The Australian – Feb 7, 2012
Older drivers who use prescription psychoactive drugs such as benzodiazepines may be five times more likely to be involved in a motor vehicle accident, a new Curtin University study has found.

The study, Psychoactive Medications and Crash Involvement Requiring Hospitalization for Older Drivers: A Population-Based Study, concluded that the use of psychoactive medications, particularly benzodiazepines and anti-depressants, increased the likelihood of involvement in motor vehicle crashes for older drivers.

Head of the Curtin Monash Accident Research Centre (C-MARC) study, Associate Professor Lynn Meuleners, said the level of impairment caused by benzodiazepines and some anti-depressants could be compared to that of drinking alcohol.

“The role of alcohol in traffic crashes has been established, but for prescribed medications there is limited current, evidence-based information,” A/Prof Meuleners said.

“The usage of medications, particularly benzodiazepines and anti-depressants, may contribute to a longer reaction time when faced with the unexpected while driving.

“In this study, older drivers exposed to benzodiazepines were five times as likely to be involved in a hospitalisation crash, and almost twice as likely for drivers exposed to anti-depressants.”

Given that benzodiazepines and anti-depressants are frequently used by people over 60, and polypharmacy (using several drugs at the same time) is also more common among this group, the study’s results bear great implications.

A/Prof Meuleners has therefore called for licensing authorities and policy makers to take note of the study’s results and consider the implications of the findings when creating rules and policy measures for older drivers.

“Inclusion of such medications on medical reporting forms for older drivers to licensing authorities would enable ongoing surveillance that would provide a more comprehensive evidence base of the need for stricter regulatory policies.”

The research, recently published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, involved more than 600 individuals aged 60 and older who were hospitalised as the result of a motor vehicle crash between 2002 and 2008 in Western Australia.

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Drug industry corruption, scientifically unreliable diagnoses and pseudoscientific research have compromised the values of the psychiatric profession.

Alternet
By Bruce E. Levine
January 6, 2012

Why do some of us become dissident mental health professionals?

The majority of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals “go along to get along” and maintain a status quo that includes drug company corruption, pseudoscientific research and a “standard of care” that is routinely damaging and occasionally kills young children. If that sounds hyperbolic, then you probably have not heard of Rebecca Riley, and how the highest levels of psychiatry described her treatment as “appropriate and within responsible professional standards.”

When Rebecca Riley was 28 months old, based primarily on the complaints of her mother that she was “hyper” and had difficulty sleeping, psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji, at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Kifuji prescribed clonidine, a hypertensive drug with significant sedating properties, a drug Kifuji also prescribed to Rebecca’s older sister and brother. The goal of the Riley parents—obvious to many in their community and later to juries—was to attain psychiatric diagnoses for their children that would qualify them for disability payments and to sedate their children making them easy to manage.

By the time Rebecca was three years old, again based mainly on parental complaints, Kifuji had given Rebecca an additional diagnosis of bipolar disorder and prescribed two additional heavily sedating drugs, the antipsychotic Seroquel and the anticonvulsant Depakote.

At the age of four, Rebecca was dead.

At the time of her death, Rebecca had a life-threatening amount of clonidine—enough to kill her—in her body, according to the former director of the Massachusetts toxicology lab and the medical director of a regional poison control center. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy concluded that Rebecca died from intoxication of clonidine, Depakote and two over-the-counter cold and cough medicines that led to heart failure, lungs filled with bloody fluid, coma, and then death. Rebecca’s abusive parents went to prison for the over-drugging that led to their daughter’s death.

Kifuji’s fate? The psychiatric establishment rallied around Kifuji, enabling her to return to Tufts Medical Center practicing child psychiatry without any restrictions, penalties or supervision. After Rebecca’s death, Tufts-New England Medical Center defended Kifuji. A Tufts spokesperson told “60 Minutes” in 2009, “The care we provided was appropriate and within responsible professional standards.”

Apparently, psychiatric care that is considered appropriate and within responsible professional standards includes diagnoses of ADHD for a two-year-old and bipolar disorder for a three-year-old when the symptoms of those disorders are normal behaviors for those ages; prescribing three heavily sedating drugs that have not been approved by the FDA for child psychiatric treatment; ignoring the warnings from a school nurse about over-dosages for Rebecca; and making diagnoses based almost entirely on the reports of Rebecca’s mother, who herself was diagnosed with mental illness and heavily medicated to the point of falling asleep in Kifuji’s office.

Long before the Rebecca Riley tragedy hit the headlines, I was embarrassed by the mental health profession for seven major reasons:

1. Corruption by Big Pharma

How did it become within responsible professional standards for a two-year-old to get an ADHD diagnosis, for a three-year-old to get a bipolar diagnosis, and for toddlers to be prescribed multiple heavily sedating drugs? The short answer is drug company corruption of the mental health profession.

Congressional hearings in 2008 revealed that psychiatry’s “thought leaders” and major institutions are on the take from drug companies.

On June 8, 2008, the New York Times reported about psychiatrist Joseph Biederman: “A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007.”

Due in large part to Biederman’s influence, the number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003. Pediatrician and author Lawrence Diller notes about Biederman, “He single-handedly put pediatric bipolar disorder on the map.” In addition to his popularization of bipolar disorder for children, Biederman is one of the most significant forces behind the expanding numbers diagnosed with ADHD; and congressional investigators also discovered that Biederman conducted studies of Eli Lilly’s ADHD drug Strattera that were funded by National Institute of Health at the same time he was receiving money from Lilly.

Not only does the drug industry have influential psychiatrists such as Biederman in their pocket, virtually every major mental health institution is financially interconnected with Big Pharma. Congressional hearings also exposed the American Psychiatric Association psychiatry’s premier professional organization, as being on the take from drug companies. In 2006, the drug industry accounted for about 30 percent of the APA’s $62.5 million in financing. Most relevant here, the APA is the publisher of the psychiatric diagnostic bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and thus the APA is the institution responsible for creating mental illnesses and disorders.

2. Invalid Illnesses and Disorders

Psychiatry’s first DSM (1952) and its DSM-II (1968) listed homosexuality as a mental illness. Only because of a fierce political fight waged in the 1970s by gay activists did the APA abolish homosexuality as an illness and eliminate it from its DSM-III (1980). Gay activists’ fight was not only a victory for themselves but a service for everyone else, as it made public the important scientific problem of psychiatric disorder invalidity. Specifically, are psychiatric disorders scientifically valid illnesses, or are they simply behaviors that create discomfort for some authorities at a given moment in time?

While psychiatry lost homosexuality as a mental illness in the 1980 DSM-III, the APA found other groups it could pathologize, groups that could not mobilize and resist, most notably children, who are now routinely given psychiatric diagnoses for behaviors that many of us view as normal for their ages.

Psychiatry sees it as within responsible professional standards to diagnose three-year-olds such as Rebecca Riley with bipolar disorder. The symptoms of bipolar disorder include irritable and rapidly changing moods, severe temper tantrums, defiance of authority, agitation and distractibility, sleeping too little or too much, poor judgment, impulsivity and grandiose beliefs.

Psychiatry also sees it as within responsible professional standards for Rebecca Riley to have been diagnosed at 28 months old with ADHD. The symptoms of ADHD are inattention (easily distracted and bored, difficulty organizing and completing tasks, losing things, not seeming to listen, not following instructions); hyperactivity (fidgeting, talking nonstop, having trouble sitting still, difficulty with quiet tasks), and impulsivity (impatience, blurting out inappropriate comments, interrupting conversations).

Today, children and teens are also diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), the symptoms of which include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” and “often argues with adults.”

The standard for a medical disorder should not be whether or not an individual causes friction.

3. Scientifically Unreliable Diagnoses

Even if you believe that bipolar disorder for three-year-olds, ADHD for two-year-olds, ODD for teenagers, and all the other DSM diagnoses are valid disorders, there is still the scientific issue of diagnostic unreliability—the lack of diagnostic agreement among professionals examining the same person.

A generation ago, psychiatrists admitted that their diagnoses were unreliable and agreed that this was a major scientific problem. So in 1980, in an attempt to eliminate this embarrassment, they created the DSM-III with concrete behavioral checklists and formal decision-making rules, but they failed to correct the problem. Psychiatric diagnoses remain unreliable, but now psychiatry no longer talks about the unreliability problem.

If a measurement is a reliable one, then clinicians trained with it should be in high agreement on the diagnosis. A major 1992 study, conducted at six sites with 600 prospective patients, was done to examine the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. Experienced mental health professionals were given extensive training in how to make accurate DSM diagnoses. Because of the extensive training, one would expect that diagnostic agreement would be much higher than in typical clinical settings. Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk summarize the study in Making Us Crazy (1997):

What this study demonstrated was that even when experienced clinicians with special training and supervision are asked to use DSM and make a diagnosis, they frequently disagree, even though the standards for defining agreement are very generous. . . . [For example,] if one of the two therapists made a diagnosis of Schizoid Personality Disorder and the other therapist selected Avoidant Personality Disorder, the therapists were judged to be in complete agreement of the diagnosis because they both found a personality disorder—even though they disagreed completely on which one! So even with this liberal definition of agreement, reliability using DSM is not very good.

Kutchins and Kirk conclude: “Mental health clinicians independently interviewing the same person in the community are as likely to agree as disagree that the person has a mental disorder and are as likely to agree as disagree on which of the over 300 DSM disorders is present.”

4. Biochemical Imbalance Mumbo Jumbo

Just as nothing was more important in selling the Iraq war in 2003 than the Bush administration’s certainty that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, nothing has been more important in selling psychiatric drugs than psychiatry’s certainty of biochemical brain imbalances as the cause for mental illnesses.

Prior to psychiatry’s proclamation that depression was caused by too little of the neurotransmitter serotonin, few Americans were taking antidepressants. But by declaring that depression was caused by a serotonin imbalance analogous to diabetes and an insulin imbalance, depressed Americans became far more receptive to serotonin-enhancing drugs such as the “selective-serotonin-reuptake inhibitors” (SSRIs) Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft.

SSRIs can make some depressed people feel better; however, alcohol makes some shy people less shy, but that’s not enough evidence to say that shyness is caused by an alcohol imbalance. The truth is—and scientists have known this for quite some time—that serotonin levels are not associated with depression.

Researchers have used a variety of methods to test the serotonin imbalance theory of depression, including comparing serotonin metabolites in depressed and nondepressed people, and depleting serotonin levels through a variety of means and then observing whether this resulted in depression. Elliot Valenstein, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, reviewed the research in his book Blaming the Brain (1998) and reported that it is just as likely for people with normal serotonin levels to feel depressed as it is for people with abnormal serotonin levels, and that it is just as likely for people with abnormally high serotonin levels to feel depressed as it is for people with abnormally low serotonin levels. Valenstein concluded, “Furthermore, there is no convincing evidence that depressed people have a serotonin or norepinephrine deficiency.”

In 2002, the New York Times reported: “Researchers knew that antidepressants seemed to raise the brain’s levels of messenger chemicals called neurotransmitters, so they theorized that depression must result from a deficiency of these chemicals. Yet a multitude of studies failed to prove this precept.”

Yet even now, many psychiatrists and other mental health professionals continue to promulgate the serotonin imbalance theory of depression, and polls show that the majority of Americans continue to believe it.

5. Pseudoscientific Drug Effectiveness Research

There are multiple tricks that psychiatric drug manufacturers and their researcher psychiatrists and psychologists use to make their drugs look more effective than they really are. One of the most common depression measurements used by researchers paid by drug companies is the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. In the HRSD, researchers rate subjects, and the higher the point total, the more one is deemed to be suffering from depression. On the HRSD, there are three separate items about insomnia (early, middle and late) and one can receive up to six points for difficulty either falling or remaining asleep; however, there is only one suicide item, in which one is awarded only two points for wishing to be dead. The HRSD is heavily loaded with items that are most affected by drugs, and it is therefore especially damning for antidepressants that even with such measurement dice-loading, these drugs routinely fail to outperform placebos—even dice-loaded placebos.

Proper drug research requires that neither subject nor experimenter knows who is getting the drug and who is getting the placebo (a true double-blind control). Drug company antidepressant researchers use inactive placebos such as sugar pills (which don’t create side effects). Independent research on inactive placebos show that many subjects in antidepressant and other studies can guess if they are getting the actual drug or not, which changes their expectations and subverts the double-blind control. In order to make it more difficult to guess correctly, an active placebo (which creates side effects) should be used. In 2000, a Psychiatric Times article concluded: “In fact, when antidepressants are compared with active placebos, there appear to be no differences in clinical effectiveness.”

Dice-loading depression measurements and placebos are just two of many techniques drug company researchers use to make antidepressants look more effective than they really are. But even with such dice-loading, antidepressants have not fared well, at least when one examines all the studies.

Drug companies try to ensure that those studies showing antidepressants to be no more effective than placebos are not published; however, all studies must be submitted to the FDA. So independent researcher Irving Kirsch and his research team at the University of Connecticut used the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to all data, and analyzed 47 studies that had been sponsored by drug companies on Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Celexa, and Serzone. Kirsch discovered that in the majority of the trials, the antidepressant failed to outperform a sugar pill placebo (and in the trials where the antidepressant did outperform the placebo, the advantage was slight).

6. Psychotropic Drug Hypocrisy

Chemists consider psychiatric prescription drugs and illegal mood-altering drugs all to be psychotropic or psychoactive drugs. Cocaine and ADHD drugs such as Adderall and other amphetamines affect the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine; and antidepressants used in combination also affect the same neurotransmitters. Not only are prescription psychotropics and illegal psychotropics chemically similar, they are used by people for similar reasons, including taking the edge off their discomfort so they can function. The hypocrisy surrounding illegal and prescription psychotropic drugs is harmful to society in at least two ways.

At one level, because people are being misinformed about the realities of prescription psychotropic drugs, they are more likely to gulp them down and to give them to their children. This has helped create a tragic phenomenon detailed by investigative reporter Robert Whitaker in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic (2010). Psychiatric drug use turning mild and episodic conditions into severe and chronic ones has helped create a huge increase of Americans with severe mental illness, especially among children.

At a second level, this psychiatric-illegal psychotropic drug hypocrisy allows for unfair criminalizing and incarceration of people using illegal psychotropics.

7. Diversion from Societal, Cultural and Political Sources of Misery

When we hear the words disorder, disease or illness, we think of an individual in need of treatment, not of a troubled society in need of transformation. Mental illness expansionism diverts us from examining a dehumanizing society.

In addition to pathologizing normal behavior, the mental health profession also diverts us from examining a society that creates the ingredients—helplessness, hopelessness, passivity, boredom, fear, and isolation—that cause emotional difficulties. We are diverted from the reality that many emotional problems are natural human reactions to loss in our society of autonomy and community. Thus, the mental health profession not only has financial value for drug companies but it has political value for those at the top of societal hierarchies who want to retain the status quo.

Today, a handful of dissident mental health professionals do challenge and resist their profession’s dehumanizing standard practices. I know several of these dissidents, and they are the only psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health professionals that I have any respect for.

Read article here:  http://www.alternet.org/story/153634/7_reasons_america%27s_mental_health_industry_is_a_threat_to_our_sanity/

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The Huffington Post – December 22, 2011

Remember that many of these children will be waking up on Christmas morning to count out their multiple mind-altering psychiatric drugs that they have been prescribed by psychiatrists and other prescribers hired by the states in which they reside and paid for by tax dollars. These kids don't need psychiatric drugs, they need human "angels" to rescue them from a system that is stacked against their well-being.

The most vulnerable among us are the littlest victims. Young children, torn from their birth families through various, often unspeakable tragedies. These children end up in state supervised foster care and too often are passed from hand to hand, house to house. There were approximately 662,000 children in foster care in the United States in 2010.

Now there is a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report confirming that foster children in five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas — are receiving shocking amounts of psychiatric drugs. In the words of ABC News, they are “being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.” The ABC News report shows one 7-year-old holding a bag filled with 13 psychiatric medications that she had taken.

During the FDA drug-approval process, the maximum dose of a drug is determined by giving that drug by itself without any other psychoactive substances. When two or more psychiatric drugs are given together, each at its maximum dose, toxic levels of exposure can occur. In addition, some of these children are being given higher than the FDA-approved dose of individual drugs.

One young child interviewed by ABC News described the effect of the antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs he was taking: “They made me feel like I had a thousand bricks on my head.” Another child said, “Some of the medications were for ADHD but I’m not ADHD, I’m just naughty.” A teen in foster care on multiple psychiatric drugs told ABC News she felt like a “guinea pig.”

Foster children are provided government insurance in the form of Medicaid that includes “mental health” services such as psychiatric evaluations and prescription drug coverage. Individual states administer Medicaid and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for overseeing the state programs.

In the states surveyed by the GAO, children in Massachusetts fared worst. Thirty-nine percent of the foster care children aged 0-17 on Medicaid were prescribed at least one psychiatric drug. By comparison, 10 percent of non-foster care children in Massachusetts were prescribed at least one psychotropic medication under Medicaid. It’s serious enough when 10 percent of non-foster care children from our poorer communities are receiving psychiatric drugs; it’s even more tragic when 39 percent of our most poor and abandoned children are being inundated with these drugs.

Other states in the GAO study had total numbers of foster care children on Medicaid being prescribed at least one psychiatric drug: Oregon — 19.7 percent; Texas — 32.2 percent; Florida — 22 percent; and Michigan — 21 percent. The statistics reported are eye-opening, and it is worthwhile to see the full GAO report. In Texas, for instance, 9.1 percent of foster care children aged 0-5 years old are on at least one psychiatric drug, and 58.2 percent of foster care children aged 13-17 years old are on at least one psychiatric drug. Massachussetts has 53.4 percent of foster care children aged 13-17 on at least one psychiatric drug, and almost 5 percent of foster children aged 0-5 are on at least one psychiatric drug.

Is this widespread psychiatric drugging medically appropriate or indicated? Absolutely not. First of all, these are young children, even infants, who have already been through extremely traumatic experiences. All of them have been taken from their homes and most of them will not have had a stable replacement home. Beyond that, one can only imagine their horrendous living conditions prior to being removed from their families of origin. These children do not need psychoactive substances — they need the best human, caring services that our society can provide. The drugs may make them temporarily more docile, but by disrupting and suppressing normal brain function and development, they add new stressors to their lives and prevent them from adapting and growing as best as possible.

ABC News reports, “Of all the psychiatric medications, antipsychotics are, by far, the most prescribed, especially for foster children. Foster children are given anti-psychotics at a rate nine times higher than children not in foster care, according to a 2010 16-state analysis by Rutgers University of nearly 300,000 foster children.”

These antipsychotic drugs — including Abilify, Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa — can lead to obesity, elevated blood sugar and diabetes, pancreatitis, cardiovascular abnormalities and a disfiguring and sometimes disabling movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia. It’s been suggested they could shorten lifespan by up to 25 years in patients exposed to them for decades. Evidence is accumulating that they can also lead to shrinkage of the brain in those patients exposed to them for years.

Why are these highly-toxic drugs being given to so many children in foster care? The antipsychotic drugs can suppress the highest centers of the brain — the frontal lobes — leading to indifference and apathy, which makes the children more docile and easier to manage. The use of multiple psychiatry drugs (polydrug therapy) produces similar effects. In the extreme, these children become zombie-like.

The newer antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Cymbalta, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor and Pristiq and have been shown to cause an increase in suicidal behavior in children. In addition, as the FDA-approved label and medication guides for these drugs confirm, they also can cause a general worsening of the individual’s condition, including depression, anxiety, hostility, aggression, impulsivity and mania. Many studies also suggest that a high percentage of children are driven into abnormal mental states by these drugs. When a child develops any one of these adverse reactions they are likely to have additional psychiatric drugs added to their drug cocktail rather than being carefully withdrawn from the offending substances.

As ABC News documented with one mother, parents or foster parents who object to the prescriptions of mind-altering psychiatric drugs for their young children are likely to be threatened with removal of the child from their care. In a separate case in Detroit, a child who was on Medicaid due to physical disability was taken off her mind-altering psychiatric drug by her mother when she displayed adverse effects.

The prescribing clinic called child welfare services and reported the mother. Welfare services removed the child from her mother’s care for a time. Fortunately, this child was later returned by court order to her mother and criminal charges against the mother were dismissed.

But word gets around. Complain about your child being placed on drugs and social services may intervene.

A mother in Millbrook, NY, was charged with medical neglect for not continuing her 4th grade son on a cocktail of psychiatric medications that was making him angry and listless. Off the drugs his energy returned and his mood improved, but public school officials kicked the boy out of school and reported the mother. The mother prevailed and was exonerated of “medical neglect” charges. Her son attended a private school and thrived. He is now a grown man and responsible citizen. His mother explained, “Kids don’t need drugs, they need individualized education and better family life. The priorities are all screwed up.”

In two of the ABC news foster care cases, the clinics that were authorized to deliver services to the children were also promoting themselves as being research facilities for “CNS Conditions” (central nervous system conditions, a misnomer for psychiatric conditions.) As research facilities those clinics have ties with pharmaceutical companies.

And what about the drug companies? Are they doing all they can to prevent the inappropriate use of their products? To the contrary, several of the largest drug companies have paid billions to settle claims they illegally marketed antipsychotics to children and other off-label populations, such as the elderly.

What is being done to these children should be viewed as chemical battery and child abuse. The misguided parents and foster parents are not the perpetrators. The psychopharmaceutical complex is the perpetrator, including the drug companies, the federal government and organized medicine and psychiatry.

The drugging of America’s children raise many issues including parental rights, children’s rights, child safety, off-label prescribing of the drugs and fraud and malpractice on the part of the researchers, psychiatrists and other prescribers. Most tragic is the silence! The stifled voices of victimized children and the self-serving silence of health professionals throughout the country who fail to take a public stand against the escalating drugging of our children.

Drugging traumatized foster children shoves them under society’s rug and is in no way therapeutic for the child. There are humane and effective approaches to helping our most vulnerable children. First, they need to be protected from predatory psychiatrists and other prescribers. Second, they need improved social services that could keep many of them in their homes or provide better assistance, training and supervision to improved foster care homes. When they inevitably become emotionally distressed and at times behaviorally disturbing, they do not need chemical readjustments of their brains — they need better attention from adults in the form of improved home-life or foster care, improved educational opportunities and psychosocial therapies aimed at helping them overcome and move beyond the trauma and stress they have endured and continue to endure as children and youth.

Sure, it’s easier to give them drugs. But has anybody noticed — it doesn’t help them in the long run. Exposure to psychiatric drugs in childhood is dangerous and over time can be damaging, disabling and even deadly.

No agencies and no associations — not NIMH, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the many other mental health associations — are willing to call a halt to the massive tidal wave of mind altering psychiatric drugs being thrown at America’s children. Several states, including Florida, Louisiana and New York have expelled “high prescribing” doctors from Medicaid but this is like nipping off the top of the iceberg. The primary problem remains: Placing children on psychiatric drugs instead of offering genuine help.

Dr. Robert Nelson, M.D., Ph.D. of the FDA Office of Pediatric Therapeutics, squirmed when challenged by Diane Sawyer in the ABC foster child series, but said the FDA had no plans to strengthen their warnings about psychiatric drugs and children.

The GAO, while courageously illuminating the great number of foster children on psychiatric drugs as well as the seriousness of children being exposed to multiple psychiatric drugs, falls far short of calling for the curtailment of the drugging of American children.

Twenty-five years ago, a tiny fraction of children were prescribed psychiatric medications, and that was largely confined to stimulants. In the early 1990s we were blowing the whistle on the increasing attention psychiatry was paying to children. I wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in 1989 and spoke frequently through the media about how children being blamed and diagnosed for problems in families, schools and in society. From 1990 to 1995 the increased prescribing of psychotropic drugs for preschoolers had begun.

What is to be done?

It is time for state attorney generals to launch full-scale investigations into the practices of these Medicaid psychiatrists. When appropriate, they should be charged with battery and with fraud, and sued for malpractice. But the psychiatrists are largely responding to the campaigns conducted by the psychopharmaceutical complex.The entire system, from the drug companies and insurance companies to the medical and psychiatric associations, and also the researchers and universities, need to be investigated for participating in this widespread medical abuse of children.

This Christmas, as many of us gather around a Christmas tree watching the children in our families wake up with shining eyes and happy laughter… remember. Remember that there were approximately 662,000 children in foster care in the United States in 2010.

Remember that many of these children will be waking up on Christmas morning to count out their multiple mind-altering psychiatric drugs that they have been prescribed by psychiatrists and other prescribers hired by the states in which they reside and paid for by tax dollars. These kids don’t need psychiatric drugs, they need human “angels” to rescue them from a system that is stacked against their well-being.

Only an outraged citizenry will change this. Write your Congressional representatives and senators. Write your state representatives and senators. Write your state attorney general’s office requesting a full investigation in your state of the crisis with foster children and psychiatric drugs. If you are a parent or a foster parent being pressured to keep your child on psychiatric drugs, call your local paper, referencing the ABC News investigation. If you are a reporter, plan a local series on this issue. If you are a teacher, a social worker or professional in the Medicaid system, consider becoming a whistleblower against the chemical assault of these children. If you are a medical professional learn how to help children safely taper off their psychiatric drugs while assisting their families in obtaining more useful services. Always remember that withdrawal from psychiatric drugs can be hazardous and needs to be done carefully with experienced clinical supervision.

It’s the Christmas season. Let’s not forget the kids who are so drugged their eyes cannot sparkle anymore. Become one of their real-life angels.

Peter R. Breggin, M.D. is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former full-time consultant with NIMH who is in private practice in Ithaca, New York. Dr. Breggin is the author of more than twenty books including the bestseller Talking Back to Prozac and the medical book Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition. His most recent book is Medication Madness, the Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime. He is also the author of dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles, many in the field of psychopharmacology. On April 13-15, 2012 in Syracuse, New York, the annual conference of Dr. Breggin’s 501c3 nonprofit international organization, The Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, will present a panel of lawyers, experts, survivors and families concerning antidepressant-induced violence and crime. Conference information is available on www.EmpathicTherapy.org.

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NaturalNews – Dec 19, 2011

By Jonathan Benson

11 recent school shooters were under the influence of psychiatric drugs

The use of antidepressant and psychiatric drugs, particularly among children, is an extremely risky activity that could have fatal consequences for both the individuals that use them, as well as their friends and family. According to the National Post, a Canadian judge recently ruled that the extreme mind-altering effects of the antidepressant drug Prozac were in large part responsible for causing a 15-year-old boy to thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into one of his closest friends.

Though the Winnipeg boy that committed the heinous crime had allegedly abused prescription drugs and “experimented” with cocaine long prior to the incident, he had never had a violent or aggressive personality about him, according to reports. It was only when he began taking Prozac, the very thing doctors had given him as a so-called “solution” to his previous illicit drug problems, that he began to rapidly go off the deep end.

“He had become irritable, restless, agitated, aggressive and unclear in his thinking,” said Justice Robert Heinrichs of the Manitoba Justice Department, who ruled on the case. “It was while in that state he overreacted in an impulsive, explosive and violent way. Now that his body and mind are free and clear of any effects of Prozac, he is simply not the same youth in behavior or character.”

What the judge appears to be implying here is that Prozac is directly responsible for altering the brain of a user and causing them to think irrationally, which in turn can cause them to harm themselves or others. In other words, if it were not for the use of this mind-warping drug, the murderer in this case most likely would never have dreamed of slaughtering one of his best friends.

Judge Heinrichs ultimately determined that, because of the drug’s involvement, the boy who murdered his friend would not be tried in an adult court. Even though the boy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, the judge only added a ten-month sentence on top of the two years that the boy had already spent in jail pending the trial — and there will apparently be no appeal, which is a first in any North American court.

In a similar outcome back in 2001, a Wyoming jury ruled that the antidepressant drug Paxil had caused a man to murder his wife, daughter, and granddaughter, after which he killed himself. And one of the mass-murderers in the infamous Columbine High School shooting, Eric Harris, had allegedly been taking the antidepressant drug Luvox at the time that he participated in the tragedy (http://www.naturalnews.com/019342.html).

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Note from CCHR:

(see videos at the bottom of this post from film maker Michael Moore and Fox National News reporter Douglas Kennedy)

It is well documented that psychiatric drugs, particularly antidepressants, can cause a host of violent side effects including mania, psychosis, aggression, violence and in the case of the antidepressant Effexor, homicidal ideation.   As far back as 1991, CCHR helped organize dozens of individuals and experts testifying before the US FDA that people with no prior history of violence (or suicide) became homicidal and suicidal under the influence of antidepressants (see CCHR’s exclusive footage of the 1991 hearings here).  It would take the FDA another 13 years to admit antidepressants could cause suicide and black box warnings were finally issued in 2004.  However, despite all the documented violence-inducing side effects of these drugs, the FDA has never issued black box warnings on antidepressants causing violence or homicide despite the fact that at least 11 recent school shootings were committed by kids documented to be on or in withdrawal from psychiatric drugs (see Fox News special report on school shootings here).   Therefore, the case cited below, where a Canadian judge ruled that a teenage boy murdered his friend due to being on the antidepressant Prozac, and the fact that the case will not be appealed, is a major turning point in exposing the violence inducing effects of antidepressant drugs.  

National Post
By Tom Blackwell
December 7, 2011

JB Reed/Bloomberg News

A Winnipeg judge’s ruling that a teenage boy murdered his friend because of the effects of Prozac will not be appealed, confirming an apparent North American first and reviving debate around the widespread prescription of anti-depressants to young people.

Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded the 15-year-old boy was under the influence of the medication when he thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into the chest of Seth Ottenbreit, a close friend.

Although the killer pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, the judge cited the drug’s alleged side effects as a reason not to raise the case to adult court, and to mete out a sentence last month of just 10 months – on top of two years already spent in jail.

A spokeswoman for the Manitoba Justice Department said this week prosecutors have decided not to appeal the provincial-court decisions, which were earlier met with outrage from Mr. Ottenbreit’s family and friends.

Both the boy’s lawyer and the psychiatrist who testified on his behalf say it is the first time a criminal-court judge in North America has made such a finding.

Prozac is meant to curb the effects of depression, but Justice Heinrich concluded it set off a steady deterioration in the young murderer’s behaviour.

“He had become irritable, restless, agitated, aggressive and unclear in his thinking,” the judge said. “It was while in that state he overreacted in an impulsive, explosive and violent way. Now that his body and mind are free and clear of any effects of Prozac, he is simply not the same youth in behaviour or character.”

Yet the empirical underpinning of his conclusion, and the pros and cons of young people taking Prozac and other “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)” anti-depressants, seem less clear-cut.

Justice Heinrichs relied largely on the expert testimony of Dr. Peter Breggin, a controversial American physician known for his outspoken opposition to the use of virtually any psychiatric drug. Some other experts say scientific evidence of a link between the latest anti-depressants and homicide is thin.

“I think it got pulled out of a hat, frankly,” said Dr. Umesh Jain, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental health. “You could construct a weak and biologically plausible effect, but you’d have to be pretty convincing in court.”

Studies have established such drugs can increase the risk of young patients having suicidal thoughts. Their tendency to lift inhibition could also release some hostility or violence lurking in a person’s character, said Dr. Jain. Small studies like one he co-authored in 1992 have also suggested that the drugs can trigger short-term mania, especially in bi-polar disorder patients.

There is little or no scientific evidence directly linking the anti-depressants and serious violence or homicide, though, he said.

Still, the official “product monograph” approved by Health Canada for Prozac says the drugs are not recommended for use on adolescents, and warns that agitation, hostility and aggression might ensue. Doctors are allowed to prescribe medications “off label” to patients even when the approval does not expressly permit it.

Specialists in Winnipeg responded to concerns voiced by the accused’s parents by actually increasing the dose, said Greg Brodsky, the teenager’s lawyer.

“On Prozac he was becoming more irrational and aggressive,” Mr. Brodsky said. “That should have been a warning. That warning wasn’t heeded.”

SSRI drugs have a contentious track record. They were hailed originally as a safe alternative to older anti-depressants, then clinical-trial results came to light in 2004 that suggested they increased the risk of children and adolescents having suicidal thoughts.

Other studies have indicated they are effective in patients with major depression, but little better than a placebo for mild to moderate cases.

The Winnipeg murderer had a history of smoking marijuana, had abused prescription drugs and “experimented” with cocaine, but was trying to break free of that background when a family doctor prescribed Prozac for depression in July, 2009.

On Sept. 20, the accused met with Mr. Ottenbreit and another friend at his house, after the two friends had earlier stormed into his home, allegedly damaging the floor. The killer and Mr. Ottenbreit shared a cigarette, before the accused pulled aside a sweater on the floor of his garage, revealing the knife. He picked it up, “got this weird look on his face,” then abruptly stabbed his friend, the other boy told police.

“They were in my house, they dented the floor, I had nothing else to do but to stab him,” he told police later.

Dr. Keith Hildahl, clinical head of Winnipeg’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health program, testified that the Prozac might have played a role, but concluded on balance that his behaviour that summer was largely a result of the tense relationship he had with his parents.

Dr. Breggin, who has testified in a number of U.S. cases where anti-depressants allegedly led to murder or other violence and reviewed the Winnipeg case, pointed the finger of blame at the medication.

“These drugs produce a stimulant or activation continuum,” he said in an interview. “That continuum includes aggression, hostility, loss of impulse control … all of which are a prescription for violence.”

Dr. Breggin’s long-standing criticism of psychiatric drugs and opposition to the view that psychiatric problems have biochemical roots have prompted some supporters to call him the “conscience” of the speciality, and some psychiatrists and patient advocates to condemn him as a harmful influence.

Read article here:  http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/07/prozac-defence-stands-in-manitoba-teens-murder-case/

See Michael Moore discuss the need for an investigation into psychiatric drugs causing violence:

See Fox National News on School Shootings and Psychiatric Drugs:

To read international warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs causing violence – visit CCHRInt’s Psychiatric Drug database and simply type in keywords such as violence, mania, psychosis, aggression in the red search box

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The Huffington Post
By Anthony Turner
December 3, 2011

This is a teen-written article from Represent Magazine, a platform for and by young people in foster care.

It all started when I said something stupid in school. A girl was ignoring me, and I got mad and said, “F-ck this sh-t. I’m gonna do some Virginia Tech sh-t.” I only said it so the girl would pay attention to me. But I shocked all my classmates and teachers, and the school said I’d made a “terrorist threat.”

I was in the 9th grade, and I had recently moved out of an abusive situation with my mom and into a foster home I knew nothing about. I needed someone to listen so I could get my feelings out. But there was no one I could really trust.

My caseworker came to my foster mom’s house and told me that he would take me to KFC and then to a “nice place to get help.” I thought, “OK, that sounds cool. I get my favorite food and I go to a center to feel better.”

The next stop we made was a psychiatric hospital for kids. We went through door after door, and it dawned on me that every door had a lock. Once the door shut you couldn’t open it. The doors locked you in. They intended to keep me here. That realization gave me a panic attack. I started running and the security tackled me. I was forcibly dragged in.

What Was I Signing?

When I got inside, the kids peeked out of their rooms to see who was coming. I was so scared I thought I would pee on myself. I had never been to a place like this. When I entered a dayroom, a place where the kids hang out, they slowly introduced themselves. I shook my head in fright. I wasn’t like these kids. Some were twitching and others drooled. I kept to myself and didn’t speak a word to anyone.

I felt forced into signing a bunch of papers. I didn’t realize I was signing consent to take medication.

The first things they prescribed were Depakote and Risperdal. I didn’t get a say in what I wanted, and that made me feel powerless.

At the hospital, staff joked about it in a perverse way. “Hey kids, come and get your happy pills!” “Come right up for your Skittles, it makes the world a better place!” I was disgusted that the staff were making light of my situation. I wondered how they’d feel if they were forced to take pills in a lockdown facility.

The meds made me feel bad. Sometimes I over-ate, ate too little, or had trouble sleeping. I hated the fake smile the nurses gave me after I took my medication.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially my therapist, because I believed that my depressing stories about my mom’s abuse might make the doctors prescribe more medication.

I was afraid if I kept taking medication I would be just like every kid in the hospital. I wanted to be the kid who stood out, the kid who didn’t take medication. There were kids already looking up to me but I wanted them to think, “Wow, Anthony doesn’t take medication. I want to follow his lead.”

I tried hiding the pills in my hand. I learned how to put pills deep in my throat and spit them out later. It worked for a while but then one pill got stuck there. The staff helped get it out. After that they checked me carefully.

Another way I avoided pills was simply putting them under my tongue. I would hide them in a soap bar box until my roommate saw it and told the nurse. Then I was forced to take liquid medication, which was disgusting.

A Target

The Depakote was supposed to make me feel “calmer” and “happy.” Instead I gained over 30 pounds, and that brought my self-esteem down. I felt fat and I wasn’t comfortable with myself. Some of the kids and even staff called me names like fat ass or b-tch tits. I went off on one staff once because he said, “I know the perfect birthday present for you—a training bra!”

I really wanted to do well, and I tried to behave and present myself in a mature manner. But it didn’t seem to make a difference. And the uncontrollable and unpredictable behavior around me started to affect me.

The one and only time I truly flipped out, though, was when the whole unit tried to jump me. “Yo, let’s f-ck up this p-ssy n-gga Anthony,” said one kid. Suddenly everyone turned to me grinning sinisterly, like they’d just found their new target.

“Nah, come on guys, let’s play some board games or something,” I suggested.

“You ain’t gonna get out this, b-tch,” said a fat kid with squinty eyes. “You think you Mr. Goody Two Shoes. We gonna straighten you out.”

I ended up getting chased down by 12 guys. One person caught me and then they stomped me out. I thought I would beg for them to leave me alone, but suddenly I felt myself becoming so enraged that I no longer felt the pain. I got up and screamed, “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

I was surprised at my sudden outburst, but most of the guys just laughed. Then everything turned red and my surroundings became a blur. I didn’t gain full consciousness until I was near the dayroom area. I noticed some of the guys holding their lip or arm. “Did I do this?” was the only thought that came to mind.

I was shocked that I’d stood up to them, much less beaten them up. A weird feeling came over me then. I wondered for the first time in the hospital if I was losing my sanity and just becoming one of maybe thousands of nut jobs who end up staying in hospitals.

Suppressing My Feelings

But most of the time I was quick to disengage and try to find ways to occupy myself when I saw these kinds of incidents starting. I tried reading, writing, talking with a staff I could trust, or daydreaming. These were ways to block out any negativity that surrounded me. Although these strategies were very helpful, I was still suppressing my feelings because there were overwhelming situations I wasn’t familiar with and didn’t know how to deal with emotionally.

While I was in the hospital, I saw two people commit suicide, including my roommate. They said I was “further traumatized” by that and put me in a state hospital, which was even more restrictive.

Looking at it now, I can see that the suicides did really impact me. However, I felt outpatient therapy (therapy where you see your therapist but you’re not confined to a psychiatric unit) could’ve been more effective. I didn’t see how living in the state hospital was going to help. I just wanted to be back in the community where I’d be able to interact more freely, go out, and feel more like a normal kid.

I was glad to leave the first hospital, but this was no better. I wanted to get off medication completely. Some doctors finally decided I was stable enough to behave without meds. They started to take me off a little at a time. I was happy to be off the medication, but if I messed up or acted out one bit, like by cursing, I was back on it.

For example, once a staff ticked me off by yelling at me for not doing my laundry. I cursed at him because he kept pressuring me. The doctors and staff said the fact that I cursed meant I was too unstable to stay off medication. But wouldn’t anyone curse if they felt pressured or nervous that a staff he hardly knew started yelling at him?

I had seen some staff do terrible, abusive things to the kids, like getting them to fight each other in exchange for Chinese food (a special treat). Of course I was on edge around some of the staff. The doctors didn’t know that, though.

Can’t We Talk About This?

I felt trapped. Some doctors said, “Well, Anthony, it’s possible to get off medication, but will it benefit you in the long run?” What were they trying to say? That I couldn’t function properly without the use of a drug?

I didn’t question it further because the mental health system had trained my brain to think that meds were my solution to everything. If I felt angry the doctor would say, “Maybe it’s time for Abilify, a drug that stabilizes your mood swings.” If I felt anxious the doctor would try to prescribe Zoloft, a pill that helps with some types of anxiety. I thought, “Have you guys ever heard of talking your feelings out? NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE SOLVED WITH THE USE OF A DRUG!”

I was receiving therapy at the time, and I felt it helped more than the meds. I had a really good therapist, and it was such a physical release to be able to express my feelings. I’m sure the meds did improve my moods somewhat; I was less likely to curse and talk back. But what helped the most was having a direct connection with a trusted adult like I got in therapy.

I sat down one day and wrote how I felt the pills were helping me—pros—and how they weren’t—the cons. I wanted time to reflect on where I was going in life, to feel some control. The cons on my list—the physical side effects, and the depressing feeling I got from taking meds—outnumbered the pros. I wasn’t going to tell the doctor that everything I was taking was all right with me. It wasn’t and I had to put a stop to it.

I was tired of taking meds and then being taken off just to get back on again. No one even gave me a real explanation. Their excuse was usually, “We’re putting you back on because we feel you could be in a more stable condition.” Being on and off meds made me really jumpy. My eyes would twitch sometimes.

I also felt mentally tired because I’d been on drugs for over a year and I wasn’t getting better. I was constantly sleeping and I couldn’t focus. Emotionally, I was tired of the need to even be on meds in the first place.

I believed that in order for me to be better I had to be exposed to the community because then I could feel how a teenage life is supposed to be. To me this meant a cell phone so I could communicate with friends, my own room, decent curfews, a real home, and to be around my family. It wasn’t pills I needed; it was the chance to feel like a normal teenager after years of abuse and being institutionalized.

Love Is the Best Medicine

After eight months at the second hospital, I was sent to a group home at a Residential Treatment Facility (RTF), where I continued to take medication. I began to wonder when I would ever get back in the community. I had just started going on visits with my aunt and I had decided that I would like to go live there. I just wanted to stay somewhere permanently and feel cared for. Thinking about all this moving made me as depressed as when I first came into the hospital.

Finally, they let me go live at my aunt’s house. I think the reason why the RTF agreed to it was because I kept advocating for myself. I felt excited and at peace. I felt that I had achieved the impossible and that I deserved to be with my aunt and my family who would love me for me, instead of living with the institution’s idea of “support.” I had worked two and a half years to get to this point. I would not let it go to waste.

Alone in my room at my aunt’s house, I thought quietly. I looked to the left. There was no nurse ready to give me a cup full of meds. I looked to my right. There was no doctor trying to switch my meds or giving me higher doses. It dawned on me then. There were obviously rules and expectations, but ultimately I could make my own decisions now. I didn’t have to continue the medication. So I made an appointment with the doctor and said, “I no longer feel like I need medication.”

The doctor seemed a little concerned that I was in a rush. She said, “Anthony, you’re a very bright kid, but are you sure that you want to get off? I want you to perform at your highest and do well.” I told her I was sure of my choice and that I wouldn’t regret it. And I don’t.

The Community Transformed Me

Now that I don’t take medication I feel a lot happier, more powerful, and in control. Yeah, I had to get adjusted to living back in Brooklyn, but I adapted quickly. It felt good to see my neighborhood friends and the employees I always talked to at the Burger King across the street. I never ever felt this happy when I was on medication. I always felt drugged or out of it. I’m not always happy, but when I do feel bad I talk my feelings out with people I trust, and I write. Writing allows me to get overwhelming or negative things off my mind onto paper.

Being in the community is what I’ve always wanted. Now I have a sense of freedom. I go to regular school, I have easy access to friends, and I socialize on my time. I’m not on someone else’s schedule and I don’t have to be cooped up inside all day feeling anxious. The community has transformed me.

Read the rest of the article here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/foster-teens-i-needed-emo_n_1126659.html?page=1

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Natural News – 11/20/2011

Australian government is actually considering mandating parents of diagnosed children accept the prescribed drug treatments or else face the wrath of child protective services.

The typical treatment recommendation for children diagnosed with psychiatric or mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) includes a combination of behavior and drug therapies. Such treatments are legally optional, but the Australian government’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is actually considering mandating that parents of diagnosed children accept the prescribed drug treatments or else face the wrath of child protective services.

Australia’s Sky News reports that authorities originally crafted the proposed measure as a guidance for doctors in how to treat children with such conditions, writing in a draft paper that “combined behavoural-pharmacological treatment is most effective” for normalizing child behavior. In the process, these authorities are essentially pushing a draconian form of medical tyranny that will eliminate health freedom of choice, and force parents to take the drug route with their children.

The entire field of psychiatry and its mental health screening process is questionable to begin with, as ADHD, bipolar disorder, and depression are not verifiable medical conditions like heart disease or cancer. There are no legitimate scientific tests to determine without a doubt the presence of these ambiguous “conditions” — and yet the entire psychiatric industry is built on pushing $84 billion worth of pharmaceutical drugs every year as treatment for them (http://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-…).

Psychiatric drugs cause drastic changes in the cognitive and behavioral profiles of children. Drugs are not necessarily for the better. Most of these drugs also cause severe side effects, including mind-altering hallucinations, and they are typically far more addictive than illicit drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, all of which are illegal.

But certain government officials, likely influenced by Big Pharma, are continuing to propagate the lie that psychiatric drugs are the only option for these often-fictitious mental disorders. West Australian Labor MP, author, and anti-ADHD medication campaigner Martin Whitely is quoted in News Tonight as saying that ADHD drugs are “the only possible medical interventions” and that parents who refuse to use them “may see their child put in care.”

Earlier this year, a SWAT team raided the Detroit home of Maryanne Godboldo for refusing to medicate her daughter with dangerous psychiatric drugs. These thugs actually kidnapped the young girl, who was eventually released after it was determined that Maryanne had every right to choose her own daughter’s medical care (http://www.naturalnews.com/032089_a…).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$11.6 billion for anti-depressants;

and $7.2 billion for ADHD treatments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Click image to watch video (explaining in simple terms, what the “problem” with psychiatry is….)

Psychology Today – November 1, 2011

by Allen Frances, MD (Psychiatrist and former Chairman of the DSM task force)

So far, opposition to DSM 5 has been expressed by the following organizations: British Psychological Society; American Counseling Association; Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA Division 32); Society for Community Research and Action: Division of Community Psychology (APA Division 27); Society for Group Psychology & Psychotherapy (APA Division 49); Developmental Psychology (APA Division 7); UK Council for Psychotherapy; Association for Women in Psychology; Constructivist Psychology Network; Society for Descriptive Psychology; and the Society of Indian Psychologists.

An editorial by the Society Of Biological Psychiatrywondered whether DSM 5 was necessary at all. The community of personality disordersresearchers is virtually unanimous in its opposition to the DSM 5 personality disorders section. There has also been widespread opposition to the sections on somatic, autistic, gender, paraphilic, and psychotic disorders.

Last week, a petition was posted quietly be several divisions of the American Psychological Association. It demands reform of the DSM 5 process and the elimination of a number of its most risky and ill conceived proposals. The petition is gaining increasing support and has already been signed by almost 3000 people. It can be accessed at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dsm5/ )

Strikingly, there seems to be virtually no support for DSM 5 outside the very narrow circle of the several hundred experts who have created it and the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which stands to reap large profits from its publication. There is no group and precious few individuals outside of APA who have anything good to say about DSM 5. And even within the DSM 5 work groups and the APA governance structures, there is widespread discontent with the process and considerable disagreement about the product.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201111/dsm-5-against-everyone-else

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Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
By James Swift
October 28, 2011

Giovan Bazan, 21, speaks at the 11th annual CHRIS KIDS fundraiser in September, 2011. Atlanta, Ga.

Alongside photographs of rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Giovan Bazan looks downright blithe. Although they tower over him, the tuxedo-clad Bazan wearing a slight smirk, his gelled hair and pierced ears sharply contrasting his suit-and-tie apparel.

With his cheery disposition, you wouldn’t suspect Bazan had a troubled childhood. In reality, the 21-year-old has spent a majority of his life in foster homes, and for most of his childhood, he was prescribed anti-depressants and behavioral disorder drugs.

“I went into foster care at 11 months old,” the Los Angeles native said. “When I was six, they put me on medication.”

By many accounts Bazan has come a long way since his days in foster care. In September he spoke at Atlanta-based CHRIS KIDS‘ 11th annual fundraiser alongside towering protraits of celebrities. He has adressed state legislature multiple times about issues pressing foster youth in the state. He has managed to turn his troubled childhood into a stepping stone, not a crux.

Kathy Colbenson, CEO of CHRIS KIDS and co-organizer of the fundraiser, said Bazan’s combination of determination, will and outlook has set a tremendous example for children around the nation facing similar circumstances.

“I think what he’s doing is awesome,” she said.

Today Bazan holds a number of titles. He is the JUSTGeorgia project coordinator for EmpowerMEnt, an initiative of Multi-Agency Alliance for Children, Inc. that is designed to help at-risk youth within the state. He also serves as a Youth Support Specialist Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, a liaison for the White House Council for Community Solutions, and as owner and CEO of the National Executive Protection Agency.

“It’s a travesty how frequently kids in the foster care system are medicated, and I feel like my foster mom wanted to keep me medicated,” Bazan said. “When they put me on medication, when they started to sedate me, it abused my emotions and controlled my mind to the point where I went from being a child to being nothing short of a vegetable.”

Click image to watch video with Giovan Bazan

Bazan started receiving psychotropic medication following the death of one of his foster mothers, he said.

“Mommy Karen was very caring, she was very supportive, very loving,” he said, recalling her life. “If I scratched a knee, she would be there to hold me.”

Bazan remembered taking cross-country road trips from California to South Carolina. But he didn’t know the “vacations” were actually for his foster mother to receive chemotherapy treatments. She died of cancer when he was just four-years-old, he said.

After her death, Bazan was taken in by a foster mother that he claimed was vindictive and hostile toward him.

“She was always angry about something that I did,” Bazan said. “I always felt that, for some reason, she always resented me.”

Bazan began receiving behavioral treatment drugs shortly after, he said.

“It started with Ritalin,” Bazan said. Soon after he was prescribed, what he called, a “cocktail of medication” by psychiatrists – primarily anti-depressant drugs.

“That little childhood personality that kids have was void,” Bazan said about his experiences in elementary school. “I would come to class and just put my head down and not talk to my classmates. I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t know what was going on.”

Originally he was medicated for displaying symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder, he said.

“When I was medicated, it was to eradicate a specific problem, which was [being] overactive and hyper,” Bazan said. “In other words, being a child. They medicated me to prevent me from being a child.”

Bazan said it was too much, considering himself overmedicated as a child.

“As time progressed, the dosage of the medication would have to increase because my body would adjust to the medication,” he said. “This medication that they would give me had so many side effects that they would have to counter those side effects with more medication.”

As a child, Bazan said, he was given experimental dosages of psychotropic medication. In elementary school, he said, he received treatment doses that were equivalent to those given to teenagers and young adults.

“Ultimately, that’s what they were doing … they were testing on me,” he said. “I was having seizures, I would have horrendous nosebleeds. It was more detrimental than it was helpful.”

In 2010, the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute released a report showing that overmedication within the foster care system was indeed a problem. About 52 percent of kids in the system had been prescribed psychotropic medication. Bazan found the findings both alarming and horrifying.

“One of the biggest changes that we’re looking to in the future deals with regulating psychotropic medication being administered to foster care children,” he said. “They’re being medicated because they’re coming from abusive homes, when what really happens is the system tends to look at a case and say ‘oh, well they’re having trouble paying attention.’ Well, yeah, they’re having trouble paying attention in school because they’re getting beat up at home and they’re being abused at home. Whatever stress a normal kid has, theirs is exponentially multiplied.”

In 2011, Georgia legislators introduced House Bill 23 (HB 23), a bill aimed at regulating and monitoring psychotropic drug prescriptions within the foster care system. But the bill, also known as the ”Foster Children’s Psychotropic Medication Monitoring Act,” never made it into law.

Bazan said anyone that doesn’t see the dangers of overprescribing psychiatric drugs, to kids or to anyone, should try taking them for themselves.

“Take it for a couple of years,” he said. “That’s what happens to the foster kids. They’re not given medication for a couple of months, and bam, the problem’s solved. Psychotropic medication isn’t designed to be taken like antibiotics, where you can take them for a certain amount of time and the problem is eliminated. You have to take a higher dosage, and you have to take a higher dosage and when it no longer affects you, you have to switch to a more powerful medication.”

According to Bazan, behavioral drugs and other forms of psychiatric medicine pose an imminent threat to kids in Georgia foster care and throughout the nation.

“If you can find valid proof that [discredits] what evidence has shown over and over again that it is harmful to youth, then by all means, let me know,” he said. “But you won’t find that evidence outside of pharmaceutical companies, who push that kind of information out there.”

Read article here:  http://jjie.org/georgia-advocate-speaks-out-against-psychiatric-medication-use-nations-foster-care-system/52283

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