Archive for March, 2010

Our U.S. Military: Betrayed and Drugged

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

“Psychiatrists under contract with the Veteran Affairs—in my opinion—are legal drug dealers who almost took my life.”
- Former Marine Scout Sniper


By Shane Ellison
Award-winning scientist, Masters Degree in Organic Chemistry

Chad was a Marine Scout Sniper who served two tours in Iraq. Upon being honorably discharged as a Sgt. in 2007, he summoned the courage to ask for help in dealing with the images and emotions that gnawed on him from being dropped into combat. Like so many of his peers, the help he was given was  “meds.” Although Chad was used to putting his life at risk, he never expected that his life would be more directly threatened by the “treatment” he was offered—psychiatric drugs.

After a single day of “following doctor’s orders,” Chad felt things were starting to look up.  He seemed to be more cognizant, and the weight of daily struggles was lifted. But, as he describes it, things “quickly flip-flopped.”

“As time passed, I began changing into someone I wasn’t. Once a focused, motivated sniper, my reaction time became stagnant. My thought process became dry and lethargic, while my independence drifted. I became unable to make decisions on my own and reluctantly found myself relying on others in ways I had never done before. I had become a sort of medicated drone. All emotion turned into apathy and I found myself lackadaisical and eventually felt meaningless. That’s where it got really bad for me, and it’s hard to talk about now…. It was as if my brain chemistry went whack.”

This bleak scenario is becoming all too common for today’s military. The psychiatric death threat is becoming riskier than combat.  In 2010, Time magazine reported that, “During the month of January, more soldiers committed suicide than were killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.” Mystified by the death toll among troops, Army Chief of Staff George Casey said that, “The fact of the matter is, we just don’t know why suicides have increased.”

A group of U.S. Senators have finally raised concern that the use of antidepressants and other prescription drugs are on the rise in the military, particularly among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.   The U.S. FDA has warned these drugs can cause worsening depression, mania, psychosis, suicidal and homicidal ideation.   Senator Jim Webb, D-Va., who led the recent Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing in Washington, said the apparent increase in prescription drugs is “on its face, pretty astounding and troubling.”  In fact, Department of Defense statistics show that from 2005 to 2008, there was a 400 percent increase in the prescription of antidepressants and other drugs used to treat anxiety.  And a 2007 Army report showed that about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan were taking antidepressants or sleeping pills.

The suicide trend is not inexplicable, and must be highlighted if troops like Chad are to be saved from the psychiatric death threat. Like the loss of power to a car that results from a broken fuse, mental circuitry is shut off with each and every dose of psychiatric medication. The latest cloning techniques and laboratory methods show this to be the result of “neurotransmitter hijacking,” which scrambles brain circuitry, leaving users like Chad feeling “dry and lethargic,” in times of deep emotional turmoil.

Once neurotransmitter hijacking takes place, users become fully under the spell of psychiatry. The brain can become so scrambled that all normal reality and reason are overwritten by a new confusing and violent agenda. A new personality arises—one with homicidal and suicidal tendencies. Commenting on the biochemical fiasco, CNN publicized that, “Antidepressant drugs actually create a perilous brain imbalance.” Chad barely escaped.

“Rebounding on and off the drugs, I reached the darkest point in my life, strangely enough at home. I packed up my ghillie suit—the same thing I used to camouflage myself as a sniper in enemy territory—and hiked into the wilderness late at night, where no one would find me.  I held my .45 cal pistol while attempting the unspeakable…many things raced through my mind, and at the forefront were feelings of worthlessness and my inability to relate to anyone, even myself. As a combat decorated Marine, it’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s a reality that seems to be more common among my peers, and it’s scary as hell.… To this day, I’m not sure what stopped me, probably an act of God. I walked backed vowing to reclaim my life – with everything I had.  And, since my mental health declined so drastically since getting on the meds, I felt that getting off them was the first place to start.”

No doubt, combat leads to emotional stress beyond what the rest of us can concede.  Listening to the combat experience of Chad paints painful images in my own mind. It’s no wonder indelible scars are left on the minds of our troops. And rather than help them cope, they are literally being drugged to death in a large-scale experiment that goes ignored. Former military psychiatrist, Dr. Grace Jackson, substantiated this stating that, “It’s really a large-scale experiment. We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior.”

Once off the drugs, Chad’s escape came from getting back to basics—really basic. He starts each day with rigorous exercise and ends it with a deep sleep, induced by L-tryptophan and valerian. His diet is fortified with whey isolate twice per day with meals that consist of unprocessed foods. Sugar and alcohol have been reduced to an absolute minimum. Sauna treatments are regular, and real therapy comes from writing and talking to others who share his experience, as well as giving back in the form of support. He knows his story is only “one of thousands” and that other veterans need help.

Today, Chad has earned his bachelor’s degree—with honors—in a record 2.5 years. At the same time, he founded a Veterans center, which serves as a hub at his Alma Mater to offer support in all matters that relate to being a vet. And when he can, he helps others heed his warning about the military death threat: “Psychiatrists under contract with the Veteran Affairs—in my opinion—are legal drug dealers who almost took my life.”

Shane Ellison is the bestselling author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures and holds a masters degree in drug design (organic chemistry). He is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his studies in biochemistry and physiology.

For international drug regulatory warnings about psychiatric drugs causing violence and suicide go to:

http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/

For more by Shane Ellison, go to:

http://www.cchrint.org/videos/experts/shane-ellison/

For more information on the current U.S. Senate investigation into this topic see related posts below.

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The Troubling Link Between Big Pharma and the American Psychiatric Association

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

The Faster Times
By Alison Bass
March 30, 2010

First the good news: The Physician Payment Sunshine Act is now law, signed by President Obama as part of the health care bill overhaul. Starting in 2012, drug and medical device companies must report all consulting, speaking and other payments to doctors and teaching hospitals in excess of $100 annually to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which will post the payments on a public website. This is an important first step toward making transparent the pervasive financial ties between doctors who are studying or promoting specific drugs and medical devices and the companies that manufacture these products.

There is one significant loophole in the law: according to thefinal provisions, payments related to clinical trials or product development agreements for new products are allowed a publication delay of four years or until product approval, whichever comes first. So if a particular doctor is researching a drug that has not yet been approved for a specific condition, we will have to wait four years to find out whether he or she is on the drug company’s payroll. But at least the disclosure will eventually see the light of day, and patients who are prescribed the drug in question can seek a second opinion from a doctor who is not on the drug firm’s payroll and whose medical judgment can be trusted.

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act, however, only goes so far. While it covers doctors and teaching hospitals, it does not extend to all the advocacy groups and professional organizations that have substantial influence on over how particular illnesses are treated. For example, as I reported, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), the most powerful advocacy group for people with mental illness, received millions of dollars in funding from drug companies for years — a payola that no doubt spurred this group’s embrace of potent psychoactive drugs over alternative methods of treating mental illness.

And now, in the current Psychiatric Times, two Massachusetts researchers tear the veil off efforts by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to hide industry funding of its two philanthropic arms — the American Psychiatric Foundation (APF) and the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education (APIRE). As Lisa Cosgrove and Harold Burszstajn report: “While the APA recently announced it would phase out the visibly industry-supported educational programs, the organization has remained curiously silent about acknowledging and monitoring industry funding” of APF and APIRE.

Read entire article:  http://thefastertimes.com/healthinvestigations/2010/03/30/the-troubling-link-between-big-pharma-and-the-american-psychiatric-association/

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Can a pill cure Bashful? How drug companies turn personality traits into ailments and nations into pill poppers

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Daily Mail
John Naish
march 30, 2010

Ten years ago, if you described shyness or restless legs as a bona fide illness, people would have laughed.

But these conditions are just part of an epidemic of newly-invented illnesses sweeping Britain.

And we take them so seriously we’re prepared to swallow handfuls of strong and sometimes harmful pills.

As the Mail reported yesterday, we have become a nation of pill poppers, picking up more than 16 prescriptions a year on average, twice as many as 20 years ago.

This is despite the fact that we live longer and healthier lives than ever before.

The figures are a tribute to the power of drug company public-relations teams, who have convinced doctors and patients alike that there are new illnesses emerging that can be treated by their drugs.

This has been labelled ‘ disease-mongering’ by the respected journal, Public Library of Science Medicine.

Read entire article:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1262136/Can-pill-cure-Bashful-As-Britons-pop-tablets-drugs-companies-turning-personality-traits-ailments.html

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CCHR Int Releases New Psychiatric Drug Search Engine—310 International Drug Regulatory Warnings & Studies & 194,000 Adverse Psychiatric Drug Reaction Reports

Monday, March 29th, 2010

By CCHR Int
March 29, 2010

Psychiatric drugs sales generate $80 billion per year with Big Pharma spending $4.7  billion per year on TV and print ads, and $1 billion per year on internet advertising.

As a result the number of people worldwide taking psychiatric drugs has skyrocketed to 100 million (20 million of them children) with documented side effects of worsening depression, mania, psychosis, violence, suicidal and homicidal ideation, birth defects, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and sudden death – to name but a few.

International drug regulatory warnings have increased by 400% in the last 10 years, yet the general public has nowhere to go to find this information online in an easy to search, concise format.

Until now.

CCHR International, the world’s leading mental health watchdog, has created a free public search engine featuring:

  • 160 psychiatric drug warnings from international drug regulatory agencies.
  • 150 drug studies from international medical journals.
  • 194,558 adverse reaction reports on psychiatric drugs filed with the FDA between 2004-2008 from doctors, pharmacists, other health care providers, consumers and lawyers.

People can search international drug regulatory warnings, or studies, or both. They can search by the brand name of a drug (such as Prozac, Zoloft, Ritalin, Seroquel) or by drug class (such as antipsychotic, stimulant, antidepressant) or by type of side effect  or by country issuing the study/warning.  All information is summarized and easy to read.

CCHR International has also decrypted the FDA’s Adverse Drug Reaction reports which include psychiatric drug side effects reported to the FDAs Medwatch program.  This lists who reported the side effect (Doctor, Pharmacist etc) the side effect of the drug and also the age range.

Any medical term that appears in the search results can be defined simply by double clicking the word, and a small bubble will appear defining the word.

No other mental health watchdog or government agency is offering this service to the public.  This is the world’s only searchable online psychiatric drug database containing all international studies, warnings and FDA adverse reaction reports on psychiatric drugs in existence.

You can try out the new Psychiatric Drug Search Engine here: http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/

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Wholesale sedation of young children medically, morally indefensible

Monday, March 29th, 2010

The Patriot Ledger
By Larry Diller
March 27, 2010

The twin murder trials of the parents of Rebecca Riley, who died at age 4 of an overdose of the psychiatric drug, clonidine, have cast a spotlight on the beliefs and practices of the doctor who prescribed the drug.

Kayoko Kifuji was granted immunity in both trials in exchange for her cooperation for testifying. Reactions from jurors, comments online and letters to the editor based on newspaper accounts of Kifuji’s testimony range from confusion, shock, and outrage directed at the doctor’s role in the tragedy.

Kifuji did go before a grand jury and was not indicted, avoiding any criminal prosecution for her actions. Massachusetts’ medical licensing board, the Board of Registration in Medicine (BRM) initially suspended Kifuji’s license to practice medicine. But after conducting an investigation the BRM fully restored Kifuji’s privileges. She is now back at Tufts Medical Center practicing child psychiatry without any restrictions, penalties or supervision.

Kifuji did not literally place the extra lethal doses of clonidine in Rebecca’s mouth which may explain why she was not criminally charged. Ironically, from testimony at the father’s trial, neither did Michael Riley. Still the jury found him guilty of murder. What’s more disturbing is the BRM’s decision to take no further actions and allow Kifuji unfettered practice.

The testimonies offered at the grand jury and BRM hearings were kept secret so the Riley trials offer the public the first details of Kifuji’s management of the Riley children. Here are some of the facts extracted from the trial transcripts:

Kifuji’s diagnoses were based entirely on reports coming from the children’s mother, Carolyn, herself diagnosed with mental illness and at times heavily medicated to the point of falling asleep in Kifuji’s office.

Kifuji essentially ignored late warnings from a school nurse about possible sedating over dosages to Rebecca and from a mental health counselor for Rebecca whom the mother fired after the counselor alerted the local child protective service agency about potential child abuse.

Kifuji believed testimony from the children as young as 3 regarding “hallucinations” about monsters to support the bipolar diagnosis while discounting any other information reported by the children as “unreliable.”

Kifuji repeatedly allowed, without drawing any effective limits, Carolyn Riley to increase the doses of clonidine she gave her children. For her last month of life, Kifuji overall prescribed 835 pills to Rebecca.

Read entire article:  http://www.wickedlocal.com/hull/news/opinions/x905411678/COMMENTARY-Wholesale-sedation-of-young-children-medically-morally-indefensible

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Australia: “Mind Drugs Harming Kids” Labor MP Martin Whitely calls for national inquiry into child drugging

Friday, March 26th, 2010

The West Australian
By Cathy O’Leary
March 27, 2010

Children as young as two are being given powerful antipsychotic medications, raising concerns use of the drugs are not being properly monitored and could be putting children at risk of serious side effects.

Figures from the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing show 559 WA children were given at least one antipsychotic drug subsidised on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2007-08.

Eighty-seven of the children were aged 10 or under, including four two-year-olds.

The figures were obtained by the watchdog Citizens Committee on Human Rights, a group set up by the Church of Scientology.

They reveal that almost 10,000 Australian children aged up to 18 were given PBS-funded antipsychotics in 2007-08 at a cost to the Government of $3.4 million.

The drugs are normally used to treat adults with forms of psychosis such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and more rarely in children with autism or severe behavioural disorders.

Concerns have been raised the drugs are also being used for unapproved medical reasons to control behavioural problems in children such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

CCHR executive director Shelley Wilkins said the drugs could cause severe adverse reactions in children, including heart and nervous system disorders.

“There needs to be accountability for these potentially dangerous drugs being prescribed to children, especially toddlers,” she said.

Read entire article:  http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/6988711/mind-drugs-risk-harming-kids/

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More U.S. Senators voice alarm over 400% increase in psychiatric drugging of troops & increased military suicides

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Arizona Daily Star
March 26, 2010

A group of U.S. senators has raised concern that the use of antidepressants and other prescription drugs for treatment of mental disorders is on the rise in the military, particularly among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who led the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel subcommittee hearing in Washington this week, said the apparent increase in prescriptions is “on its face, pretty astounding and troubling.”

Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., who has been speaking out for months about the rise in prescribed drugs and how they may be harmful to younger soldiers, said at the hearing that the military needs to examine whether increased use of medicines has any link to an increase in military suicides.

Department of Defense statistics show that from 2005 to 2008, “there was a 400 percent increase in the prescription of antidepressants and other drugs used to treat anxiety,” Cardin said. And a 2007 Army report showed that about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan were taking antidepressants or sleeping pills.

In 2009, 160 active-duty Army suicides were reported – a 15 percent increase from the previous year, Cardin said.

“We need the Department of Defense’s help in trying to understand what is happening,” he said. “We have a lot of dots, but we haven’t connected the dots.”

Top medical officers who testified at the hearing took issue with some of Cardin’s statistics but acknowledged that there has been an increase in the use of psychotropic drugs prescribed to treat mental disorders.

“The use of psychotropic medication in the nation as a whole has increased,” said Charles Rice, the acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

“It’s difficult to turn on the television without being convinced that you’re bipolar or have some other problem for which there is a drug ready-made for you.”

Read entire article:  http://www.azstarnet.com/news/national/article_5c54a003-41a2-510a-a07a-35c893cd1c76.html

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Psychiatrists And Pharma: Undue Influence? Concern about corruption increasing…

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Pharmalot
By Ed Silverman
March 25, 2010

Two essays published in separate periodicals this week raise troubling questions about the extent to which psychiatrists may be unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, and how this relationship may effect public trust in psychiatry. The upshot? The concern about corruption, or at least the appearance of corruption is palpable. Sigmund Freud would not be pleased. Interestingly, one of the authors is Tom Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

For instance, Lisa Cosgrove and Harold Bursztajn write in Psychiatric Times that they looked at the two philanthropic arms of the American Psychiatric Association – the American Psychiatric Foundation and the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education – and found that APF’s 15-member board includes four high-level pharma execs that either make meds recommended by APA or are developing products targeted to treat mental disorders. Other board members include two more with industry ties and a senior vp at Fleishman Hillard, the public relations firm whose clients include six drugmakers.

APF’s corporate advisory council lists drugmakers, they continue, that contribute “significant funding” to APF and that make meds recommended in the APA’s clinical practice guidelines. Although it was not possible to discern the total amount of industry funding given to APF, in fiscal year 2008 APF lists 11 pharmaceutical companies and 1 medical device manufacturer that contributed monies; 6 of the companies are listed as giving $40,000 “and above” per year.

They go on to write that APIRE, like APF, doesn’t require disclosure of financial conflicts of interests, and that nine of 16 APIRE board members have ties to drugmakers. They also note current disclosure policies don’t require reporting of pooled industry money to academic departments, units, hospitals, and med schools. And because there is no independent monitoring of industry ties, they maintain “underreporting is very likely a problem. For example, one board member who reported ‘no disclosure’ in an APA publication was found to be on the speakers’ bureau of multiple pharmaceutical companies.”

Read entire article:  http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/03/psychiatrists-and-pharma-undue-influence/

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Future Kill: Overmedicated and undermined, drug companies are capitalizing off our kids

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

NewsReview.com
March 25, 2010

Young people are being overmedicated and undermined. It is time that we recognize that the deluge of amphetamines and psychotropic drugs being consumed by teenagers may be more of a problem than a solution.

Drug companies are capitalizing off our kids, and why not? They’re the perfect targets. According to a study published in the May/June 2009 issue of Health Affairs, prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the United States from 1996 to 2006. This is a scary statistic, and one that may be fueled by economic and political forces rather than genuine psychiatric problems among our youth. “Start first with a pharmaceutical industry, that the critics charge, shovels money at the state and federal officials and psychiatric profession in pushing high priced drugs for minors,” wrote Alan Reder in his article “The Other Youth Drug Problem.”

In 2008, psychiatric drug makers raked in a grand total of $29 billion from sales of drugs to treat antidepressant, antipsychotic and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). While CEOs of these corporations are assembling a hefty retirement fund for themselves, they are not the only ones reaping the benefits of this perverse industry. Parents are now able to declare their kids disabled due to mental illness and receive Social Security disability payments and free medical care. In 2006 alone, more money—$8.9 billion—was spent treating mental disorders in the United States in children ages 0-17 than any other ailment. Some critics even claim these drugs are causing the abnormal behaviors that doctors claim show “disability.”

The seriousness of these drugs that we relentlessly feed children seems overlooked. Beginning in May 2007, the FDA required that all anti-depressants have Black Box Warnings. A drug receives a Black Box Warning when studies have shown that it can have extremely dangerous or even deadly side effects. Anti-depressants often have adverse effects such as increasing the thoughts of suicide in people under 25. A Black Box Warning is the FDA’s strongest safety warning, and yet we supply children as young as 10 with antidepressants that carry these labels.

Read entire article:  http://www.newsreview.com/reno/content?oid=1391594

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Senator Calls for Probe of Military Suicides & Antidepressant Use citing 400% increase in psych drug prescriptions

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

The Baltimore Sun
March 24, 2010

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland called Wednesday for a government-funded investigation into possible links between the growing use of anti-depressants by members of the military and high rates of suicide among men and women in uniform.

The Democratic senator, in remarks to a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, said that only “a proper scientific study” can determine whether “DOD is prescribing anti-depressants to its service members appropriately.”

Cardin quoted from the most recent Defense department statistics, covering 2005 to 2008, which showed a 400 percent increase in prescriptions for antidepressants and other drugs used to combat anxiety. The senator called those numbers “disturbing.”

At the same time, other government figures have reflected a significant increase in suicides among those in uniform. For example, in 2009, there were 160 suicides among active-duty members of the U.S. Army, a 15 percent increase over 2008.

Cardin called the number of suicides “unprecedented” and asked whether there was a relationship between the use of antidepressants and “the alarming rate of suicides” in the military.

He said the Food and Drug Administration has expressed concerns about many of the same drugs prescribed routinely for troops battling anxiety and depression. The FDA’s interest has led drug manufacturers to revise warning labels on their products to indicate that young adults, ages 18 to 24, may be at “elevated risk of suicidal thought and behavior while using these medications,” said Cardin.

Roughly two in five U.S. servicemen and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq fall into the 18-24 age bracket, the senator said. About two in five Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 were believed to have taken anti-depressants, Cardin added.

Read entire article:  http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/2010/03/cardin_calls_for_probe_of_mili.html

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