Posts Tagged ‘overmedication’

Interview with “Psychiatryland” Author, Phillip Sinaikin, MD

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Scoop News – July 25, 20011

By Martha Rosenberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psychiatryland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psychiatryland

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

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

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

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Drugging the Vulnerable: Atypical Antipsychotics in Children and the Elderly

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

TIME
By Maia Szalavitz
May 26, 2011

Maryland Correctional Institution, Jessup, Maryland - Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Pharmaceutical companies have recently paid out the largest legal settlements in U.S. history — including the largest criminal fines ever imposed on corporations — for illegally marketing antipsychotic drugs. The payouts totaled more than $5 billion. But the worst costs of the drugs are being borne by the most vulnerable patients: children and teens in psychiatric hospitals, foster care and juvenile prisons, as well as elderly people in nursing homes. They are medicated for conditions for which the drugs haven’t been proven safe or effective — in some cases, with death known as a known possible outcome.

The benefit for drug companies is cold profit. Antipsychotics bring in some $14 billion a year. So-called “atypical” or “second-generation” antipsychotics like Geodon, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Risperdal rake in more money than any other class of medication on the market and, dollar for dollar, they are the biggest selling drugs in America. Although these medications are primarily approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which combined affect 3% of the population, in 2010 there were 56 million prescriptions filled for atypical antipsychotics.

In a presentation this week at an American Psychiatric Association meeting, Dr. John Goethe, director of the Burlingame Center for Psychiatric Research in Connecticut, reported that over the last 10 years, more than half of all children aged 5 to 12 in psychiatric hospitals were prescribed antipsychotics — and 95% of these prescriptions were for second-generation antipsychotics. Many of these children didn’t have a condition for which the drugs have been shown to be helpful: 44% of youngsters with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 45% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were treated with them.

Pharmacologically, the ADHD prescriptions make no sense: FDA-approved drugs for the condition raise levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, while antipsychotics do they opposite, lowering them.

Geothe also noted another study that showed that the number of office visits by children and teens that included antipsychotic drug prescriptions rose 600% from 1993 to 2002. “The obvious second-generation bias is very apparent in these data, as is the irrational use of antipsychotics for indications such as PTSD and ADHD for which there is no controlled evidence whatsoever that these are safe or effective treatments,” says Dr. Bruce Perry, senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston. (Full disclosure: Dr. Perry is my co-author on two books.)

The situation may be similar in state-run juvenile detention systems. Late last week, an exposé by the Palm Beach Post revealed that antipsychotics were among the top drugs purchased by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), and were largely used in kids for reasons that were not approved by the government — for instance, sleeplessness or anxiety. The Post reported:

In 2007, for example, DJJ bought more than twice as much Seroquel as ibuprofen. Overall, in 24 months, the department bought 326,081 tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for use in state-operated jails and homes for children.

That’s enough to hand out 446 pills a day, seven days a week, for two years in a row, to kids in jails and programs that can hold no more than 2,300 boys and girls on a given day.

Among the psychiatrists hired by the state to evaluated incarcerated kids, about a third received drug company money, the Post reported. Those 17 psychiatrists wrote 54% of the prescriptions for antipsychotics; the 35 doctors who did not take such payments wrote the rest. In other words, one-third of doctors — all of whom were paid by drug companies — wrote more than half of all antipsychotic prescriptions for the state’s locked-down youth.

The statistics on children in foster care are equally alarming. Youth in foster care are not only three times as likely to be medicated as comparable low-income youth on Medicaid, but more than half are treated with antipsychotics. It is not likely that all or even most of these children have a condition for which antipsychotics have been approved by the government to treat.

Among the problems with unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications is that they can cause serious, sometimes irreversible, damage. Atypical antipsychotics are associated with weight gain and may double users’ risk of Type 2 diabetes. Recent research also suggests that they may shrink the brain and there is little data on how they affect brain development during the teen years, when the brain grows more than at any other time but infancy. Indeed, youth are more vulnerable than any other group to the drugs’ worst side effects (excluding death).

“The majority of antipsychotic medication use in children and adolescents has not been limited to the few age groups or conditions for which there is credible evidence of efficacy and safety,” says Perry. “There is no reason to expect irrational prescribers to change their bad habits.”

He adds that many experts would argue that if doctors began prescribing antipsychotics “responsibly and cautiously” — that is, being mindful of the lack of efficacy data and the evidence of harm — the rate of prescriptions in children would drop by 90%.

Meanwhile, rates of prescriptions for patients at the other end of the lifespan are also out of control. In nursing homes, 14% of residents have been given at least one prescription for a second-generation antipsychotic, according to a government investigation. A full 88% of these prescriptions are given to people with dementia, despite the fact that these drugs may double the risk of death in these patients (there is a black box warning on the drug to this effect). The investigation estimated that $116 million Medicare dollars have been spent filling antipsychotic prescriptions that never should have been written.

So why are these drugs so widely prescribed? Aggressive drug company marketing is only one part of the story. A key reason they are overused in institutional settings is that they are sedating, making patients easier to manage. Secondly, unlike other sedative drugs, they are not associated with misuse (with the possible exception of Seroquel, which has fans among some addicts). In fact, most people resist taking antipsychotics, which is why overmedication is much more common in settings where people are locked-in and compliance can be forced.

The second point — that these drugs are not considered addictive — by itself probably accounts for a big part of why drug companies have been able to get away with so much misleading marketing and the resultant overprescribing. Although prescribing of traditional sedatives like benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax), which are vulnerable to misuse, is limited by their status as controlled substances, few people enjoy misusing antipsychotics (side effects like weight gain, pleasurelessness, movement disorders and low energy and motivation are not generally sought by recreational drug users), so they can be prescribed for unapproved uses like behavior control and sleep-inducement in children and the elderly.

In other words, addiction is basically seen as a worse side effect than death. The fact that the most vulnerable youth and elderly often cannot advocate for themselves has made it easier to sweep the problem under the rug.

Fortunately, there is at least one bright spot in this depressing picture. The main patent on Risperdal expired in 2007, and those for Zyprexa and Seroquel expire this year. Geodon’s patent expires next year, while Abilify’s comes up in 2015. When most drugs go off-patent, drug companies’ marketing pressure — and profits — will subside, perhaps keeping children and the elderly safer from inappropriate medication.

Read article here:  http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/26/why-children-and-the-elderly-are-so-drugged-up-on-antipsychotics/

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Teacher sacked for refusing to remove ‘have you drugged your kids today’ bumper sticker

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

The Daily Mail- March 1, 2011

by Daniel Bates
March 1, 2011

Defiant: When asked, Ms Ausburn refused to take the sticker off or park the car outside so they sacked her

A teacher has been fired over her bumper sticker which mocked parents who mollycoddle their children.

Tarah Ausburn put the ‘Have you drugged your kid today?’ sticker on her Toyota Prius in protest at what she claims is the overmedication of today’s children.

She has 60 other such stickers on the car including ‘Recycle or die’
and ‘A clear conscience is a sign of a bad memory’.

Five parents at Imagine Prep High School in Surprise, Arizona, objected to the suggestion that their children were on drugs and when they complained Ms Ausburn was asked to remove it or park her car off school grounds.

She refused and was fired.

The incident has sparked a huge row over first Amendment rights with Ms Ausburn refusing to back down.

She told Arizona’s KPHO TV: ‘It’s kind of a criticism of us tending to over-medicate hyperactive kids who might not need those medications.’

She added that she ‘just likes the ability to take a controversial topic and sum it up in one clever line. I’m an English teacher, that’s what I do’.

Ms Ausburn claimed she did not share the opinions expressed on the stickers with her pupils inside the classroom and whenever a child inquired she replied that she likes to ‘express my opinions’.

Culprit: The sticker, against over medicating children, was met with backlash from parents who objected to it being in the school parking lot

Prius: Ms Ausburn's car has 60 different bumper stickers expressing several points of view but it was one sticker in particular that got her fired

She said: ‘You have to remain true to your beliefs, you have to stand up for what you believe is right and I don’t believe it’s right to censor people just because your opinion doesn’t agree with theirs.’

The story has created a huge row with many of Ms Ausburn’s students leaving comments on websites in support.

Other commentators attacked the school for clamping down on freedom of speech.

Fireofgrace wrote: ‘It’s very sad that even in our “enlightened” society, our rights can still be flagrantly violated.

‘Tarah was not teaching her beliefs in her classroom, but rather voicing them aloud on her automobile. I mistakenly believed that we were allowed to do that in this country.’

Jennifer Pashelk added: ‘What is freedom of speech if you’re not allowed to express it anywhere without consequences?

‘It’s a lie.  It was a right given to us by our founding father’s, but it was also a right that is being taken away from us by stupid people that don’t know one flipping iota about respecting the rights of others to have that freedom of self-expression.’

But among those backing the decision to fire Ms Ausburn was iflyfir who said: ‘Sorry kids, but I would have fired her too. You can’t tell me that a teacher who plasters her Prius with left-wing, socialistic propaganda, won’t express their ideologically progressive views in the classroom.’

One parent also suggested that the problems with Ms Ausburn extended beyond just the stickers.

Pamiam wrote on the KPHO website that the teacher had a ‘laundry list’
of grievances against her including insisting on being called ‘Instructor Ausburn’ instead of ‘Ms Ausburn’.

School: Officials at Imagine Prep refused to comment on accusations that sacking Ms Ausburn over the sticker was a violation of the first amendment

She also claimed that she ripped up a test and gave the student a failing grade after the student said ‘God bless you’ to her when she sneezed.

Officials at Imagine Prep High School declined to comment.
Read article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361834/Teacher-Tarah-Ausburn-sacked-drugged-kids-today-bumper-sticker.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

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Senate Aging Panel Blows Whistle on Over Drugging Dementia Patients

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Natural News,  March 1, 2011

by Monica G. Young

Pharmaceutical companies view the elderly as a lucrative market. However a panel of experts at the recent Senate Aging Committee forum decided to speak up. Over-medication occurs far too often in those diagnosed with dementia, the panel warned, and as baby boomers age the problem will only worsen.

One reason overmedication occurs, per this panel, is family members, caregivers, and nursing home workers often misinterpret patients’ complaints about physical ailments as unruly or aggressive conduct. To manage their behavior, such patients are administered antipsychotics they don’t need.

About five million patients are currently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. “Those in this field have a feeling we’re headed in a very fast train toward the end of a cliff,” stated Patricia Grady, PhD, director of the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, Patricia McGinnis, demanded nursing homes be held “accountable” for the drugs they administer. “The way anti-psychotic drugs are used in nursing homes is a form of elder abuse,” she told the forum. “Instead of providing individualized care, many homes indiscriminately use these drugs to sedate and subdue residents.”

McGinnis urged for more informed consent before antipsychotics are given. She cited her own 89-year-old mother who was hospitalized for a broken hip, discharged to a nursing home and given an antipsychotic. McGinnis said her mother did not have dementia and didn’t need the drug, and family members were never consulted.

Professor of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin, Christine Kovach, spoke of an elderly patient who kept saying “No, no, no” and protesting whenever someone tried to move her. She was put on an anti-psychotic. X-rays later disclosed an untreated broken hip.

Nonpharmacological approaches can help, said Laura Gitlin, PhD, Director of the Jefferson Center for Applied Research on Aging and Health in Philadelphia. She listed alternatives like personal counseling, education, skill training of family members, and simple and engaging activities.

Antipsychotics have been widely used to squelch disruptive behavior among people with dementia. However these drugs are especially life-threatening to older people, raising the risk of strokes, diabetes and falls.

“There’s a bunch of problems, not least of which is those drugs can kill you,” reported Dr. Mark Kunik at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston at the annual Gerontological Society of America’s meeting. Instead of looking for physical causes of disruptive behavior, doctors typically prescribe drugs for dementia patients, he said, because “It’s the easy thing to do. … That’s true in hospitals, in clinics and in nursing homes.”

“Whether you have Alzheimer’s or not, there’s a reason people get frustrated or upset — pain, urinary tract infections, hunger, fear of strangers or loud noises or strange settings, maybe drug interactions,” Kunik stated. “If you figure that out, you likely can find a safer, nonpharmacologic treatment.”

There are alternatives that work. Eva Lanigant, a resident care coordinator for a facility in Minnesota, was tired of seeing elderly patients drugged into a stupor. Working with a psychiatrist and a pharmacist, she started a project to replace drugs with massage, games, exercise, personal attention, better pain control and other techniques. They trained the entire staff to interact with dementia residents.

Within six months they eliminated antipsychotic drugs and cut antidepressant use by half. Lanigan reported, “The chaos level is down, but the noise is up: the noise of people laughing, talking, much more engaged with life.  It’s amazing.”

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Are Independent Thinkers Mentally Ill?

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Nestmann.sovereignsociety.com

September 16, 2010

by Mark Nesmann

Do you question authority? Fail to accept conventional wisdom?  Lose your temper when you hear a politician make a promise that you know he or she can’t keep?

If so, you may be mentally ill, according to the most recent revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  In this revision, psychiatrists hope to add dozens of new mental disorders.  Unfortunately, many of these so-called illnesses target people who merely think or behave differently from the majority population.

A case in point is “oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).”  DSM defines ODD as “an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures.”  Symptoms include losing one’s temper, annoying people and being “touchy.”  Other “disorders” include antisocial behavior, arrogance, cynicism and narcissism. Sounds like many of my readers!

While diagnosis of ODD “victims” focuses on children, there’s no reason why ODD can’t exist in adults.  Indeed, ODD can evolve into “conduct disorder” (CD), which DSM defines as “wherein the rights of others or social norms are violated.”

Uh-oh.  So violating “social norms” is now a mental illness as well.

Let’s connect the dots, shall we?  There’s a long and sordid history of governments using psychiatry for political repression.  In the Soviet Union, thousands of political prisoners were detained in mental hospitals.  There they were isolated from friends and family, and many cases, forcibly medicated.  Nazi Germany went even further: it murdered over 180,000 psychiatric patients.

Laws in most states allow child protective services agencies to forcibly medicate your children.  Indeed, if you fail to administer drugs ordered by a physician or have your children submit to vaccinations, you can be imprisoned.

As The Washington Post observed:

“If seven-year-old Mozart tried composing his concertos today, he might be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated into barren normality.”

The conversion of personality differences into psychiatric disorders, and the forced medication of children, is a dangerous trend.  It is but a short step to extend these laws to adults who have a pattern of “negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures.”

I’d prefer a different approach: institutionalizing the psychiatrists that came up with all these new disorders.  Perhaps we could call their condition “overmedication psychosis.” And those of us with ODD, CD, or who simply don’t like the government telling us how to live our lives could breathe a bit easier.

http://nestmann.sovereignsociety.com/2010/09/16/are-independent-thinkers-mentally-ill/

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The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Dr. Doug Henderson & Dr. Gary Null
Centre for Research on Globalization
October 21, 2009

It has been a particularly bad month for the pharmaceutical industrial complex in its ongoing litigations in American courts. Among the main pharmaceutical headlines, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked to amyltrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease; following a $1.4 billion fine in promoting one of its blockbuster drugs Zyprexa off-label, deceptive correspondence was uncovered by Eli Lilly gaming the system again by promoting another one of its drugs, Cymbalta, off-label for fibromyalgia; AstraZeneca was fined $160 million for scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined $215 million for ripping off Alabama; Glaxo lost a Pennsylvania trial for failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects; and Pfizer scored a record-breaking fine of $2.3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years: Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica. These kinds of charges, among the many others, have become a habit for drug makers for the past dozen years.

When we speak of the pharmaceutical industry complex, it does not refer solely to private drug manufacturers. The complex, like a Matrix that holds captive the health of the nation in medical slavery by its own design and manipulation, is a consortium, a spiders’ web woven with financial attachments throughout the medical profession. In addition to the pharmaceutical and medical device firms, this complex includes every government health agency—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and or course the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—as well as drug lobbying firms now employing a large number of former Congresspersons, insurance and HMO companies, all of the leading professional medical associations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the majority of medical schools and their research departments who are heavily funded by drug money, many of the most prestigious medical journals, and ultimately all of this filtering downward to the physicians who diagnose our illnesses and prescribe our medications and treatments.

Read entire article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15758

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