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Suicide Rates

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:18:39 +0000

Suicide rates doubled for children of 5-14 years old over the past 20 years! Research by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

For youth age 15-24 suicide has been the third leading cause of death for well over a generation. Last year 15 million prescriptions were written for (SSRI) antidepressants for children and teenagers. Suicide rates have now DOUBLED for children of 5-14 years old in the past generation…

Suicide is the third highest cause of death among teenagers age 15-24. Suicide rates have doubled for children of 5-14 years old in the past generation. Last year 15 million prescriptions were written for (SSRI) antidepressants for children and teenagers.

Recently the (FDA) acknowledged an increased suicide risk associate with children taking (SSRI) antidepressants. The mental health of our children is worse off today than it was 50 years ago. But for years the National Institute of Health (NIH) has been following a biomedical model that seeks a drug to solve every problem. It’s clearly been a massive failure.

Dr. James W. Prescott, past Health Scientist Administrator of the Development Behavioral Biology Program of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH) says “Clearly something is wrong in our culture when our children and teens are driven into suicide, despair, and [legal] drug addiction. The NIH and America are not asking the important question: “Where is all of this coming from and what can we do to prevent it?”

AMERICA’S LOST DREAM: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

By James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

(http://www.violence.de/prescott/appp/ald.pdf)

V. Depression and Suicide in Children and Youth of America

Depression and suicide are of epidemic proportions in America. Suicide has been the third leading cause of death in the youth age group of 15-24 years for the past generation (1979-1997) and is the fifth and sixth leading cause of death in the 5-14 year age group for the years 1979 and 1997, respectively. Tables 2 & 3 show that the suicide rates have doubled in the 5-14 year age group from 1979-1997. Table 4 gives the number of suicidal and homicidal deaths for the years 1979, 1994 and 1998 for the age groups of 1-4 years; 5-14 years and 15-24 years. The total number of suicidal deaths in these age groups for the years 1979, 1994 and 1998 are 5,398; 5,274 and 4,321, respectively. This represents an average of 4,999 suicide deaths per year for these years.

Given the average of 5,000 suicidal deaths per year, the estimated total number of suicidal deaths in these age groups from 1979-2000 is 105,000 children and youth who have committed suicide over this past generation. More children and youth (ages 5-24 years) have committed suicide in the past ten years than the total number of American combat lives lost in the ten year Vietnam War (est. 55,000 v 47,355), yet little or no public attention has been given to this reality and what it represents.

There are an estimated 60,828 suicides in the 25-44 year age group for the five years from 1994-1998 (12,166×5=60,828), an estimated total of 121,656 American lives lost to suicide for ten years in this age group that is more than double all the American lives lost in the ten year Vietnam War.

Table 5 gives the suicide rates as a percent of the homicide rates for these specific age groups and for the years 1979, 1994 and 1998. For the 5-14 year old age group, suicide rates, as a percent of homicide rates, have systematically increased from 1979 to 1998, as follows: 1979:36%; 1994: 60 %; 1998:73 %.

Suicidal death, relative to homicidal death, has dramatically increased for our children and youth in the 5- 14 year age group from 1979-1998. The question that remains unanswered is why do our children and youth prefer suicidal death to living in America, presumably the healthiest, wealthiest, and greatest nation of the world? Clearly, these dramatic increases in suicide rates over a single generation cannot be attributed to any changes in the human gene pool.

These statistics indicate that America is an unsafe nation to rear its children and this conclusion is also supported by the epidemic of depression that afflicts our children and youth, as evidenced by their massive psychiatric medication (Zito, et.al, 2000). Some 1.5 million prescriptions of the anti-depressant class of drugs called the serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SRIs, e.g., Prozac) are given annually to children and youth and some 3 million prescriptions of Ritalin are prescribed annually. The problem of underestimating child/youth suicides in our society is as real as it is for child abuse homicides, previously cited (Herman-Giddens, et.al, 1999), where they found that child abuse homicides were underascertained by 62%. It is reasonable to project a similar or larger underestimation of suicidal deaths, given the higher societal and family shame and guilt that is associated with suicidal death, particularly of children and youth. Undoubtedly, many suicidal deaths are hidden in the accidental death statistics and are a greater problem than the current statistics indicate.

The pioneering study of Salk, et al (1985) found prenatal and perinatal stress factors in 81% of teen suicides that represented a 400% increased risk of suicide compared to the control subjects. The studies of the Jacobson group in Sweden also documented the role of perinatal trauma and obstetric medications on later adult behaviors of suicide, homicide and drug addictive behaviors, where increased risks for some of these behaviors was as high as 500% compared to control groups (Jacobson, et al, 1987,1988, 1990, 1998/ 2000). The study of Raine, et al (1994) found birth complications and maternal rejection predicting violent crime at 18 years of age, which adds additional evidence that prenatal/perinatal trauma contributes to adult behavioral disorders. The report of Levy (1945) that the trauma of circumcision can lead to homicidal and suicidal emotional states should not be neglected in the overall assessment of prenatal, perinatal and postnatal factors that contribute to child, teen and adult emotional-behavioral disorders.

VI. Psychiatric Medications of the Children and Youth of America.

Breggin (1994, 1995, 1998) has warned America about the effects of a Toxic Psychiatry upon the children and youth of America, which have gone unheeded. The psychiatric drugging of the children, youth and adults of America have become worse where there is little or no questions being asked by the psychiatric-political establishment as to why are all these psychiatric drugs are necessary. Breggin (2000) provides a framework for the prevention of the psychiatric drugging of the children and youth of America and a path to follow, if natural happiness is to become a reality, which is the true prevention of depression and violence.

Zito, et al (2000) have reviewed the prevalence of psychotropic medication use in children and youth; and in preschool-aged children from 1991-1995 from two state Medicaid programs and an HMO. They reported: The prevalence of psychotropic medication treatment for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders has significantly increased in the United States during the last few decades, particularly in the last 15 years. Specifically the 5 through 14-yearold age group has experienced a great increase in stimulant treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHS), and the 15 through 19 -year- old age group has had sizable increases in the use of antidepressant medications (pp.1-2)… The rate of psychotropic medication prescribed for preschoolers in the MWM program increased substantially from 1991-1995. The increase was greatest for clonidine (28.2-fold), stimulants (3.0-fold), and antidepressants (2.2-fold). By contrast, neuroleptic use did not increase substantially during this time (p.4)… Methylphenidate (Ritalin) use according to age group in children and adolescents in the MWM program was most prominent for those aged 5-14 years… The largest methylphenidate increase (311%) was among 15 through19- year olds, whereas the 2 through 4- year-olds, like the 5-through 14 -year-olds, had a smaller but still substantial increase (169% to 176%) (pp.4-5)…

Several prominent trends characterized the use of psychotropic medications in preschoolers during the early to mid 1990s. Overall, there were large increases for all study medications (except the neuroleptics) and considerable variation according to gender, age, geographic region, and health care system. These findings are remarkable in light of the limited knowledge base that underlies psychotropic medication use in very young children. Controlled clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy and safety of psychotropic medications for preschoolers are rare. Efficacy data are essentially lacking for clonidine and the SSRIs and methylphenidate’s adverse effects for preschool children are more pronounced than for older youths. Consequently, the vast majority of psychotropic medications prescribed for preschoolers are being used offlabel. (P.5).

Recall that this 5-14 year age group showed a doubling of suicide rates over the past twenty years (supra).

Source: http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2004-09-22-suicide-rates-doubled-5-14.htm

Tags: antidepressants for children, mental health of our children, Psychiatric Drugs, psychotropic medication, SSRI, Suicidal death, Suicide Rates, teenagers, Toxic Psychiatry

How Do Psychiatric Drugs Work?

admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:14:44 +0000

Most people begin taking psychiatric medications because they are “distressed and distressing.” They are either experiencing overwhelming states of emotional distress, or someone else is distressed with their behavior and sends them to a doctor – or some combination of both. There are many labels for these states, like anxiety, depression, mania, psychosis, voices, and paranoia, and labels change over time. Doctors frequently tell people that their emotional distress is due to a mental disorder which has a biochemical basis, that their distress is dangerous (such as the risk of suicide) and must be stopped, and that medication with psychiatric drugs is the most appropriate therapy.
Psychiatric drugs act on the brain to change mood and consciousness like any other mind altering drug. Because many medications can blunt or control the symptoms of emotional distress – by either speeding a person up, slowing a person down, reducing sensitivity, or getting them to sleep – they can take the edge off extreme states. They help some people feel more capable of living their lives. It is important to realize, however, that psychiatric drugs do not change the underlying causes of emotional distress. They are best understood as tools or coping mechanisms that can sometimes alleviate symptoms, with significant risks for anyone who takes them.
Do Psychiatric Drugs Correct Your Chemistry?
People are told that mental disorders exist because brain chemistry levels are “abnormal” or “imbalanced,” that this results from genetic “predispositions” inherited from families, and that psychiatric drugs work by correcting these pre-existing brain chemical imbalances. However, these claims have never been proven by scientific study to be true.
Despite decades of effort and billions of dollars in research, no reliable and consistent evidence of preexisting chemical imbalances, genetic predispositions, or brain abnormalities has ever been found to go along with any psychiatric disorder diagnosis. Even the fine print of drug company ads now typically state that conditions are “believed to be caused by” or “thought to be caused by” chemical imbalances, rather than making definitive claims. Genetic theories today talk about complex interactions with the environment that differ from individual to individual based on experience, rather than genetic “blueprints” or causality.
No elevated or lowered level of any neurotransmitter has ever consistently been proven to cause a psychiatric disorder. A baseline has never even been established for what constitutes “normal” brain chemistry for all people, and no physical test, like urinalysis or blood draw, exists to detect mental disorders. Brain scans have never been able to distinguish consistently between “normal” people and people with psychiatric diagnoses (though medications can cause brain changes that show up on scans). Three people with an identical diagnosis might have completely different brain chemistry, and someone with very similar brain chemistry might have no diagnosis at all. Western medicine has not isolated any biological causes in the same way it can describe the physical mechanisms that cause illnesses such as tuberculosis, Down Syndrome, or diabetes.
Madness and mental disorder diagnoses do sometimes seem to “run in families,” but so do child abuse and artistic ability. Because of shared learning and experience, family history can mean many things other than genetic determination. Despite ambitious claims by researchers that are sensationalized in the media, no genetic cause, marker or set of markers has ever been discovered and isolated for mental disorders. In fact, the more that is understood about genetics, behavior and the brain, the more complicated the picture becomes, and the less likely of ever finding a genetic “key.” Using genetics to explain the diverse range of human behavior in a simplistic way is a throwback to the discredited concepts of social Darwinism and eugenics.
Identical twins have the same genes, but don’t always have the same psychiatric diagnosis, which proves that genes alone cannot be causal. Studies show that twins do tend have a slightly higher chance of the same diagnosis, possibly indicating some genetic role, but these studies are often flawed, and claims exaggerated. Parents certainly know that children have different temperaments and qualities even at birth, but individual traits like sensitivity and creativity only become the experiences of madness and emotional distress after the very complicated social factors of experience, including trauma and oppression, have played a role.
Every mood, thought, or experience exists somehow in the brain and body as expressions of biology, but society, mind, and learning intervene to make any causal relationship impossible to establish. Philosophers and scientists have been puzzling over the relationship between consciousness and the brain for hundreds of years. Psychiatry and neuroscience can make no credible claim to have solved the mystery of the mind-body relationship.
Ultimately, psychiatric diagnosis requires a doctor’s subjective psychological evaluation of a patient, and the doctor relies on their own interpretations, fears, and preconceptions. Doctors often disagree with each other, people sometimes have many different diagnoses over time, and discrimination based on class, race, and gender is common.
The decision to take or not take psychiatric drugs should be based on the usefulness of the drug to the person who needs help relative to the risks involved, not any false belief that they “must” be on the drug because of biology or genes.

Source: http://theicarusproject.net/downloads/ComingOffPsychDrugsHarmReductGuide1Edonline.pdf

Tags: emotional distress, medication, overwhelming, Psychiatric Drugs, therapy, Your Chemistry

PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS: Cure or Quackery?

admin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:24:32 +0000

by Lawrence Stevens, J.D.
Psychiatric drugs are worthless, and most of them are harmful. Many cause permanent brain damage at the doses customarily given. Psychiatric drugs and the profession that promotes them are dangers to your health.
ANTIDEPRESSANTS
The Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry/IV, published in 1985, says “The tricyclic-type drugs are the most effective class of anti-depressants” (Williams & Wilkins, p. 1520). But in his book Overcoming Depression, published in 1981, Dr. Andrew Stanway, a British physician, says “If anti-depressant drugs were really as effective as they are made out to be, surely hospital admission rates for depression would have fallen over the twenty years they’ve been available. Alas, this has not happened. … Many trials have found that tricyclics are only marginally more effective than placebos, and some have even found that they are not as effective as dummy tablets” (Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd., p. 159-160). In his textbook Electroconvulsive Therapy, Richard Abrams, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at Chicago Medical School, explains the reason for the 1988 edition of his book updating the edition published 6 years earlier: “During these six years interest in ECT has bourgeoned. … What is responsible for this volte-face in American psychiatry? Disenchantment with the antidepressants, perhaps. None has been found that is therapeutically superior to imipramine [a tricyclic], now over 30 years old, and the more recently introduced compounds are often either less effective or more toxic than the older drugs, or both” (Oxford Univ. Press, p. xi). In this book, Dr. Abrams says “despite manufacturers’ claims, no significant progress in the pharmacological treatment of depression has occurred since the introduction of imipramine in 1958″ (p. 7). In the Foreword to this book, Max Fink, M.D., a psychiatry professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, says the reason for increased use of electroconvulsive “therapy” (ECT) as a treatment for depression is what he calls “Disappointment with the efficacy of psychotropic drugs” (p. vii). In his book Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, published in 1983, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., asserts: “The most fundamental point to be made about the most frequently used major antidepressants is that they have no specifically antidepressant effect. Like the major tranquilizers to which they are so closely related, they are highly neurotoxic and brain disabling, and achieve their impact through the disruption of normal brain function. … Only the `clinical opinion’ of drug advocates supports any antidepressant effect” of so-called antidepressant drugs (Springer Pub. Co., pp. 160 & 184). An article in the February 7, 1994 Newsweek magazine says that “Prozac…and its chemical cousins Zoloft and Paxil are no more effective than older treatments for depression” (p. 41). Most of the people I have talked to who have taken so-called antidepressants, including Prozac, say the drug didn’t work for them. This casts doubt on the often made claim that 60% or more of the people who take supposedly antidepressant drugs benefit from them.
LITHIUM
Lithium is said to be helpful for people whose mood repeatedly changes from joyful to despondent and back again. Psychiatrists call this manic-depressive disorder or bipolar mood disorder. Lithium was first described as a psychiatric drug in 1949 by an Australian psychiatrist, John Cade. According to a psychiatric textbook: “While conducting animal experiments, Cade had somewhat incidentally noted that lithium made the animals lethargic, thus prompting him to administer this drug to several agitated psychiatric patients.” The textbook describes this as “a pivotal moment in the history of psychopharmacology” (Harold I. Kaplan, M.D. & Benjamin J. Sadock, M.D., Clinical Psychiatry, Williams & Wilkins, 1988, p. 342). However, if you don’t want to be lethargic, taking lithium would seem to be of dubious benefit. A supporter of lithium as psychiatric therapy admits lithium causes “a mildly depressed, generally lethargic feeling”. He calls it “the standard lethargy” caused by lithium (Roger Williams, “A Hasty Decision? Coping in the Aftermath of a Manic-Depressive Episode”, American Health magazine, October 1991, p. 20). Similarly, one of my relatives was diagnosed as manic-depressive and was given a prescription for lithium carbonate. He told me, years later, “Lithium insulated me from the highs but not from the lows.” It should be no surprise a lethargy-inducing drug like lithium would have this effect. Amazingly, psychiatrists sometimes claim lithium wards off feelings of depression even though, if anything, lethargy-inducing drugs like lithium (like most psychiatric drugs) promote feelings of despondency and unhappiness – even if they are called antidepressants.
MINOR TRANQUILIZER/ANTI-ANXIETY DRUGS
Among the most widely used psychiatric drugs are the ones called minor tranquilizers, including Valium, Librium, Xanax, and Halcion. Doctors who prescribe them say they have calming, anti-anxiety, panic-suppressing effects or are useful as sleeping pills. Anyone who believes these claims should go to the nearest library and read the article “High Anxiety” in the January 1993 Consumer Reports magazine, or read Chapter 11 in Toxic Psychiatry (St. Martin’s Press, 1991), by psychiatrist Peter Breggin, both of which allege the opposite is closer to the truth. Like all or almost all psychiatric drugs, the so-called minor tranquilizers don’t cure anything but are merely brain-disabling drugs. In one clinical trial, 70 percent of persons taking Halcion “developed memory loss, depression and paranoia” (“Halcion manufacturer Upjohn Co. defends controversial sleeping drug”, Miami Herald, December 17, 1991, p. 13A). According to the February 17, 1992 Newsweek, “Four countries have banned the drug outright” (p. 58). In his book Toxic Psychiatry, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, speaking of the minor tranquilizers, says “As with most psychiatric drugs, the use of the medication eventually causes an increase of the very symptoms that the drug is supposed to ameliorate” (ibid, p. 246).
PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS versus SLEEP: SLEEP DISTINGUISHED FROM DRUG-INDUCED UNCONSCIOUSNESS
Contrary to the claim major and minor tranquilizers and so-called antidepressants are useful as sleeping pills, their real effect is to inhibit or block real sleep. When I sat in on a psychiatry class with a medical student friend, the professor told us “Research has shown we do not need to sleep, but we do need to dream.” The dream phase of sleep is the critical part. Most psychiatric drugs, including those promoted as sleeping medications or tranquilizers, inhibit this critical dream-phase of sleep, inducing a state that looks like sleep but actually is a dreamless unconscious state – not sleep. Sleep, in other words, is an important mental activity that is impaired or stopped by most psychiatric drugs. A self-help magazine advises: “Do not take sleeping pills unless under doctor’s orders, and then for no more than 10 consecutive nights. Besides losing their effectiveness and becoming addictive, sleep-inducing medications reduce or prevent the dream-stage of sleep necessary for mental health” (Going Bonkers? magazine, premiere issue, p. 75). In The Brain Book, University of Rhode Island professor Peter Russell, Ph.D., says “During sleep, particularly during dreaming periods, proteins and other chemicals in the brain used up during the day are replenished” (Plume, 1979, p. 76). Sleep deprivation experiments on normal people show loss of sleep causes hallucinations if continued long enough (Maya Pines, The Brain Changers, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973, p. 105). So what would seem to be the consequences of taking drugs that inhibit or block real sleep?
MAJOR TRANQUILIZER/NERUOLEPTIC/ANTI-PSYCHOTIC/ ANTI-SCHIZOPHRENIC DRUGS
Even as harmful as psychiatry’s (so-called) antidepressants and lithium and (so-called) antianxiety agents (or minor tranquilizers) are, they are nowhere near as damaging as the so-called major tranquilizers, sometimes also called “antipsychotic” or “antischizophrenic” or “neuroleptic” drugs. Included in this category are Thorazine (chlorpromazine), Mellaril, Prolixin (fluphenazine), Compazine, Stelazine, and Haldol (haloperidol) – and many others. In terms of their psychological effects, these so-called major tranquilizers cause misery – not tranquility. They physically, neurologically blot out most of a person’s ability to think and act, even at commonly given doses. By disabling people, they can stop almost any thinking or behavior the “therapist” wants to stop. But this is simply disabling people, not therapy. The drug temporarily disables or permanently destroys good aspects of a person’s personality as much as bad. Whether and to what extent the disability imposed by the drug can be removed by discontinuing the drug depends on how long the drug is given and at how great a dose. The so-called major tranquilizer/ antipsychotic/neuroleptic drugs damage the brain more clearly, severely, and permanently than any others used in psychiatry. Joyce G. Small, M.D., and Iver F. Small, M.D., both Professors of Psychiatry at Indiana University, criticize psychiatrists who use “psychoactive medications that are known to have neurotoxic effects”, and speak of “the increasing recognition of long-lasting and sometimes irreversible impairments in brain function induced by neuroleptic drugs. In this instance the evidence of brain damage is not subtle, but is grossly obvious even to the casual observer!” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, March 1984, Vol. 7, p. 34). According to Conrad M. Swartz, Ph.D., M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at Chicago Medical School, “While neuroleptics relieve psychotic anxiety, their tranquilization blunts fine details of personality, including initiative, emotional reactivity, enthusiasm, sexiness, alertness, and insight. … This is in addition to side effects, usually involuntary movements which can be permanent and are hence evidence of brain damage” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, March 1984, Vol. 7, pp. 37-38). A report in 1985 in the Mental and Physical Disability Law Reporter indicates courts in the United States have finally begun to consider involuntary administration of the so-called major tranquilizer/antipsychotic/neuroleptic drugs to involve First Amendment rights “Because…antipsychotic drugs have the capacity to severely and even permanently affect an individual’s ability to think and communicate” (“Involuntary medication claims go forward”, January-February 1985, p. 26 – emphasis added). In Molecules of the Mind: The Brave New Science of Molecular Psychology, Professor Jon Franklin observed: “This era coincided with an increasing awareness that the neuroleptics not only did not cure schizophrenia – they actually caused damage to the brain. Suddenly, the psychiatrists who used them, already like their patients on the fringes of society, were suspected of Nazism and worse” (Dell Pub. Co., 1987, p. 103). In his book Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., alleges that by using drugs that cause brain damage, “Psychiatry has unleashed an epidemic of neurological disease on the world” one which “reaches 1 million to 2 million persons a year” (op. cit., pp. 109 & 108). In severe cases, brain damage from neuroleptic drugs is evidenced by abnormal body movements called tardive dyskinesia. However, tardive dyskinesia is only the tip of the iceberg of neuroleptic caused brain damage. Higher mental functions are more vulnerable and are impaired before the elementary functions of the brain such as motor control. Psychiatry professor Richard Abrams, M.D., has acknowledged that “Tardive dyskinesia has now been reported to occur after only brief courses of neuroleptic drug therapy” (in: Benjamin B. Wolman (editor), The Therapist’s Handbook: Treatment Methods of Mental Disorders, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1976, p. 25). In his book The New Psychiatry, published in 1985, Columbia University psychiatry professor Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., alleges: “The best way to avoid tardive dyskinesia is to avoid antipsychotic drugs altogether. Except for treating schizophrenia, they should never be used for more than two or three consecutive months. What’s criminal is that all too many patients receive antipsychotics who shouldn’t” (Mentor, pp. 155-156). In fact, Dr. Maxmen doesn’t go far enough. His characterization of administration of the so-called antipsychotic/anti-schizophrenic/major tranquilizer/neuroleptic drugs as “criminal” is accurate for all people, including those called schizophrenic, even when the drugs aren’t given long enough for the resulting brain damage to show up as tardive dyskinesia. The author of the Preface of a book by four physicians published in 1980, Tardive Dyskinesia: Research & Treatment, made these remarks: “In the late 1960s I summarized the literature on tardive dyskinesia … The majority of psychiatrists either ignored the existence of the problem or made futile efforts to prove that these motor abnormalities were clinically insignificant or unrelated to drug therapy. In the meantime the number of patients affected by tardive dyskinesia increased and the symptoms became worse in those already afflicted by this condition. … there are few investigators or clinicians who still have doubts about the iatrogenic [physician caused] nature of tardive dyskinesia. … It is evident that the more one learns about the toxic effects of neuroleptics on the central nervous system, the more one sees an urgent need to modify our current practices of drug use. It is unfortunate that many practitioners continue to prescribe psychotropics in excessive amounts, and that a considerable number of mental institutions have not yet developed a policy regarding the management and prevention of tardive dyskinesia. If this book, which reflects the opinions of the experts in this field, can make a dent in the complacency of many psychiatrists, it will be no small accomplishment” (in: William E. Fann, M.D., et al., Tardive Dyskinesia: Research & Treatment, SP Medical & Scientific). In Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., says this: “The major tranquilizers are highly toxic drugs; they are poisonous to various organs of the body. They are especially potent neurotoxins, and frequently produce permanent damage to the brain. … tardive dyskinesia can develop in low-dose, short-term usage… the dementia [loss of higher mental functions] associated with the tardive dyskinesia is not usually reversible. … Seldom have I felt more saddened or more dismayed than by psychiatry’s neglect of the evidence that it is causing irreversible lobotomy effects, psychosis, and dementia in millions of patients as a result of treatment with the major tranquilizers”(op. cit., pp. 70, 107, 135, 146).
Psychiatry professor Richard Abrams, M.D., has pointed out that “Tricyclic Antidepressants…are minor chemical modifications of chlorpromazine [Thorazine] and were introduced as potential neuroleptics” (in: B. Wolman, The Therapist’s Handbook, op. cit., p. 31). In his book Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, Dr. Breggin calls the so-called antidepressants “Major Tranquilizers in Disguise” (p. 166). Psychiatrist Mark S. Gold, M.D., has said antidepressants can cause tardive dyskinesia (The Good News About Depression, Bantam, 1986, p. 259).
Why do the so-called patients accept such “medication”? Sometimes they do so out of ignorance about the neurological damage to which they are subjecting themselves by following their psychiatrist’s advice to take the “medication”. But much if not most of the time, neuroleptic drugs are literally forced into the bodies of the “patients” against their wills. In his book Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., says “Time and again in my clinical experience I have witnessed patients driven to extreme anguish and outrage by having major tranquilizers forced on them. … The problem is so great in routine hospital practice that a large percentage of patients have to be threatened with forced intramuscular injection before they will take the drugs” (p. 45).
FORCED PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT COMPARED WITH RAPE
Forced administration of a psychiatric drug (or a so-called treatment like electroshock) is a kind of tyranny that can be compared, physically and morally, with rape. Compare sexual rape and involuntarily administration of a psychiatric drug injected intramuscularly into the buttocks, which is the part of the anatomy where the injection usually is given: In both sexual rape and involuntary administration of a psychiatric drug, force is used. In both cases, the victim’s pants are pulled down. In both cases, a tube is inserted into the victim’s body against her (or his) will. In the case of sexual rape, the tube is a penis. In the case of what could be called psychiatric rape, the tube is a hypodermic needle. In both cases, a fluid is injected into the victim’s body against her or his will. In both cases it is in (or near) the derriere. In the case of sexual rape the fluid is semen. In the case of psychiatric rape, the fluid is Thorazine, Prolixin or some other brain-disabling drug. The fact of bodily invasion is similar in both cases if not (for reasons I’ll explain) actually worse in the case of psychiatric rape. So is the sense of outrage in the mind of the victim of each type of assault. As psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz once said, “violence is violence, regardless of whether it is called psychiatric illness or psychiatric treatment.” Some who are not “hospitalized” (that is, imprisoned) are forced to report to a doctor’s office for injections of a long-acting neuroleptic like Prolixin every two weeks by the threat of imprisonment (“hospitalization”) and forced injection of the drug if they don’t comply.
Why is psychiatric rape worse than sexual rape? As brain surgeon I. S. Cooper, M.D., said in his autobiography: “It is your brain that sees, feels, thinks, commands, responds. You are your brain. It is you. Transplanted into another carrier, another body, your brain would supply it with your memories, your thoughts, your emotions. It would still be you. The new body would be your container. It would carry you around. Your brain is you” (The Vital Probe: My Life as a Brain Surgeon, W.W.Norton & Co., 1982, p. 50-emphasis in original). The most essential and most intimate part of you is not what is between your legs but what is between your ears. An assault on a person’s brain such as involuntary administration of a brain-disabling or brain-damaging “treatment” (such as a psychoactive drug or electroshock or psychosurgery) is a more intimate and morally speaking more horrible crime than sexual rape. Psychiatric rape is in moral terms a worse crime than sexual rape for another reason, also: The involuntary administration of psychiatry’s biological “therapies” cause permanent impairment of brain function. In contrast, women usually are still fully sexually functional after being sexually raped. They suffer psychological harm, but so do the victims of psychiatric assault. I hope I will not be understood as belittling the trauma or wrongness of sexual rape if I point out that I have counselled sexually raped women in my law practice and that each of the half-dozen or so women I have known who have been sexually raped have gone on to have apparently normal sexual relationships, and in most cases marriages and families. In contrast, the brains of people subjected to psychiatric assault often are not as fully functional because of the physical, biological harm done by the “treatment”. On a TV talk show in 1990, psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson, Ph.D., said he hopes those responsible for such “therapies” will one day face “Nurnburg trials” (Geraldo, Nov. 30, 1990).

BRAIN-DAMAGING PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS ARE INFLICTED ON NURSING HOME RESIDENTS
These very same brain-damaging (so-called) neuroleptic/antipsychotic drugs are routinely administered – involuntarily – to mentally healthy old people in nursing homes in the United States. According to an article in the September/October 1991 issue of In-Health magazine, “In nursing homes, antipsychotics are used on anywhere from 21 to 44 percent of the institutionalized elderly… half of the antipsychotics prescribed for nursing home residents could not be explained by the diagnosis in the patient’s chart. Researchers suspect the drugs are commonly used by such institutions as chemical straightjackets – a means of pacifying unruly patients” (p. 28). I know of two examples of feeble old men in nursing homes who were barely able to get out of their wheelchairs who were given a neuroleptic/antipsychotic drug. One complained because he was strapped into a wheelchair to prevent his attempts to try to walk with his cane. The other was strapped into his bed at night to prevent him from getting up and falling when going to the bathroom, necessitating defecating in his bed. Both were so physically disabled they posed no danger to anyone. But both dared complain bitterly about how they were mistreated. In both cases the nursing home staffs responded to these complaints with injections of Haldol – mentally disabling these men, thereby making it impossible for them to complain. The use of these damaging drugs on nursing home residents who are not considered to have psychiatric problems shows that their real purpose is control, not therapy. Therapeutic claims for neuroleptic drugs are rationalizations without factual support.

SUPPOSEDLY “DOUBLE-BLIND” PSYCHIATRIC DRUG STUDIES ARE BIASED
Studies indicating psychiatric drugs are helpful are of dubious credibility because of professional bias. All or almost all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxic and for this reason cause symptoms and problems such as dry mouth, blurred vision, lightheadedness, dizziness, lethargy, difficulty thinking, menstrual irregularities, urinary retention, heart palpitations, and other consequences of neurological dysfunction. Psychiatrists deceptively call these “side-effects”, even though they are the only real effects of today’s psychiatric drugs. Placebos (or sugar pills) don’t cause these problems. Since these symptoms (or their absence) are obvious to psychiatrists evaluating psychiatric drugs in supposedly double-blind drug trials, the drug trials aren’t really double-blind, making it impossible to evaluate psychiatric drugs impartially. This allows professional bias to skew the results.
MODES OF ACTION: UNKNOWN
Despite various unverified theories and claims, psychiatrists don’t know how the drugs they use work biologically. In the words of Columbia University psychiatry professor Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D.: “How psychotropic drugs work is not clear” (The New Psychiatry, Mentor, 1985, p. 143). Experience has shown that the effect of all of today’s commonly used psychiatric drugs is to disable the brain in a generalized way. None of today’s psychiatric drugs have the specificity (e.g., for depression or anxiety or psychosis) that is often claimed for them.

LIKE TAKING INSULIN FOR DIABETES?
It is often asserted that taking a psychiatric drug is like taking insulin for diabetes. Although psychiatric drugs are taken continuously, as is insulin – it’s an absurd analogy. Diabetes is a disease with a known physical cause. No physical cause has been found for any of today’s so-called mental illnesses. The mode of action of insulin is known: It is a hormone that instructs or causes cells to uptake dietary glucose (sugar). In contrast, the modes of action of psychiatry’s drugs are unknown – although advocates of psychiatric drugs as well as critics theorize they prevent normal brain functioning by blocking neuroreceptors in the brain. If this theory is correct it is another contrast between taking insulin and taking a psychiatric drug: Insulin restores a normal biological function, namely, normal glucose (or sugar) metabolism. Psychiatric drugs interfere with a normal biological function, namely, normal neuroreceptor functioning. Insulin is a hormone that is found naturally in the body. Psychiatry’s drugs are not normally found in the body. Insulin gives a diabetic’s body a capability it would not have in the absence of insulin, namely, the ability to metabolize dietary sugar normally. Psychiatric drugs have an opposite kind of effect: They take away (mental) capabilities the person would have in the absence of the drug. Insulin affects the body rather than mind. Psychiatric drugs disable the brain and hence the mind, the mind being the essence of the real self.

THE AUTHOR, Lawrence Stevens, is a lawyer whose practice has included representing psychiatric “patients”. His pamphlets are not copyrighted. You are invited to make copies for distribution to those who you think will benefit.

Source: http://www.antipsychiatry.org/drugs.htm

Tags: antipsychiatry, bipolar mood disorder, manic-depressive disorder, Psychiatric Drugs

Two Psychiatric Drugs on FDA Watch List

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:20:26 +0000

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today released a list of 20 drugs that are on its adverse effect “watch list” — drugs that have potential new serious risks or had new safety information from January to March 2008. The data come from FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) database, its only method for gathering safety and adverse effects about drugs approved for prescribing in the U.S. Adverse events are voluntarily reported by physicians who prescribe the medications.

Two psychiatric medications made the list — Duloxetine (Cymbalta) for a serious risk of urinary retention, and Quetiapine (Seroquel) for overdose due to sample pack labeling confusion.

This is the FDA’s first new public information alert system in years, identifying potential safety issues in drugs and making that information available to the public. The list does not mean that FDA has identified a causal relationship between the drug and the listed risk, but that it’s investigating further to determine if such a relationship exists.

If you’re taking either of the two psychiatric drugs listed, or any of the other listed 18, you should talk to your doctor about the concern the FDA has identified. In terms of Cymbalta, you should talk to your doctor about any problems with retaining urine and in terms of Seroquel, you should double-check with your psychiatrist or doctor to ensure you’ve been prescribed the proper dose.

by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. September 5, 2008
Source: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/09/05/two-psychiatric-drugs-on-fda-watch-list/

Tags: adverse effects, Duloxetine (Cymbalta), FDA Watch List, Food and Drug Administration, Psychiatric Drugs, Quetiapine (Seroquel)

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