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Drugging of children for “ADHD” has become an epidemic

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

New York Times – October 13, 2011

by Dr. Peter Breggin

click image to read Psychiatric Disorders - The Facts Behind the Billion Dollar Marketing Campaign

The drugging of children for A.D.H.D. has become an epidemic. More than 5 million U.S. children, or 9.5 percent, were diagnosed with A.D.H.D. as of 2007. About 2.8 million had received a prescription for a stimulant medication in 2008.

The A.D.H.D. diagnosis does not identify a genuine biological or psychological disorder. The diagnosis, from the 2000 edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” is simply a list of behaviors that require attention in a classroom: hyperactivity (“fidgets,” “leaves seat,” “talks excessively”); impulsivity (“blurts out answers,” “interrupts”); and inattention (“careless mistakes,” “easily distractible,” “forgetful”). These are the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, inconsistent discipline at home, tiredness and underlying physical illness. Children who are suffering from bullying, abuse or stress may also display these behaviors in excess. By making an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, we ignore and stop looking for what is really going on with the child. A.D.H.D. is almost always either Teacher Attention Disorder (TAD) or Parent Attention Disorder (PAD). These children need the adults in their lives to give them improved attention.

Stimulant drugs “work” by suppressing all spontaneous behavior in normal children — and even in chimpanzees and other animals. This suppression of behavior and production of compulsive activities looks like an improvement in a classroom or home where the child has seemed uncontrollable and required a great deal of attention. The drugs do nothing to improve learning or psychosocial development. I document these observations in many scientific articles and books, most recently in the second edition of my medical textbook “Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry.”

Drug company marketing has focused on selling the diagnosis and the drugs to American parents and teachers.

Why are the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and the use of stimulants so prevalent in America? The idea that American children are somehow genetically or even culturally predisposed has no scientific or common sense basis. For several decades, starting in the 1970s, drug-company marketing has focused on selling the diagnosis and the drugs to American parents and teachers. As I first documented in my book “Toxic Psychiatry” in 1971, “Astroturf” organizations like Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and National Alliance on Mental Illness masquerade as representing families while taking millions of dollars from drug companies in support of their promotion of psychiatric medication for children. The National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association and even the American Neurological Association have promoted the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and stimulant medication, which leads to considerable business for mental health clinicians.

As the American market gets saturated, promotional efforts are increasing in other countries, like Canada, Britain, Australia and Germany, which are also experiencing increased rates of diagnosing and drugging children. In Australia, the controversy has been especially heated in recent years. Everywhere that A.D.H.D. and stimulants are promoted, they substitute for needed modern reforms in education and family life.

In all cases of so-called A.D.H.D., the diagnosis is harmful. The child instead needs a real medical and psychosocial educational evaluation, and usually the child will quickly respond to improved teaching and parenting. We are diagnosing and drugging millions of our children instead of providing them the improved educational and family life that they truly need.

Peter R. Breggin, a psychiatrist in Ithaca, N.Y., is the author of more than 20 books

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/12/are-americans-more-prone-to-adhd/adhd-is-a-misdiagnosis

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New Study Confirms: Millions of kids misdiagnosed with ADHD and drugged

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

September 20, 2011

New Study published in American Journal of Family Therapy confirms millions of normal kids misdiagnosed with ADHD & drugged.

by CCHR Int—A new study published today in the American Journal of Family Therapy has found that millions of children have been misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and wrongly prescribed amphetamine-like drugs categorized by  the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the same class of highly addictive drugs as cocaine, opium and morphine.

The study conducted by researchers at the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology and the Rhode Island College Department of Special Education found that of the “over 5 million children who are now being treated with ADHD medication, a majority may be suffering from Faux-ADHD, a disorder linked to irregular bedtimes” and that a majority of the children diagnosed ADHD may be unnecessarily medicated.    Now while we at CCHR applaud any study on the issue of “ADHD” which is not  ghost written by Big Pharma or those with a vested interest in drugging kids, we would like to pose two simple questions regarding this latest study:

1)  If there is such as thing as  “Faux-ADHD” what exactly is “real” ADHD?    There are no blood tests, brain scans, x-rays or genetic abnormalities that can prove any child has a “real” condition of ADHD.   Therefore any diagnoses of ADHD is “Faux.”   The criteria for an ADHD diagnoses  rests entirely on a checklist of behaviors,  including such “abnormal” child behavior as:

  • “runs about or climbs excessively in situations when it is not appropriate”
  • ” is often “on the go”
  • “acts as if driven by a motor”
  •  ”blurts out answers”
  •  ”is easily distracted”
  • ” loses pencils or toys”
  • “often doesn’t seem to listen”

2)  Given the diagnoses itself is not a medical condition, what child being prescribed drugs isn’t being “unnecessarily medicated?”   ADHD drugs are classified by the DEA as schedule ll drugs because they are as highly addictive as cocaine, morphine and opium.  ADHD drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall are documented by the FDA and international drug regulatory agencies to cause hallucinations, mania, psychosis, drug dependence,  stunted growth, insomnia,  heart attack, suicidal ideation and sudden death.  Normal children are simply being drugged.  Not medicated.  Drugged.

The fact is that any child diagnosed with ADHD has been misdiagnosed.  Any child placed on cocaine–like ADHD drugs is being unnecessarily drugged.  The diagnoses of ADHD in any circumstances is a Faux-diagnoses, serving only the psychiatric pharmaceutical industries and fueling their $4.8 billion a year ADHD drug empire.

 

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The United States of Adderall

Friday, September 9th, 2011

“83,776 tons of legal speed were approved for production in 2010 equaling more than half a pound for every man, woman and child in America.”

The Huffington Post – September 9, 2011
by Lawrence Diller, MD

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released analysis of data revealing a major increase in the incidence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children in the United States. The number of children between the ages of five and 17 reported by their parents to “have” ADHD or the non-hyperactive form of the disorder (ADD) had risen from 7 to 9 percent over a decade ending in 2009. Nine percent translates to 4,858,210 children according to 2010 U.S. Census data.

In actuality, the researchers do not know for certain whether these children actually meet criteria for ADHD/ADD. The data is culled from a national telephone survey which asks parents the question, “whether or not a doctor or other health-care provider had ever told them that their child had attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactive disorder, that is, ADD or ADHD.’”

Since there is no biological or psychometric test for ADHD/ADD no one can be certain these children have a definitive neurological condition.

In its extreme form the hyperactivity and impulsivity of ADHD are easy to recognize. But most children are commonly diagnosed with the mild variety which blends seamlessly into the behavior of normal but active or lively children. It is with this mild form where opinions vary widely between professionals. This survey then only measured what parents had been told.

Still the continued rise in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD/ADD in children is unmistakable. As a long time observer and participant (I prescribe drugs like Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta every day) of this trend, I have watched the 20-year growth of this condition with curiosity and some consternation. I have also been involved in what has been colloquially called “The Ritalin Wars” — an often polemical debate conducted in the media as to whether the widespread use of prescription stimulant drugs (essentially amphetamine) is good or bad for the children of this country.

The upward trend continues. Given the current CDC data, one can safely estimate (based on previously detailed distribution curves) that one of six 11-year-old white boys with medical insurance currently take a stimulant drug at least during the school week. Is this over medication or simply good medical care for children with a previously undiagnosed and untreated condition? What I do know is that we are the only society currently managing our under performing/misbehaving children with drugs to this degree.

While the diagnosis of ADHD/ADD can seem ephemeral, the production of prescription stimulants, whose use is closely tied to the diagnosis, is monitored by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Since 1996 the annual amount of Ritalin type drugs approved for production by the DEA multiplied 4000 times to 50 million kilograms, and for Adderall 10000 times to 26 million kilograms. In more common terms, 83,776 tons of legal speed were approved for production in 2010 equaling more than half a pound for every man, woman and child in America.

The U.S. is a signatory to a 1972 United Nations treaty monitoring the production and sale of potentially addicting substances. The U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) based in Vienna, monitors the production of legal stimulants worldwide. INCB data shows that in 2009 the U.S., representing 4 percent of the world’s population, produced 88 percent of the world’s legal Ritalin type drugs. Canada uses a third per capita of prescription stimulants compared to the U.S. — Germany, one eighth, the U.K. one twelfth, Japan, one fiftieth.

Read the rest of the article here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-diller/overuse-of-prescription-drugs_b_950802.html

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Would Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn be diagnosed mentally ill and drugged?

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Natural News – September 1, 2011

by Monica G. Young

Imagine if the beloved young characters in Mark Twain’s classic, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” lived today. Based on current psychiatric criteria, Tom and Huck could be designated mentally ill and prescribed mind-altering drugs. Quiet, listless and numb, their legendary adventures would be over.

Describing a day in school, Twain wrote: “The harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas wandered.” His “heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time.” That’s a text book so-called symptom of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). A teacher today could refer him to a psychiatrist who would dope him with stimulants. Yet like any typical boy, Tom had no trouble focusing attention on something he found interesting – like finding a hidden treasure.

Tom’s friend Huckleberry might fare worse. An avowed non-conformist, a psychiatric checklist could tag him with ODD – oppositional defiant disorder. And having run away from an abusive father, Huck would land in the hands of Child Protective Services who would sedate him on psychoactive drugs subsidized by government funds.

Although no brain scan, blood test or x-ray had been done, the psych doctors would claim the boys’ mental illness stemmed from a neurobiological disorder involving chemical imbalances in the brain, probably hereditary.

Tom and Huck would likely experience insomnia, stomach aches, high blood pressure, stunted growth or some other “side” effects, and more drugs would be added to treat these. They would start feeling despondent and have mood swings, leading to probable depression or bipolar disorder diagnoses and more drug cocktails. The once spirited youths might end up as life-long pharmaceutical junkies.

Psychiatry revealed as an industry of fakers

Recently Harvard-trained psychiatrist Daniel Carlat exposed psychiatry as essentially a field of imposters. His book, “Unhinged; the Trouble with Psychiatry – a Doctor’s Revelations about a Profession in Crisis,” reads much like a confession – and rightly so.

Despite all their years in medical school, psychiatrists do not use any medical tests in diagnosing. Instead their labels are entirely subjective, opinionated and based upon a manual of disorders voted into existence by a psychiatric committee.

Yet these “experts” have transformed boyhood into “ADHD,” shyness into “social anxiety disorder” and menstrual discomfort into “premenstrual dysphoric disorder.” Some toddlers are labeled before given a chance to learn to talk.

Carlat states, “Psychiatrists have cordoned off the most painful versions of normal life, defined them as syndromes, and have given them medical-sounding names.” Yes, there are people who suffer from severe mental disturbances, but he says it’s “an illusion that we understand our patients when all we are doing is assigning them labels.”

Where is the science in all this? He writes, “While the scientific literature contains thousands of papers proposing neurobiological theories to explain PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder], depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders, these theories remain unproven…” And he confides, “the shocking truth is that psychiatry has yet to develop a convincing explanation for the pathophysiology of any illness at all.”

In regards the chemical imbalance rant, Carlat says this is nothing more than a “convenient myth” so psychiatrists can appear authoritative and avoid looking ignorant with their patients.

This is an industry riveted to drugs, drugs and more drugs. Forget really listening to and understanding a patient’s troubles in life. Now it’s all about lucrative fifteen-minute monthly med checks – about as personal as Wendy’s drive-through.

Pharmaceutical industry influence has vast bearing on what medications psychiatrists use and how often. Carlat admits, “We have been seduced by the constant encouragement from drug companies to prescribe more medications…” Such seduction ranges from a drug rep bringing a doctor his favorite drink from Starbucks, to companies paying him up to a million or more to be their marketing mouthpiece.

Psycho-Pharma’s drug obsession diverts society’s attention off non-harmful solutions like teaching life skills, improving education, better nutrition and exercise, and addressing environmental factors.

In short, for all their diplomas, chic offices, puffed-up terminology and high fees, this is a field where greed and deception replace ethics and scientific methodology. Fortunately some like Daniel Carlat are blowing the whistle.

Most unforgivable is the dispensing of labels and drugs to millions of children. The leading gurus of this campaign have been psychiatrists deep in the pockets of Big Pharma, such as the exalted Dr. Joseph Biederman – flanked by an army of Pharma-paid “advocacy” groups.

Perhaps we should ourselves vote on labels to categorize such mentally-depraved individuals, such as conscience deficit hyper-lying disorder (CDHD) or better yet, false representation and underhandedness disorder (FRAUD).

Sources for this article include:

“The book, “Unhinged; the Trouble with Psychiatry – a Doctor’s Revelations about a Profession in Crisis,” by Daniel J. Carlat, M.D.

http://speedupsitstill.com/dangerou…

http://www.thefix.com/content/jj-su…

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DSM 5 Will Further Inflate The ADD Bubble

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Psychology Today
by Allen Frances, Former Chairman, DSM Task Force

Video: ADHD Labeling Normal Kids "Mentally Ill"

The Child Work Group Fails Again To Learn From Its Experience

Martin Whiteley is an MP who represents Perth in the Australian parliament. He has been actively involved in mental health issues and succeeded in a crusade to curb what had been Perth’s alarming overdiagnosis and overmedication of  Attention Deficit Disorder Disorder (ADD). Mr Whiteley has become expert in the intricacies of ADD and is alarmed that the changes suggested for DSM 5 will greatly exacerbate the ADD fad he worked so hard to tame. Read Mr Whiteley’s careful item by item review and you will be alarmed too:

http://speedupsitstill.com/dsm-5-proposal-adhd-%e2%80%93-making-l…

We are already in the midst of a false epidemic of ADD. Rates in kids that were 3-5% when DSM IV was published in 1994 have now jumped to 10%. In part this came from changes in DSM IV, but most of the inflation was caused by a marketing blitz to practitioners that accompanied new on-patent drugs amplified by new regulations that also allowed direct to consumer advertising to parents and teachers. In a sensible world, DSM 5 would now offer much tighter criteria for ADD and much clearer advice on the steps needed in its differential diagnosis. This would push back ,however feebly, against the skilled and well financed drug company sell. DSM 5 should work hard to improve its text, not play carelessly with the ADD criteria in a way that may unleash a whole set of dreadful unintended consequences- unneeded medication, stigma, lowered expectations, misallocation of resources, and contribution to the illegal secondary market peddling stimulants for recreation or performance enhancement.

The DSM 5 child and adolescent work group has perversely gone just the other way. It proposes to make an already far too easy diagnosis much looser.

How puzzling and troubling. Child mental health has already promoted no fewer than three false epidemics in just 15 years- ADD, childhood bipolar, and autism. Any reasonable group would now be learning from this past experience. For the future, it would be chastened, cautious, and eager to correct the damage it has done- rather than embarking on any reckless new adventures. A prudent DSM 5 would tighten its criteria for ADD and put in a black box warning against the blatant current off-the-DSM-label diagnosis of childhood bipolar. DSM 5 instead does everything wrong it possibly could with ADD and then remarkably takes the mischievous further step of adding yet another new candidate for diagnostic fad (Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder) likely that will increase the already scandalous overprescription of dangerous antipsychotic medication to children. Go figure.

In many circles, the accepted wisdom is that DSM 5 workers are making such unaccountably bad decisions because they want to promote drug sales to kids. To support this accusation, cynics raise the Biederman affair and also APA’s previous excessive financial support from Pharma.

This is one time when the cynics are dead wrong. The DSM 5 work group is making simply disastrous decisions for the purist of reasons. These are not people with close industry ties and their conflict of interest is intellectual, not financial. Experts in child psychiatry are dangerously naïve about the likely misuses of their well meaning suggestions. They are blind, not corrupt.

What is needed is outside supervision to curb child psychiatry’s seemingly endless taste for diagnostic excess. And APA should also realize the grave harm done to its credibility by the appearance that DSM 5 is far too Pharma friendly even if this has not been the real motivation behind the bad DSM 5 proposals.

To make matters worse, the DSM 5 field trial will be completely worthless- providing no information at all about the magnitude of the rate increase in ADD that will occur once DSM 5 opens the floodgates even wider. We did careful field trials before DSM IV to compare the impact on rates of the different possible definitions and predicted a 15% increase for the one finally chosen. Instead, the rates more than doubled- courtesy of pressure from the drug companies. For obscure reasons, DSM 5 is conducting extraordinarily expensive field trials that (again perversely) avoid the only question that really counts- just how high will the rates skyrocket under the even easier to meet new DSM 5 definition.

DSM 5 will be flying completely blind into dangerous territory, unimpeded by adult supervision. The leaders of child psychiatry (who already have the unfortunate track record of producing fads) will now be given a free pass to further feed their blossoming ADD fad. Will they never learn from past mistakes?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201108/dsm-5-will-further-inflate-the-add-bubble

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Psychiatric disease labeling of children exposed as scam by non-profit group

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

NaturalNews – July 26, 2011

by Bella Muse

Child drugging has been a huge profitable market for Big Pharma, earning them $4.8 billion dollars a year. They have done everything in their power to convince the press, legislators and especially parents why children need to be put on drugs.

They claim that ADD/ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, etc., are medical conditions, and consider them on par with cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. But in reality there is no actual evidence that proves that psychiatric disorders are indeed medical conditions. They simply diagnose a child by using a behavioral checklist.

There are 20 million children in the United States who have been diagnosed with some kind of psychiatric disorder and drugged for it. It’s practically an epidemic. Innocent children are being turned into patients for simply acting like kids.

Not to mention that all those who are licensed by the government who can “legally” prescribe drugs are paid huge amounts of money by the pharmaceutical industry to write prescriptions of their drugs. But has anyone considered the side effects that these drugs have on children?

In 2001, Matthew Smith, 14, was skateboarding with his cousins when he collapsed and started turning blue. By the time the paramedics arrived Matthew couldn’t be revived and suffered a heart attack.

According to Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the cause was Ritalin. Matthew Smith was only six years old when his parents followed the school social worker’s advice and placed him on Ritalin. She claimed Matthew had “ants in his pants” and wouldn’t sit still. After the autopsy, Matthew’s heart showed the same signs of vessel damage that are caused by amphetamines and cocaine.

Ritalin is a methylphenidate, and classified as a Schedule II drug. The DEA reserves it as one of the most dangerous and addictive drugs allowed to be legally prescribed. Some of the serious known side effects are heart palpitations, heart attacks, and cardiac arrhythmia. Why in the world would they prescribe this to children?

What is being done to these kids is truly child abuse. If children are not running around, being loud and constantly playing, then I’d be concerned. Forcing them to sit still and act like adults is unrealistic and cruel.

There’s so much that we can learn from our children if we stop and observe them. They are always in the moment. All they require is patience, understanding, and love. Not drugs.

Online resources:

The Fraudulent Nature of Psychiatric Labels Exposed by Human Rights Group

www.cchrint.org/2011/04/25/the-frau…

www.feingold.org/Research/ritalin.html

www.myhealthtoday.com

www.ritalindeath.com

www.chaada.com

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Interview with “Psychiatryland” Author, Phillip Sinaikin, MD

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Scoop News – July 25, 20011

By Martha Rosenberg

"Psychiatry mimics science but is not a real science. The symptoms it treats are subjective and have not been demonstrated and cannot be demonstrated at the cellular level."

Phillip Sinaikin, MD, is a Florida psychiatrist who has been in practice for 25 years. His new book focuses on excesses and industry influence in the field of psychiatry.

Rosenberg: Your new book, Psychiatryland, traces how deception, conflicts of interest, medical enabling and direct-to-consumer advertising have resulted in millions being on psychiatric drugs they don’t need. One patient you describe has legitimate mourning and grief work to do after his wife leaves him for his own cousin. But his grief is pathologized into “bipolar disorder” by the system, including his own mother.

 Sinaikin: By the time I saw this patient, he was on Wellbutrin and another antidepressant, the mood stabilizers Eskaltih and Keppra, the antipyschotic Abilify, the tranquilizer Klonopin and Adderall for ADD. Calling grief a psychiatric disorder deflates and dishonors the spiritual dimension of loss and grief and the sadness which is a marker of the lost love. By the time this patient came under my care (three years after the loss of his wife) his “case” had become such a jumbled, incomprehensible and irrational mess of overdiagnosis and overmedication that the only word I can use to describe it is CRIMINAL.

Rosenberg: Can you explain the popularity of such drug cocktails? The drugs haven’t been tested together so the patient is a guinea pig. And their total cost can exceed $1000 per month, often shuttled onto taxpayers because the people are considered disabled under federal entitlement programs.

Sinaikin: Psychiatry mimics science but is not a real science. The symptoms it treats are subjective and have not been demonstrated and cannot be demonstrated at the cellular level. That gives psychiatrists free reign to just experiment and symptom chase, often insanely chasing the side effects and negative interactions of the current drug regimen with more and more drugs. Polypharmacy is also a way psychiatrists can distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive market. No one believes you need a specialist for one drug — any primary care physician can give you Zoloft — but for multi-drug therapy you do. If you don’t write a prescription as a psychiatrist, you won’t work these days. It is like being a pacifist and having no choice but working in a bullet factory.

Rosenberg: A lot of this trial-and error polypharmacy is buttressed by the concept of “treatment resistance” and “Prozac poop-out.”

Sinaikin: I write in the book that an antidepressant not working anymore is no different than getting used to anything that used to thrill us. We buy our dream house with two bedrooms and a garage and after a while it doesn’t make us happy anymore and we are eyeing the house with three bedrooms and a pool. Another example, of course, is falling in and out of love.

Rosenberg: You document in Psychiatryland the creation of new diseases to sell drugs including adults now diagnosed with childhood disorders like ADD and children with adult disorders like bipolar and depression.

Sinaikin: One scientific article I read about the new childhood disorders sounds like a satire. Two well-respected “thought leaders” in psychiatry were debating the underlying pathology of a three-year-old girl who ran out in traffic. The first doctor believed her dangerous behavior was indicative of an Oppositional-Defiant disorder. The other doctor argued her impulsive act represented grandiose delusions where this girl believed she was special and cars could not harm her. She was, therefore, bipolar.

Rosenberg: Another shocker in your book is how everyday drug and alcohol addicts were recast as having psychiatric conditions for money.

Sinaikin: The insurance companies told the rehabs they would no longer pay for inpatient rehab for heroin, cocaine or alcohol unless there was also another Axis 1 psychiatric disorder like bipolar disorder or major depression. I was working in a drug treatment facility when the change happened. Since addicts typically complain of anxiety and depression, a completely understandable emotional response to their toxic lifestyles, it was “no problem” to add a new label and throw a few psychiatric drugs at their now relabeled “dual diagnosis.” Of course the central tenet of recovery, taking personal responsibility, was buried by the new victim narrative of self-medicating a previously undiagnosed mental illness.

Rosenberg: Treating addiction with psychiatric drugs before or instead of seeking a higher power is antithetical to the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sinaikin: As I say throughout my book, human beings are indescribably complex. There are times when the dual-diagnosis concept is necessary and helpful but clearly not applicable to 100% of the cases of addiction as it is now applied. I believe that the 12 Step model is an ideal model of recovery. Patients can have the help whenever they are truly ready, not just when someone decides to foist it on them. Most importantly, the addicts helping other addicts are doing it to facilitate their own recovery and not for ulterior motives such as money. Amazingly, in a world gone profit crazy 12 Step recovery programs are still free. I conceptualize the 12 Steps as a distillation of the spiritual principles world’s great religions but no one is forced to believe in anything including God.

Rosenberg: Given conflicts of interest at the American Psychiatric Association, which drives psychiatric diagnoses, in the FDA drug approval process itself and the legions of doctors willing to huckster for pharma as thought leaders or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), do you see any hope of rescuing people from Psychiatryland?

Sinaikin: The system is unbelievably bad and even worse than it looks. But, I think a goal that could be achieved would be a repeal of direct-to-consumer advertising. Patients now come into my office asking me if they have ADD or bipolar disorder or if they can have Cymbalta. When I began practicing psychiatry, long before direct-to-consumer advertising, this would never have happened.

Psychiatryland

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“How do I get off all the depression drugs?” We asked an expert

Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Foodconsumer.org
By Martha Rosenberg

Phillip Sinaikin, MD, is a Florida psychiatrist who has been in practice for 25 years. Author of “Get Smart About Weight Control” and co-author of “Fat Madness: How to Stop the Diet Cycle and Achieve Permanent Well-Being,” his new book focuses on excesses and industry influence in the field of psychiatry.

Rosenberg: Your new book, Psychiatryland, traces how deception, conflicts of interest, medical enabling and direct-to-consumer advertising have resulted in millions being on psychiatric drugs they don’t need. One patient you describe has legitimate mourning and grief work to do after his wife leaves him for his own cousin. But his grief is pathologized into “bipolar disorder” by the system, including his own mother.

Sinaikin: By the time I saw this patient, he was on Wellbutrin and another antidepressant, the mood stabilizers Eskaltih and Keppra, the antipyschotic Abilify, the tranquilizer Klonopin and Adderall for ADD. Calling grief a psychiatric disorder deflates and dishonors the spiritual dimension of loss and grief and the sadness which is a marker of the lost love. By the time this patient came under my care (three years after the loss of his wife) his “case” had become such a jumbled, incomprehensible and irrational mess of overdiagnosis and overmedication that the only word I can use to describe it is CRIMINAL.

Rosenberg: Can you explain the popularity of such drug cocktails? The drugs haven’t been tested together so the patient is a guinea pig. And their total cost can exceed $1000 per month, often shuttled onto taxpayers because the people are considered disabled under federal entitlement programs.

Sinaikin: Psychiatry mimics science but is not a real science. The symptoms it treats are subjective and have not been demonstrated and cannot be demonstrated at the cellular level. That gives psychiatrists free reign to just experiment and symptom chase, often insanely chasing the side effects and negative interactions of the current drug regimen with more and more drugs. Polypharmacy is also a way psychiatrists can distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive market. No one believes you need a specialist for one drug — any primary care physician can give you Zoloft — but for multi-drug therapy you do. If you don’t write a prescription as a psychiatrist, you won’t work these days. It is like being a pacifist and having no choice but working in a bullet factory.

Rosenberg: A lot of this trial-and error polypharmacy is buttressed by the concept of “treatment resistance” and “Prozac poop-out.”

Sinaikin: I write in the book that an antidepressant not working anymore is no different than getting used to anything that used to thrill us. We buy our dream house with two bedrooms and a garage and after a while it doesn’t make us happy anymore and we are eyeing the house with three bedrooms and a pool. Another example, of course, is falling in and out of love.

Rosenberg: You document in Psychiatryland the creation of new diseases to sell drugs including adults now diagnosed with childhood disorders like ADD and children with adult disorders like bipolar and depression.

Sinaikin: One scientific article I read about the new childhood disorders sounds like a satire. Two well-respected “thought leaders” in psychiatry were debating the underlying pathology of a three-year-old girl who ran out in traffic. The first doctor believed her dangerous behavior was indicative of an Oppositional-Defiant disorder. The other doctor argued her impulsive act represented grandiose delusions where this girl believed she was special and cars could not harm her. She was, therefore, bipolar.

Rosenberg: Another shocker in your book is how everyday drug and alcohol addicts were recast as having psychiatric conditions for money.

Sinaikin: The insurance companies told the rehabs they would no longer pay for inpatient rehab for heroin, cocaine or alcohol unless there was also another Axis 1 psychiatric disorder like bipolar disorder or major depression. I was working in a drug treatment facility when the change happened. Since addicts typically complain of anxiety and depression, a completely understandable emotional response to their toxic lifestyles, it was “no problem” to add a new label and throw a few psychiatric drugs at their now relabeled “dual diagnosis.”  Of course the central tenet of recovery, taking personal responsibility, was buried by the new victim narrative of self-medicating a previously undiagnosed mental illness.

Rosenberg: Treating addiction with psychiatric drugs before or instead of seeking a higher power is antithetical to the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sinaikin: As I say throughout my book, human beings are indescribably complex. There are times when the dual-diagnosis concept is necessary and helpful but clearly not applicable to 100% of the cases of addiction as it is now applied. I believe that the 12 Step model is an ideal model of recovery. Patients can have the help whenever they are truly ready, not just when someone decides to foist it on them. Most importantly, the addicts helping other addicts are doing it to facilitate their own recovery and not for ulterior motives such as money. Amazingly, in a world gone profit crazy 12 Step recovery programs are still free. I conceptualize the 12 Steps as a distillation of the spiritual principles world’s great religions but no one is forced to believe in anything including God.

Rosenberg: Given conflicts of interest at the American Psychiatric Association, which drives psychiatric diagnoses, in the FDA drug approval process itself and the legions of doctors willing to huckster for pharma as thought leaders or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), do you see any hope of rescuing people from Psychiatryland?

Sinaikin: The system is unbelievably bad and even worse than it looks. But, I think a goal that could be achieved would be a repeal of direct-to-consumer advertising. Patients now come into my office asking me if they have ADD or bipolar disorder or if they can have Cymbalta. When I began practicing psychiatry, long before direct-to-consumer advertising, this would never have happened.

Psychiatryland

Author: Phillip Sinaikin, MD
978-1-4502-5290-4 (pbk),
978-1-4502-5289-8 (cloth)
978-1-4502-5288-1 (ebk)

Publisher: I Universe
Published Year: 2010
available online at
Amazon and Barnes & Noble

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Shopping/Books/depression_drugs_0629110547.html

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Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness?

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

PrisonPlanet.com

Off the Grid
Oct 14, 2010

Is nonconformity and freethinking a mental illness?  According to the newest addition of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), it certainly is.  The manual identifies a new mental illness called “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD.  Defined as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,” symptoms include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.

The DSM-IV is the manual used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental illnesses and, with each new edition, there are scores of new mental illnesses.  Are we becoming sicker?  Is it getting harder to be mentally healthy?  Authors of the DSM-IV say that it’s because they’re better able to identify these illnesses today.  Critics charge that it’s because they have too much time on their hands.

New mental illnesses identified by the DSM-IV include arrogance, narcissism, above-average creativity, cynicism, and antisocial behavior.  In the past, these were called “personality traits,” but now they’re diseases.

And there are treatments available.

All of this is a symptom of our over-diagnosing and overmedicating culture.  In the last 50 years, the DSM-IV has gone from 130 to 357 mental illnesses.  A majority of these illnesses afflict children.  Although the manual is an important diagnostic tool for the psychiatric industry, it has also been responsible for social changes.  The rise in ADD, bipolar disorder, and depression in children has been largely because of the manual’s identifying certain behaviors as symptoms.  A Washington Post article observed that, if Mozart were born today, he would be diagnosed with ADD and “medicated into barren normality.”

According to the DSM-IV, the diagnosis guidelines for identifying oppositional defiant disorder are for children, but adults can just as easily suffer from the disease.  This should give any freethinking American reason for worry.

The Soviet Union used new “mental illnesses” for political repression.  People who didn’t accept the beliefs of the Communist Party developed a new type of schizophrenia.  They suffered from the delusion of believing communism was wrong.  They were isolated, forcefully medicated, and put through repressive “therapy” to bring them back to sanity.

When the last edition of the DSM-IV was published, identifying the symptoms of various mental illnesses in children, there was a jump in the diagnosis and medication of children.  Some states have laws that allow protective agencies to forcibly medicate, and even make it a punishable crime to withhold medication.  This paints a chilling picture for those of us who are nonconformists.

Although the authors of the manual claim no ulterior motives but simply better diagnostic practices, the labeling of freethinking and nonconformity as mental illnesses has a lot of potential for abuse.  It can easily become a weapon in the arsenal of a repressive state.

Read the article here:  http://www.prisonplanet.com/is-free-thinking-a-mental-illness.html

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ADHD: Has this diagnostic fad run its course?

Friday, August 20th, 2010

“On a societal level, we take responsibility for the fact that the diagnostic labels we have accepted, and pharmacological interventions we have embraced, are harming children and that we have no right to ask children to bear those harms. On a personal level, we place the difficulties of childhood within the context of the life of each child, and within the nature of childhood itself. We make a commitment to helping children be their best selves, and above all, we do the best we can to make sure that we never use our positions of authority to harm anyone.” — Professor Stephen R. Herr

The Christian Science Monitor

August 20, 2010

The idea of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a credible diagnostic term has passed and it is time that we accept that and move on. Fads and disappointments are not new to the field of psychology nor is the need for people to get beyond them.

Phrenology,  hysteria, eugenics, compulsory sterilizations, shock therapy, and Thalidomide all at one time had some grounding in hope and reason. For awhile, each of them captured the imagination, but over time each led to more pain than good, and for that reason they all got left behind.

Like diagnostic fads before it, ADHD has been in many ways a disorder of its time.

Previous diagnostic fads

Hysteria found expression in a Victorian-era society that vigorously attempted to constrain the lives of women. The eugenics movement addressed societal concerns of the early 20th century relating to burgeoning minority populations.

ADHD became a popular diagnosis in the 1980s as more parents went to work and the role of schools and teachers changed. If we look at the history of our culture and the ailments that have plagued it, is not difficult to see why people in positions of authority told women that they were weak, minorities that they were feeble-minded, and children that they had a psychological disorder: It was easier for them than addressing the difficult conditions that women, minorities, and children faced.

At one time, ADHD appeared to be a reasonable theory that might help people address genuine concerns.  Raising children can be hard,  especially when adults are tired, frustrated, overwhelmed, and riddled with self-doubt. Beyond that, children can be annoying; They fidget, they interrupt, they don’t pay attention, and they don’t always do what they are told.

The behaviors of children and the difficulties of adults often lead to guilt, worry, and a sense of wrong that concerned adults feel a responsibility to address. The creation of ADHD as a psychological disorder was in part an attempt to deal with some of the difficulties of raising children. Unfortunately, that attempt has fallen short and led to new problems in recent years.

On a diagnostic level, ADHD is problematic. After generations of research, there is still no test for ADHD, nor is there a standard diagnostic measure within the profession.

A huge – and lucrative – market

What started out as a theory articulated by professionals is now an urban legend. Parents, teachers, talk show hosts, friends, neighbors and even the person you’re standing next to in the grocery store each believe that they can diagnose and treat ADHD. This superfluity of focused misinformation has helped fuel a pharmacological intervention that would have seemed absurd two generations ago. As of 2006, 4.5 million kids have been diagnosed with ADHD, with nearly half taking medication. In 2008, the ADHD pharmaceutical market was worth $4 billion.

Another problem with our fixation on ADHD is that it is not working. Again, even after generations of research there is no evidence that suggests placing children on Schedule II drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, or Vyvanse improves their intellectual abilities over an extended period, or that these drugs affect children with ADHD any differently than they affect any other child. A stimulant is a stimulant is a stimulant. What we do know is that the use of these drugs can be debilitating, addictive, and deadly.

And just this week, a Michigan State University study found that nearly one million children in America are potentially misdiagnosed with ADHD – in large part because they were the youngest and least mature in their kindergarten classes.

Maybe the greatest problem regarding ADHD as a diagnostic label is that our faith in that label has distracted us and kept us from looking for the better understandings we should be seeking. Stress and sleeplessness lead to inattention. Frustration leads to anger and rebellion. Depression leads to indifference and a lack of enthusiasm.

Probably one of the best ways to make sense of children and the rise of ADHD is for adults to focus on some basic questions. Don’t most adults become distracted when they are tired? Don’t most adults become fidgety when they are bored? Don’t most adults lose interest in their work when they don’t see any significance in what they are doing? And when adults wrestle with concerns relating to stress, sleeplessness, frustration, and depression, aren’t the responses often “get some rest,” “exercise” “start eating better,” and “try finding something you’re interested in”?

As adults, aren’t some of our most meaningful discussions about how to live a meaningful life? If that’s the case for adults, why don’t we put more emphasis on these sorts of answers for children? Wouldn’t more rest, better meals, more exercise, and a greater focus on helping children understand their interests serve most children well?

Read the rest of this article here:  http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0819/ADHD-Has-this-diagnostic-fad-run-its-course

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