college and survey.

What’s changing is the way students are using the drugs, and the increasing attention colleges are devoting to the matter. SDSU’s coordinator of alcohol and drug initiatives is spending his sabbatical this year devising a program to address abuse of prescription drugs ranging from stimulants to painkillers.

Read entire article:  http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/15/colleges-faced-with-misuse-of-stimulants/

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