Tag Archives: psychiatric drugs

Psychiatry’s Growing Practice of Multiple Prescriptions: 60% of patients drugged were given multiple prescriptions

About 60% of patients with psychiatrist office visits leading to a drug prescription received at least two medications in 2005-2006, according to government survey data. That was up from about 43% in 1996-1997. “These trends put patients at increased risk of drug-drug interactions with uncertain gains for quality of care and clinical outcomes,” the researchers stated.

In Santa Cruz CA, where 9% of adults have taken psych drugs, advocates launch 1st Green Mental Health Care Day

Genita Petralli, president of nonprofit Green Body and Mind, director of Patient Services at Alternative to Meds Clinic, and an author of several books, says it’s her mission to “educate all those interested in what is causing the epidemic mental health crisis of today, how to avoid it, how to get off psychiatric drugs if you are on them now, and why toxic drugs should not ever be called medicine.” To that end, Petralli launched the area’s first Green Mental Health Care Day, a day where speakers and healers came together to address the problems of psychiatric drugs and offer several alternative solutions.

How Vested Interests Created the Perfect Marketing/Lobbying Machine: Mental Health “Advocacy” Groups—Funded by Pharma

An ongoing U.S. Senate investigation headed by Senator Charles Grassly has sought disclosure of pharmaceutical funding paid to researchers, physicians, medical schools, medical journals and the patient advocacy community. Some of the nation’s most prominent psychiatrists have now been exposed for extensive conflicts of interest amounting to millions in undisclosed pharmaceutical funding, including Dr. Charles Nemeroff, Dr. Joseph Biederman, Dr. Melissa DelBello, Dr. Timothy Wilens, Dr. Thomas Spencer, Dr. Alan Schatzberg, Dr. Martin Keller, Dr. A. John Rush, Dr. Karen Wagner, Dr. Jeffrey Bostic and Dr. Frederick Goodwin — many of which serve as advisory board members to mental illness “advocacy groups” which are now also the subject of the Senate investigation for their undisclosed pharmaceutical funding.

The majority of the public may or may not be familiar with these so-called mental health advocacy organizations, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) or the myriad of bipolar, depression or ADHD “support groups” that are inundating the internet. But they need to be.