For the first time in criminal history, a murder was attributed to an anti-depressant drug. (Photo Credit -The Daily Telegraph)

Perth Now – December 21, 2011

FIRST it was ADHD drugs, then organ donation, now WA Labor MP Martin Whitely is hoping to get some action on the fatal risks of antidepressant drugs, such as Prozac, to children.

Anti-depressant manufacturers warn that products such as Prozac should not be given to children, because of the potentially tragic consequences, but they are prescribed every day to Australian kids.

Some anti-depressants, prescribed to help lift people out of a depressive state, actually have the opposite effect and make things worse.

This is what happened, with fatal results, in the case of a 16-year-old boy in Canada who stabbed a friend to death.

For the first time in criminal history, a murder was attributed to an anti-depressant drug.

In the finding, handed down on the 16th of September 2011, a Canadian Judge said a 16-year-old boy, who stabbed his brother’s friend in the stomach, would not have committed the offence had he not been treated with the drug Prozac (a brand of Fluoxetine).

The judge accepted the evidence of psychiatrist, Dr Peter Breggin, who told the court the boy’s symptoms were consistent with a Prozac-Induced Mood Disorder with Manic Features.

In delivering his decision the judge stated, “his basic normalcy now further confirms he no longer poses a risk of violence to anyone and that his mental deterioration and resulting violence would not have taken place without exposure to Prozac”.

The boy, who had no history of violence, had been taking Prozac for three months, during which his parents observed a marked deterioration in his behaviour and mood, which included acts of violence and self-harm where previously no such signs existed.

His alarmed parents returned to his doctor for advice, but instead of taking him off Prozac or reducing his dosage, his doctor increased the dose, obviously believing more of what appeared to be causing these dangerous behaviours, would solve the problem.

Fluoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and is approved for use in Australia for the treatment of depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

However, it is routinely prescribed ‘off label’ for a range of other conditions including panic and eating disorders.

Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing figures revealed that in the 2008 financial year, 110,848 Australians received Fluoxetine scripts that were subsidised via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Concerns about possible aggression and manic side effects of Prozac were first raised in Australia in the New South Wales parliament in 1995, just five years after the release of the drug in Australia.

Since 2007, the US Food and Drug Administration has labelled SSRI antidepressants including Prozac with the highest possible ‘black box’ warning stating:

“All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases. The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and non-psychiatric.”

The US Black Box warning was followed by similar warnings in Australia. The evidence that led to these warnings came from, ‘pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlled trials of anti-depressant drugs (SSRIs and others)’ which ‘showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents [by 100%], and young adults ages 18-24 (by 50 per cent) with major depressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders.’ The fact that SSRI antidepressants like Prozac are supposed to manage severe depression in young people but increase the risk of suicidality poses obvious questions.

Over a 10 year period, up until 30 June 2011, more than 40 adverse events of self-harm and violence, including suicides, homicides and suicidal or homicidal ideation, for Fluoxetine were reported to the Australian Therapeutic Drugs Administration (examples are listed below).

Hundreds of reports were recorded by the TGA for other antidepressants however, it is impossible to know the true number of actual events, as the voluntary nature of the reporting system means only a fraction of actual incidents gets reported.

Despite the fact that the manufacturers advise that Prozac and other SSRI antidepressants are ‘not recommended for use in children and adolescents under 18 years of age’ they are frequently prescribed ‘off label’ to even very young children.

Data provided by the Commonwealth Department of Health revealed that in the 2007-8 financial year 3,752 Australian children 15-years-old or younger (863 were 10 or younger, 117 were six or younger) were prescribed Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme-funded Fluoxetine.

Furthermore all the expense and risks of adverse side effects may be for little or no benefit. The efficacy of antidepressants are being questioned – with some high profile, mainstream critics, arguing that placebos are just as effective and much safer in treating moderate depression.

One such critic, Marcia Angell, MD, Senior Lecturer on Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Editor-in-Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, contends; ‘that clinical trials have failed to find antidepressants effective at all in mild to moderate depression; that many psychiatric drugs have devastating adverse effects, especially in children and when used long-term; and that despite the risks and uncertain benefits, use of psychiatric drugs is soaring and the heavy reliance on drugs diverts resources better spent on improving treatment’.

In summary, taxpayers are subsidising the ‘off label’ use by children and adolescents of antidepressants, with questionable efficacy, that double their risk of suicidality. This invites some obvious questions: Is this the best way to spend our taxes? And more importantly, is this the best way to help troubled young people?

* A sample from the Adverse Drug Reactions Committee (ADRAC) adverse event reports for Fluoxetine Hydrochloride:

• A 54 year old woman attempted suicide. She was also suffering from mania and a confusional state.

• A 36 year old woman “attempted suicide”.

• A 36 year old woman was admitted to intensive care in a coma following a suicide attempt.

• A 51 year old woman “had sudden urge to murder someone”.

• A 37 year old woman was admitted to a psychiatric hospital suffering from “suicidal ideation, nausea, trembling, feelings of despair, anxiety, paranoia and fear”.

• A 16 year old boy suffering from agitation and auditory hallucinations heard voices “telling him to kill his mother, father, sister and himself”.

• A 45 year old man “became obsessively suicidal and cut his throat” 3/7 days after Prozac was stopped.

• A 17 year old girl “became manic half an hour after commencing antidepressant.”

• A 40 year old patient “experienced trembling, cramps, heard voices and had suicidal ideation.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “homicidal and suicidal ideation.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age attempted suicide after experiencing suicidal ideation.

• A 44 year old patient “experienced akathisia, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal violence” and “aggression.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal ideation.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal ideation and “suicide attempt.”

• A 50 year old patient experienced “suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and akathisia.”

• A 37 year old patient attempted suicide.

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age made a suicide attempt and was violent.

• A 16 year old girl “attempted to hang herself with television cord from curtain rail in hospital bedroom. Nurse said she found her at the last moment.”

• A 16year old girl “ingested 40 Panadol tablets. Also frequent self-harming.”

• A 16 year old girl “attempted suicide by ingestion of 80 Panadol, 20 Panadeine, 7 Olanzapine.”

• A 29 year old patient “developed acute suicidal akathisia” and made a suicide attempt.

• A 73 year old patient “experienced homicidal ideation and made a suicide attempt.”

• A 60 year old woman “experienced suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and homicidal ideation – she attempted to kill her parents.”

• A 69 year old patient “experienced suicidal ideation and was very anxious.”

• A 16 year old girl attempted to “strangle herself with and IPod cord in the bathroom of the hospital. Agitation. She ran around crying and banging her fists of the walls and windows begging to be let out. … it lasted about 10 minutes before I could settle her.”

• A patient of unrecorded gender and age “took a fistful of sleeping pills.”

• A 35 year old patient “murdered his wife whilst on Prozac. He had also experienced suicidal thoughts.”

• A female patient of unrecorded age “became seriously depressed, complained of headaches, and clenching jaw, was unable to sleep and started to self-harm. She began to have suicidal thoughts, was hyperventilating, agoraphobic, had five suicide attempts, was confused, tearful, phobic, aggressive, experienced akathisia and suspected serotonin syndrome. She experienced weird dreams, was impulsive, light headed, had numbness and tingling limbs and committed suicide by hanging on 11 September 2000 on the second attempt.”

• A 50 year old woman “became more depressed whilst taking Prozac. She wanted to throw herself off a train or bus, had difficulty sleeping, was pacing and restless, had voice hallucinations, would look in the mirror and see a different person, had murderous thoughts, stiff legs, was hot a lot, felt she was in a delirium, could not concentrate, was angry, had numbness in her hands and pins and needles a lot in her body.”

• A 19 year old male “had thoughts about killing himself which made him violent, tried to hit someone else, tried to hit a security guard with feelings of killing and tried to do physical damage. Tried to hurt himself and had thoughts of hurting other people. He was walking faster than normal. Experienced aggression, insomnia and was feeling high on Prozac. Also felt anxious and put on more than 20kg.”

• A male of unreported age “experienced severe depression, cognitive impairment and was acutely suicidal.”

• A 16 year old girl was “cutting herself, throwing herself against the walls while an inpatient”. She “intentionally overdosed on Fluroxetine” and “developed severe levels of aggression and violence.”

• A 14 year old boy experienced “suicidal ideation.”

• A female of unreported age “experienced suicidal ideation”.

• A 16 year old girl experienced “excessive bleeding, psychosis, high blood pressure, severe diarrhea, sweating, tremors, violent, aggressive and suicidal behavior, serotonin syndrome.”

• A 14 year old male experienced “severely increased suicidal ideation in two days with high level of intent and plan to jump in front of train. Previously no suicidal ideation and settled spontaneously within four days of ceasing Fluoxetine”.

• A female patient experienced a “sudden and marked increase in hostility and verbal abuse of others and describes intrusive suicidal ideation. Seems agitated and restless”.

• A 32 year old woman experienced “audio hallucinations, bright and blurred vision, made everything sound louder, constipation, increased suicidal thoughts and increased anxiety”

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/prozac-is-now-a-defence-for-murder/story-e6frg13u-1226227796937

Note from CCHR International:  CCHR is the only organization to have decrypted the US FDAs Medwatch reports on adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs and compiled them in an easy to search database.    This database is provided here http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/medwatch_psych_drug_adverse_reactions.php

CCHR has also compiled all international drug warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs here http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

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PR Newswire – December 21, 2011

(Click image for international warnings on antipsychotic drugs) The "dear doctor" letter, sent to more than 7,000 doctors across South Carolina, and the package insert were found to be misleading about the safety and effectiveness of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal.

The jury verdict in the case of State of South Carolina versus Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson, Inc. has been upheld and requests for a new trial denied, affirming groundbreaking $327 million in civil penalties against the manufacturers of the drug Risperdal.

Circuit Court Judge Roger Couch announced the rulings on December 20 through two written orders. One order denies the defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial; the second order denies the defendant’s motion to alter or amend the judgment and/or for a new trial. John B. White, Jr. and Donald C. Coggins, Jr. of Harrison, White, Smith & Coggins, P.C., a Spartanburg-based law firm, along with John Simmons of the Simmons Law Firm, a Columbia-based law firm, and Bailey Perrin Bailey, a Texas based law firm represented South Carolina in the case.

“We are obviously very pleased with Judge Couch’s decision and his careful consideration of this matter,” stated John B. White, Jr. one of the attorneys representing the state in the case. “The verdict handed down by the jury is just and speaks the truth. The damages awarded further substantiated the level of deception Janssen used in business practices in our state. Once again, we have sent a clear message to drug companies that deceptive business practices will not be tolerated in South Carolina.”

On March 22, 2011 a jury in the Spartanburg Court of Common Pleas found that New Jersey-based Janssen willfully violated the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act by engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce in the “dear doctor” letter of November 10, 2003 and the drug label (package insert). This decision represents the first jury verdict that finds the defendant violated unfair trade practices since the inception of its pharmaceutical product. The “dear doctor” letter, sent to more than 7,000 doctors across South Carolina, and the package insert were found to be misleading about the safety and effectiveness of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. Risperdal was introduced by Janssen in 1994 and by 2005, generated annual revenues in excess of $3.5 billion.

On June 3, 2011 civil penalties amounting to $327,073,700 were ordered by Circuit Court Judge Roger Couch based upon violations found with the drug labels and “dear doctor” letters. Regarding the drug label violations, the judge ruled that 509,499 package inserts were distributed with sample boxes, and levied $300 per violation for a total drug label awarded damages of $152,849,700. Regarding the “dear doctor” letter violations, the judge ruled that 7,184 letters were mailed and 36,372 were provided during sales calls, and levied $4000 per violation for a total “dear doctor” letter awarded damages of $174,224,000.

The combination of the drug label and letter damages of $327,073,700 amounts to the highest verdict brought against Janssen for the drug Risperdal.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/record-breaking-327-million-verdict-upheld-in-janssen-case-and-request-for-new-trial-denied-2011-12-21

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FiercePharma
By Tracy Staton
September 27, 2011

Off-label use of powerful antipsychotic drugs has come in for plenty of debate in recent years. The expensive, newer-generation “atypicals” have been used to treat dementia, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, dementia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder…the list goes on. And all this while the Justice Department was investigating Big Pharma for off-label promotion of the drugs.

An updated analysis now finds that antipsychotic drugs’ utility in off-label uses is minimal, but the risks are significant, Medscape reports. Several illnesses didn’t respond at all to antipsychotic therapy, the data showed, including eating disorders and addiction problems. The evidence for treatment of personality disorders was a toss-up. Meanwhile, side effects were sometimes severe, including weight gain, metabolic problems, fatigue, urinary tract symptoms and even an increased risk of death, the researchers said.

A few off-label uses won support from the new data. Anxiety patients got moderate benefit from AstraZeneca’s ($AZN) Seroquel, and OCD sufferers were helped by treatment with Johnson & Johnson’s ($JNJ) Risperdal. Elderly patients with dementia saw a small benefit with antipsychotic use.

“We need to use this information and be wary of prescribing when it isn’t warranted,” said Dr. Alicia Ruelaz Maher, lead author of the JAMA-published study. “I think the biggest takeaway is that instead of just prescribing blindly, we now have evidence to guide us.” And, as Maher told Reuters, “Each individual patient needs to be considered as opposed to, ‘This is good for this condition.’”

http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/jama-spotty-results-label-antipsychotic-use/2011-09-28

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• Feds say drug company’s illegal payments to doctors fueled antipsychotic drugs wrongly prescribed to kids (1)

Natural News – September 15, 2011

by M.K. Tyler

(NaturalNews) If you have ever seen a commercial for a pharmaceutical drug, you are probably familiar with the long list of dangerous side effects that are rattled off in the last five seconds of the advertisement, just after viewers are told how Drug “X” is going to save their lives, improve their memories or give them unlimited energy. What was that? Did he just say that pill might cause bleeding out of my eyes?

Drug companies do a great job – and spend a lot of money – to ensure that most consumers aren’t aware of the harmful side effects of common drugs prescribed for conditions like depression, heart disease, arthritis, ADHD or high blood pressure. Unfortunately, the result of this has created a society where the average person with a health problem is captivated by the promises delivered in clever advertising. There is a drug for everything? All I have to do is talk to my doctor? How convenient.

But what if there was a way to take back control of our lives and our health? What if, despite talking to your doctor, you still have questions or concerns about the safety of a drug?

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has a database that allows you to do just that. It’s called the Psychiatric Drug Database, and it allows consumers to research the potential side effects of common psychiatric drugs, such as Ritalin or Wellbutrin.

While the database is limited to psychiatric drugs, this type of public information portal represents a significant step in the right direction to help patients find unbiased information and make informed decisions about their health.

The database allows you to search by drug and will retrieve information about adverse reactions reported by patients who have taken the drug, international warnings and studies that have been done on the drug and what side effects different age groups or genders have experienced. For example, a search of the effects of Ritalin on 18-30 year old women retrieved 89 reported cases of adverse side effects.

These effects including anxiety, fatigue, hypertension, tremors, chest discomfort, nausea, panic attacks, cardiac murmurs, aggression, suicide attempts and completed suicides. The results are broken down by case and list specific symptoms and reactions caused by the drug in each reported case.

Another search of Zoloft and its effects on young children included cases of cerebral disorders, upper respiratory tract infections, sleep disorders, vertigo, hallucinations, psychomotor hyperactivity and suicidal ideation.

The database only includes information on cases that were actually reported to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System between 2004 and 2008. Based on the FDA’s own estimates, only about 1 to 10 percent of adverse drug side effects are even reported to the FDA. The CCHR’s database, therefore, represents only a small margin of the population that has been affected by adverse side effects of pharmaceutical psychiatric drugs.

Visitors to the site will also notice an interesting anecdote that describes how the definition of poison – a substance that causes death or harm when consumed by a living organism – clearly characterizes the drugs listed in the database. Consumers are encouraged to research potential problems of a drug before agreeing with their doctors to start a course of therapy.

To find more information about a particular drug, visit www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers

Sources for this article include

http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdan…

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OpEdNews – July 21, 2011
by Martha Rosenberg

Most people blame direct-to-consumer advertising, especially on TV, for elevating everyday anxiety to depression, depression to bipolar disorder, childhood behavior problems to psychiatric illnesses, lack of sleep to excessive sleepiness, migraines to epilepsy drug deficiencies and old age to hormone deficiencya.

But ghostwriting also helps the national malaise of people suffering from and treating diseases that didn’t even exist before and ballooning government and private health plans costs.

There are 200 US medical education and communication companies (MECCs) who ghostwrite medical journal articles for pharma for $20,000 to $40,000 per article. Companies like Complete Healthcare Communications (CHC) whose phalanx of 50 medical writers, editors and medical directors promise a “84.5 percent acceptance rate for first-time manuscript submissions.”

Ghostwriting was behind the blockbuster Vioxx, withdrawn in 2004 for doubling the risk of heart attacks. “Merck designed the trial, paid for the trial, ran the trial,” Dr. Jeffrey R. Lisse told the New York Times about a Vioxx study he authored in the Annals of Internal Medicine that left out three cardiac deaths. Oops. “Merck came to me after the study was completed and said, ‘We want your help to work on the paper.’ The initial paper was written at Merck, and then it was sent to me for editing.”

Medical journals themselves can make $450,000 off one such ghostwritten article, because pharma orders reprints which reps disseminate as sales pieces (“look, Doc, it says RIGHT HERE”).

Click image to watch Psychiatric Drug Side Effects Video

In 2006, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Dr. Catherine DeAngelis had to apologize for a pharma-tainted article that defended the use of antidepressants during pregnancy and an article linking migraines to coronary risks in women. The doctor authors, it turned out, were getting money from antidepressant and heart medication manufacturers.

But ten months later, JAMA ran a study “designed jointly by the non-Merck investigators and Merck employees” and “supported by contracts with Merck and Co” that extolled the virtues of Fosamax, a Merck bone drug. Three Merck authors on the study disclosed they potentially owned Merck “stock and/or stock options” and the article’s 11 other authors disclosed 40 research grants, consultancies and other financial relationships with drug companies including Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, SmithGlaxoKline, Wyeth (now Pfizer) Novartis, Procter & Gamble and Merck. Since then, the FDA has issued several warnings about Fosamax and other bone drugs.

In 2007, the AMA itself was criticized for playing both sides of the enterprise street and making $50 million a year selling the names, office addresses and practice types of its members to data miners. The AMA’s defense? Doctors could “opt out” of the privacy-invading program if they wanted to.

And then there are pharma’s “unbranded” campaigns designed to look like real public health messages or communications from grassroots groups. Who can forget PR firm Cohn and Wolfe’s faux grassroots group Freedom From Fear to sell Paxil, a pill now linked to birth defects? And the Wyeth (Pfizer) campaign, The Change You Deserve which said, whoever you are, you have depression and need Effexor?   Now, a new unbranded pharma campaign, Depression Is Real, running on radio stations, compares depression to cancer because it kills and diabetes because it doesn’t go away. Kind of like pharma’s huckstering.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Are-You-Taking-Pills-You-D-by-Martha-Rosenberg-110721-870.html?show=votes

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It took the discovery of guns and grenades to suspend the license of a psychiatrist who some say should have come under scrutiny years earlier

Chicago Tribune
By Megan Twohey
February 24, 2011

One night a Crestwood police sergeant doing a routine building check noticed an open door to the office of psychiatrist Joel Carroll. Stepping inside the cluttered office, he discovered roaming cats, a Colt AR-15 assault rifle and other guns, ammunition, military-grade smoke grenades, sex toys, and pornography.

“Well, for the lack of better terminology, we considered it a pigsty,” Sgt. Thomas Kaniewski testified about his April 2009 discovery. “It looked in complete disarray. We couldn’t believe that someone could actually conduct business in an office like that because of the conditions it was in.”

When state regulators determined that Carroll had engaged in sexual misconduct and committed other violations of the state Medical Practice Act, they suspended his license, proclaiming him “a danger to his patients,” according to state records.

But the psychiatrist’s practice could have been shut down years earlier, after the Illinois Department of Corrections in 2007 found that Carroll — as a state contractor — committed inappropriate conduct with a female inmate and barred him from working in a prison, a Tribune investigation showed.

Critics say the case raises questions about a crucial part of the medical disciplinary system.

State agencies, county prosecutors, insurance companies, and health care employers and associations are mandatory reporters — they’re required to report potentially dangerous and unprofessional doctors to medical regulators, who can bar the doctors from practicing and keep patients out of harm’s way.

But the mandatory reporters sound few alarms, and when they do, regulators rarely take action, the Tribune found. There were 348 mandatory reports filed with the state in 2009. That’s out of nearly 46,000 physicians statewide. In only one case did the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation respond by suspending the physician’s license, records show.

Sue Hofer, a department spokeswoman, said it can take longer than a year to discipline a doctor following a mandatory report. She said regulators frequently learn of a dangerous doctor from members of the public before being told about the doctor from a mandatory reporter. If they are already investigating, she said, the regulators don’t make a separate record of the notification.

But in the case of Carroll, the corrections department provided no notification that the psychiatrist had breached security during a visit to the inmate and allegedly made a sexual advance toward her, even though state agencies must report any potential violation of the Medical Practice Act. Carroll’s actions might have amounted to “dishonorable, unethical or unprofessional conduct” — a violation under the act that can lead to suspension — but regulators were robbed of the opportunity to seek disciplinary action, said John Goldberg, a former medical prosecutor.

“The Department of Corrections should have reported, but these agencies hardly ever do,” Goldberg said. “If they had, the regulators could have opened an investigation that at the very least asked: What’s the explanation for your actions against this inmate? What else is this doctor doing?”

Regulators also were not contacted at the time by Wexford Health Sources, the contracting agency that fired him after his administrative lockout from the prison system. Health care employers must report terminating or restricting a doctor’s privileges based on actions that may directly threaten patient care. Elaine Gedman, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh-based company, said that in 2007 the “Department of Corrections did not necessarily disclose their rationale for revoking an employee’s clearance.”

“When we look at this, we realize there are places where dangerous doctors get caught, where they’re identified, but no one reports it, or the state doesn’t take action,” said Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist who has consulted on thousands of medical misconduct cases across the country.

Sharyn Elman, a corrections spokeswoman, said prison officials believe they did not have to report Carroll to regulators because they could confirm only that he breached security during a visit to the female inmate, not that he engaged in sexual misconduct as alleged.

But after police stumbled on the office, regulators received documentation from the Department of Corrections indicating “the doctor had told that inmate that he would take her to Mexico, and hugged her and kissed her,” a medical investigator said during a 2009 disciplinary hearing.

Carroll, who could not be reached for comment, said in the hearing that the inmate made a pass at him, not vice versa.

The psychiatrist maintained his practice while he worked in the prison system from September 2006 to February 2007 and during several months in 2009 while he worked at medical centers for veterans in Danville and Marion.

His personal appearance was concerning to patients and other observers, as was his office, according to testimony.

One former patient said the psychiatrist went shoeless with holes in his socks. A pharmacist questioned whether he was really a doctor.

“He looked messy, unkempt,” the pharmacist testified in a disciplinary hearing. “I was surprised at his appearance. He did not look, to me, like any physician I had ever met before. … He was wearing a T-shirt. It did not appear to be clean. It was very wrinkled. He was unshaven.”

Carroll’s former secretary said the presence of pornography and guns in the office was disturbing.

“The point is, putting myself aside, why does a doctor — a psychiatrist — have guns in the office with psychiatric patients?” she said during a hearing. “That’s the problem.”

When asked about the weapons in his office, Carroll said he collected them for fun and protection. He told authorities he had close to 100 guns stored in the walls of a Skokie home, state records show. Carroll had a firearms license.

The police never arrested Carroll. During the disciplinary hearing, Kaniewski said he did not know whether Carroll’s assault rifle was a type that is illegal for him to own, only that he thought it was cause for concern. (Crestwood police Chief Theresa Neubauer did not respond to written questions or calls seeking comment.)

While law enforcement did not pursue charges against Carroll, state regulators determined that having these weapons at his office amounted to dishonorable, unethical or unprofessional conduct.

The former secretary, who first had been a patient of Carroll’s, said she was surprised when he visited her behind bars and then offered her a job immediately after she finished serving time for a drug conviction.

Carroll gave her presigned prescriptions to use when he was out of the office, she said. The woman, a recovering drug addict who had no medical training and suffered from bipolar disease, would pen prescriptions for patients — a violation of drug laws, a Drug Enforcement Administration official testified.

“The medications would range from antidepressants all the way up to controlled substances such as Methadone,” the woman explained during the hearing.

Carroll took the woman to New Mexico when he attended a conference and they shared a hotel room, according to the secretary’s testimony. Carroll denied it, but she testified he walked around in his underwear and made an unwelcome sexual advance toward her.

When the secretary quit after the state launched its investigation, Carroll showed up at her home more than once, prompting her to call Chicago Ridge police, records show.

“Because after the investigation started, he went and he bought more guns and he just … I don’t trust him today,” she said in a hearing.

Carroll admitted he spent numerous nights at the home of a patient who suffered from anxiety and panic disorder, state records show. Regulators alleged he took nude pictures of her while she was asleep, threatened to have her committed, masturbated in front of her and attempted to climb through her bedroom window while she was in bed with her boyfriend — all of which he denied.

Another former patient who had turned to Carroll for treatment of severe anxiety said she was confused when he showed up unannounced at her family’s Crestwood home. He allegedly tried to kiss her as he was leaving, which prompted her to cry to her mother.

The psychiatrist allegedly returned to the house more than 20 times, records show. The woman and her mother testified he would lay his body against the doorbell and throw rocks at her window.

“It upset me. I was crying. … I did call his telephone and asked him to please don’t come to my house,” the former patient said in a medical disciplinary hearing.

Carroll said he only threw rocks at the woman’s window once. He denied he tried to kiss her.

When she realized the Department of Corrections and Wexford Health Services had taken action against Carroll in 2007 but had not informed regulators, she was outraged.

“This guy should have been out years ago,” the woman said. “This should never have happened to any of us.”

Withdrawal from the drugs wasn’t the only hard part, she said. Her anxiety, already debilitating, worsened.

She is afraid to leave her home, she said, for fear that Carroll will be outside.

Read the article here:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-doctor-guns-smoke-grenades-20110224,0,5943165,full.story

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FOX News – Jan 19, 2011

AP — U.S. Marines and Afghan Army soldiers run with a wounded Afghan man to a waiting medevac helicopter near Marjah in southern Afghanistan Jan. 18

As U.S. military leaders gathered Wednesday to give their latest update on the rash of Army suicides, new questions are being raised about a U.S. Central Command policy that allows troops to go to Iraq and Afghanistan with up to a six-month supply of psychotropic drugs.

“There’s no way on earth that these boys and girls are getting monitored on the field,” said Dr. Peter Breggin, a New York-based psychiatrist who has extensively studied the side effects of psychiatric drugs. “The drugs simply shouldn’t be given to soldiers.”

Anxiety, violent behavior and “impulsivity” are all side effects of some of these medications, he said, the latter symptom being particularly dangerous in a war zone. Breggin said that if patients were given these medications in the civilian world and not monitored, it would amount to “malpractice.”

But Nextgov.com reported that Army leaders and doctors are increasingly concerned that the policy continues to allow combat troops to use everything from antidepressants to antipsychotics to hypnotics, medications they say could impair a soldier’s judgment. The swath of active-duty troops on these kinds of medications, according to a June 2010 Defense Department report, was about 20 percent.

The article highlighted one particular drug — the antipsychotic Seroquel — which the Army has sanctioned as a sleep aid, even though it can’t be used to treat troops for the mental disorders it was originally designed to address. A May 2010 military report recommended 25-50 milligram doses of the drug for “sleep disorders” including nightmares. It happens to be the same drug that two Marines back from Iraq were taking before they died in their sleep.

Military officials have pledged to rein in the use of prescription drugs. An Army Suicide Prevention Task Force report last year warned about the dangers posed by prolonged and open-ended use of these prescription medications. Following that, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli suggested the duration of prescriptions be limited or at least reviewed periodically to avoid abuse.

He reiterated that concern Wednesday during a press conference on Army suicides. He said the Army is working to educate soldiers and members of the public “about the overuse and abuse of prescription drugs.”

Chiarelli credited military intervention with helping to reduce the number of suicides among the Army’s active-duty soldiers in 2010. That number dropped from 162 to 156 last year. He said, though, that suicides among those not on active duty went up significantly. Officials attributed the suicides to a combination of factors, not necessarily stemming from the stress of deploying. In a July report, the military said prescription drugs were involved in one-third of all active-duty suicides.

“It’s the relationship issues. It may be an individual who comes back and relies on alcohol to a level that he had not or she had not relied on it before. And maybe the person who has — has a rough time handling the prescription drugs that in some instances are all we know to prescribe for some of these things,” Chiarelli said Wednesday. He said the military is doing its “best” to “lower the incidence of prescribing a lot of drugs.”

The U.S. Army Medical Department and U.S. Central Command could not be reached for comment. Central Command told Nextgov.com that the reason the military allows up to a six-month supply of certain medications is to make sure troops have an “adequate supply.” Troops are deploying to regions where well-stocked pharmacies may be in short supply.

But Breggin said that when these troops are being prescribed psychotropic drugs, they should either have to deploy without them or stay home. He said the practice only started during the Iraq war and could still be stopped, adding that the suicides are clearly linked.

“It’s that new, so it isn’t necessary,” he said. Breggin testified last year before the House Veterans Affairs Committee about the risks associated with the use of antidepressants in the military. His latest book is “Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime.”

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The Mail Online – January 18 2011

By Angela Patmore

When I was in my early 20s, I suffered from suicidal despair. I cried for days, sobbed in the street, lost all my self-respect.

Turn a frown upside down: Many people can overcome depression without drugs with the right attitude

I won a prestigious scholarship to America to study ­literature for two years in ­Williamsburg, Virginia, and I became so ­desperately lonely that I took an overdose of sleeping pills. I was found outside my apartment by my flatmate and rushed to hospital, where they pumped out my stomach.

I’d always been a depressive, morbid ­character and suffered from panic attacks. I’d had a very difficult childhood, with a violent father who was addicted to powerful tranquillisers and attacked my mother and me.

Somewhere inside, I knew there was more to life than this. I tried softly-softly therapies such as psychiatry, ‘stress’ management and counselling. They promised to protect me from problems, but all they did was make me feel more helpless.

I could not bear to take antidepressants or tranquillisers because I had seen my father’s character changed by his addiction to them.

But I wasn’t getting better. During one panic attack, I ended up shutting myself in a phone box to ring for help, but I was shaking so badly I couldn’t dial the numbers.

For most of a decade I floundered, working through research, training and academic degrees in search of a magic mindset to make me happy and self-reliant. (I eventually ended up at the University of East Anglia as a research fellow investigating stress.)

Then I turned my research in a different direction, looking instead at what made ­people succeed in difficult or distressing ­circumstances. I studied sports psychology. I looked at the ancient character training used by the Roman army.

The secret, I learnt, was to develop resilience in the face of adversity; to face the problem and be deeply changed by that experience. I came to realise our modern approach to depression and despair often makes the problem worse.

We live in an unusually protective, safety-conscious society that thinks the way to help the weak and vulnerable is to nurse them like infants and prevent them from feeling bad. But look at the number of adults who are suffering from depression and anxiety today and ask yourself: softly-softly — is it helping or harming?

Today, one in three GP patient appointments involves a patient reporting depression. More than six million people in Britain regularly take antidepressants.

A study published just last week found two-thirds of women in England and Wales have suffered mental health problems such as ­anxiety and depression.

‘Being labelled as depressed is not a cure.

It might actually demoralise you and prolong

the whole bitter episode’

Depression is a pandemic, so it must have an underlying cause. I suggest it’s this: we have come to see negative emotions as an inconvenience or an illness. And our modern therapy culture is far too ready to give people labels for their distress — labels that make them feel mentally abnormal and unable to help themselves out of their troubles.

Many people believe they suffer from ‘depression’ or ‘clinical depression’ simply because they are grieving over one of life’s maulings, don’t know what to do to feel better and think it might help if they had a label for their bad feelings.

The label acts like a baby’s dummy or the security blanket of Charlie Brown’s best friend Linus in the Peanuts cartoon — he sucks his thumb and holds it to his ear in times of trouble, though it doesn’t actually serve any useful purpose.

This label is not a cure. It might actually demoralise you and prolong the whole bitter episode.

Once patients are officially labelled ‘depressed’, it tends to sap what little energy they have left to get off their bottoms and set about changing their outlook on life.

Poet John Keats described depression as the ‘drowsy numbness that pains the sense’. It is not only disastrous to life, but dangerous to health. It shouldn’t be mollified with tea and sympathy, but faced down and defeated.

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Salem-news.com

September 21, 2010

by Dr. Phillip Leveque

Afghanistan by Tim King Salem-News.com

(MOLALLA, Ore.) – I’m sure some people will take umbrage at my title. Keep on reading. First of all there are about 30 of them – why? It’s easy, most don’t work. In fact placebos (fake sugar pills) frequently work better.

Another point, their adverse side effects are horrible. Some even cause worse depression and even suicide. The main side effects are nausea, insomnia, anxiety, restlessness, decreased sex drive, dizziness, weight gain or loss, tremors, sweating, sleepiness, fatigue, dry mouth, diarrhea, constipation, headache, et cetera. Who needs that stuff?!? They also screw up ones head and balance with falls and fractures. If one stops taking them, the withdrawal symptoms sound worse than heroin. In addition to all this, some are addicting and it is very difficult to stop taking them.

This kind of drug or drugs has an extremely interesting origin. Around 1950 the first drug in this class was actually an anti-tuberculosis drug Isoniazid. For some reason it also acted as a brain stimulant, much like amphetamine. When this side effect was published by the T.B. doctors, other doctors decided to try it on depression patients. Prior to this certain Morphine-like cousin drugs and amphetamines were used for depression. They had severe addiction liability.

Isoniazid, the T.B. drug, was used on an experimental basis and the patients brain function improved dramatically. The psychiatrists who read about this tried Isoniazid on their depression patients and they coined the word ANTI-DEPRESSANT.

From then on starting about 1957 the Tricyclic drugs were born. They were relatives of anti-histamine drugs and they did combat depression. I think the first well known one was Elavil which is still in use. This type of drug drifted around quietly for several years searching for a disease all of the sudden it erupted – CLINICAL DEPRESSION. The first REAL drug Fluoxetine or PROZAC came out in 1988 by Ely Lilly & Co. It was heavily advertised and we soon had a epidemic of clinical depression spread all over the world.

I’m not going into a recital of the various kinds of anti-depressants. I think there is enough to indicate that at least 500,000,000 prescriptions are written per year and for the 14 or so leaders, each is worth up to several billion dollars to the drug companies.

As I said in the beginning placebos, or fake pills, work about as well as these chemicals and exercise or just plain talking to a psychologist may work as well. The drug companies advertise heavily in the millions of dollars to sell these drugs to doctors and patients. It is worth it. The anti-depressants bring in billions of dollars.

A side comment is that the drug companies have sold the idea to the Veterans Administration and they prescribe these drugs by the ton to PTSD Veterans. The evidence is that they don’t help much and cause a lot of harm.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september212010/ptsd-depressants-pl.php

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The Huffington Post
By Dr. Ronald Ricker and Dr. Venus Nicolino
September 8, 2010

Today, the use of psychoactive drugs by children (6-17) is all too common, relied on far too much and growing at an alarming rate. It all started in the ’70s.

Memorialized in 1966 by the Rolling Stones’ “Mothers Little Helpers,” it was at that time that our society took the first steps at becoming “Pill Crazy.” Valium and Librium and Quaaludes were “Mother’s Little Helpers. The first drugs to enter the stage. If you couldn’t stand Johnny, your friends, your husband, in-laws, etc, tranquilizers smoothed you out, made you tranquil. Not surprisingly, in the 70s, the consumption of these tranquilizers, once discovered and available, skyrocketed. Anxiety was the popular diagnosis. Antidepressants were beginning to raise their heads as well. Their popularity at that time, however, was muted by the fact that they didn’t work well, and also sported many side effects, some of which were very annoying and occasionally dangerous. And, no one knew what was just around the corner.

Prozac

Prozac was first marketed in 1987. It was a totally new type of antidepressant, which seemed to work and had far less side effects. What had been a stream of tranquilizers became a tsunami of Prozac’s and tranquilizers. Other ‘Prozac’s’ entered the scene–Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil and Luvox, all vying to take part of Prozac’s market share. Promotion of these drugs by drug manufacturers exploded. Where there had been a surge in the diagnosis of anxiety, now the diagnosis of the decade was ‘depression.’ Housewives by the droves needed and demanded antidepressants and even more tranquilizers. If one was good, two must be better. The pill craze was on.

Diagnoses started to morph. The more the diagnoses, the more opportunities to sell drugs. Anxiety became anxiety neurosis, panic disorder, panic attacks, etc. ‘Depression,’ as a diagnosis, was of course and remains very popular. However, many patients don’t and didn’t like that diagnosis–perhaps it sounded too much like a disease. So a new depression explanation and diagnosis emerged–’chemical imbalance,’ which sounded more sheik and less like a disease and, of course, yielded more customers.

Not far behind ‘chemical imbalance’ came ‘mood disorder,’ a special type of depression, also called bipolar disorder. There are people who actually have a bipolar disorder and require numerous special medications for treatment. These medications, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and second generation antipsychotics are far more dangerous medications than Prozac and tranquilizers. Further, there are also many people who are said to have ‘bipolar disorder’ who don’t. Often these patients are those who were said to be depressed yet don’t get better with standard antidepressants. They get all the special and dangerous medications (the number of which is multiplying geometrically) and have the additional advantage of being able to excuse pretty much anything they do as a result of their ‘mood disorder.’

This pretty well takes us through the ’90s. But here come our children. How did our children get sucked into all this? Our pill craze was and is a huge part. Parents and physicians often subscribe to this theory, that there is a pill for everything. Mommy says Johnnie is depressed, doctor agrees, Johnnie doesn’t. Guess who wins? Certainly not Johnny. Guess what Johnnie gets? A pill, usually an SSRI, which he may end up taking for a long time. Assuming Johnnie takes three years of SSRI therapy, his diagnosis is changed 25 percent of the time, usually to the much more serious diagnosis, bipolar disorder. His medications are changed to a much more serious and dangerous types. If Johnny takes an SSRI for six years the chances of his diagnosis changing to bipolar increases to 50 percent. So do his meds.

There’s yet another and newer mine field for Johnnie to negotiate, new in the last two decades. Let’s say Johnnie fidgets in his seat, doesn’t listen to the teacher, hates to read, and talks to his neighbor all the time. Guess what. Johnnie is diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and given another serious type of drug, a stimulant–usually Ritalin or a form of speed (one example being Adderall). Did you know that Adderall is 100 percent speed? We know speed kills but give it to our children. Think about that. Speed kills and we give speed to our children, masked as Adderall.  Astounding.

Read entire article here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-ronald-ricker-and-dr-venus-nicolino/psychotropic-drugs-our-ch_b_680488.html

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