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ONE DRUG TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:24:55 +0000

NewsWithViews.com – 11/28/2011
by Jonathan Emord, Constitutional Attorney and Author

Psychiatric drugs are big sellers. They are among the best selling drugs made. In 2010, Americans or their insurers doled out some $16.1 billion for anti-psychotics; $11.6 billion for anti-depressants; and $7.2 billion for ADHD treatments.

Within the last two decades the field of psychiatry has mushroomed from a fringe body of Sigmund Freud admirers to a mainstream player in the field of medical pharmacology, largely because of an unseemly union between that profession and the drug industry, leading to the creation of many never before known disease states and profitable ways to exploit those alleged diseases with psychiatric services and drugs.

The field of psychiatry has persistent and well-informed critics who point to the excessive drugging of institutionalized patients, of children commonly misdiagnosed as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and of the elderly misdiagnosed with treatable dementia, among others. The drugs given these patients have their own side-effects, including increased risk of depression, suicidal thoughts, birth defects, and even death. Because of the movement of psychiatry from the fringe of medicine to its heart, a majority of Americans are likely to come into contact with psychiatric drugs, either recommended for use by their children or for use by them at some point in their lives. Indeed, presently some 1 in 5 adults take anti-depressants, anti-psychotic, or anti-anxiety drugs.

The next edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), the profession’s so-called diagnostic bible, will soon be published in 2013. It comntinues the trend of identifying as “diseases” conditions that have previously been considered within the normal range. It adds to the list of “disease” states “apathy syndrome” (i.e., not caring enough); “internet addiction disorder” (i.e., liking the web too much); “parental alienation syndrome” (i.e., not liking your parents enough); “mild neurocognitive disorder” (i.e., age-related decline in mental function); “absexual” disorder (i.e., disliking sex); and “sluggish cognitive tempo” (i.e., daydreaming too much). Characteristics that we all used to think within the realm of normal brain function (such as teenage angst at parental rules; parental angst at teenage rebellion; a loss of quick wittedness in the elderly; youthful exuberance or youthful preoccupation with daydreams beyond the confines of academia) are all fast becoming “diseases.” The APA’s overall movement has been one of calling into question characteristics of eccentricity, leading to an unscientific conclusion that anything different may be rightly called a disease and rightly prescribed a treatment.

Every newly identified psychiatric disorder begets a new slate of psychiatric drugs for their treatment, giving leading pharmaceutical companies new opportunities to profit from the expansion of psychiatric diagnoses.

Psychiatric drugs are big sellers. They are among the best selling drugs made.

In 2010, Americans or their insurers doled out some $16.1 billion for anti-psychotics;

$11.6 billion for anti-depressants;

and $7.2 billion for ADHD treatments.

Profit lies in designing drugs for the treatment of these conditions. As the drug industry continues to pump out new elixirs that, in turn, leads to more reliance on psychologists and psychiatrists, which leads them in turn to prefer identifying more conditions as disease. The perverse incentives abound, and the FDA is pleased to approve the drugs at the behest of the drug company sponsors.
Everyone standing to profit from the sale of these agents wins at the expense of patients.

The drugging of America is an enormous problem, having spill-over effects that include drug addiction and destruction of the family, productivity, even national security. With an ever rising population taking these drugs which alter cognitive function, it becomes ever more apparent that the very fabric of our society, its common commitment to stable family life, self-sacrifice for the greater good, and adherence to laws that protect life, liberty, and property are all imperiled. As the drug industry and psychiatric profession profits enormously with each new declared disease state, there is a loss of free agency in the population, a movement that saps self-control from the individual in favor of control by the medical community over basic life-affecting decisions. Patients become dependent, event addicted, to drugs, and ever more dependent on their medical counselors to cope with life.

Whatever may be said for use of psychiatric drugs in those who cannot function in society, the expansion of those drugs to embrace those who can, including those with virtually any characteristic that exceeds the norm, represents a horrific sacrifice of the very promise of life that lies in those eccentricities. It is particularly horrific to watch beautiful, energetic children with all their great promise become addicted to drugs that alter brain chemistry in ways that yield drug dependency and lessen their perception of and enthusiasm for life and their ability to achieve. A majority of children prescribed anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs are wrongly prescribed those drugs, even by accepted psychiatric standards. That misguided course is itself a form of deviant behavior by this profession, calling into question the mental stability of those who would profit off of misdiagnosis and mistreatment.

The psychiatric drugging of America is bearing and will continue to bear for generations to come toxic consequences, whether in the form of the destruction of the family, increases in crime, or decreases in productivity and inventiveness. It’s high time for a rebellion against this drugging for the sake of sanity.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan220.htm

Jonathan W. Emord is an attorney who practices constitutional and administrative law before the federal courts and agencies. Congressman Ron Paul calls Jonathan “a hero of the health freedom revolution” and says “all freedom-loving Americans are in [his] debt . . . for his courtroom [victories] on behalf of health freedom.” He has defeated the FDA in federal court a remarkable eight times, six on First Amendment grounds, and is the author of Amazon bestsellers The Rise of Tyranny, and Global Censorship of Health Information. He is also the American Justice columnist for U.S.A. Today Magazine. For more info visit Emord.com.

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American Academy of Pediatrics Promotes Big Pharma Agenda—Labeling and drugging 4-year-olds

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:52:25 +0000

Click image to watch Psychiatric Drug Side Effects

4-year-olds on drugs? You betcha. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued new treatment guidelines for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” that say ADHD can be diagnosed in kids as early as age four, and that Ritalin and similar drugs are an appropriate treatment even for children this young. Apparently the “Academy” has no problem with the fact that the US FDA warns drugs like Ritalin can cause hallucinations, mania, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. Nor do they consider it a problem that a diagnoses of “ADHD” is based solely on a checklist of behaviors such as “loses pencils or toys,” “often does not seem to listen,” “is easily distracted by extraneous stimuli,” “fidgets” or “runs about or climbs excessively in situations when it is not appropriate.” And for this, children as young as four should be placed on drugs that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes in the same class of highly addictive drugs as cocaine, morphine and opium?

Right.

It should come as no surprise that the chairman of the new ADHD guidelines, Mark Wolraich, MD, is a periodic consultant to Shire Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly, Shinogi, and Next Wave Pharmaceuticals, or that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has received millions in pharmaceutical funding—In 2011,they received $30,000 from Pfizer; $100,000 from Eli Lilly; and $79,650 from Merck. In 2010, they received $297,750 from Pfizer; $100,000 from Merck; and $3,000 from Shire. Between 2008 and 2009, AAP received another $69,000 from Pfizer.

This isn’t the first time the AAP has come under fire for promoting a pharmaceutical agenda – in 2008, they were exposed for their financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, when the academy issued guidelines recommending statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) for kids, after it was disclosed they had received substantial contributions from pharmaceutical companies with ties to statins, including $433,000 from Merck, $835,250 from Abbott Laboratories’ Ross Product Division and $216,000 from the Bristol-Myers Squibb company Mead Johnson Nutritionals.

Here are the only guidelines (also known as facts) that the AAP should be issuing:

1) There is no medical or scientific test that can validate ADHD as a medical condition or disease. Not one. Diagnoses is 100% subjective and means nothing in medical terms.

2) 12 International drug regulatory agencies have issued warnings on ADHD drugs such as Ritalin causing depression, insomnia, mania, hallucinations, psychosis, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. The US DEA places Ritalin in the same category of highly addictive drugs as morphine, cocaine and opium.

3) No child should ever be subjected to mind-altering, life threatening drugs based solely on a checklist of behaviors. Period.

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

admin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:49:18 +0000

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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DSM 5 Will Further Inflate The ADD Bubble

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:36:06 +0000

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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Is ADHD a Fictional Disease?

cchrint — Sat, 21 May 2011 18:35:37 +0000

Some psychiatrists argue that ADHD is little more than a marketing gimmick

The Mark
By Fred Baughman
May 18, 2011

Dr. Fred Baughman, Child neurologist; opponent of ADHD diagnosis

Some 5.4 million children in the United States have been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, with two-thirds of them taking psychiatric drugs. Sales of ADHD drugs reached $1.2 billion in 2010, a demand level so high that the U.S. is experiencing an ADHD drug shortage. But an increasingly vocal contingent of psychiatric experts is speaking up against diagnosing children with ADHD, arguing it is a non-existent condition drummed up by pharmaceutical companies to increase sales.

What makes you convinced that ADHD is not a real disease?

During my time in practice, I’ve authored papers and discovered real diseases and so on. Psychiatry in 1948 was distinguished from neurology. Neurology is the specialty dealing with physical and organic diseases of the brain and nervous system. Psychiatry is the specialty dealing with emotional and behavioural things which are not actual, physical diseases – things like depression, anxiety, panic, and so on.

Insofar as ADHD is concerned, it seems clear that in the ’50s, as the first psychiatric drugs came to market, that psychiatry – in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry – came upon the market strategy of, “Well, we’ll call these things ‘diseases.’” And the prototypical invented disease was called ADHD.

It was initially in a 1970 congressional hearing in the U.S. that psychiatrists appeared and testified that, what was then called hyper kinetic disorder or minimal brain dysfunction, was a disease that needed diagnosing by a physician, and as a disease it justified the use of drugs to treat it. So that was the official beginning of ADHD in particular and of psychiatric diagnoses in general as being due to a disease of the brain. In every case, they say there’s a subtle chemical imbalance in the brain, which of course they never have a means of diagnosing in life and have never in scientific literature authored proof that there is in fact a disease. And yet they are allowed by [the U.S.] Food and Drug Administration to say that there is a chemical imbalance and that the drugs balance the imbalance.

So it’s been a market strategy. This lie has been allowed to be published by the drug industry and by psychiatry, by our regulatory agencies, specifically the Food and Drug Administration. So that’s where we are today.

All physicians learn in medical school that a disease is a physical abnormality. When you go to your physician, they may see a rash or they may find something microscopically abnormal, such as cancer cells. Then there are a lot of chemical diseases – diabetes being the best known. There are about a hundred examples of inborn errors of metabolism or body chemistry. These can all be tested for, they’ve all been proven, and they exist in the scientific literature – whereas there is not a single psychiatric diagnosis that exists in scientific literature of the world.

In 2008, I was counselling a young father from Kingston, Ont., who was in a divorce situation, and the mother insisted the children be seen by psychiatrists and the psychiatrist had made a number of diagnoses and had this one boy on large amounts of about five or six different types of medication. I helped the father author a letter to Health Canada asking where – in the case of ADHD or any psychiatric diagnosis – there is proof of a gross or microscopic abnormality.

This gentleman got a letter back from the director-general of Health Canada saying there is no gross, microscopic, or chemical abnormality in any psychiatric diagnosis; there is no objective way of verifying a psychiatric diagnosis as a disease.

That’s why psychiatry’s claims that their diagnoses are chemical imbalances is nothing but a lie and a deception. And yet, because of their financial might on the world scene, no one will challenge them. They have friends bought and paid for in government and in all of the governmental health-care agencies.

Here in the States, as of 2007, the Centers for Disease Control announced that 5.4 million U.S. schoolchildren five to 17 years old had ADHD. And you can be sure that they have all been on ADHD drugs, which are, for the most part, amphetamines, which are known to be addictive, dangerous, deadly.

I’ve heard estimates of 20 per cent of schoolchildren in the U.S. with a psych diagnosis and who were on psych drugs. It’s exploding, it’s increasing all the time.

Is the issue that we’re overmedicating ourselves, or that ADHD is not real?

When it’s a total fraud, you don’t call it overmedicating. There is no such thing as ADHD as a disease, so there is never justification for it. It’s a total fraud.

What is there to gain from diagnosing children with ADHD?

Ritalin has passed $1 billion a year in sales. Ritalin is no longer the top ADHD drug in the U.S. I think Adderall, which is made up of amphetamines, passed Ritalin a few years ago in market share.

It’s a complete fraud, they’ve invented diseases for which their drugs are a cure. The rate of diagnosing ADHD has been going up by a million a year in the U.S. This is a market strategy.

The book Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients [by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels] talks generally about inventing diseases for which to sell drugs. In the foreword of that book, the authors quote the former president of Merck Pharmaceutical Co., Henry Gadsden, who once said he was anxious to find ways to market his products to normal people, just like the Wrigley chewing gum people did. This was kind of an after-the-fact confession they were trying to market drugs to normal people, and calling all psychological dilemmas diseases for which they needed a pill. This was the strategy.

It’s almost unimaginable, it’s almost unthinkable that this has been going on, but that’s exactly what’s been going on.

How would you diagnose a child that was considered to have ADHD?

Look at the criteria that are used to call a child ADHD. They talk out of turn, they don’t sit still, they wiggle around too much in their seats, they are impulsive, disorderly, and so on. It’s a bunch of behaviours that are seen in just about every child at some stage of their life. This is by design; they have taken kind of irritating, bothersome, disruptive behaviours in children and have kind of cobbled them together and called it a disease.

They get a lot of parents to buy it because a lot of parents are now busy with their job in the workforce and there’s no longer a full-time parent in the home, and so, “Here’s why Johnny or Janey is such an irritant to me, they’ve got ADHD.” It takes the pressure entirely off the parent for not being a presence and for not being there full-time to mould the behaviour of the child, and they’re calling these behaviours a disease and saying we’ve got a pill for it. That’s very seductive. That’s a far more appealing analysis than, “Gee, you’re divorced, there’s no one in the home to discipline the child real time,” and so on.

These are not diseases, they are behaviours. Today, you hang a psychiatric label on a child, you surely stigmatize the child and these drugs are exceedingly dangerous. In 2005, there were several deaths in Canada of young children from Adderall. It was temporarily taken off the market, but then the power of the industry won out and Adderall’s back on the market. Pure amphetamines.

Read article here: http://www.themarknews.com/articles/5193-is-adhd-a-fictional-disease?page=1

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FDA’s Continual Responsibility for Making Our Children Into a Nation of Drug Addicts

cchrint — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:15:02 +0000

Salem-News.com
By Marianne Skolek
March 28, 2011

Dexedrine

In 1997, 5 million children were listed as using psychotropic drugs, Ritalin being among the most common. Ritalin use has increased by 700% since 1990. By the year 2000, it was prescribed for approximately 7 million children.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed eight times more often in boys than in girls.

Of these diagnosed children, 90% use a stimulant to help control the disorder. 70% of children with ADHD are prescribed Ritalin. 20% use its counterpart, the generic form known as methylphenidate and an amphetamine known as Dexedrine.

Beginning in the 1960s, it was used to treat children with ADHD, or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), known at the time as hyperactivity or minimal brain dysfunction (MBD).

Production and prescription of methylphenidate rose significantly in the 1990s, especially in the United States, as the ADHD diagnosis came to be better understood and more generally accepted within the medical and mental health communities.

The benefits and cost effectiveness of methylphenidate, i.e. Ritalin long term are unknown due to a lack of research.

There is a lack of evidence of the effectiveness in the long term of beneficial effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) with regard to learning and academic performance.

An analysis of the literature concluded that methylphenidate quickly and effectively reduces the signs and symptoms of ADHD in children under the age of 18 in the short term but found that this conclusion may be biased due to the high number of low quality clinical trials in the literature.

Some adverse effects of stimulant therapy may emerge during long-term therapy, but there is very little research of the long-term effects of stimulants.

The United States produces 90% of the world’s Ritalin. It produces, sells and distributes more methylphenidate than any other country worldwide. In addition to the United States, methylphenidate is frequently used in the United Kingdom and Germany.

It is used in many European countries, but in much smaller percentages than in the United States. Some countries don’t use the drug at all, such as Sweden, which has banned its use.

Intuniv

The FDA approved ”Intuniv” – the first non-stimulant extended release medication for the treatment of ADHD in children. This means it can be administered in one daily dose and given in the morning or at night as a stand-alone medication or in conjunction with another ADHD drug to boost overall effectiveness. Because Intuniv is not a stimulant, parents can feel better knowing that their child is being treated with a medication that does not have addictive properties and is less likely to be abused since it is not a controlled substance.

In clinical trials, Intuniv has been shown to boost the effectiveness of treatment when combined with a stimulant, resulting in greater attention span and reduced levels of impulsivity and hyperactivity. One possible drawback, however, is that it has not been tested for extended use, beyond that of 8 to 10 weeks. For this reason, physicians who prescribe Intuniv must closely monitor patients to determine whether it continues to be a successful protocol for longer term management of ADHD symptoms.

At the present time, Intuniv’s longer term efficacy is unknown and will be determined by physicians who carefully monitor patients being treated and report associated outcomes. Shire, Intuniv’s biopharmaceutical developer, continues to focus their research on this drug’s long term use potential for maintenance of children with ADHD who need drug treatment in order to succeed academically — as well as socially.

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness and author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? – Our Serotonin Nightmare is an expert consultant in cases like Columbine in which anti-depressant medications are involved.

Tracy says the Columbine killers’ brains were awash in serotonin, the chemical which causes violence and aggression and triggers a sleep-walking disorder in which a person literally acts out their worst nightmare.

Columbine shooter Eric Harris

Shortly before the Columbine shooting, Eric Harris (one of the shooters) had been rejected by Marine Corps recruiters because he was under a doctor’s care and had been prescribed an anti-depressant medication. Harris was taking Luvox, an anti-depressant commonly used to treat patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Luvox is in a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). Other SSRIs include Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. An estimated 10 million Americans take anti-depressant medications.

Harris was taking Luvox

Mark Taylor, the first student shot at Columbine, brought a lawsuit against Solvay, the international pharmaceutical company that produces Luvox. Taylor’s 2001 lawsuit said Luvox had caused Harris to become manic, psychotic, and homicidal/suicidal and had brought about “emotional blunting,” or a lack of inhibition.

Tayor’s lawsuit also faulted Solvay for failing to warn of the “risks and dangers” associated with the drug. *

Columbine victim Mark Taylor

(*Taylor told American Free Press two years after the Columbine shooting, as a 17-year old recovering victim, he had been taken alone, without counsel, into a room with lawyers representing Solvay and threatened with court costs and counter suits. The fear of financial ruin led Taylor and others to withdraw the lawsuit. Solvay Pharmaceuticals was able to silence disclosure of exactly what had happened at Columbine — and why — even after its product had played ab obvious role in slaughtering 13 people).

Solvay Pharmaceuticals

In early 1998, according to Taylor’s lawsuit, Harris had taken Zoloft for two months, but soon became “obsessional.” Harris became obsessed with homicidal and suicidal thoughts “within weeks” after he began taking Zoloft, according to Dr. Tracy. Due to his obsession with killing, Harris was switched to Luvox, which was in his system at the time of the shooting, according to his autopsy. The change from Zoloft to Luvox is like switching from Pepsi to Coke, Dr. Tracy said.

Read entire article here: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march282011/child-addicts-ms.php

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The hidden tyranny: children diagnosed and drugged for profit

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:11:10 +0000

NaturalNews.com March 4, 2011

by Monica G. Young

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” —Thomas Jefferson

Not everyone has fallen for the grand hoax: 20 million kids worldwide diagnosed with mental disorders, necessitating psychiatric drugs for years or life. Some individuals are speaking out. Yet so many parents, kids and schools have fallen prey to one of the most insidious yet most profitable misinformation campaigns of modern society.

Kids who fidget, get distracted or bored easily, talk too much (or too little), defy rules, are not as obedient as some adults may like or have mood swings, are liable to be tagged with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder or other such ills. In short, what used to be known as typical child and adolescent behavior has been redefined as mental illness.

ADHD is the disorder most commonly assigned to kids (over five million in the U.S.). Statistical studies in the U.S. and other nations show boys are far more likely than girls to be branded with ADHD and prescribed stimulants.

A recent article entitled “Sedation nation: The cost of taking boisterous out of boys,” reports five times as many Australian boys being medicated with Ritalin than girls. The author asks, “Are we in danger of seeing boyhood itself as a disorder?” She cites an example of a 10-year old very bright and sporty boy who got into a skirmish on a cramped school playground. No damage occurred, no blood, yet this led at once to a referral for psychiatric treatment.

This situation can be worse for African-American males. Umar R. Abdullah-Johnson, a psychologist and activist for the educational rights of black boys, has traveled to schools across the country. In a recent article headed “Psycho-Slavery,” he writes, “It has become a travesty of epic proportions; black boys are being sent in record numbers to the psychiatrist for mind-altering medications that come with a plethora of side effects.” He reports that in many classrooms, 50 percent of the black male students are being referred for medication. Some children are evaluated, diagnosed and prescribed in less than five minutes.

Abdulla-Johnson points out the hypocrisy of a society that has declared a War on Drugs yet is so busily drugging a generation of black boys on substances which often lead to illegal drugs later in their lives. “They claim to LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND,” he writes, “but are totally content leaving our boys with side effects from these drugs years after they have graduated from school, if they ever graduate at all.”

This system coerces youth into obedient conformity with a psychiatric standard of normality. Kids are also left with a message that they can’t cope with school or life without drugs.

But let’s look at history:

Thomas Edison, one of the world’s most prolific inventors, was kicked out of school at an early age as his teacher lost patience with his persistent questions and wandering mind. Where would we be now if his creative spirit had been numbed by prescription drugs?

Albert Einstein, father of modern physics, was a quiet child who kept his distance from his peers. He resented the rote learning methods enforced in school and was labeled a foolish day dreamer. Imagine if he had been medicated into conformity.

Winston Churchill, the great statesman and orator, had an independent and rebellious nature as a youth and was often in trouble. Surely he would have been deemed ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) by today’s psychiatric standards.

Frederick Douglass, one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement (and a blood relative of Umar R. Abdullah-Johnson, quoted above) began defying the rules for blacks when he was a child. And the list goes on.

The massive propaganda asserting the validity of these disorders and efficacy of these medications is staggering. However a 731-page report from the Drug Effectiveness Review Project of Oregon State University in 2005 – analyzing 2,287 separate studies around the world – found inadequate evidence to show that drugs used to treat ADHD are safe in the long term or help school performance. (http://psychrights.org/articles/Tac…).html)

No medical tests are used for diagnoses. Yet most diagnosed youths are put onto highly toxic drugs which have been shown to cause insomnia, stunted growth, hallucinations, anxiety, heart attacks, psychosis, violence, suicide and sudden death.

Peter Breggin MD, a leader in psychiatric reform, stated in the Huffington Post, “Our society’s particular form of child abuse is the psychiatric diagnosing and drugging of our children.” And, “all psychoactive substances from alcohol and marijuana to psychiatric drugs reduce and compromise the function of brain and mind, and none improve it.” Even toddlers are being assigned mental disorders and prescribed such drugs.

Many clinicians fear that prescribing stimulants to children may foster a drug habit and lead them later to illegal stimulants, such as cocaine and crystal meth. A recent UCLA research project confirms this concern. They analyzed 27 long-term studies that followed 4,100 children diagnosed with ADHD and 6800 without ADHD into adolescence and young adulthood. The ADHD-diagnosed kids were two to three times more likely than other children to develop serious substance abuse problems. (Per a Consumer Reports survey, 84 percent of ADHD-labeled children are treated with medications.)

So if these drugs are so harmful, why do drug companies market them so heavily for kids?

“Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs,” says former drug company sales rep Gwen Olsen, author of Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. “Children are forced by school personnel to take their drugs, they are forced by their parents to take their drugs, and they are forced by their doctors to take their drugs. So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and ‘longevity.’ In other words, they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma.”

ADHD, ODD, Bipolar and the others were voted into existence by APA committees and made official by issuance in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. A 2006 investigation by the University of Massachusetts and Tufts University disclosed that the majority of the committee members had financial ties to drug companies. (www.tufts.edu/~skrimsky/PDF/DSM%20C…)

The psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries admittedly do not cure anything, but only claim to manage symptoms with their psychoactive drugs.

Vice president of drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb recently announced FDA approval for an expanded use of their bipolar blockbuster. He states, “Because bipolar disorder is a lifelong and recurrent illness, this labelling update provides physicians with the option to prescribe Abilify as an add-on to either lithium or valproate as a long-term treatment to help manage symptoms of Bipolar I Disorder.” Translation for bipolars: “You’ll be hooked on our medications for life.”

Psychiatric drugging of children is big, big money, raking in billions a year.

But it’s also a form of tyrannical social control. By classifying out-of-the-box, divergent behavior as “mental disorders” that must be subdued with medication, our next generation is conditioned into being good robots who know not to deviate from the status quo.

It seems we better pay more heed to Thomas Jefferson’s warning: “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031585_children_psychiatric_drugs.html#ixzz1FegGBP47

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Study Claims “ADHD Boys” Get in More Car Accidents—Fails to Mention ADHD Drug Side Effects & Recommends…More Drugging

admin — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:57:34 +0000

It’s hard for anyone with a modicum of reason to understand how such glaringly flawed studies as the one posted below are pawned off on the public in the name of “mental health” recommendations. Case in point, a new study claims that “teenage boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are twice as likely to be involved in a serious car collision.” Now, by the researchers own admission, “they couldn’t determine whether the teens with ADHD were taking medication when the crashes occurred.” Well that’s a seriously major omission. Any teenager who has been diagnosed “ADHD” is almost assuredly on drugs. The most common of which is methylphenidate (Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, etc.)

According to the U.S. FDA methylphenidate is documented to cause: Hallucinations, Delusional Thinking, Sensory Disturbances, Mania, Psychosis, Aggression, Violence, Headaches, Nausea, Vomiting, Depression, Sleepiness, Drowsiness, Fatigue, Agitation, Irritability, Insomnia, Disturbed Sleep, Abnormally Tight Muscles, Cardiac Events, Stroke and Cerebrovascular Events. All side effects that would seriously impair a person’s ability to drive.

Yet even this glaring omission is not the worst part of this study, their recommendation is— “The researchers suggested the family doctors, psychiatrists and community health workers could help by treating ADHD patients with methylphenidate or Ritalin.” We weren’t sure we read that right, so we went to the actual study to see for ourselves, and sure enough, it said “Greater attention by primary care physicians, psychiatrists and community health workers can perhaps reduce the risk including medical treatments (e.g. methylphenidate.) It gets even more ludicrous, with this statement, “children with ADHD are known to go off their meds because of side-effects.”

Yes. Exactly. Side effects. Serious, motor- skill impairing and even life-threatening, side effects.

So to summarize;

1) Teenage boys diagnosed ADHD are getting in more car accidents.

2) Teenage boys diagnosed ADHD are almost certainly on drugs “recommended” for ADHD (methylphenidate)

3) The FDA says Methylphenidate causes hallucinations, mania, psychosis, sensory disturbances, an abundance of side effects that can seriously impair a person’s motor-skills and ability to drive.

4) They recommend putting more kids on methylphenidate.

And there you have it.

ADHD puts teen drivers at risk: study

CBC News —November 15, 2010

Teenage boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are twice as likely to be involved in a serious car collision compared with the general population, an Ontario study suggests.

The study in Tuesday’s issue of the online journal PLoS Medicine looked at 3,421 males between the ages of 16 and 19 who were involved in serious road trauma between 2002 and 2009, compared with a control group of teens admitted for appendicitis.

The researchers suggested listing ADHD the same way as other medical disorders like epilepsy, which require drivers to show they are road worthy to keep their driver’s licence.

Study author Dr. Donald Redelmeier, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, estimated if the crash risk for teenagers with ADHD could be reduced to that of teens without the disorder then it would prevent about 700 crashes a year in Ontario.

Teenaged girls with ADHD also showed an increased risk of crashes, but the study focused on teenaged male drivers because they have the highest incidence of road crashes, at twice the population average.

“The findings call attention to a widespread, preventable, and costly cause of death and disability,” the study’s authors concluded.

“Most people know that teenage males are prone to traffic injuries, but the current data show that prevailing adjustments are not sufficient.”

Compliance issues for meds

The researchers suggested the family doctors, psychiatrists and community health workers could help by treating ADHD patients with methylphenidate or Ritalin, as well as talking to patients about ways to reduce the risk, such as abstaining from alcohol and avoiding distractions like using cellphones while driving.

The researchers acknowledged limitations of the study, including that they couldn’t determine whether the teens with ADHD were taking medication when the crashes occurred.

But children with ADHD are known to go off their meds because of side-effects.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/11/15/adhd-males-traffic-collisions-ontario.html

Read the international drug regulatory warnings and studies on Methylphenidate (Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta and other psychostimulants) here http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/

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ADHD’s Rapid Rise: 5 Theories [And One Answer]

admin — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 22:26:27 +0000

by CCHR

THE WEEK posted a pretty good article called “ADHD’s Rapid Rise: 5 Theories”— pretty good because though several of their theories may play some part in why so many kids are diagnosed ADHD, they never quite nail the answer. So we did.

Adding to their 5 points of various theories, we present you with point number 6: The actual answer:

Psychiatrists got together and decided to pathologize normal childhood behavior into a mental disorder and call it ADHD. They created a checklist of behaviors, took a vote on it, and voilà! A whole new client base was born – kids. With the help of billions in Pharma funds spent on shrinks to promote ADHD in journals, on TV and in press, glossy ads in magazines, slick lobbyists to “educate” members of Congress about it, and the creation of Pharma front groups such as Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD) to infiltrate schools endorsing the so-called disease —an epidemic of “mentally ill” children was born. And that’s the real reason for the “rapid rise” in kids diagnosed ADHD and put on drugs. Drugs the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) categorizes in the same class of highly addictive substances as cocaine and morphine—drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta — documented by the US FDA to cause hallucinations, mania, heart attack, stroke, sudden death to name but a few. And it all starts with one simple thing: The Diagnosis. (We challenge anyone to find a kid that would not fit some, if not all of psychiatry’s criteria for a “mentally ill” child they call ADHD.

Psychiatry’s exact list of “ADHD” criteria (and it does not require all of them to result in an ADHD label):

Fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.

Has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play.

Does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.

Does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions).

Has difficulty organizing tasks and activities.

Avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework).

Loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g., toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools).

Easily distracted by extraneous stimuli.

Forgetful in daily activities.

Fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat.

Leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected.

Runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate (in adolescents or adults, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness).

Has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly.

Appears “on the go” or acts as if “driven by a motor.”

Talks excessively.

And there you have it. The Answer: Psychiatry plus Big Pharma plus Billions in Marketing = Epidemic of “ADHD” Kids.

THE WEEK

One in 10 U.S. kids has been diagnosed with ADHD, a significant increase. Are “hypochondriac” parents jumping to conclusions — or are other factors at play?

Best Opinion: NPR, Strollerderby, ParentDish…

Almost 10 percent of U.S. kids have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a survey of parents conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a shocking 22 percent jump over 2003 figures — representing an additional 1 million children — and the increase was seen in all races, income levels, and areas of the U.S., with the exception of the West. What’s behind the rise? Here are 5 theories:

1. Doctors are doing a better job of diagnosing ADHD
Improvements in screening programs and greater awareness of the disorder among parents and doctors have helped identify more cases, says CDC epidemiologist Susanna Visser, , the report’s lead author. “We have become much more sensitive to behavioral differences,” agrees Dr. Jeffrey Brosco, an ADHD expert at the University of Miami. But that doesn’t mean doctors can say “whether kids in the 1970s are really different from kids in the ’90s or the 2000s.”

2. Demographics
The increases were more significant in certain demographic groups, note Scott Hensley at NPR. “The biggest jumps were seen in children between 15 and 17 and among Hispanic or multiracial children.” The jump in Hispanic ADHD cases likely reflects “greater cultural acceptance of the disorder.” Mysteriously, increases were particularly significant in 12 states, says Ray Hainer at CNN. North Carolina, for example saw a 63 percent spike in cases, with 15.6 percent of its kids diagnosed with ADHD.

3. Big Pharma is pushing the cure
Of the 5.4 million kids diagnosed with ADHD, the CDC reports, 2.7 million are taking medication for the condition. You have to question “the role of pharmacological companies in all of this,” says University of Kentucky psychiatrist John D. Ranseen. “It is very much in their interest to increase the diagnosis and treatment of this condition.” That alone should “give the mental health field pause.”

4. Blame our lousy diet
Nobody really knows what causes ADHD, says David Knowles in AOL News, but “one recent study suggested a correlation with a diet high in processed and fried foods.” Intriguingly, new research also ties ADHD to obesity in adulthood, says Healther Turgeon in Strollerderby. There’s no proof — yet — that one causes the other, but “the two are correlated.”

5. The real spike is in “paranoid” parents
“Are kids really that messed up?” asks Tom Henderson in ParentDish. “Or are parents becoming a bunch of second-party psychological hypochondriacs?” Remember, these million extra ADHD cases are “parent-reported diagnoses,” and today’s parents have been known to be “all too eager to control normal childhood restlessness and general weirdness by bombing kids with Ritalin.” Because, after all, “children often have the attention spans of, uh, children.”

http://theweek.com/article/index/209282/adhds-rapid-rise-5-theories

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1 million misdiagnosed ADHD children for $80B drug industry

cchrint — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:10:31 +0000

Examiner.com
By Deborah Dupre
October 30, 2010

Two new studies published suggest something wrong with the way ADHD is diagnosed in young children in the US, confirming the need for the public to utilize Citizens Commission on Human Rights International resources for injury prevention.

One or the new studies found nearly 1 million children potentially misdiagnosed just because of being youngest in their kindergarten year, with the class youngest twice likely to be medicated with stimulant medication. The other study confirmed that whether children were born just before or just after the kindergarten cutoff date significantly affected chances of being diagnosed ADHD.

20 million children are taking psychiatric drugs according to the mental health watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHRI).

CCHR works shoulder-to-shoulder with like-minded groups and individuals who share a common purpose to restore basic inalienable human rights to the field of mental health. These rights include, but are not limited to, full informed consent regarding risks of treatments and all available medical alternatives, and the right to refuse any treatment considered harmful.

Psychiatric disorders fuels an 80 billion dollar industry, highlighted CCHTI’s new documentary online, THE STAMP: Psychiatric Disorders Fuel $80 Billion Drug Industry.

Most authors of the “official” Diagnostic Manual that sets criteria for mental “diseases” have ties to the drug industries.”

“The psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars a year to convince the public, legislators and the press that psychiatric disorders such as Bi-Polar Disorder, Depression, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc., are medical diseases on par with verifiable medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Yet unlike real medical disease, there are no scientific tests to verify the medical existence of any psychiatric disorder. To counter this obvious flaw in their push to medicalize behaviors, the psychiatric industry will claim that there are certain medical conditions that do not have a verifiable test so this is why there isn’t one for “mental illness.” This is frankly a lame argument; Whereas there may be rare medical conditions that do not have a verifiable medical test, there are virtually no psychiatric disorders that can be verified medically as a physical abnormality/disease. Not one.” (CCHR)

Parents, legislators and the general public are not being given documented risks of drugs prescribed to children. CCHRI provides an easy to use search engine with complete information including warnings, studies, and adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs at www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/.

No More ADHD

Dr. Mary Ann Block, Medical director of the Block Center and associated with CCHRI is an outspoken critic of children being diagnosed ADHD and put on drugs documented to cause tics, stunted growth, heart attack, stroke and sudden death.

Dr. Block describes how parents are being misinformed about the medical legitimacy of ADHD and the dangers of the drugs being prescribed to treat children. She encourages parents to have their child given a full medical examination to find underlying medical problems that are being misdiagnosed as a mental disorder.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a mental health watchdog and non-profit organization. It has been responsible for more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices committed under the guise of mental health.

CCHR’s Board of Advisers, called Commissioners, include doctors, scientists, psychologists, lawyers, legislators, educators, business professionals, artists and civil and human rights representatives.

Co-founder of CCHR, Dr. Thomas Szasz is a Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York, Adjunct Scholar at Cato Institute and Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Considered by many scholars and academics to be psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, Szasz has authored over 35 books on the subject, the first being The Myth of Mental Illness, a book that rocked the foundations of psychiatry upon its release more than 50 years ago.

Photo: CCHR International

Watch the full CCHR documentary, THE STAMP: Psychiatric Disorders Fuel $80 Billion Drug Industry, here.

Read the entire article here: http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/1m-misdiagnosed-adhd-children-for-80b-drug-industry

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CCHR International » attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

ONE DRUG TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

Psychiatric drugs are big sellers. They are among the best selling drugs made.

In 2010, Americans or their insurers doled out some $16.1 billion for anti-psychotics;

$11.6 billion for anti-depressants;

and $7.2 billion for ADHD treatments.

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