Posts Tagged ‘chemical imbalance’

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Psychotropic Drugs, Our Children and Our Pill-Crazed Society

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

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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The Over-Prescribing of Psychoactive Drugs to Children: A Scourge of Our Times

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

The Huffington Post

September 1, 2010

by Dr. Ronald Ricker and Dr. Venus Nicolino

Today, the administration of psychoactive drugs to children (6-17) is all too common and growing at an alarming rate. These drugs often cause the opposite of the intended effect, often condemning children to a life of misery and ill health. The prescription of these drugs is said to treat “chemical imbalances” which were said to cause ADHD, Depression and Bi-polar disorder. It turns out, however, that what we were calling “disease-causing chemical imbalances,” is simply incorrect . The sad irony is, the inappropriate use of these medications is in fact creating different chemical imbalances, which do cause mental disorders, many of which are both life-long and debilitating.

Furthermore, it is now clear that often we are diagnosing ordinary childhood and adolescent behavior as mental disorders (Wait, children are supposed to be bursting with energy? It’s normal for a teenager to be moody and aloof?). This diagnosing is not only based on this idea of “chemical imbalances,” but also a general and pervasive notion that every non-acceptable behavior is due to a mental illness. And last, but certainly not least, the prescribing of these medications by doctors is based on the disinformation provided them by the FDA, drug manufactures and often fraudulent studies, all in the name of making money, on the backs of our children.

In a recent lecture, respected journalist, writer and Nobel Prize Nominee, Robert Whitaker (PBS, Boston, June 15, 2010) highlighted not only the appallingly unscientific methodology used in the development, prescription and use of psychotropic drugs in school-aged children, but also how hopelessly corrupt and failed the systems that should be regulating the safety of medicines are in this country.

Unfortunately, many drug companies exist for one reason: to make money. As such, the people who run these companies have developed a worldview bereft of any more notion of ethics or morality than British Petroleum. Some drug companies’ success is not based on a drug’s usefulness or the safety of its products, but whether it makes money. The path to more money is simple: find new uses for their old drugs, invent new drugs and find new markets for both new and old drugs. Unfortunately, children are today’s newest market.

The FDA requires a “Successful Drug Trial” to approve new medications. “Trial” is often a misnomer, as the word implies some notion of impartiality and unknown outcome. These “trials” often are more like kangaroo courts. In one “trial,” in this case to prove the usefulness of Prozac, corruption and dishonesty were the rule. Children who responded to placebos were removed from the data, as were negative responders to the actual drug. This meant that the only children who were left in the study group were so-called “positive responders.” And, even then, the researchers and doctors, whose “research” funding was provided by the makers of Prozac, were the very ones to decide which subjects, if any, actually did respond “positively” to the drug. This, of course, is a massive conflict of interest. The doctors, researchers and drug companies all want the same thing — FDA approval and to make more money.

In a 2004 article published in perhaps the most prestigious British medical journal, Lancet, said the trial studies used to provide proof of the usefulness of anti-depressant drugs in children, were “nothing but fraudulent.” Following that assessment, all anti-depressants but Prozac were banned in the UK for use on children. (The fact that Prozac was not banned was based on very dubious, some say dishonest, research as documented above).

The true damage caused by the use of anti-depressant drugs like Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, etc. (AKA of SSRI’s: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) by school-aged children is only found by legitimate, longer studies, like those that continued from 17 months to six years. In one study, 25 percent of children who had been on SSRI’s for three years were re-diagnosed with the much more serious disorder of Bi-polar disease. This number increased to 50 percent after six years of SSRI use. Long-term use of new anti-psychotics may lead to even greater problems than the initial disease. Diabetes, morbid obesity and early death have all been linked to the use of these drugs. And, as written by us in a previous blog both short and long term use of stimulant drugs such as Adderall), have numerous serious side effects.

Read the rest of this article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-ronald-ricker-and-dr-venus-nicolino/the-prescribing-of-psycho_b_665838.html

Note: To view all international drug regulatory warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs including those issued specifically for children,visit CCHR’s psychiatric drug search engine here: http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

Also see this video – Drugging Our Children: Side Effects – http://www.cchrint.org/videos/

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OpEdNews.com—The Mothers Act: How Pharmaceutical’s Control Puts New Mothers & Infants in Grave Danger

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Note: To see side effects of psychiatric drugs on pregnant women that have been reported to the US FDA,  click on this link http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/medwatch_psych_drug_adverse_reactions.php scroll all the way down in the Drug Class/Drug Name drop down link and select ANTIDEPRESSANTS, then in the AGE RANGE category, select  age range of 0-1 years.

OpEdNews
By K. L. Carlson
August 5, 2010

Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act sounds very supportive of new mothers. The truth is just the opposite. The cleverly worded title can be shortened to the Mothers Act and it was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It was introduced by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey; the state with the most pharmaceutical companies’ headquarters. According to the public interest group, Common Cause, Senator Menendez received over $2 million from the healthcare industry, including drug companies.

The Mothers Act was included in the immense health plan that was recently signed into law. New mothers need to be made aware that this Act was not written to benefit them, but to benefit the drug companies. This Act will have grave results literally.

Postpartum depression, as defined in the Act, is a “mood disorder” that has three categories. The most severe category is “postpartum psychosis.” Notice the use of psychiatric terms. The public is supposed to believe that motherhood can cause mental illness. Fear of a new mother suffering “postpartum psychosis” is then increased by the Act stating that one in every one thousand new mothers will suffer the mental illness.

The Act states that postpartum depression goes undiagnosed and untreated due to “social stigma surrounding depression and mental illness.” So giving birth and becoming a new mother with vastly fluctuating hormones and physiological changes, as well as the demands of a new baby, is now a mental illness. What is the probability the Mothers Act would have been written if psychiatric drugs did not reap more than $330 billion dollars a year?

The Act establishes federally funded grants to screen all new mothers before they leave their birthing centers and to continue screening during the first year. Although it is unknown why some women suffer depression after giving birth, and most likely there are many reasons including concerns of financially supporting a new baby, the pharmaceutical industry has ensured that it is considered a mental illness that will lead to non-curing, addictive, dangerous psychiatric drugs. As stated in the Act, “the new mother shall be referred to an appropriate mental healthcare provider.”

“There is no evidence that any mental disorder is caused by chemical imbalance,” a Surgeon General’s report states. The much-touted idea of brain chemical imbalance is a total myth with no scientific research ever supporting it. All psychiatric “disorders” are voted into existence by the American Psychiatric Association and have no objective diagnostic tests, such as blood tests or hormone tests. The Mothers Act is the latest version of the old story of the Emperor’s New Clothes – get people to believe something exists when in fact it does not. Mothers who have trouble emotionally after giving birth do not have any mental illness. They may have temporary hormonal imbalance. They may need a stronger emotional support system to feel confident they can get help with the new baby. They may need financial assistance. But they are not mentally ill.

The Act also funds clinical research “for the development and evaluation of new treatments for postpartum conditions, including new biological agents.” That means synthetic drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has ensured more tax dollars will continue to flow into its coffers.

“The suicide rate is 718 for every 100,000 people taking SSRI/SNRI drugs in clinical trials,” Dr. Arif Khan told NIH in August 2002. SSRI/SNRI drugs are antidepressant drugs, which is an oxymoron because the drugs cause depression. They should be called pro-depression drugs. The suicide rate in the general population not taking psychiatric drugs is about 11 for every 100,000 people. In fact, all 33 brands of SSRI/SNRI drugs carry the FDA’s most severe warning, a Black Box Warning, for suicide. Besides suicide the drugs have more than 100 other severe side effects, including anxiety, panic attacks, irritability, hallucinations, hostility, aggressiveness, and mania. Antidepressants are mind-altering drugs that have never been shown in any clinical study to help depressed people much more than the herb St. John’s Wort or the placebo (sugar pill). In one study the placebo group had significantly better results than the group receiving the antidepressant drug, confirming that the body has natural ways to deal with the ups and downs of life.

Once people are labeled with a mental disorder, such as postpartum psychosis, their behavior is then blamed on the disorder when in fact the drugs are causing the behavior. For a real life example, check out Amy Philo’s story on You Tube. She was anxious because her newborn son had a severe allergic reaction to a formula given to her by a physician. Amy’s fear and anxiety for her child was absolutely normal and would have subsided once she had her baby safely at home. Instead, she was diagnosed as suffering from postpartum depression and given an antidepressant. She asked if the drug would be safe for her baby since she was breast-feeding. A physician told her yes, the drug would make her baby happy too. Research results do not support what the doctor told Amy. “In conclusion, our results suggest that maternal exposure to fluoxetine (Prozac, Luvox, Sarafem, and Symbyax) during pregnancy and lactation results in enduring behavioral alterations “throughout life.” All psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, are neurotoxins. That means they kill nerve cells everywhere in the body.

“After only being on the antidepressant for a couple of days I had thoughts of killing my baby.” Amy was horrified, but instead of blaming the drug’s known side effects, the physician blamed the label of postpartum depression. Obviously, Amy’s “mental illness” had worsened and she now needed to be put in a psychiatric ward. She didn’t agree to the incarceration but her resistance was again labeled as due to her mental illness. The white coats know best! Fortunately Amy’s story has a happy ending. She suspected the antidepressant was causing her strange thought patterns. She managed to be released from the psychiatric ward after only a brief stay and she stopped taking the drugs they had given her. All of Amy’s symptoms that had been labeled by the medical community as postpartum depression symptoms ceased when she stopped taking the drugs. Her baby and she were home together. A happy ending. That will not be the case when they initiate the Mothers Act. Since every mother is potential income to psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry, we can predict that the majority of new mothers will be labeled and drugged for postpartum depression. It is about money, not health.

The pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry are conjoined twins joined at the wallet. “Adoption of the Mothers Act is a positive development for women and their families,” says Alan F. Schatzberg, MD, President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Scharzberg was one of several influential psychiatrists who Senator Grassley’s investigations found had failed to disclose financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.

“In order to survive we psychiatrists must go where the money is,” Dr. Steven Sharfstein, APA Vice President told Congress. The money is in prescription psychiatric drugs as demonstrated by the astounding fact that in 2007 the five leading psychiatric drugs grossed more money than the gross national product of half the countries in the world.

The French philosopher Voltaire wrote, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” The conjoined twins of the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry are doing their best to have the public believe the absurdity that the stress and emotional roller coaster of becoming a new mother is a mental illness. Then they get these vulnerable women to commit the atrocity of taking mind-altering, addictive antidepressant drugs that go directly into the baby through the mother’s milk. These drugs can make a new mother’s life a living hell. Ask Amy Philo.

Even if the mother does not suffer visible side effects from an antidepressant, she is still consuming an addictive drug that is a neurotoxin. And if she breast feeds, her baby is consuming a drug that has been shown to cause severe, irreparable damage.

Pregnant women taking antidepressants have babies who are 6 times more likely to have primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) or a developing lung disorder. PPH is extremely serious. The drug causes developmental distortion of the lungs leading to lack of oxygen to crucial organs such as the brain, kidneys and liver. PPH is often fatal. Babies who initially survive PPH have long-term health problems including breathing difficulties, seizures and developmental disorders.

K.L. Carlson is a former drug rep turned whistleblower, author of the compelling expose, Diary of a Legal Drug Dealer – One Drug Rep. Dares to Tell You the Truth. She is also a CCHR International Commissioner (advisor)

Read the rest of this  article here:  http://www.opednews.com/articles/PHARMACEUTICAL-S-CONTROL-P-by-K-L-Carlson-100803-846.html

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Psychiatric Meds 101: A Surprising Discovery – Your Own Personal Hell

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

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By Shane “The People’s Chemist” Ellison
Author, Over-The-Counter Natural Cures

I may be a perfect candidate for psychiatry.

I ask questions with period marks to shorten conversations. I avoid eye contact with strangers in fear (maybe it’s anxiety) that I might learn too much about them. I secretly think that Metallica would be making better music if they went back to bludgeoning themselves with party drugs and alcohol, instead of “therapy.” I’m trying to master the Law of Un-attraction to shield myself from a “real job,” small homes and junky cars.  And, I’m constantly giving my children advice, only to give it to myself.

Psychiatry, can your drugs help me?

Perhaps these questions are what motivated me to pursue a career as a drug design chemist, winning multiple awards for my work. Nothing gets me more excited than drugs and how they affect the body (except my wife’s abs). I’ve studied their molecular anatomy, risked life and limb to mix and match explosive chemicals in a round bottom flask, and even sold my soul to Big Pharma in exchange for a lab bench and chemical hood.

During this time, I’ve made some surprising discoveries about psychiatric meds, which include antidepressants, antipsychotics, stimulants, and anti-anxiety drugs. Understanding what I’ve learned will protect you from the flood of side effects that are now being discovered at breakneck speeds, courtesy of the myriad of patients being prescribed psychiatric drugs in the name of mental health.

Your Own Personal Hell

Antidepressants strive to increase the levels of a “coping” molecule known as serotonin in the brain. It supposedly helps us find happiness when it’s covered in an avalanche of nastiness. But, it’s never been proven. Still, the drugs attempt to boost serotonin by “selectively” stopping the “reuptake” among brain cells. This is where the whole SSRI acronym came from—“selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.” It’s a slick name, but a stupid idea. Nothing is selective in the body.

While trying to block the reuptake of serotonin, antidepressants can also prevent its release and that of another brain compound known as dopamine. The areas of the brain responsible for release and reuptake of these neurotransmitters are so damn similar (after all, they work on the same molecule) that an antidepressant drug isn’t smart enough to understand which one it is supposed to work on. So it does what any dumb drug would do, it blocks both. That’s why users usually carry a glassy stare in their eye. Fully under the psychiatric spell, they’ve tuned out.

Deep sadness, fear, anger and aggression can set in over time. By removing serotonin and dopamine from the brain, long-term antidepressant users can’t find or feel happiness. Instead, they may become buried in the avalanche of nastiness. And if you can’t find or feel happiness in life, what’s the point? What’s going to stop you from snapping your own neck or spraying bullets on your classmates? Not much when you live in your own personal antidepressant hell.

Think this is all opinion?

According to the FDA, antidepressants can cause suicidal thoughts and behavior, worsening depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, aggression, psychotic episodes and violence.  Some even cause homicidal ideation according to the manufacturers. Many long-term antidepressant users will tell you they no longer feel normal emotions—they’re numb, like zombies.

But the side effects of these drugs aren’t limited to hijacking your feelings and emotional state, causing violent and psychotic states. Physical side effects occur too and include abnormal bleeding, birth defects, heart attack, seizures and sudden death. Over one hundred and seventy drug regulatory warnings and studies have been issued on antidepressants, to sound the alarm on these side effects.

For Elephant Use Only

Psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotic meds such as Zyprexa and Seroquel, for anything from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delusional disorder, psychotic depression, autism or anything else they can think of, even “pervasive developmental disorder,” which is perfect for boosting sales because it targets children who suffer from irritability, aggression, and agitation. It’s a shame ‘cause these drugs are good for nothing but sedating irate elephants, not curing psychiatric disease.

According to a study published in Psychological Medicine, antipsychotic drugs cause brains to shrink – they lessen brain matter and volume. Originally designed for those deemed “schizophrenic,” the drug companies came up with a brilliant marketing campaign to sell these drugs to a much wider market—unsatisfied antidepressant users. You’ve probably seen the ads—if your “depression medication” isn’t working, then don’t blame the drug; you may just have bipolar disorder!

Once swallowed, antipsychotics sail through the blood stream where they’re carried to the brain. Like a giant oil spill, antipsychotics cover the brain in a medicinal slick, where brain wave transmission is blocked. Users become devoid of normal brain activity. Motivation, drive and feelings of reward are shunted. If psychiatry considers this a “treatment,” they’re the crazy ones.

If you’ve ever seen someone who has suffered from the “spill” courtesy of following doctors orders, you can’t mistake one of the most common side effects, it’s called Akathisia. Involuntary movements, tics, jerks in the face and the entire body can become permanent side effects for antipsychotic users.

Antipsychotics also cause obesity, diabetes, stroke, cardiac events, respiratory problems, delusional thinking and psychosis. Drug regulators from the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa warn that they can also lead to death. I wouldn’t be surprised if psychiatrists considered this a cure…

Use This to Jump The Grand Canyon

If you’re going to attempt to jump your scooter over the Grand Canyon, or ride your snowboard off Kilimanjaro, stimulants are great. They flood the brain with dopamine and trigger an inhuman surge of adrenaline, responsible for making you believe life is grand, despite eminent death. Outside of that, you’re either a speed freak, a college student trying to learn an entire semester of Biology 101 in 4 hours, or a fifth grader “following doctor’s orders.”

Top stimulants being prescribed today are nothing more than a mix of amphetamines packaged into trade names like Adderall, Dexedrine and Ritalin.  Street thugs sell it as meth, poor man’s cocaine, crystal, ice, glass and speed. It’s no wonder kids are now abusing Ritalin, Adderall and these drugs more than street drugs, they’re cheaper to get and they’re “legal,” hence the term kiddie cocaine.

Even the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) categorizes Ritalin in the Schedule ll category, meaning a high potential for abuse—just like cocaine and morphine. All of them have the same effects regardless of how they’re named: Central nervous system overload leading to heart attack and/or heart failure. And kids are dropping faster than Meth Heads at Raves…

I’m not exaggerating.

Eleven international drug regulatory agencies and our own FDA has issued warnings that stimulants like Ritalin cause addiction, depression, insomnia, drug dependence, mania, psychosis, heart problems, stroke and sudden death.

 Bash Your Head in with Anti-Anxiety Drugs

If you’re not man enough for a drug that could sedate an elephant like antipsychotics, then psychiatrists will prescribe anti-anxiety meds, particularly benzodiazepines. Choosing between the two is akin to deciding whether or not you should be hit in the head with an aluminum bat or a wooden one; anti-anxiety meds being the latter.

Discovered in the stinky chemistry labs of Hoffman La Roche in 1955, anti-anxiety meds aim to trigger sleep receptors in the brain, just slightly. So, rather than being riddled with anxiety, you are put to sleep, halfway. It’s “treatment,” and psychiatrists have been “practicing it for decades.” But, it has yet to work, because drugging your problems away is more dangerous than anxiety. The use of anti-anxiety meds is coupled with a host of nasty side effects such as seizures, aggression and violence once the drug wears off. Hallucinations, delusional thinking, confusion, abnormal behavior, hostility, agitation, irritability, depression and suicidal thinking are all possible outcomes according to Big Pharma’s heavily guarded research papers.

Getting off the drugs could be harder than abandoning a heroin addiction. Some have described withdrawal from “benzos” being akin to pulling hundreds of fish hooks out of their skin, without anesthesia. If you doubt their addictive nature, go to Google search and type in a few of the leading anti-anxiety drugs like Klonopin or Xanax and here is what you’ll find:

“Klonopin withdrawal” 1,860,000 results

“Xanax withdrawal” 1,980,000 results

Exposing Psychiatry: How to Get The Truth

In total, the side effects of psychiatric meds spread far and wide. And most are hidden from patients and doctors alike. Fortunately, Citizens Commission on Human Rights has solved this problem with a state-of-the-art database that allows people to search through the adverse reaction reports sent to the FDA on psychiatric drugs. It also provides international drug regulatory agency warnings and studies published on the side effects of the drugs.

So, can psychiatry help me? No. And that’s surprising because psychiatric meds are some of the biggest selling drugs, poised to seal the hopes and dreams of millions.  Regardless of what mental state I might be in (or anyone else for that matter), there is not a single drug that cures, treats or solves the perceived problems of mental health.

While people can suffer miserably from emotional or mental duress that can hinder their lifestyle, the pseudo-science of psychiatry has yet to solve any of these problems, and in fact only contributes to poor health as seen by the wide array of side effects. Marketing campaigns and ghostwritten medical journals are designed to obscure these facts. But the psychiatric drug side effect database courtesy of CCHR ensures that all patients have access to the truth, to the documented facts, which could save their life or that of a loved one.

 About the Author

Shane Ellison holds a masters degree in organic chemistry and is the author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures.  An award winning chemist, he has been quoted by USA Today, Shape, Woman’s World, as well as Women’s Health and appeared on Fox and NBC as a natural medicine advocate.  Sample his book free at www.thepeopleschemist.com

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SSRIs Render Unfriendly Skies—FOIA documents reveal what FAA failed to consider in allowing pilots on antidepressants to fly

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Scoop Independent News
By Evelyn Pringle
July 14, 2010

The SSRI antidepressant makers are desperate to find new customers, so they recently have been focusing on capturing groups for which the drugs were usually considered off limits. The latest marketing coup managed to open up sales to roughly 614,000 American pilots.

Under a new policy announced on April 5, 2010, pilots diagnosed with depression can seek permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to take one of four SSRIs, including Eli Lilly’s Prozac, Pfizer’s Zoloft, and Forest Laboratories’ Celexa and Lexapro.

“The FAA should reverse its ruling before it’s too late and hundreds of lives are lost when a pilot becomes impulsive, suicidal or violent–or just loses his sharpness–under the influence of antidepressant medication,” said SSRI expert, Dr Peter Breggin, in an April 19, 2010 Huffington Post commentary.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is also calling on the FAA to rethink allowing pilots to take SSRI in light of a new report issued last month by the National Transportation Safety Board, on a February 1, 2008 plane crash in North Carolina, by a crazy acting pilot on Zoloft, that killed all six persons on board

The report said the pilot failed to maintain control of the plane during instrument flying conditions and “deliberately descended below the minimum descent altitude.” The plane stalled and crashed while circling after an aborted landing.

“Review of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) audio revealed that the pilot had displayed some non-professional behavior before initiating the approach,” the NTSB reported.

The CVR recorded the pilot singing: “Save my life I’m going down for the last time,” before beginning a commentary in which he told passengers: “If anybody back there believes in the good Lord, I believe now would be a good time to hit your knees.”

A review of medical records documented that “from December 4, 2006 through December 31, 2007, the pilot had filled 6 prescriptions for 30 tablets of 50 mg sertraline (Zoloft),” the report said.

The records indicated that he had been treated previously with two other antidepressant medications for “anxiety and depression” and a history of “impatience” and “compulsiveness,” the NTSB noted.

An investigation of another plane crash, resulting in two fatalities in Kingsport, Tennessee, in August 2003, found Zoloft in the blood and liver of a private flight instructor, according to an accident report by the NTSB.

In the policy statement published in the Federal Register, the FAA seems to justify the use of these drugs via the fully debunked “chemical imbalance in the brain” theory when writing: “All these medications are SSRIs, antidepressants that help restore the balance of serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical substance found in the brain.”

“Increasingly accepted and prevalently used, these four antidepressants may be used safely in appropriate cases with proper oversight and have fewer side effects than previous generations of antidepressants,” the FAA wrote, with no citation to any scientific paper to back up this assertion.

In fact, the current labels on SSRIs warn that “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients treated for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric.”

“Even when not severe, these reactions impair judgment and increase the likelihood of accidents and violence,” according to Dr Breggin.

CCHR has set up a great website with a one-of-a-kind search engine that allows the public and officials to access the database on side effects reported to the FDA on SSRIs, and every other psychiatric drug. The site also has a search engine to access all the International warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs which have been summarized so they are easy to understand, even to a lay person.

Input Only From the Choir

On April 6, 2010, Bob Fiddaman, author of the long-running popular website and blog, “Seroxat Sufferers,” sent a request to the FAA, under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking information on the change in policy.

In the Federal Register, the FAA claims it came to its decision after “careful consideration.” However, in the 58 pages of documents sent to Fiddaman on June 9, 2010 (and kindly shared with this author), there is no mention of consultations with any of the prominent SSRI experts who may have offered a contrary view. Like Peter Breggin for instance.

The FAA’s response to Fiddaman shows the agency has been discussing the policy change since at least 2008. In response to a request for “minutes of meetings where the change in the policy was on the agenda,” as well as a list of “members present and a declaration of interests of each of the members,” the FAA sent a copy of a July 18, 2008, Memorandum, with a summary from one consultants meeting. Three outside experts attended but there were no declarations of interests, or lack thereof, by anyone at the meeting.

The summary noted that the consultants “unanimously agreed that the concept of allowing certain airmen taking antidepressant medication was reasonable and safe.” But the “unanimous consensus” was that only Prozac and Zoloft “were appropriate medications due to the longevity of their use and overall safety.”

“They also felt that only these two should be considered initially, and no other medications considered at this time,” the summary reported.

In responding to the question of whether the new policy would apply to Air Traffic Controllers, the FAA said the “new policy does not presently apply to Air Traffic Control Specialist (ATCS) because the administrative details of the monitoring and follow-up of these employees are yet to be determined. The plan is that ATCSs will eventually be included in a program of this type.”

In response to a request for any information “given to FAA from outside parties that relate to the FAA’S recent change in policy regarding pilots on antidepressant medication,” the FAA sent copies of documents received from the Aerospace Medical Association, the Airline Pilots Association Aeromedical Office, the International Airline Pilots Association, and the United States Army.

“In developing the new policy, the FAA also utilized a variety of medical research literature available in the public domain,” the response said. “We used internet sites such as, but not limited to: The National Library of Medicine PubMed site and the FDA Medwatch.”

The documents Fiddaman received show consideration of a 2003 study of aviation accidents that found SSRIs in 61 pilot fatalities between 1990-2001, in which the psychological condition and/or the drug use was determined to be the cause, or a factor in 16 of the accidents, or 31%.

However, there was no mention of a later November 2006 study titled, “Pilot Medical History and Medications Found in Post Mortem Specimens for Aviation Accidents,” led by Dennis Canfield, from the FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, in the “Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine” journal.

For this study, toxicological evaluations were performed on 4,143 pilots involved in fatal aviation accidents during the period between January 1, 1993, through December 31, 2003, to identify all pilots found positive for medications used to treat cardiovascular, psychological, or neurological conditions.

The evaluations found one-hundred dead pilots with SSRIs in their systems including forty with Prozac, twenty-six with Zoloft, twenty-one with Paxil, and thirteen with Celexa.

Less than a month after the new policy was announced, in “Aviation International News,” on May 1, 2010, Matt Thurber reported that in a review of 127 accidents in the NTSB database since 1991, containing the word “antidepressant,” only three were nonfatal.

“In 124 of those accidents, 211 people were killed,” Thurber said. “In accident after accident, antidepressants … were found in the tissues of dead pilots, and the pilots had falsified their medical certificate applications to show that they had never been treated for psychiatric problems.”

Read the rest of this article here:  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1007/S00116.htm

Read FOIA documents here: http://fiddaman.blogspot.com/p/faa-respond-to-freedom-of-information.html

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The Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex—creating epidemic of mental illness through psychiatry’s chemical imbalance hoax

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Dissident Voice
By Evelyn Pringle
June 8, 2010

For the past two decades, the Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex has been the driving force behind the epidemic of mental illness in the United States with the promotion of biological psychiatry and a bogus “chemical imbalance” in the brain theory.

The Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex (PPIC) is a symbiotic system composed of the American Psychiatric Association, the pharmaceutical industry, public relations and advertising firms, patient support organizations, the National Institute of Mental Health, managed care organizations, and the flow of resources and money among these groups, according to an October 1, 2009 paper in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling, by Dr Thomas Murray, director of Counseling and Disability Services at the University of North Caroline School of Art.

Murray’s paper draws parallels between cult indoctrination and PPIC techniques and notes the similarities between cult members and mental health consumers who are vulnerable to losing their identities to the PPIC.

The PPIC and “its adherence to the disease model pervades mainstream culture and greatly impacts psychotherapy,” he says. “Consequently, the effects of the PPIC may have resulted in some psychiatric consumers adopting disease-model messages in ways similar to cult indoctrination.”

“Consumer adoption of the disease model can create obstacles to treatment when hope is fundamental,” he advises.

Murray says his most difficult cases “involve clients who have in essence been drawn into the PPIC and have become resigned to the disease model with little sense of empowerment to overcome their emotional problems.”

“These are the consumers who have little self-efficacy and little hope that they have options other than to suffer,” he reports.

“Insurance companies rely on pharmaceuticals to contain costs (and limit psychotherapy sessions), and reimbursement depends on a diagnosis of a diseased brain,” Murray notes.

Read entire article:  http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/06/tracking-the-american-epidemic-of-mental-illness-part-iii/

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“ADHD is a total 100% fraud. The millions of schoolchildren around the world being drugged have no disease” – Neurologist

Monday, May 31st, 2010

ArticlesRoad.com
May 29, 2010

The term “ADHD” is simply a label used to categorise a list of psychosocial traits that Psychiatry considers to be improper or abnormal in society. Psychiatry defines these traits as a “mental illness”, and promotes it as a “disease” that requires “treatment”.

It is not a “disease”, despite claims or implications made by certain psychiatric or pharmaceutical organisations. There is NO credible scientific evidence that shows the existence of what constitutes “ADHD” as a biological/neurological disorder, brain abnormality or “chemical imbalance”.

“For a disease to exist there must be a tangible, objective physical abnormality that can be determined by a test such as, but not limited to, blood or urine test, X-Ray, brain scan or biopsy. All reputable doctors would agree: No physical abnormality, no disease. In psychiatry, no test or brain scan exists to prove that a ‘mental disorder’ is a physical disease. Disingenuous comparisons between physical and mental illness and medicine are simply part of psychiatry’s orchestrated but fraudulent public relations and marketing campaign.” Fred Baughman, MD., Neurologist & Pediatric Neurologist.

“Chemical imbalance” it’s a shorthand term really, it’s probably drug industry derived “We don’t have tests because to do it, you’d probably have to take a chunk of brain out of someone – not a good idea.” Dr. Mark Graff, Chair of the Committee of Public Affairs for the American Psychiatric Association. July, 2005.

Such behavioural characteristics that Psychiatry created this unscientific “disease” from are, and always have been, generally considered “normal”. Now, it seems, inattention or “hyperactivity” (Hyperactivity means ‘excessively active’* — what is excessive? On whose authority?? It’s ridiculous!!) is abnormal, a “mental illness”.

Read entire article:  http://articlesroad.com/adhd/what-is-the-defination-of-addadhd-according-to-the-dsm_iv.html

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How Mental Disorders are Manufactured & Marketed “Not in the Mood? You Could Have Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder”

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

U.S. News & World Report
Deborah Kotz
May 19, 2010

Not interested in sex? Perhaps you have a condition called hypoactive sexual desire disorder, caused by a brain chemical imbalance. That’s the message conveyed in a new “educational campaign” launched last week by the Society of Women’s Health Research with actress Lisa Rinna as a celebrity spokesperson talking about “the brain’s potential role in desire.” On the campaign’s new website, you might conclude that if you’re not fantasizing about sex a lot you should definitely talk to your doctor.

You won’t, though, learn about any medications for HSDD—because there are no approved drugs for it. A new drug, called flibanserin, may be approved by the Food and Drug Administration after its advisory committee meets to discuss the drug next month. In the meantime, flibanserin manufacturer Boehringer-Ingelheim has funded an HSDD educational campaign to create demand for the drug, some experts say. And, yes, Rinna is a paid spokesperson.

“It’s like priming the market,” says Lisa Schwartz, an associate professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Lebanon, N.H. “Disease awareness is a very important part of [preparing for] an upcoming ad campaign” for any new drug—which will no doubt occur if and when flibanserin is approved. (I previously reported on the over-medicalization of low sexual desire in women.)

Unfortunately, the website doesn’t provide much useful information about the low sex drive condition, which was first identified in the 1970s and is included in the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder. You wouldn’t learn from the website, for example, that certain medications—including antidepressants, birth control pills and antihypertensives—can dampen your sex drive. Nor would you learn about the usefulness of psychological treatments like psychotherapy or mindfulness training. And the website doesn’t differentiate between “situational” HSDD, caused by lifestyle factors like lack of sleep, breastfeeding, stress, and relationship issues, and “generalized” HSDD, which may arise from some sort or physiological problem, like low testosterone levels or a brain chemical imbalance. In this interview with Fox News, Rinna said she lost her sex drive soon after her second child was born, which, according to experts, means she probably had some explainable reason like excess fatigue or low sex hormones due to nursing.

Read entire article: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2010/05/19/not-in-the-mood-you-could-have-hypoactive-sexual-desire-disorder.html

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Does psychiatry make us mad? Anatomy of an Epidemic

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

New Scientist
By Druin Burch
April 14, 2010

PSYCHIATRY is widely considered to be a success, able to treat mental illness using drugs to correct chemical imbalances in the brain. Yet, since the advent of psychiatric drugs, rates of mental illness have shot up and the supposed imbalances, thought to be the cause of mental illness, have been shown not to exist.

Whitaker wants us to believe psychiatry itself is to blame, and that scientific incompetence and corrupting self-interest have prevented reliable assessments of mental disorders and treatments alike. The author’s belief that we could have got it so wrong seems far-fetched.

Up close, however, his arguments are worryingly sane and consistently based on evidence. They amount to a provocative yet reasonable thesis, one whose astonishing intellectual punch is delivered with the gripping vitality of a novel.

Read entire article:  http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/04/does-psychiatry-make-us-mad.php

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

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

PopMatters
By Chris Barsanti
February 24, 2010

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

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

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

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

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