CCHR International » Suicide

Hundreds of Soldiers & Vets Dying From Antipsychotic–Seroquel

cchrint — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:43:21 +0000

Market Watch
November 7, 2011

Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD & Stan White (Father of Deceased Veteran, Andrew White) disclose the following:

EL CAJON, Calif., Nov. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — As a neurologist who has discovered and described medical diseases, I (Fred A. Baughman) read the May 24, 2008, Charleston (WV) Gazette article “Vets taking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder drugs die in sleep,” and opened and financed my own investigation into these unexplained deaths.

Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson, all in their twenties, were four West Virginia veterans who died in their sleep in early 2008. There were no signs of suicide or of a multi-drug “overdose” leading to coma, as claimed by the Inspector General of the VA. All had been diagnosed “PTSD”–a psychological diagnosis, not a disease (physical abnormality) of the brain. All were on the same prescribed drug cocktail, Seroquel (antipsychotic), Paxil (antidepressant) and Klonopin (benzodiazepine) and all appeared “normal” when they went to sleep.

On February 7, 2008, Surgeon General Eric B. Schoomaker, had announced there had been “a series, a sequence of deaths” in the military suggesting this was “often a consequence of the use of multiple prescription and nonprescription medicines and alcohol.”

However, the deaths of the ‘Charleston Four’ were probable sudden cardiac deaths (SCD), a sudden, pulseless condition leading to brain death in 4-5 minutes, a survival rate or 3-4%, and not allowing time for transfer to a hospital. Conversely, drug-overdose coma is protracted, allowing time for discovery, diagnosis, transport, treatment, and frequently–survival.

Antipsychotics and antidepressants alone or in combination, are known to cause SCD. Sicouri and Antzelevitch (2008) concluded: (1) “A number of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs can increase the risk of ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death,” (2)”Antipsychotics can increase cardiac risk even at low doses whereas antidepressants do it generally at high doses or in the setting of drug combinations.”

On April 13, 2009, Baughman wrote the Office of the Surgeon General (OTSGWebPublisher@amedd.army.mil): “On February 7, 2008 the Surgeon General said there had been ‘a series, a sequence of deaths.’ Has the study of these deaths been published?”

On April 17, 2009 the Office of the Surgeon General responded, “The assessment is still pending and has not been released yet.” More than a year later and still no explanation, nor further acknowledgement that these deaths even took place.

In a press release, (PRNewswire, May 19, 2009) Baughman wrote: “I call upon the military for an immediate embargo of all antipsychotics and antidepressants until there has been a complete, wholly public, clarification of the extent and causes of this epidemic of probable sudden cardiac deaths.”

Googling “dead in bed,” “dead in barracks,” by April 16, 2009, veteran’s wife, Diane Vande Burgt, had Googled 74 probable sudden cardiac deaths. By May 2010: 128, and, by November 2, 2011: 247. Two-hundred-forty-seven!

In April 2010 I was in anonymous receipt of an Army National Guard Serious Incident Report for the 5 months 10/03/09 to 3/7/10. In it were 93 “incidents” including 4 “heart attacks,” 6 “cardiac arrests” and 3 “found dead”; 13 of 93 (14%) probable SCDs.

Pfc. Ryan Alderman, was on a cocktail of psych drugs when found unresponsive, dying in his barracks at Ft. Carson, Colo. Sudden cardiac death was confirmed by an ECG done at the scene. Inexplicably, military officials de-classified his death and reversed the cause, calling it instead, a “suicide.”

Again I challenge the military to produce the evidence.

In June 2011, a DoD Health Advisory Group backed a highly questionable policy of “polypharmacy” asserting: “…multiple psychotropic meds may be appropriate in select individuals.” The fact of the matter is that psychotropic drug polypharmacy is never safe, scientific, or medically justifiable. What it is a means of (1) maximizing profit, and (2) making it difficult to impossible to blame adverse effects on any one drug.

From 2001 to the present, US Central Command has given deploying troops 180 day supplies of prescription psychotropic drugs–Seroquel included. In a May 2010 report of its Pain Management Task Force, the Army endorsed Seroquel in 25- or 50-milligram doses as a ‘sleep aid.’

Over the past decade, $717 million was spent for Risperdal and $846 million for Seroquel, for a mind-blowing total of $1.5 billion when neither Risperdal nor Seroquel have been proven safe or effective for PTSD or sleep disorders.

Ironically, yet not surprisingly, pay-to-play in Washington becomes more egregious every day. Heather Bresch, daughter of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-WV) was recently named CEO of WV drug-maker Mylan Inc., that recently contracted with the DoD for over 20 million doses of Seroquel.

Defense Department Health Advisory Group chair, Charles Fogelman, warned: “DoD currently lacks a unified pharmacy database that reflects medication use across pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment settings.” In essence, through a premeditated lack of record keeping, mandated by law at any other pharmacy or medical office to track potential fatal reactions to mixing prescription drugs, the military is willfully preempting all investigations into the injuries and deaths due to psychiatric drugs.

I call on the DoD, VA, House and Senate Armed Services and House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees to tell concerned Americans and the families of fallen heroes what psychiatric drugs each of the deceased, both combat and non-combat, soldiers and veterans were on?

It is time for the military and government to come clean.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hundreds-of-soldiers-vets-dying-from-antipsychotic-seroquel-2011-11-07

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Online database lets you research the side effects of common psychiatric drugs

admin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:40:54 +0000

Natural News – September 15, 2011

by M.K. Tyler

(NaturalNews) If you have ever seen a commercial for a pharmaceutical drug, you are probably familiar with the long list of dangerous side effects that are rattled off in the last five seconds of the advertisement, just after viewers are told how Drug “X” is going to save their lives, improve their memories or give them unlimited energy. What was that? Did he just say that pill might cause bleeding out of my eyes?

Drug companies do a great job – and spend a lot of money – to ensure that most consumers aren’t aware of the harmful side effects of common drugs prescribed for conditions like depression, heart disease, arthritis, ADHD or high blood pressure. Unfortunately, the result of this has created a society where the average person with a health problem is captivated by the promises delivered in clever advertising. There is a drug for everything? All I have to do is talk to my doctor? How convenient.

But what if there was a way to take back control of our lives and our health? What if, despite talking to your doctor, you still have questions or concerns about the safety of a drug?

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has a database that allows you to do just that. It’s called the Psychiatric Drug Database, and it allows consumers to research the potential side effects of common psychiatric drugs, such as Ritalin or Wellbutrin.

While the database is limited to psychiatric drugs, this type of public information portal represents a significant step in the right direction to help patients find unbiased information and make informed decisions about their health.

The database allows you to search by drug and will retrieve information about adverse reactions reported by patients who have taken the drug, international warnings and studies that have been done on the drug and what side effects different age groups or genders have experienced. For example, a search of the effects of Ritalin on 18-30 year old women retrieved 89 reported cases of adverse side effects.

These effects including anxiety, fatigue, hypertension, tremors, chest discomfort, nausea, panic attacks, cardiac murmurs, aggression, suicide attempts and completed suicides. The results are broken down by case and list specific symptoms and reactions caused by the drug in each reported case.

Another search of Zoloft and its effects on young children included cases of cerebral disorders, upper respiratory tract infections, sleep disorders, vertigo, hallucinations, psychomotor hyperactivity and suicidal ideation.

The database only includes information on cases that were actually reported to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System between 2004 and 2008. Based on the FDA’s own estimates, only about 1 to 10 percent of adverse drug side effects are even reported to the FDA. The CCHR’s database, therefore, represents only a small margin of the population that has been affected by adverse side effects of pharmaceutical psychiatric drugs.

Visitors to the site will also notice an interesting anecdote that describes how the definition of poison – a substance that causes death or harm when consumed by a living organism – clearly characterizes the drugs listed in the database. Consumers are encouraged to research potential problems of a drug before agreeing with their doctors to start a course of therapy.

To find more information about a particular drug, visit www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers

Sources for this article include

http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdan…

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033581_psychiatric_drugs_side_effects.html#ixzz1Y2kywpYd

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52% of foster kids are prescribed psych drugs—One of them is fighting back

cchrint — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:42:08 +0000

By CCHR Int
June 23, 2011

At just 6 years of age, still grieving over the death of the only mother he’d ever known, his foster mother, Giovan Bazan received the first of many psychiatric “diagnoses” and drugs that would plague him for the next twelve years of his life. Moved from foster home to foster home, orphanages and other modes of state care, Giovan was stigmatized with a plethora of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs until the age of 18, when he could finally make his own medical decisions and quit. Now a child advocate working part time at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia, Giovan is on a mission: To get a full-time job with DFCS and help enact laws to combat the wholesale labeling and drugging of foster children. In the video below, Giovan tells his story and why he decided to fight back against the abuse of kids in foster care.

(Story continues below)

Foster kids—often removed from family homes because of abuse—are further abused when they are prescribed psychotropic drugs under state care. Many of these children are on cocktails of prescribed drugs, including antipsychotics and antidepressants with documented side effects of diabetes, stroke, mania, psychosis, tumors, coma, suicide and death.

Yet, the rates with which these children are being given drugs has been increasing. The antipsychotic use rate among foster kids increased by 5.6% between 2004 and 2007 (from 11.7 percent to 12.4 percent). Another study in Pediatrics, revealed that youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication at a rate more than 3 times that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low family income.

Only half of state child welfare systems have a policy to review usage of these drugs, and those are weak policies at that.

The psychiatric drugging of foster kids has caused so much concern nationally that in July 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) started an investigation into the use of these drugs in foster care, as they are widely used in dangerous combinations, and for so-called “off-label” uses to treat symptoms for which they have not been medically approved. The GAO is looking into the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud arising from this and is collecting and analyzing data from Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

For more information on the psychiatric drugging of children, watch these videos:

Psychiatry—Labeling Kids with Bogus ‘Mental Disorders’

Drugging Our Children—Side Effects

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Child victims of the chemical cosh: Boy who killed himself after taking Ritalin

admin — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:18:26 +0000

The Daily Mail – June 13, 2011

by Sue Reid

“This doctor said at the inquest my son had a chemical imbalance in his brain. I asked him: “How do you know? Did you take chemicals from his brain? ‘He told me it was a theory. So based on a theory — and seeing my son five times at the most — he decided to put him on this drug, Ritalin, which is as powerful as cocaine.” – Darren Hucknall

Boisterous: Harry Hucknall was, says his father, a 'normal kid' whose problems were overstated

Captured in a family video, Harry Hucknall gives a cheeky grin before whizzing off down the street on his new bike. His father, Darren, will never forget the moment — when Harry was seven — and often watches the scene again and again.

It is a precious memory of Harry who, one Sunday evening in September last year, kissed his mother Jane and older brother, David, goodnight before going upstairs to his bedroom and locking the door. He then hanged himself with a belt from his bunk bed.

He was ten years old.

His father blames Harry’s death on two ‘mind-altering’ drugs that his son had been prescribed by a psychiatrist to cure his boisterous behaviour and low spirits.

An inquest was told in April that the boy had more drugs in his body than the normal level for adults suffering from the same problems.

Now, a distraught Mr Hucknall is to make a formal complaint to the NHS for prescribing his son Ritalin, a cocaine-like stimulant which, paradoxically, is said to calm down a child, and Prozac, a powerful antidepressant.

‘When I was growing up there were lots of kids like Harry — a bit over-active, a bit naughty, who didn’t always do as they were told. Now they are branded with a complaint called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,’ says the computer engineer at his semi-detached house on the outskirts of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.

‘What is it? What has changed? Is there some weird disease in the air? Harry was just a normal little boy. But because we live in 2011 he, and many other kids, are on tablets.

‘It seems nearly every child has suddenly developed this ADHD. What a load of nonsense. It’s an easy get-out for parents and schools who can’t control children.’

Mr Hucknall is obviously grieving for Harry, and his words are spoken with anger. But they are close to the truth. Earlier this year, this paper revealed that 661,000 prescriptions are dished out annually in Britain to treat childhood ADHD — double the figure of five years ago.

Coroner: An inquest was told in April that the boy had more drugs in his body than the normal level for adults suffering from the same problems

These medicines are being given to very young children — one aged just 15 months, according to our investigations — despite official guidelines from the manufacturer and the fact that the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) prohibits their use for those under six.

Last week, educational psychologist David Traxson told me he suspects that in the West Midlands at least 100 three, four and five-year-olds are on Ritalin or similar drugs. If this is replicated around the country — as is likely — the number will run into thousands.

‘These young children are taking powerful, potentially addictive drugs and no one knows what will happen to their brains in the future,’ he warned.

The Association of Educational Psychologists last week demanded a national review into the use of Ritalin and similar drugs on children.

General Secretary Kate Fallon said: ‘The danger is that we rely on this “quick fix” for children with conditions such as ADHD, which frequently means a prescription for Ritalin.

‘No one’s certain what it will do to children’s brains’

‘We have significant concerns that the neurological impact of these drugs on the developing brains of children has not been fully researched. The potential damage they could cause needs further investigation.’

In America (where the term ADHD was first created 50 years ago), one in five children is diagnosed as having a hyperactivity disorder and is on Ritalin or a similar drug

The psychologists’ call was backed by the National Union of Teachers, whose members have to cope with the huge rise in pupils being dosed with ADHD drugs — which act on the central nervous system to change a child’s behaviour.

In some state primary classrooms, one in ten pupils is on Ritalin pills, which have to be handed out by teachers at lunch or break times. In one junior school of 389 children in the South-East, no fewer than 80 pupils — more than 20 per cent — are on the medication.

It is a phenomenon across Britain, affecting families in every income bracket. The area with the highest proportion of children receiving the drug is the Wirral, a wealthy part of Cheshire which is home to millionaire footballers and business executives.

Meanwhile, sceptics question the very existence of ADHD as an illness. There is no recognised test for it. A diagnosis is made by a psychiatrist or paediatrician merely by watching a child’s behaviour.

Some of the doubters argue the condition is really a politically correct creation, conjured up by the medical world for a child who finds it difficult to sit still or concentrate thanks to a combination of a fast-food diet, late nights and lack of exercise.

It’s easier for the medical world and its political masters, of course, to diagnose a syndrome rather than deal with the real causes.

Another worrying factor is that the parents of children receiving drugs for ADHD immediately become eligible for an array of generous state benefits, including a carer’s allowance and child-disability allowance, which can total thousands a year.

For instance, one family in the West Midlands has two children receiving medication for ADHD. They get £600 a month in disability allowances for each of the two children who have been diagnosed with the ailment.

A third child is being examined by psychologists to see if he is also a sufferer. If he is diagnosed, the family’s annual haul from the state will be £21,600 tax free.

No wonder thousands of families happily agree with child psychiatrists when they are told their son or daughter needs medicine to ‘cure’ their hyperactive behaviour.

Gwynedd Lloyd, an education researcher at Edinburgh University, has explained her doubts. ‘You can’t do a blood test to see if a child has ADHD. It is diagnosed by ticking a behaviour checklist — getting out of your seat and running about is an example. Half the kids in a school would qualify under these sorts of criteria.’

And, it appears, a lot of them do. In the four years to 2010, there was a 65 per cent increase in NHS spending on drugs to treat childhood ADHD, with a cost to the taxpayer of £31million annually. This does not take into account thousands of prescriptions paid for by parents who take their children to private doctors.

In America (where the term ADHD was first created 50 years ago), one in five children is diagnosed as having a hyperactivity disorder and is on Ritalin or a similar drug.

It is predicted that unless the craze for drugging children is not stopped in the UK, one in seven pupils will soon be diagnosed with the condition in many parts of the country, as is already the case in places such as the Wirral.

‘Doubters say it’s an illness conjured up by medics’

Meanwhile, the side-effects of the ADHD treatments are legion. Ritalin is a Class B drug, which is banned for recreational use. It was invented in the Fifties in the U.S. to combat the effects of illegal drug overdoses.

Alarmingly, it can stunt growth (doctors are asked to regularly monitor a young patient’s height and weight), while making children prone to heart problems, depression and insomnia.

At least 11 deaths of children while taking Ritalin have been reported to the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products’ Regulatory Agency since the drug became available 20 years ago. The official causes of nine of the deaths included heart conditions, respiratory problems and brain diseases. Significantly, two of the children ended their own lives just like Harry Hucknall.

'Enough is enough': Home Secretary Theresa May has warned of the dangers of the ADHD drugs

Home Secretary Theresa May has said that enough is enough. As the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons before the last election, she warned of the dangers of the ADHD drugs. ‘They are powerful prescription drugs and we don’t know what their long-term effects on a child will be.’

She related to Parliament the story of a six-year-old on Ritalin. ‘He experienced low moods and marked depression and tried to throw himself out of a window within two months of starting treatment. He only recovered once the drug had been withdrawn.’

Sadly, Harry Hucknall never had the chance to stop taking Ritalin, or the antidepressant Prozac. Now his father is asking difficult questions about why his son died. On the fateful weekend last September, Harry was staying at the home in Dalton-in-Furness of his mother, Jane White, 33, his brother David, and his two step-siblings.

In America (where the term ADHD was first created 50 years ago), one in five children is diagnosed as having a hyperactivity disorder and is on Ritalin or a similar drug

He would spend every other weekend and one day during the week with his father, who parted amicably from Jane when Harry was three.

Early last year, child psychiatrist Mr Sumitra Srivastava had prescribed Harry with Prozac for depression, and Ritalin for hyperactivity. He was having difficulty concentrating at school, was being bullied by classmates, and had told his parents he was feeling unhappy.

At an inquest in April, the coroner Ian Smith declared that Mr Srivastava had acted appropriately, but warned that doctors should be extremely careful what they prescribed to ten-year-old boys.

The coroner ruled out a deliberate suicide, but said that the influence of Ritalin and Prozac could not be excluded as a factor in Harry’s death. ‘What a child with ADHD is prescribed by his doctor is mind-altering drugs of a powerful nature,’ he added.

But Harry’s father believes drugs had a huge part to play in the tragedy. ‘Harry was put on Prozac first, and without my knowledge,’ he told me. ‘I only found out about it when he came to stay for the weekend and his mother told me what dose to give him: one in the morning and one at night. “Are you crazy?” I asked her. “That’s an antidepressant.”

‘I can go to work every day and pay for my child’s keep, but it seems I have little say when it comes to things like the authorities deciding to give my son drugs.’ At first, Mr Hucknall refused to give Harry the pills. But Harry’s mother said that if he didn’t dose his son, the child would not be allowed to visit him. She said the doctors had told her Prozac would stop Harry being depressed.

‘I reluctantly agreed. I wanted to see Harry,’ remembers 37-year-old Mr Hucknall. ‘Later, I went with Harry’s mother to see the psychiatrist. I insisted on going along to tell him that I did not want Harry on any drugs whatsoever.

‘While I was there, he said Harry was going to be put on Ritalin as well. I said I did not want him on more drugs. I didn’t want him on any at all.

‘I had never heard of Ritalin. I was told it was to help his concentration. I was never told a side-effect of Ritalin is depression. But the doctor said that if Harry took the Ritalin he would be off everything and drug free within a month.’

Mr Hucknall believed him, although this scenario was very unlikely. Most children remain on ADHD drugs for years. ‘In the end I agreed, because I thought I was doing the right thing. The next thing I know, a month or two later, there was a knock on my door and two police officers were telling me my son had hanged himself,’ he says.

‘He was just a kid. There was nothing wrong with him. He may have had some problems, but they were overstated.

‘A lot of things that Harry’s mum complained about in terms of his behaviour, he did not do here. How can you have ADHD in one place and not in another?

‘I think Harry might have been playing up a bit by attention- seeking because there were three other children in the family.

‘I admit there were a couple of times I forgot to give him his tablets. To me, he seemed quiet and subdued when he was on them.

‘I would have happily thrown them in the bin. Harry just took them, of course. He was a kid and he did as he was told.’

An emotional Mr Hucknall continues: ‘I think ADHD is a disease invented by drug companies. Nobody ever died of ADHD and it didn’t existed once upon a time. It’s too easy to hand out tablets. They are being over-prescribed to children.

‘A perfectly normal kid isn’t allowed to grow up without interference these days. I’m angry about what has happened because I have lost my son.

‘At the school meetings about Harry, his teachers said he was quiet. My son had just recently moved house and been put into a new school, where he didn’t know anybody. What did they expect?

‘Another teacher said Harry didn’t laugh at his jokes. I asked Harry about that. He told me they weren’t very funny.’

Mr Hucknall believes his son was ‘inappropriately medicated’ and has asked Independent Complaints’ Advocacy Service (ICAS) — which supports those wishing to complain about the NHS — to take on the case.

At the inquest, Mr Hucknall also took the chance to challenge Mr Srivastava again about why he had put Harry on drugs. ‘This doctor said at the inquest my son had a chemical inbalance in his brain. I asked him: “How do you know? Did you take chemicals from his brain?”

‘He told me it was a theory. So based on a theory — and seeing my son five times at the most — he decided to put him on this drug, Ritalin, which is as powerful as cocaine.

‘Harry ended up taking two drugs that work against each other — the Prozac that fights depression and the Ritalin that can cause it. How can that be right?’

Note from CCHR: If you want to help inform parents of the actual documented dangers of psychiatric drugs from international drug regulatory agencies — help distribute this video, which links to our psychiatric drug side effects database:

Drugging Kids - Side Effects

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR4EWSbXLWA&feature=player_embedded

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Did Prozac Cause Teenager to Kill? Psychiatrist Says Yes

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:20:26 +0000

The Inquisitor – June 6, 2011

“It was a prescription for violence,” Breggin wrote in a report commissioned by the defense.

A Canadian teenager who has pled guilty to murdering a friend may have experienced severe violent impulses due to the use of Prozac, a New York psychiatrist has testified.

The 17-year-old teen, who was not named in the media, stabbed a 15-year-old friend after the other teen caused damage to a hardwood floor in his friend’s home. The disproportionately angry response, explains Dr. Peter Breggin, is a not-unknown side effect of the antidepressant Prozac. Dr. Breggin stated:

“There is no reason other than a Prozac reaction,” said Dr. Peter Breggin, a New York state-based psychiatrist and author of the book, Talking Back to Prozac. “(The killing) is a mystery without that.”

Nine days after starting therapy with the drug, the teen attempted suicide via an overdose of his grandfather’s pills. His parents reported the incident to doctors, who increased the Prozac dosage for the teen. Dr. Breggin says:

“It was a prescription for violence,” Breggin wrote in a report commissioned by the defence. “Within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, I believe that Prozac drove (the accused) into a state of severe agitation with manic-like symptoms including mood swings, confusion, irrationality, extreme irritability, hostility and violence.”

Prosecutors contend that the killing was a “conscious decision” made by the teenager, and that he should be accountable for the act of violence. In previous studies, Prozac has been linked to “emotional changes” and increased suicide risk in teens.

http://www.inquisitr.com/111789/did-prozac-cause-teenager-to-kill-psychiatrist-says-yes/

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18 U.S. veterans commit suicide daily; largely due to psychiatric drugs

admin — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:40:34 +0000

NaturalNews.com – June 3, 2011

by Neev M. Arnell

Prior to the Iraq war, American soldiers in combat zones did not take psychiatric drugs - by 2007, more than 20,000 troops were taking antidepressants & sleeping pills

“If mentally incapacitated troops are being drugged with dangerous, mind-altering drugs and deployed to battle against their will, how can we say that we have a volunteer army?” asked Alliance for Human Research Protection, the national network dedicated to advancing responsible and ethical medical research practices.

This is just one of the many criticisms being levied against the U.S. military in light of its liberal use of prescription medication, which is now being linked to rising suicide rates among soldiers.

A study released by the Army in June 2009 indicated that nearly as many American troops at home and abroad committed suicide in the first six months of 2006 as the number who had been killed in combat in Afghanistan during the same time period (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/…).

An average of 18 American veterans commit suicide every day (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMo…). Now, the increasingly high number of deaths among both veterans and active duty soldiers–including suicides, accidental overdose, and lethal drug interactions–have now been linked to the exponential increase in the prescribing of drugs for post traumatic stress disorder, depression and other psychological illnesses.(http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/vie…)

Prior to the Iraq war, American soldiers in combat zones did not take psychiatric medications, according to PBS Frontline documentary The Wounded Platoon, which aired in May 2010. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front…) But by the time of the 2007 surge more than 20,000 of our deployed troops were taking antidepressants and sleeping pills.

These drugs allowed soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder to remain in combat when they otherwise could not.

“What I use medications for is to treat very specific side effects,” said Army psychiatrist Col. George Brandt. “I don’t want somebody in a helpless mode in a combat environment. I want to make sure I don’t have someone with suicidal thoughts where everyone is armed.”

Well over 300,000 troops have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan with P.T.S.D., depression, traumatic brain injury or some combination of those, according to The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/u…). Following the lead of civilian medicine, the military has relied heavily on medications to treat those problems, resulting in more widespread use of drugs in the military than in any previous war.

The aforementioned Army report on suicide recognized that one-third of the troops were taking at least one prescription medication and stated that prescription drug use was on the rise. The report also noted that one-third of the 162 active-duty soldiers who committed suicide in 2009 were taking medication.

Frontline’s The Wounded Platoon looked at the problem of PTSD, depression and prescription medication in the military from the perspective of one platoon from Fort Carson, CO. 18 soldiers from Fort Carson have been charged with or convicted of murder, manslaughter or attempted murder committed in the United States, since the beginning of the “War on Terror,” and 36 have committed suicide.

Jose Barco, who was once known as the hero who saved his fellow soldiers during a suicide-bombing, is now serving a 52-year prison sentence for attempted murder. Barco suffered traumatic brain injury as a result of his heroics and was also diagnosed with PTSD for which he was prescribed nine different medications.

“We have someone who’s been emotionally traumatized, and they’ve got PTSD,” said retired military psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis. “They’re anxious, and they’re depressed, and they’ve got TBI, which means that they’ve got problems in decision making. They can’t think as clearly. They are really vulnerable to just overreacting.”

The rate of PTSD diagnosis at Fort Carson rose 4,000 percent between 2002 and 2010, and the increase in medications being prescribed for both veterans and those in combat rose to meet the demand.

Kenny Eastridge, another platoon member that Frontline spoke with who is in jail for murder and other crimes, was prescribed a cocktail of medications while in combat.

“I was having a total mental breakdown. Every day we were getting in battles and never having a break. It seemed like, it was just crazy,” he said. “They put me on all kinds of meds, and I was still going out on missions. They had me on Ambien, Remeron, Lexapro, Celexa, all kind of different stuff.”

Eastridge was sent to a remote combat outpost for weeks at a time with no medical supervision or mental health provision, despite the recommendation that patients on this medication should be monitored. Frontline footage showed Eastridge’s unstable behavior, which included wandering into Iraqi homes, lying in the people’s beds, and trying to hug local people.

As more soldiers return home to Fort Carson, concern abounds.”We’re all wondering what’s going to happen,” says Colorado Springs psychotherapist Robert Alvarez. “It’s a scary thought, you know, what’s going to happen in this community. Are we going to have more murders? Are we going to have more suicides, or are we going to have more crime? I think the answer to that is probably yes.”

http://www.naturalnews.com/z032598_veterans_suicide.html

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Creating juvenile zombies, Florida-style

admin — Sun, 29 May 2011 14:42:45 +0000

The Miami Herald – May 28, 2011

By Fred Grimm

They’re children of the new Florida ethic. Zombie kids warehoused on the cheap in the state’s juvenile lock-ups. Kept quiet, manageable and addled senseless by great dollops of anti-psychotic drugs.

A relatively small percentage of young inmates pumped full of pills actually suffer from the serious psychiatric disorders that the FDA allows to be treated by these powerful drugs. But adult doses of anti-psychotic drugs have a tranquilizing effect on teenage prisoners. Prescribing anti-psychotics for so many rowdy kids may be a reckless medical practice, but in an era of budget cuts and staffing shortages, it makes for smart economics.

Florida fairly inundates juvenile offenders with this stuff.

The Palm Beach Post reported last week that the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has been buying twice as many doses of the powerful anti-psychotic Seroquel as it does ibuprofen. As if the state anticipated more outbreaks of schizophrenia than headaches or minor muscle pain.

The Post found that Florida purchased 326,081 tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs during a two-year period for the boys and girls who occupy the 2,300 beds in state-run residential facilities. (Most of the state’s juvenile offenders are held in jails operated by for-profit contractors. Records revealing the quantity of medications that private companies pour down their prisoners’ gullets were not available.)

Such drugs, meant for adults, are known to send children into suicidal despair, along with risking heart problems, weight gain, diabetes and facial tics. Yet, the DJJ and its contract psychiatrists push them willynilly onto their young wards.

It’s not as if state officials have been unaware of the risks facing children prescribed “off label” uses (unapproved by the FDA) of these pharmaceuticals. Even as the state doled out Seroquel like candy to kids in DJJ jails, the Florida Attorney General’s office was entering into a lawsuit with 36 other states against drug manufacturer AstraZeneca for promoting dangerous, off-label uses of Seroquel for treating both the young and the elderly. (AstraZeneca agreed to settle the lawsuit in March for $68.5 million and to stop marketing the drug for unauthorized uses.)

It was as if the schizophrenics most in need of Seroquel were roaming the halls of government, not the juvenile jails.

“This is the face of all these budget cuts; what happens when you eliminate social workers and prison guards,” said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. He suspects that DJJ has compensated for the staff shortages at state lockups by pumping “the most powerful drugs known to man into children who have not been diagnosed for psychiatric problems.”

Finkelstein says he assigned two of his staff attorneys last week to visit juvenile lock-ups and investigate what he calls the “zombification” of young offenders who had been represented by his office.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi opened her own investigation last week. Bondi’s staff attorneys are interested in the Post’s report that psychiatrists prescribing off-label uses of such astounding quantities of the profitable anti-psychotics for DJJ prisoners (at taxpayer expense) had been greased by drug manufacturers with some $250,000 in gifts and speaking fees.

The DJJ drug scandal seems all the more maddening considering that it follows a similar uproar just two years ago after the suicide of a seven-year-old Margate foster child. Young Gabriel Myers had been given adult dosages of three anti-psychotics before he hung himself.

The Gabriel Myers Task Force, made up of child advocates, state officials, political leaders and judges from across the state, spent a year investigating whether the Florida Department of Children and Families had administered dangerous drugs as “chemical restraints” for troublesome foster children.

Foster kids, as it turned out, weren’t the only victims of the on-the-cheap ethic. But don’t think of children reduced to zombies. Think of all the money we save on prison guards.

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The Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Has Been Drugged

cchrint — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:59:54 +0000

OpEdNews
By David Swanson
May 23, 2011

Movements for justice have historically been driven by a small percentage of any population. One percent of Americans nonviolently occupying Washington, D.C., could make Cairo and Madison and Madrid look like warm-up acts. It is certainly true that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens is the only thing that ever has changed the world for the better.

So, what happens if a society picks out a significant slice of its population, one including many thoughtful and committed citizens, and drugs them?

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) held a first-time, one-day, little publicized event last September that allowed people to turn in their extra prescription drugs. The DEA reports collecting 242,000 pounds or 121 tons. A second such day was held in April with 376,593 pounds or 188 tons of pills collected. This is the stuff nobody wants and is willing to hand in to the government. This is not the amount that’s out in circulation. That amount is no doubt in proportion to the roaring flood of television ads for the stuff. “More Americans currently abuse prescription drugs,” says the DEA, “than the number of those using cocaine, hallucinogens, and heroin combined. . . . [I]ndividuals that abuse prescription drugs often obtained them from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet.” And that’s just the users said to be abusing.

Ted Rall suggested drugging to me as a possible explanation for the big mystery staring us in the face, namely why Americans sit back and take so much more than other people from their government. The Patriot Act is being put on steroids with hardly a peep of protest. The “Defense Authorization Act” now before Congress would give presidents virtually limitless power to single-handedly make wars or imprison people. This is the biggest formal transfer of power in the U.S. government since the drafting of its Constitution. This undoes the American War for Independence. But perhaps we’d still be 13 colonies if Prozac and Zoloft had come along sooner.

“Like many people,” says Rall, “I have often wondered why so many Americans seem so emotionally flat and politically apathetic in response to a political and economic landscape that cries out for protest, or at least complaint. Could it be that our society’s most angry — justifiably angry — are being medicated into quiescence?” It does seem possible. I don’t mean to discount the fact that the United States imprisons record numbers of people. I’m willing to share some blame with our education system, our so-called news media, our religiosity, the two-party trap, and several other likely factors. But drugs looks like the big one that is nonetheless hardest to see. People don’t usually tell you they’re drugged, but chances are at least one in 10 people you meet is.

Two years ago, a study found that “the number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled to 10.1 percent of the population in 2005 compared with 1996, increasing across income and age groups.” One year earlier, another study had found that close to 10 percent of men and women in America were taking drugs to combat depression, and that 11 percent of women were taking antidepressants.”

Author and clinical psychologist Bruce Levine tells me this may be even worse than it sounds. “If you are around certain populations,” Levine says, “that 10 percent stat seems very low, especially among healthcare professionals and college students.” College students? I can remember them getting pretty thoughtful and committed in times past. “And that 10 percent,” Levine adds, “only includes the ‘official antidepressants’ such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor, etc. This stat doesn’t include people using ADHD drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, etc. to stimulate themselves.”

Adderall, Levine explained, is an amphetamine that affects the same neurotransmitters as cocaine (dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine), “and if one takes the antidepressant Effexor (affects serotonin and norepinephrine) at the same time one is taking the antidepressant Wellbutrin (affects dopamine), one can sense the hypocrisy in labeling certain psychotropics (drugs that affects neurotransmitters) as ‘antidepressants’ and other psychotropics as ‘ADHD psychostimulants.’ Lots of people — especially young people — are popping ‘Addies’ (street name for Adderall) to ‘motivate’ them to get them through their lives, especially during exam time.”

Levine said he’s counseling a young man who is supplementing his income by selling ADHD psychostimulant drugs to his fellow college students. He gets the best price around final exam time. “He told me, ‘Bruce, you’ve got to do better improving the self-esteem of these young kids who you are counseling.’ Why, I ask him, why do you care? ‘Well,’ he says, ‘these little brats who are getting their freebie prescription Addies feel so crappie about themselves that they are giving away their Addies to their older brothers for free just so they will hang out with them, and all those freebie Addies on the market are driving price down for me.”

Levine stresses that Adderall, like nicotine or caffeine or cocaine, provides a buzz that antidepressants do not. In fact, he points out, the so-called antidepressant drugs make people twice as likely to commit suicide. Levine concedes that some people swear antidepressants have saved their lives, but points out that people will say that about a placebo as well. The evidence, Levine says, shows antidepressants working no better than a placebo at lifting people out of depression.

Antidepressants may bear as Orwellian a name as the Patriot Act, but Levine finds the latter easier to talk about with people. “I get less grief,” Levine tells me, “when I talk about something like anarchism and Emma Goldman than when I talk about antidepressants’ effectiveness and [author] Irving Kirsch, as abstract political ideologies are far less threatening than people’s very own drugs.” Political movements may in fact be less threatening to those in power, because of people’s drugs.

Read article here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Small-Group-of-Thought-by-David-Swanson-110523-181.html

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Autopsy of Florida School Board Shooter Shows Antidepressant in His System

admin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:01:42 +0000

The Walton Sun – April 14, 2011
By S. Bradly Calhoun

10 recent massacres were committed by those under the influence of psychiatric drugs resulting in 54 dead and 105 wounded

PANAMA CITY — The man who held the Bay District School Board hostage before killing himself last year had an antidepressant, acetaminophen and foot fungus medication in his system, his autopsy revealed. The report on Clay Duke was released Wednesday by the Bay County medical examiner’s office.

Duke, 56, killed himself Dec. 14 after firing several shots at school board members during a public meeting. Duke was brought down by three bullets from Mike Jones, the district’s chief of safety.

A toxicology report revealed that at the time of Duke’s death, he had atropine, a drug commonly used in emergency rooms to resuscitate dying patients; acetaminophen; Terbinafine, used to fight fungal infections in fingers and toes; and Citalopram, an antidepressant found in Celexa, in his system.

Forest Laboratories Inc., which makes Celexa, notes on its website the company urges patients to “call a health care provider right away if you or your family member has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you: thoughts about suicide or dying, attempts to commit suicide, new or worse depression, new or worse anxiety, feeling very agitated or restless, panic attacks, trouble sleeping (insomnia), new or worse irritability, acting aggressive, being angry, or violent, acting on dangerous impulses, an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania), other unusual changes in behavior or mood.”

Attempts to contact officials with Forest Laboratories were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.waltonsun.com/news/shooter-92697-newsherald-autopsy-board.html

To read international studies and drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs click here and use the red search box with the following terms; violence;mania; homicidal; psychosis; http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

To see what doctors, pharmacists, health care providers and others have reported on the antidepressant Celexa click here and simply chose Celexa from the drop down menu Drug Name/Drug Class http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/medwatch_psych_drug_adverse_reactions.php

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Panel to Examine Murder and Suicide Associated With Antidepressants

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:39:58 +0000

The Huffington Post, March 22, 2011
by Dr. Peter Breggin

Click image to visit the Psychiatric Drug Database

On Saturday morning April 9th of this year, a panel discussion will be held for the public and professionals on the theme of “Psychiatric Drug Tragedies: Personal, Legal and Medical Perspectives.”

The two-hour presentation focuses on suicide and murder potentially caused by antidepressant medications. It is part of the international Empathic Therapy Conference put on by the Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education & Living (April 8-10, 2011 in Syracuse, New York).

The panel will present a unique examination of an antidepressant-related suicide from three perspectives: Mathy Downing, the mother of a twelve-old-child who committed suicide; Karl Protil, the lawyer in her case, which was settled without any admission of negligence; and myself as the medical expert in the case. Mathy will be accompanied by her surviving daughter. Other family members will tell the stories of two more children who committed suicide, a father who committed suicide, and a husband who murdered his two young children–all while taking prescribed antidepressants.

A great deal is now known about suicide and violence in association with the newer antidepressants such as Prozac (fluoxetine), Paxil (paroxetine), Zoloft (sertraline), Luvox (fluvoxamine), Celexa (escitalopram), Lexapro (escitalopram), Cymbalta (duloxetine), Effexor (venlavaxine), Pristiq desvenlafaxine), and Wellbutrin (bupropion).

The FDA has imposed a Black Box on all antidepressant labels that warns against the risk of suicidal behavior in children, youth and young adults. Click here to find the example of Prozac’s official prescribing information. More importantly and more broadly, the new labels also warn about the risk of aggression, hostility, mania, and an overall worsening of the individual’s mental condition, for all ages. The new FDA-approved labels also include a Medication Guide, which the FDA urges prescribers to give to patients and their families. Originally intended for children taking antidepressants, it now has no age limitation and pertains to all ages. The Medication Guide warns patients and their families to be aware of the possibility of suicidal and violent behavior, mania, and a long litany of other dangerous mental abnormalities.

The new FDA-approved antidepressant labels confirm that the risks are highest at the start of medication therapy or during changes in dose, either up or down. To a great extent, the labels read like my prior publications, one of which was given by the FDA to its outside expert committee that recommended the changes to the labels.

Unfortunately, many psychiatrists, internists, family doctors, nurse practitioners and other professionals continue to prescribe these medications, too often without providing adequate information to the patient and the family. As a result, I was asked to write about the implications of these new labels for the most widely read psychiatric journal for primary care prescribers. The panel at the Empathic Therapy Conference, the first of its kind, will explore these tragedies and put a human face on them through the presence and presentations of surviving family members.

Other aspects of the conference will describe empathic approaches to helping a wide variety of emotional conditions and problems in children and adults. Speakers will bring unique and inspiring approaches to children and adults given psychiatric diagnoses, ordinary folks who are suffering from stress, street people overcome by psychosis, military personnel recovering from PTSD and head injuries, and elderly victims of dementia. Professionals and the general public are welcome at the Empathic Therapy Conference in Syracuse, New York, April 8-10, 2011. Continuing education credits (CEs) for 29.5 hours are available.

Peter R. Breggin, MD is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New York, and the author of dozens of scientific articles and more than twenty books including Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock and Biochemical Theories of the “New” Psychiatry, as well as his newest book, Medication Madness. The Empathic Therapy Conference brings together more than forty presenters and a diverse audience from around the world. Professionals and nonprofessionals are welcome. Learn about the conference at http://www.empathictherapy.org.

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CCHR International » Suicide

Hundreds of Soldiers & Vets Dying From Antipsychotic–Seroquel

Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD & Stan White (Father of Deceased Veteran, Andrew White) disclose the following:

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