Posts Tagged ‘pre-drugging’

Pre-Crime? Try Pre-Diagnose and Pre-Drug: Psychiatrists target infants as mental patients

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

By CCHR International
June 23, 2010

A new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry and headed by psychiatrist John H. Gilmore, professor of psychiatry and Director of the UNC Schizophrenia Research, claims to be able to detect “brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia risk”  in infants just a few weeks old.   We would like to point out the obvious flaw in this bogus study; there is no medical/scientific test in existence that schizophrenia is a physical disease or  brain abnormality to start with.  There is not one chemical imbalance test, X-ray, MRI or any other test for schizophrenia, not one.   So with no evidence of medical abnormality to start with, the “associated with schizophrenia risk” amounts to what George Orwell called Doublespeak (language that deliberately disguises, distorts, misleads)—it means nothing.

For decades, psychiatrists and Pharma have spouted lines to the press and public amounting to, “researchers now believe” they have medical evidence of schizophrenia as a physical/biological abnormality, or “new evidence suggests” evidence of schizophrenia as a real disease.   But despite millions of dollars in research funds and countless tales of “belief” —no evidence to support the theory.  One of the most common tricks employed by the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry to mislead the public, legislators and the press, is to take X-rays or brain images of people who have been long-term users of antipsychotic drugs (known to cause brain atrophy/shrinkage) and then claim people with schizophrenia have smaller brains.   They’ve spouted similar studies on kids with ADHD having smaller brains, but the bottom line to that study was that the kids with smaller brains, were…smaller kids. These are just a few of the many PR spins employed by Psycho/Pharma to try and maintain the “belief” in psychiatry, in their credibility as a science.   As evidenced by the recent statement of psychiatrist Allen Frances, former DSM- IV Task Force Chairman, this belief is falling apart even within their own ranks, “There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” —Allen Frances (And Frances isn’t the only psychiatrist exposing the fraud of the biological brain disease model; click here for more.)

The logical question the press should be asking is what are the American Journal of Psychiatry and “the Director of UNC Schizophrenic Research” really after?  What is their goal?

As we have exposed in the article “Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry Wants His Pre-Drugging Agenda to Go Global” there is a concerted push being headed by Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry and other pharmaceutically funded psychiatrists for the global implementation of a new mental health paradigm; preventative mental health, i.e., pre-diagnosing (diagnosing children before they develop a “mental disorder”) and pre-drugging children ( before they show “signs” of the mental disorder).   There is an obvious push for the same pre-diagnosing and pre-drugging agenda with this latest study, which claims ”major cases of schizophrenia are usually not diagnosed until a person begins witnessing its related symptoms like delusions and hallucinations as a teenager or adult . However, by that time, the disease [notice the term disease despite no medical evidence of disease] crosses the stage of preliminary treatment and is difficult to treat.”   In other words, if we wait to administer drugs to them it may be too late.  That along with Gilmore’s statement,  “It allows us to start thinking about how we can identify kids at risk for schizophrenia very early and whether there are things that we can do very early on to lessen the risk.” This is the pre-diagnosing, pre-drugging agenda being pushed and the new “preventative” model of mental health that is more akin to a Brave New World than anything previously witnessed.  And this latest “study” tells us infants are also on the agenda.

And finally,  to psychiatrist and lead study author John H. Gilmore, we think you should take a lesson from the former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Chief of the Center for Studies in Schizophrenia, the late Loren R. Mosher, M.D. who stated in his letter of resignation to the American Psychiatric Association, “The fact that there is no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution is, at this point, irrelevant.  What we are dealing with here is fashion, politics and money. This level of intellectual/scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue to support my membership…After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this is my belief I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological Association.  Luckily, the organization’s true identify requires no change in the acronym…”

To read more from Loren Mosher, including his two-year outcome study treating patients diagnosed “schizophrenic” without the use of drugs, his vehement stance against the biological psychiatric model of “disease” and more,  click here.

To read the latest bogus psychiatric study, click here.

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Pre-Crime? Try Pre-Diagnose and Pre-Drug: Psychiatrists target infants as mental patients

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

By CCHR International
June 23, 2010

A new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry and headed by psychiatrist John H. Gilmore, professor of psychiatry and Director of the UNC Schizophrenia Research, claims to be able to detect “brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia risk”  in infants just a few weeks old.   We would like to point out the obvious flaw in this bogus study; there is no medical/scientific test in existence that schizophrenia is a physical disease or  brain abnormality to start with.  There is not one chemical imbalance test, X-ray, MRI or any other test for schizophrenia, not one.   So with no evidence of medical abnormality to start with, the “associated with schizophrenia risk” amounts to what George Orwell called Doublespeak (language that deliberately disguises, distorts, misleads)—it means nothing.

For decades, psychiatrists and Pharma have spouted lines to the press and public amounting to, “researchers now believe” they have medical evidence of schizophrenia as a physical/biological abnormality, or “new evidence suggests” evidence of schizophrenia as a real disease.   But despite millions of dollars in research funds and countless tales of “belief” —no evidence to support the theory.  One of the most common tricks employed by the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry to mislead the public, legislators and the press, is to take X-rays or brain images of people who have been long-term users of antipsychotic drugs (known to cause brain atrophy/shrinkage) and then claim people with schizophrenia have smaller brains.   They’ve spouted similar studies on kids with ADHD having smaller brains, but the bottom line to that study was that the kids with smaller brains, were…smaller kids. These are just a few of the many PR spins employed by Psycho/Pharma to try and maintain the “belief” in psychiatry, in their credibility as a science.   As evidenced by the recent statement of psychiatrist Allen Frances, former DSM- IV Task Force Chairman, this belief is falling apart even within their own ranks, “There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” —Allen Frances (And Frances isn’t the only psychiatrist exposing the fraud of the biological brain disease model; click here for more.)

The logical question the press should be asking is what are the American Journal of Psychiatry and “the Director of UNC Schizophrenic Research” really after?  What is their goal?

As we have exposed in the article “Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry Wants His Pre-Drugging Agenda to Go Global” there is a concerted push being headed by Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry and other pharmaceutically funded psychiatrists for the global implementation of a new mental health paradigm; preventative mental health, i.e., pre-diagnosing (diagnosing children before they develop a “mental disorder”) and pre-drugging children ( before they show “signs” of the mental disorder).   There is an obvious push for the same pre-diagnosing and pre-drugging agenda with this latest study, which claims ”major cases of schizophrenia are usually not diagnosed until a person begins witnessing its related symptoms like delusions and hallucinations as a teenager or adult . However, by that time, the disease [notice the term disease despite no medical evidence of disease] crosses the stage of preliminary treatment and is difficult to treat.”   In other words, if we wait to administer drugs to them it may be too late.  That along with Gilmore’s statement,  “It allows us to start thinking about how we can identify kids at risk for schizophrenia very early and whether there are things that we can do very early on to lessen the risk.” This is the pre-diagnosing, pre-drugging agenda being pushed and the new “preventative” model of mental health that is more akin to a Brave New World than anything previously witnessed.  And this latest “study” tells us infants are also on the agenda.

And finally,  to psychiatrist and lead study author John H. Gilmore, we think you should take a lesson from the former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Chief of the Center for Studies in Schizophrenia, the late Loren R. Mosher, M.D. who stated in his letter of resignation to the American Psychiatric Association, “The fact that there is no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution is, at this point, irrelevant.  What we are dealing with here is fashion, politics and money. This level of intellectual/scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue to support my membership…After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this is my belief I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological Association.  Luckily, the organization’s true identify requires no change in the acronym…”

To read more from Loren Mosher, including his two-year outcome study treating patients diagnosed “schizophrenic” without the use of drugs, his vehement stance against the biological psychiatric model of “disease” and more,  click here.

To read the latest bogus psychiatric study, click here.

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Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry Wants His Pre-Drugging Agenda to Go Global

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010


“Australia is a place that can actually change the world in mental health, provided we get the right government support to do so.” — Patrick McGorry

By CCHR International
June 16, 2010

A Public Service Announcement on Australian TV features Australian of the Year, psychiatrist  Patrick McGorry,  claiming that nearly half the population will experience mental ill-health during their lifetime. Considering that after World War II, psychiatrists claimed that one in 20 people had a mental disorder, and now it’s every second one of us, that’s a damning 1000 percent failure rate for psychiatrists in reducing “mental illness.” Let’s get real; the reason psychiatrists claim more people are mentally ill is because they can keep  inventing new ways to label them mentally ill—but the press and governments are  starting to catch on, evidenced by all the controversy surrounding psychiatry’s upcoming edition of their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—better known as psychiatry’s billing bible. Yet of all the proposed “mental disorders” ranging from overeating to kids throwing tantrums, no proposed model of mental disorder is more  insidious and dangerous than that of Patrick McGorry, who promotes diagnosing people before they develop a so-called mental disorder—drugging them before they become “mentally ill.” Yet the Australian government has bought into it hook, line and sinker—despite the fact McGorry’s plan is so outrageous, even his peers, such as psychiatrist Allen Frances, former Chair of the DSM task force, have called it ”the most ill-conceived and potentially harmful.”

Make no mistake, the pre-drugging agenda is Patrick McGorry’s baby—his dream for a new paradigm in mental health, one that has the power to diagnose and drug people before they become mentally ill—welcome to the Brave New World of Patrick McGorry. And he isn’t stopping with Australia; his plan is to go global. As he recently stated, “Australia is a place that can actually change the world in mental health, provided we get the right government support to do so.”[1]

The fact that McGorry’s agenda is so controversial—it even has other psychiatrists protesting it—has not deterred the Australian government from funding this “ill-conceived” plan. A recent letter to Citizens Commission on Human Rights states, “The Australian Government is providing $25.5 million over four years from 2010-2011 to expand Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC) model,” developed by McGorry who founded EPPIC and the Orygen Youth Health in Victoria, Australia.

The Australian Government has already been criticized for massive expenditure on psychotropic drugs increasing more than 660 percent during the last decade—with a whopping 3,100 percent increase on antipsychotic drugs (with at least 15 Australian deaths in the under 19 year olds as a tragic consequence of this).  This can only get worse when under McGorry’s plan, with an enormous client base that can be prescribed drugs despite the fact they are not yet  “mentally ill.” It’s called prodrome (prodromos meaning the forerunner of an event)—referring to “a period of prepsychotic disturbance” that may or may not develop into psychosis or “schizophrenia”[2]—in other words, the crystal ball theory.

Australia Meets the US in Pre-Drug Scam

McGorry’s plan for Australia to “lead the change” in world mental health is happening—to the detriment of those who may be forced to undergo drug treatment based on a psychiatrist’s hunch that they might, one day, become ill. In the U.S., on May 13, 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services convened a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) discussed “emerging evidence around psychopharmacological interventions for first episode schizophrenia” citing the research efforts of McGorry and others.[3]

The push for pre-diagnosing and pre-drugging has even those within the psychiatric profession calling foul; Dr. Richard Warner, professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, counters the idea that science drives McGorry’s pre-disorder assessment, stating, “Given the expected number of false positives, the potential for harm is significant.”[4]

However, as Anthony Pelosi, honorary professor, Department of Psychiatry, Hairmyres Hospital, wrote in a counter to McGorry in the British Medical Journal last year, “this has not stopped their skillful lobbying of politicians, journalists, patients, and carers with upbeat messages about the prevention.”

“Skillful lobbying” is right.

In 2006 McGorry and other researchers, including psychiatrist Michael Berk, Karen Hallam, Craig McNeil, Linda Kaler and psychologist Melissa Hasty reported in the Medical Journal of Australia, “Evidence increasingly indicates that earlier identification may allow for appropriate pharmacological and psychosocial treatments….”[5]

Could they have a Pharma incentive behind this agenda? Berk is financially linked to AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Organon, Novartis, Mayne Pharma, Servier, Sanofi-Synthelabo, Solvay, and Wyeth and Pfizer.[6] Hallam disclosed received speaker fees from Janssen-Cilag; McNeil received consultancy fees, speaker fees and travel assistance from Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag and Sanofi-Aventis; and Hasty and Linda received financial assistance to attend conferences from or Janssen-Cilag, maker of the antipsychotic Risperdal (resperidone).[7]

McGorry has received grant support from Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, Bristol Myers Squibb, Astra-Zeneca, Pfizer, and Novartis.[8] He is a paid consultant for, and has received speaker’s fees from all or most of these companies.[9] Studies published in the British Medical Journal in 2005 and 2008 declared McGorry’s “early intervention studies have received partial support in the form of investigator-initiated unrestricted research grants from Janssen-Cilag.”[10]

The U.S. has already begun adopting the “early intervention” fad, which looks more like a trade in children’s lives and a business opportunity for increased pharmaceutical sales. In March 2010, the Department of Health & Human Services Substance Abuse & Mental Health Service Administration Center for Mental Health Services announced $16.5 million in funding for “Mental Health Transformation Grants,” including the “Early Detection and Intervention for the Prevention of Psychosis Program (EDIPPP).”[11]

EDIPP is the American sister of McGorry’s EPPIC.  It was originally bankrolled by a $14.4 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. According to investigative journalist Evelyn Pringle, “The founder of RWJF, Robert Wood Johnson, was chairman of Johnson & Johnson for over 30 years, from 1932 to 1963, as a member of the drug maker’s founding family. Throughout the years, the majority of the Foundation’s money has come from investments in J&J stock.”

In an article in Behavioral Healthcare, in 2008, the Mid-Valley Behavioral Care Network (MVBCN), an intergovernmental Medicaid government insurance-managed healthcare organization situated in Oregon, was recommended to study EPPIC used at Orygen and EDIPPP.

Based on EDIPP and EPPIC, the MVBCN developed the Early Assessment and Support Team (EAST) in 2001.  In 2003, the Oregon state legislature allocated $4.3 million to disseminate early psychosis intervention statewide.  By March the following year, new programs had begun in 12 counties.[12]

EDIPPP also replicates the “Portland Identification and Early Referral,” or “PIER,” a treatment research program at the Main Medical Center, in Portland, Maine.[13] People typically are referred to PIER by high school guidance counselors, pediatricians, or other clinicians who attended presentations about PIER’s work, says Pringle. “Virtually every person entering the PIER program is prescribed antipsychotics, such as Risperdal or Invega, marketed by Johnson & Johnson,” she added.

Both PIER and EDIPPP are promoted in McGorry’s 2002 book, Implementing Early Intervention in Psychosis: A Guide to Establishing Early Psychosis Services.”[14] The book’s foreword is written by Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, Professor of Psychiatry, Chairman Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.[15] Lieberman has taken consulting fees and research grant support from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Upjohn Pharmacia, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Pfizer, Hoechst AG, & AstraZeneca. He’s on the Speakers Bureaus for Astra Zeneca, Janssen, Eli Lilly and Pfizer.[16]

Lieberman is also the Vice President (North America) of the McGorry instigated group International Early Psychosis Association (IEPA), which was officially incorporated in Victoria in 1998.[17] McGorry is currently Treasurer of the Association.[18] Lieberman is a member of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical company front groups, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD).

Between 1999 and 2003 IEPA received unrestricted education grants from Janssen-Cilag and AstraZeneca.[19] EIPA’s conferences are supported by Janssen-Cilag, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.[20]

The IEPA lists the “who’s who” of Pre-Psychosis Risk Syndrome (the official label given pre-psychotic symptoms) and many of its board or members disclose manufacturers of antipsychotics as companies they’ve received financing from.

On July 29-30, the First international Youth Mental Health Conference is being held in Melbourne, with keynote speakers, including McGorry. The conference is described by one advocate as an “important and innovative event, attracting the best in the business/industry to discuss the emerging issues of youth mental health.”[21]

It couldn’t have been more adequately stated: business and industry. Herein you see McGorry’s pitch again that Australia is a global leader in this latest psychiatric fad. His invitation online states, “This is an important event for Australia and the mental health field. We expect this to be the first of many similar conferences, bringing together innovators, practitioners, researchers, young people and families to showcase the best of youth mental health innovation from around the globe.”[22] [Emphasis added]

There’s no doubt that this conference, like his Australian award, will be used to demand more funding to increase the business stakes and drive more income into psychiatry’s pre-drugging efforts.  Despite the government already allocating $103 million to McGorry, including the $25 million to further research EPPIC, he continues to call for another $800 million in funding for programs for youth mental health over the next four years.[23]

McGorry recently stated, “You have to be able to give something of yourself to people, if you are going to help them.”[24] McGorry’s brand of “helping” entails stigmatizing children with psychiatric labels that have no basis in science or medicine and then drugging them. That does not qualify as “help.” It’s betrayal. If this agenda to pre-diagnose, and pre-drug is allowed to take hold, we will truly have entered a Brave New World; Patrick McGorry’s.

[1] http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/museum/mwmuseum/index.php/McGorry,_Patrick

[2] http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/scz/sb-prod.html

[3] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “ASPE Technical Expert Panel on Earlier Intervention for Serious Mental Illness: Summary of Major Themes,” The Lewin Group, 13 May, 2009.

[4] Richard Warner, MB, DPM, is director of Colorado Recovery in Boulder, Colorado, and professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, “Early intervention in psychosis: Future or fad?” Centre for Addiction and Mental Health website, http://www.camh.net/Publications/Cross_Currents/Winter_2007-08/futureorfad_crcuwinter0708.html.

[5] http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_07_011007/ber10341_fm.pdf

[6] http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_07_011007/ber10341_fm.pdf

[7] http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_07_011007/ber10341_fm.pdf

[8] http://www.mhanet.ca/documents/2008/Research-Colloquium/0920%20-%20Keynote%20MCGORRY.pdf

[9] http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/aug04_1/a695

[10] http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/187/48/s108; http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/aug04_1/a695

[11] http://www.opednews.com/articles/Tracking-the-American-Epid-by-Evelyn-Pringle-100602-668.html

[12] http://www.behavioral.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=9B6FFC446FF7486981EA3C0C3CCE4943&nm=Archives&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=64D490AC6A7D4FE1AEB453627F1A4A32&id=BFCD36BFD75E447CA63F662A633F41FB&tier=4

[13] http://www.opednews.com/articles/Tracking-the-American-Epid-by-Evelyn-Pringle-100602-668.html

[14] http://books.google.com.au/books?id=lyLfMPsnvJ0C&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=Portland+Identification+and+Early+Referral+McGorry&source=bl&ots=lEp9tdT8ZV&sig=_zlnHeFk8oqxTHSjbvLf0XQmlY4&hl=en&ei=lP0RTKThLMWPcMnSzNAH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[15] http://69.5.18.33/ahrp/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=345

[16] http://69.5.18.33/ahrp/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=345

[17] http://www.iepa.org.au/ContentPage.aspx?pageID=10

[18] http://www.headspace.org.au/about/headspace-board/

[19] http://www.iepa.org.au/ContentPage.aspx?pageID=59

[20] http://www.iepa.org.au/ContentPage.aspx?pageID=59

[21] http://www.iymhconference.com.au/why-attend/

[22] http://www.iymhconference.com.au/

[23] Mental Health Update, GetUp! Action for Australia, 21 Apr. 2010, http://www.getup.org.au/blogs/view.php?id=1936&dc=1086,21560,1

[24] http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/museum/mwmuseum/index.php/McGorry,_Patrick

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Meet the Psychiatrist Pushing For A Brave New World of Pre-Drugging Kids—Patrick McGorry

Friday, May 21st, 2010

By CCHR International
May 21, 2010

One of the most controversial proposed disorders for the upcoming revision of psychiatry’s billing bible of mental disorders, (the DSM-5) is Psychosis Risk Syndrome (PRS) a “mental disorder” that, if voted into DSM, would confirm the allegations that psychiatry is manufacturing a Brave New World for itself—heavily backed by Big Pharma—of drugging children before they develop a “mental illness.” Already criticized for the millions of children being needlessly drugged and the lack of scientific criteria to substantiate any mental diagnosis as a legitimate medical condition, some psychiatrists now want the power to pull out their crystal ball and predict the onset of a psychosis and drug it before it has even occurred. And perhaps the strongest proponent is Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry.

Even psychiatrist Allen Frances, former chairman of the previous DSM task force expressed alarm over the proposed diagnosis and its repercussions should it be legitimized, stating, PRS “stands out as the most ill-conceived and potentially harmful.” The Syndrome fails badly on all 3 counts, he says:

“1. It would misidentify many teenagers who are not really at risk for psychosis;

2. The treatment they would most often receive (atypical antipsychotic medication) has no proven efficacy; but,

3. It does have definite dangerous complications.”

Frances adds: “Drug company marketing would influence parents and clinicians to be especially alert to any strangeness in teenagers.” False positives could be as high as 70-90 percent.[i] This can only lead to greater numbers of children and adolescents being harmfully drugged—already one of the major criticisms against psychiatry and a point of contention among many psychiatrists today.

Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry, speaking at the APA convention in New Orleans, as a cheerleader for “early intervention” (i.e. pre-drugging) is undeterred. Despite the unpredictability and risk of the drugs prescribed to treat PRS, McGorry wants to go full steam ahead, increasing the number of children being placed on extremely dangerous and even lethal drugs. It should come as no surprise that McGorry is a paid consultant for, and has received speaker’s fees from AstraZenecca, Janssen-Cilag, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Sanofi, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer.[ii]

The theory of PRS wasn’t McGorry’s. He credits Dr. Ewen Cameron, the Canadian psychiatrist who became infamous in the 1980s after it was revealed he had performed cruel and brain-damaging experiments on his patients in the 1950s and 1960s with funding from the CIA.[iii] However, McGorry tested it in a world-first trial. Another study he conducted in 2002 was funded with an unrestricted grant from Janssen-Cilag and supported by pharmaceutical company-funded groups NARSAD and the Stanley Foundation, as well as several Australian agencies. McGorry and colleagues predictably found that risperidone (Risperdal)—made by Janssen—reduced the risk of “transition to psychosis” in young people.[iv] Risperdal has been linked to Type 2 diabetes.

  • In Australia, McGorry’s Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Center’s (EPPIC) preventive treatment center for young people, PACE, receives drug company funding from Janssen-Cilag. Much of the policy development embodied in the Australian Clinical Guidelines has come out of EPPIC research programs. As Richard Gosden, Ph.D., a highly respected Australian author and academic stated: “This may have paid off handsomely for the company…. It may not be coincidental that a half page of the Clinical Guidelines is dedicated to dosage recommendations for using risperidone in first-episode psychosis. The Clinical Guidelines do not extend these dosage recommendations to include other schizophrenia drugs and the recommendations for risperidone give the appearance of an official endorsement of the drug.” [v]

McGorry’s theory has psychiatry’s skeptics and even psychiatrists aghast:

  • One respected American research group equated the practice of pre-drugging children to “performing mastectomies on women who are at risk of—but do not have—breast cancer.” [vi]
  • Honorary Professor Anthony Pelosi from the Department of Psychiatry, Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, stated, “So far, evidence from randomized trials does not support the use of psychological therapies or drugs as preventive interventions.”[vii] Further, “After teachers, college counselors, and families were encouraged to refer young people with possibly prodromal [early] symptoms directly to the same clinic for the same care plans…almost 90% were receiving unnecessary ‘preventive’ interventions.” [viii]
  • Fellow Australian psychiatrist Niall McLaren says the diagnostic criteria for PRS “has no scientific validity whatsoever…it can never be reliable and…will have huge unforeseen consequences.” Essentially, it means “putting large numbers of teenagers and young adults under the long-term supervision and control of psychiatrists” and that “supervision” includes the “aggressive, indefinite prescription of antipsychotic drugs.” It is the “clearest example I know of pseudoscience.  Not since [lobotomies] has psychiatry stumbled so far from the principle of Primum, non nocere. First, do no harm.” [ix]
  • Dr. Richard Warner, professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, counters the idea that science drives McGorry’s pre-disorder assessment, stating that the screening instrument he uses “is not that accurate in routine use.” Further, “McGorry speculates that a variety of interventions may be effective in preventing schizophrenia in high-risk cases…. Given the expected number of false positives, the potential for harm is significant,” stated Dr. Warner. [x]
  • Dr. Jerald Block, a US psychiatrist writing in Bioethics Forum, reported that “preventive pharmacology” (which McGorry, et al. practice) is “ethically questionable territory” because the treatments given “frequently have side effects and complications” and “you are potentially harming people.” The symptoms used to identify them as at risk of schizophrenia are “also remarkably common…adolescence is a period of life that is normally marked by tumultuous changes in personality.” [xi]
  • Melissa Raven, psychiatric epidemiologist and policy analyst, adjunct lecturer in Public Health at Flinders University, South Australia, and David Webb, board member of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry and working with the research/policy office with the Australia Federation of Disability Organizations, were published last month, writing: “McGorry’s campaign is part of a wider push to promote the medicalization of mental health (for which psychosocial wellbeing is a better term).” “Further doubts must be raised about McGorry’s agenda when you see the substantial funding his organization (Orygen Youth Health) receives from the pharmaceutical industry and also from the US Stanley Foundation, which is notorious for its particularly aggressive approach to the detention and mandatory treatment of people labeled with psychiatric disorders.” He has “personally received funding from many manufacturers of antipsychotics, frequently reports no conflicts of interest, particularly in his many recent Medical Journal of Australia articles, including a supplement on early intervention that repeatedly advocates the use of antipsychotics.” [xii]

Psychosis Risk Syndrome is nothing more than psychiatrists with conflicts of interest drumming up more business at the risk of teenage lives, while increasing the profits for the pharmaceutical industry they serve.

[i] Allen Frances, M.D., “DSM5 ‘Psychosis Risk Syndrome’–Far Too Risky,” Psychology Today, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201003/dsm5-psychosis-risk-syndrome-far-too-risky.

[ii] http://www.mhanet.ca/documents/2008/Research-Colloquium/0920%20-%20Keynote%20MCGORRY.pdf; http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/aug04_1/a695.

[iii] Richard Gosden, Ph.D., “Pre-Psychotic Treatment for Schizophrenia: Preventive Medicine, Social Control, or Drug Marketing Strategy?” Ethical Human Sciences and Services, Vol 1, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 165-177, http://sites.google.com/site/richardgosden/ehss.

[iv] Arch Gen Psychiatry, Vol 59, Oct. 2002, http://www.meb.uni-bonn.de/psychiatrie/zebb/literatur/mcgorry.pdf.

[v] Richard Gosden, Ph.D., “Pre-Psychotic Treatment for Schizophrenia: Preventive Medicine, Social Control, or Drug Marketing Strategy?” Ethical Human Sciences and Services, Vol 1, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 165-177, http://sites.google.com/site/richardgosden/ehss.

[vi] http://www.ministryoflies.com/pdf-articles/Yale-Lilly.pdf.

[vii] Anthony Pelosi, “Head to Head, Is early intervention in the major psychiatric disorders justified? No,” BMJ 2008;337:a710, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/aug04_1/a710.

[viii] http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/aug04_1/a710.

[ix] Niall McLaren, M.D., “Psychosis Risk Syndrome (PRS),” 14 May 2010 (soon to be published).

[x] Richard Warner, MB, DPM, is director of Colorado Recovery in Boulder, Colorado, and professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, “Early intervention in psychosis: Future or fad?” Centre for Addiction and Mental Health website, http://www.camh.net/Publications/Cross_Currents/Winter_2007-08/futureorfad_crcuwinter0708.html.

[xi] http://www.ahrp.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=386; http://ww.bioethicsforum.org/ethics-of-preventive-psychopharmacologic-treatments.asp.

[xii] David Webb, Melissa Raven, “McGorry’s ‘early intervention’ in mental health: a prescription for disaster,” Online Opinion, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10267.

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