THE THIRD BLOG FOR THE OUTLAW OF PSYCHIATRY NOW !

2007-08-19T04:16:00.000-07:00

THE ELECTRIC SHOCKS MACHINE MANUFACTURER WAS A PSYCHIATRY PROFESSOR
by Justice Lover

The following article was published by USA Today on December 6, 1995. Yet the criminal practice of forcing electric shocks on patients by the shrinks has continued unabated to this day. The reason is obvious, namely, for as long as the ruling class is using the state apparatus to legitimise and to impose psychiatry on the people, so will the crimes of psychiatry. In the USA this fascist trend is currently in the upswing as President Bush plans to have the entire USA population screened by the shrinks for "mental illness", and he wants it done before he steps down.

Here is the article :

http://www.harborside.com/~equinox/ect5.htm

"DOCTOR'S FINANCIAL STAKE IN SHOCK THERAPY
By Dennis Cauchon

"The majority of patients who receive ECT . . . are well satisfied with the results and are hardly motivated to influence public opinion on the subject - they are too busy getting on with their lives. . ." -- from Richard Abrams' "Electroconvulsive Therapy"

When medical students learn about shock therapy, they turn to the only textbook on the subject: Electroconvulsive Therapy, published by Oxford University Press. Richard Abrams, a professor of psychiatry at the Chicago Medical School, writes that shock therapy is proven safe and effective for depression and other problems, even in children and the elderly.

He advises that shock should be considered as the first treatment given, not as the last resort. He concludes with an attack on doctors who criticize shock treatment and attaches a form to have patients sign when they consent to shock therapy.

But Abrams doesn't tell the medical students one thing: He owns Somatics Inc., one of the nation's two shock machine manufacturers.

He didn't tell his publisher, either.

"Wow," says Joan Bossert, executive editor of Oxford University Press. "I did not know that." She would have had him disclose that in the book's preface, she says. "I really wish he'd told us, but it doesn't take away from his expertise," she says. Neither did Abrams disclose his financial interest in the academic journal Psychiatric Clinics in September 1994, when he wrote an upbeat article on shock titled, "The Treatment That Will Not Die."

In some recent articles, Abrams disclosed that he's a "director" of Somatics. But readers weren't told that he is also president and owns the company with shock researcher Conrad Swartz, a University of South Carolina psychiatry professor.

Abrams says it's ridiculous to think his ownership of a shock machine company may create a conflict of interest. "Most advances in medical instruments and technology have come from practicing physicians putting (their) knowledge to work in building better equipment," he says. He says he thought Oxford University Press knew he owned Somatics. "The association is very well-known in the community," he says.

In a 1991 deposition, Abrams said Somatics provided half his income.

Abrams and Swartz started Somatics Inc., in Lake Bluff, Ill., in 1985. Somatics makes about half the USA's shock machines; MECTA Corp. of Lake Oswego, Ore., makes the rest.

Abrams wouldn't reveal company revenues or profits, but the Somatics Thymatron shock machine is used in about 500 hospitals nationwide and costs approximately $10,000. "It's a very small industry," Swartz says. "The sales of these machines don't compare with the sales of any one drug." Swartz says Somatics' profits are comparable to having an additional psychiatry practice. (The average psychiatrist made $131,300 in 1993.)

Swartz writes extensively on shock therapy, too, and also rarely discloses his Somatics ties.
For example, when a doctor wrote in Convulsive Therapy, a medical journal, that doctors could save money using sports mouth guards during shock treatment, Swartz wrote a letter attacking the idea. He did not disclose that Somatics sells specially designed mouth guards for $23 a dozen.

Abrams and Swartz should "absolutely, without a doubt, disclose their ownership in all their publications," says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. They also should disclose it to patients on informed consent forms before shock treatment, Caplan says.

"True informed consent is not what the doctor thinks you should know, it's what a reasonable patient might want to know," he says.

Swartz calls this absurd.

"It's a nonissue. Every doctor who does ECT makes money, just as every doctor who prescribes drugs does," he says. "Patients know . . . and don't particularly care." Swartz says Somatics was founded because MECTA wasn't listening to psychiatrists who do shock therapy.

"I'm now able to improve machines. Who else can best advance ECT? Someone like me, who knows what they're doing," says Swartz, who has a Ph.D. in engineering as well as a medical degree. For his part, Abrams is the most quoted shock therapy researcher.

The American Psychiatric Association's 1990 task force report on how to practice shock therapy cites him more than any other expert. His 340-page textbook is often the sole source of information about shock therapy in general medical books and articles read by doctors and patients.

Abrams' textbook never mentions Somatics by name. But he describes new shock machine innovations found only on Somatics machines.

For example, his textbook reports that a charge "delivered over four to eight seconds will optimize the risk-benefit ratio for ECT and provide maximal clinical efficacy with minimal cognitive consequences."

Only one machine gives a four to eight second charge: the Somatics Thymatron DGx.

And Abrams sells it."

(Emphasis by Justice Lover ).

2007-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

MORE ON THE CRIME OF ELECTRIC SHOCK TORTURE BY PSYCHIATRY
by Justice Lover

Below is the transcript of a testimony by a neurologist . Given more than 6 years ago, it exposed the official psychiatric propaganda lies regarding electric shock torture administered to the brains of patients (ECT) by shrinks.

As mentioned earlier in these series (see http://outlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com/ ) the electric shock torture ("therapy" is the psychiatric term) was invented in1938, by Ugo Cerletti, an Italian psychiatrist under the Mussolini fascist dictatorship. It has no therapeutic purpose nor any therapeutic results whatsoever. Its only true purpose is to subdue the patient and/or punish him/her. ECT is undoubtedly a crime against humanity, perpetrated by shrinks with the full support of the ruling class.

Here is the testimony (emailed to me today by Mel : quetzcoatl.deo@gmail.com ) :

http://www.ect.org/testimony-of-dr-john-friedberg-to-ny-assembly/#more-259

Testimony of Dr. John Friedberg to NY Assembly
Category: ECT Effects and Legislation and Patient Info and Informed Consent

"TESTIMONY OF JOHN M. FRIEDBERG, M.D., NEUROLOGIST, BEFORE THE MENTAL HEALTH COMMITTEE OF THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
MARTIN LUSTER PRESIDING
NYC, May 18, 2001

"In view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they (the masses) more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big." Adolph Hitler. Mein Kampf, Vol.1, Ch. 10, 1924 tr. Ralph Manheim, 1943

INTRODUCTION

My name is John Friedberg. I am a board certified neurologist practicing in Berkeley, California.

I was born in Far Rockaway (NYC) in 1942, graduated Lawrence High School, Yale University and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and for the past twenty years I’ve been seeing patients with every conceivable neurologic problem, from headaches to Huntington’s, in my office and in hospitals.

I am in good standing with my hospitals, professional societies and licensing boards and I’m proud to say I’ve never been successfully sued.

In 1975 I published my book "Shock Treatment Is Not Good For Your Brain" and in 1979 "Shock Treatment, Brain Damage and Memory Loss," a peer reviewed article in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

I do not believe in mental illness. Depression is no more "the same as diabetes" than heartbreak is the same as a heart attack.

I do not believe in hypothetical diseases of the mind but there is no mistaking damage to the brain. Psychiatric drugs and electroshock inflict real injury in the name of treating fictive maladies. Paul Henri Thomas has Tardive Dyskinesia and heptatitis from psychiatric drugs and amnesia from the ECT.

BASIS FOR OPINIONS

My opinions are based on my years of experience with patients and review of records from all over the country as an expert witness electroshock malpractice cases. They are based on ECT statistics from the six states which mandate reporting; and of necessity, my opinions are based on a lifetime following publications and statements issuing from the small but vocal minority of psychiatrists who believe in ECT and usually nothing but.

Fortunately for me, the believers don’t always believe each other; their data frequently belie their conclusions; and what they actually do contradicts what they say they do. The truth slips out.

As one example: we have known since the 1950’s that confining electroshock to the non-verbal hemisphere (usually the right as in "unilateral non-dominant ECT") causes less verbal impairment and memory loss than bilateral ECT but the recommendation to begin with non-dominant ECT is honored mostly in the breech.

Another example: the "grandfather" of ECT, Dr. Max Fink claims the rate of memory loss is 1 in 200. He has repeated this so often it sounds like a fact. But Harold Sackeim, Ph.D., just as much an enthusiast and just as aggressive, says Fink’s figure has "no scientific basis."

Who to believe? My view is that memory loss from ECT is no "side effect;" it’s the main effect and the best studies find it in 100% of subjects.

Incidentally, Dr. Fink didn’t pick the number 1/200 out of thin air. 1/200 has consistently been the death rate from ECT administration - as far back as 1958 and as recently as Texas and Illinois in the 1990’s.

FIVE BIG LIES

Big Lie 1: Dr. Fink tells people that ECT is safer than childbirth. If one out of every 200 women were dying in delivery it would be front page news.

Big Lie 2: ECT doesn’t cause brain damage. One picture will refute that. The illustration below (MRI on the right, CT left, same patient) depicts a large hemorrhage from ECT. Hemorrhages, large and small, cause permanent seizure disorders in some patients.
( Weisberg, L. Elliott, D and Mielke, D: Intracerebral Hemorrhage Following Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). November 1991, Neurology V 41 p 1849.)
Another MRI study documented a breakdown of the blood brain barrier and cerebral edema - brain swelling - after each and every shock. (Mander et al: British Journal of Psychiatry, 1987: V 151, p 69-71)

Big lie 3: ECT is new and improved. The whole point of ECT is to trigger a convulsion and there is simply no way around the brain’s threshold: 100 joules of energy, a typical "dose," whether brief pulse, square wave, sine wave, AC or DC, unilateral or bilateral, with or without oxygen equals the energy it takes to light up a 100 watt bulb for one second or drop a 73 pound weight one foot. And it’s the energy that does the damage.

Big lie 4: ECT is a "Godsend" (Fink again). In March of this year, Dr. Sackeim published a study in JAMA showing a "relapse rate" of 84% within six months of stopping ECT. It is no coincidence that improvement ceases just as the concussive effects are finally waning. Sackeim’s solution?: more ECT. Call it "maintenance" or call it "continuation," just don’t stop. (JAMA. 2001;285:1299-1307).

Big lie 5: No one knows how ECT works. On the contrary, everyone knows how ECT works. It works by erasing memory and terrifying people.

CONCLUSION

ECT isn’t back - it never went away. It’s more common than appendectomy.
What has happened is that it’s advocates have grown more arrogant and the number of patients forced to undergo ECT against their will is increasing.

This was brought to public attention by Paul Henri Thomas fighting for his life and his mind at Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island. Over the past two years he has been subjected to 60 shocks and a judge just ordered up 40 more. The newspapers state the Mr. Thomas was born in Haiti, emigrated from oppression and was granted American citizenship.

To be held down, drugged and forcibly administered convulsive dose after convulsive dose of electroshock to the head: can anyone think of a greater assault on a human being’s rights - short of death - in the whole world? And it’s happening here in the land of the free. That’s not acceptable.

We have had 60 years of poignant testimony from eloquent victims of electroshock. Ernest Hemingway complained it ruined his memory and put him out of business. He killed himself within weeks of concluding a second course of ECT.

George Orwell ends 1984 with his protagonist being forced to love Big Brother on an electroshock table.

I urge you to declare a moratorium on electroconvulsive therapy until it can be proven safe by evidence, not proclamation.

I urge you to declare a moratorium on electroconvulsive therapy until patients can be guaranteed free and informed choice."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover ).

2007-08-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

THE ONSLAUGHT ON THE WORLD'S CHILDREN BY PSYCHIATRY AND BY BIG PHARMA, ITS SENIOR PARTNERS by Justice Lover

Folllowing are excerpts from the article written by Dennis H. Clarke ten years ago. Since then, the situation has deteriorated much further for children around the world, as a result of the combined onslaught on them and on their parents by psychiatry and by Big Pharma, its senior partners.

Will the world's people allow big business, of which the medical drug industry and psychiatry are part, to destroy humanity's future ? Will we allow fascism to triumph ?

Emailed to me by Lynn Michaels

of tapersafely.org

http://www.uhuh.com/education/ritpsych.htm#BLACKMAIL

"HOW PSYCHIATRY IS MAKING DRUG ADDICTS OUT OF AMERICA'S SCHOOL CHILDREN
by Dennis H. Clarke

INTRODUCTION

This information has something to do with you. Children are the future of this civilization. What affects this society's children affects the society you live in now and the society you will live in tomorrow. Even if you have no children of your own, or if your own children have grown beyond school age, you will be affected by what is going on. This information is for you to use.

This Information Letter is not intended to be a complete work on the subject of the drugging of America's children. As this is being printed in 1995, there are over two million of America's children on some of the most dangerous and addictive drugs known to man. These are mind altering and often brain damaging and addictive prescription psychiatric drugs. The files of documents on this subject are quite extensive. Other Information Letters will follow in this series and will contain more data about this for your use.

What follows is a brief summary of the data which is central to an understanding of the subject. We will begin with a description of the manner in which parents and teachers have been convinced to drug their children. The process is begun by indicating there may be something wrong with the child and evolves into a belief on the part of the parent that the child is "mentally ill."

The net result of this conclusion on the part of the parent is that the parent distances himself or herself from the child and turns the child over to the professionals to deal with. These children are then drugged as "therapy."

This Information Letter will also discuss the drugs that are central to this so-called therapy and how the prescription of these drugs has built into this country, the hard core of the drug addicts we now have.

You will learn that one of the most commonly prescribed drugs for children in America is chemically and neurologically equivalent to cocain in its effects on the human body. You will no doubt find this information startling. We have also found it so.

It is not always easy to confront evil. Nonetheless, the evil being done to millions of children in America needs to be confronted and ended, no matter who stands behind or profits from the evil deed of making drug addicts out of America's children.

HOW CHILDREN BECOME "MENTALLY ILL"

Labeling a child, "mentally ill," is like hanging a sign around his or her neck saying, "GARBAGE: take it away.", Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry.

How do children as young as eighteen months become drug addicts? The answer is they were "diagnosed" and labeled as having a new "mental illness." Pediatricians and psychiatrists then "treat the mental illness" with some of the most dangerous and addictive substances known to man. The result for far too many of these children is a personal disaster.
Today, under psychiatry's invented criteria, there isn't a single normal childhood activity which doesn't fall within the broad "symptoms" which comprise so-called "mental illness." Some of the labels are: Attention Deficit Disorder, Hyperactivity, Minimal Brain Dysfunction, Learning Disability, Impulse disorder, Developmental Reading Disorder, Developmental Writing Disorder, developmental Arithmetic Disorder.

As a result of psychiatry pushing these labels for children, millions are being drugged and there has been a massive increase in the number of children in mental institutions over the past five years. The "criteria" under which a child gets labeled are so broad that if a teacher decides for any reason that a child is a "problem," there is no way the child can escape"diagnosis" and a label. It also appears that the less skilled the teacher, the greater the likelihood that there will be a problem with some children. Usually, these are the brightest and most active children in a class. Psychiatrists admit that the majority of the children being put on Ritalin are above average in I.Q. Of course, the child is always blamed for the problem.

It is known that if a child doesn't understand something he or she is being taught, the child can begin to fidget and cease to pay attention. If the teacher fails to notice this and carries on past the misunderstanding without clearing it up with the child, the child's behavior will deteriorate. The child then is accused of "not paying attention" or in psychiatric psycho-babble, is said to have "an attention deficit." Thus the child ends up labeled as having one of the new "mental illnesses."

Perhaps you doubt this is happening. You have every right to doubt it, for it is almost incredible. As you read further you will discover for yourself the so-called medical and scientific "criteria" for labeling the child. We encourage you to find and read for yourself the psychiatric texts we are about to refer to here. Remember, it is upon these criteria that children by the millions are being addicted to drugs like Ritalin, a drug which is chemically and neurologically equivalent to cocaine in its affect on the child's body. Bear in mind as well that once the child is "diagnosed " and labeled, the destiny of the child is no longer in the hands of his or her parents.

The child is now, at least unofficially, a ward of the psychiatrist and subject to psychiatry's vested (money) interest in the child's so-called "insanity" or "mental disorder." A parents rights to refuse treatment of the child may be severely limited by law in some States.

HOW THE CHILD IS LABELED

What is "Attention Deficit Disorder"? Who "diagnoses" it? How is it treated? What are the results of that treatment? Who pays the bill? How is it that a "disease" no one even heard of a few years ago has swept through our children in our schools? Is this a more serious epidemic than AIDS? Is it contagious? Can you catch it from your children? Let's see if we can answer these questions from the writings of the "experts" who invented the "disease."

The American Psychiatric Association publishes a text called "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." This has been translated into German and forms the accepted guidelines for what are considered to be "mental illnesses," or as they are more modernly referred to, "mental disorders." The text is now in its third edition which was revised in 1987. It is generally referred to by its abbreviated title for its revised edition as DSM-III-R.

This reference text is the "bible"of the psychiatric industry. The "diagnostic numbers" for each specific label are accepted internationally and are used by the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Mental Health.

One of those numbers is 314.01 which indicates the "Diagnostic Criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" from the DSM-III-R. Millions of America's children have been labeled with this so-called disorder and put on Ritalin...

Ritalin and dozens of other psychiatric drugs are intended to do exactly that. The alteration of brain and body chemistry, function and structure result in what are called side effects which are actually the direct effects of these alterations. This is being done, for the most part, without any warning or with minimal warnings to the parents and with no warning whatsoever to the ultimate consumer and victim, the child. This is also being done by individuals engaged in a for profit industry.

If these are "medical criteria," Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a fraud being perpetrated on the parents, teachers and children of America by the psychiatric industry which is in constant need of new customers and by greedy drug manufacturers cashing in on this nations generous medical insurance and ignorance. The psychiatrists and drug companies win and the children and the future of society lose. It is as simple as that.

Attention Deficit Disorder is in fact, in the eyes of the beholder. It is seen by those with a vested interest in seeing it. When the occasional child is seen who is actually out of control, this "diagnosis" prevents discovery of the actual cause. What actual cause? The list could be almost endless, but the obvious ones are:

1. Undiagnosed and untreated physical illness or a physical condition causing the child distress such as inner ear infection, tooth ache, allergic reactions,
2. Physical abuse of the child at home or elsewhere in the environment including sexual abuse,
3. Study difficulties requiring personal attention to work through them with the child.

Some healthy children are more active than other healthy children and in fact the activity levels and attention spans normal children vary widely, even within the same family. The activity level of children changes over time as well, and this is a natural phenomena. It is far too easy today to label children so they can be shunted aside to then be chemically straight jacketed with the potent "speed" type chemicals like Ritalin and the amphetamines which are used interchangeably to subdue such children. The sole purpose for giving a child one of these drugs is to shut him up and to make it difficult for him to move. There is no other purpose because that is what these drugs are intended to do: make a quieter, less active child. Tragically, that is not all that they do.

GETTING THE PARENTS TO BUY THE "DIAGNOSIS"

The first task of the psychiatrist or other person who wants to drug and subdue the child is to get parents to agree to the "diagnosis." Thus, the "diagnosis" has to be presented as though it really means something. In actuality, it usually means that someone or several people are angry with the child for moving and making noise.

Parents are often told or led to believe that there is a real or scientific or even medical basis for the "diagnosis." This is an utter falsehood. There are only two "criteria" for what "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" is. The first is listed above in the fourteen points of which the child needs eight. The second is based on the need for income on the part of the drug company and the psychiatrists and other so-called mental health workers.

While some psychologists and psychotherapists claim to have "other criteria" for "diagnosing" the child, these are based on the fourteen above and the result as far as the child is concerned is the same. The only difference is that more money is paid out to different people to do the mumbo jumbo of labeling the child.

CHEMICAL IMBALANCE?

One of the people who wants to drug and subdue the child, perhaps a psychiatrist, psychologist or school official may tell the parent that the child has a chemical imbalance in his brain. This is the standard line usually tried first on the parent. This is very upsetting to hear from an authority figure. It is a lie and an attempt to overwhelm the parent. As a parent, you have a right to know which if any chemical is out of balance and what brain test was used to measure that chemical. You have a right to know exactly how it would be brought back into balance if it could be found.

The truth is that you have a right to know that this is all an invention. Most of what you will hear is pure unfounded false "science" and is the product of the ravings of a single of psychiatrists in the US who first put it out as "theory" to attract drug company funding to his university. The theory, thus funded became the basis for a multi-billion dollar industry world wide which has attracted psychiatrists, pediatricians, insurance companies, school officials and teachers, all of whom profit, along with the drug companies, all at the ultimate expense of the children.

The truth is that there is no such test and there is no chemical imbalance other than the one Ritalin will create. The logic of the chemical imbalance is reversed to create an illogic but a profitable illogic for the psychiatric industry.

In real life, it works like this: The parent is told that a chemical imbalance is suspected. They are then told that the way to find out is to give the child Ritalin for a few days or weeks and to see if the child's behavior and attention span improves. When the drug is ingested, the child slows down and stares straight ahead quietly, thus giving the impression that he is paying attention. "Success" is thus dramatic and highly praised by all. With this change, brought on by the extremely potent drug, the psychiatrist says, "See, I was right. There was a chemical imbalance."

This is like checking to see if the child is sober by giving him alcohol to see if he gets drunk or giving him cocaine to find out if he was normal. In fact, as alcohol would make the child drunk, giving a child who has not yet entered puberty cocaine or Ritalin, would put the child into a stupor. The drug overwhelms the child's central nervous system and chemically straightjackets the child. Thus, the child would appear quieter and less active. In fact the child is less there and the psychiatrist says that he is "attending better." The only major difference between giving the child cocaine or Ritalin is that you would have to give the child more cocaine orally than you would give the child Ritalin orally to get the same result.

These children are not suffering from a cocaine or Ritalin deficiency. The practice of drugging children to quiet them while turning them into drug addicts should be completely illegal. The only real imbalance Ritalin and cocaine are curing is the imbalance in the bank accounts of the drug pushers who are turning America's school children into drug addicts.

BLACKMAIL

No technique is too low when it comes to "convincing" parents to put a child on one of the most dangerous and addictive substances known to man. The parent is often told that the child's grades will suffer or continue to suffer unless the child is put on Ritalin. Most parents just accept this without question. In fact, it is false and is simply blackmail. Parents who are told this should immediately demand to see the medical and scientific studies which prove that Ritalin or cocaine for that matter improve a child's ability to learn, retain information and use what he is being taught. Even the manufacturer of Ritalin makes no claim that the drug has ever improving a child's ability to learn or retain or remember data. If any drug could actually do such a thing, it would have been in the headlines all over the world and no doubt, the inventors would be famous.

Instead, a devious system of marketing is used where in local advocates make false claims for the "miracle drug," which are miraculously never put right by the manufacturer. The manufacturer thus makes billions in profits while children are being made into drug addicts.

Ritalin and cocain are not "smart pills." In fact, just the opposite is true. There is ample long term outcome data to show that in fact these children suffer myriad ill effects.

What this "smart pill" is really about is that if you allow your child to be drugged to a point where he is no longer bothering anyone, you will be rewarded with a better report card to go with your addicted child. Do not be led astray by the so-called scientific studies that say that Ritalin improves the child's ability to "attend" to tasks or complete work. For every so-called success story, there are dozens of shattered childhoods and lives. The author of this article has seen hundreds of the latter. Psychiatric mumbo jumbo or psycho-babble aside, it is your child's life that is on the line. Your child is too important to be left to the "experts." Those experts have presided over crashing SAT test scores throughout this Ritalin generation. The children put on Ritalin were usually the brightest and most active in their group.

BIRTH TRAUMA?

One of the lowest and meanest tricks used to convince the parent to drug the child is to say that the child probably suffered an undetectable form of brain damage during a difficult birth or during a trauma in the womb. This tends to introvert the parent and make her feel guilty so she will follow the commands of the psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist has lied. This "brain damage" line was developed and used as a theory which resulted in millions of children in the United States and Canada being labeled and drugged as "minimally brain damaged." What were the criteria to show the brain damage? They were the same as the criteria for attention deficit disorder. The neurological societies in America put an end to this fraud there.

It was at that point that psychiatrists on behalf of the American Psychiatric Association invented attention deficit disorder to take its place. There never was any brain damage. Actual brain damage is visible on the EEG tests and with other newer instruments. It is not "treated" with brain damaging and addictive drugs like Ritalin or cocaine. The last thing one should do to a child with real brain damage is to damage the child further with Ritalin.

MAKING NOTHING OF THE CHILD

The psychiatrist who drugs children will attribute all "bad" things done by the child to "mental illness." He will say that these will be handled by the drug. After drugging the child, he will attribute all good things done by the child to his treatment or to the effects of the drug. This is simply more hocus-pocus and psycho babble. Children were children long before Ritalin and psychiatrists, and will continue to be children long after Ritalin and psychiatry are only found in the history books. While making nothing of the future of the race and making drug addicts of them is currently condoned, it is only a matter of time before this practice is outlawed. This is a criminal pursuit and should be labeled as such.

HOW DOES RITALIN WORK?

First, how does Ritalin work? According to the manufacturer, no one knows. What has been known since the late 1930's is that if you give a child who has not yet entered puberty a stimulant, it has an opposite effect to the effect it would have on an adult. Instead of "speeding" the child up, it apparently overwhelms the child's central nervous system and cuts the child's motors. The child goes into a stuporous state, the depth of which is determined by the milligrams of the drug, per kilogram (2.2 pounds), of the child's body weight. While no study has ever shown an increase in a child's ability to learn while on Ritalin, studies have shown that any amount in excess of .5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight is a detriment to learning. The higher the dose, the greater the impairment of the child's ability to gain, retain and use data. Almost all children on the drug are given doses far in excess of this amount. In addition, the other direct effects of Ritalin and the amphetamines which will be covered later in this article are also potential, even in the smallest dose ranges. The effects of Ritalin, amphetamines and cocaine, including the side effects are in fact indistinguishable.

It should be noted as well that when children who have not entered puberty are given depressants, narcotics, barbiturates or even antihistamines, all of which are normally central nervous system depressants or "downers," these act like stimulants on children. Parents giving their children phenobarbital or codeine in cough syrup may experience the "speeded up" activity of the child and not know why. It is a central nervous system reaction to the drug.
In addition, Ritalin is classified and controlled around the world by international treaty among all members of the World Health Organization in the same way and under the same laws as cocaine. The governments of the world know what the parents and teachers are never told.

WHAT IS RITALIN?

Frankly, Ritalin is one of the most dangerous and addictive substances known to man. It is an extremely potent stimulant, a "speed" type drug, or "upper" as it is known to and is in high demand by "street" addicts. In the human body, its effect is chemically and neurologically equivalent to cocaine or the amphetamines.

While Ritalin is a different chemical from cocaine and the amphetamines, it has almost an identical effect with two important differences. First, milligram per milligram, Ritalin is more potent than cocaine or amphetamines. Second, the effects of Ritalin last longer than cocaine or the amphetamines.

Ritalin, when used on children, is given orally rather than being injected, snorted or smoked as with methamphetamine and cocaine. But the use of cocaine or amphetamines orally would have the same effect as Ritalin on the child, with the only difference being that more cocaine or amphetamine would be needed to get the same effect. It should be known that experienced addicts are unable to distinguish injected cocaine from injected Ritalin or injected amphetamines.

RITALIN ON THE "STREETS"

Before going into Ritalin used on children, this datum about the "street" use of injected Ritalin must be taken up as it is very important. Shockingly, over the past five years, injected Ritalin has become the number one heroin substitute in North America. This illegal use of the drug is now gaining acceptance with some addicts here in Germany. With the new push by psychiatrists to make the drug more widely used, Ritalin is now being found in use by the "street" addicts all over Europe.

While this article is mainly about the use of Ritalin on America's school children, the use of Ritalin on children creates a large "legal" market for Ritalin this is also then used as a cover for illegal purposes. As you will see, one of the most important immediate impacts of Ritalin use on children is that it is also then "diverted" and sold on the street illegally to heroin addicts for their use.

One may question whether it might not be better to have heroin addicts addicted instead to a "legal" prescription drug like Ritalin. The answer is a definite NO! The example of Vancouver B.C. in Canada and that city's experience with Ritalin as a "street" drug and a heroin substitute shows us why.

On the street, Ritalin is mixed with pain killers like Talwin or Percodan and injected like heroin. The similarities end there. The combination of Ritalin and a pain killer is called a "speed ball." Some addicts have described it as "speeding and feeling no pain." It has been said that "their feet never touch the ground." That is the immediate euphoric affect of the drug on the addict. In addition to the extensive list of hazardous and consequential effects of this drug when used as prescribed, and which is printed in the last section of this brochure, there are other devastating effects and social impacts of the drug when used by the addict. Some of the more important ones follow. These lessons were learned the hard way in Vancouver B.C., Canada. They are passed on in hope that the same mistakes can be avoided here.

HEROIN OR RITALIN

While the average heroin addict normally uses heroin two to three times a day, the Ritalin addict will try to "shoot up" every 90 to 120 minutes. The combination of Ritalin and a pain killer is apparently far more addictive and harder to "kick" that heroin. The effect of the euphoria caused by the injection ends in one to two hours and is followed by an intolerable "crash." Addicts have described this "crash" as a nosedive into the oblivion of intolerable depression. The addict is thus driven to get the next needle and will do anything to get it. Some Ritalin addicts will inject the substance in combination with a pain killer up to 20 times per day.

According to confidential police sources, the cost of a Ritalin "speed ball" in 1995 in the US is sixty to eighty dollars. The addicts must steal five to seven times the value of his habit in goods and merchandise in order to get the money to feed his habit. In the late Eighties, in Vancouver B.C., as the heroin addicts in shifted from heroin use to Ritalin "speed balls," the burglary rate in the city rocketed 105% in one nine month period. It has remained at that level an higher since. Child addicts there and in places like Minneapolis aged nine to fourteen were found to be selling their bodies in prostitution to get their Ritalin "speed balls."

In Vancouver, poor families with no history of drug dealing were suddenly recruited into lives of crime by the huge profits to be made by selling Ritalin, which was prescribed for their children, to former heroin addicts who were now addicted to Ritalin.

The injection of Ritalin destroys the vein at the sight of the injection and often the needle mark will become infected with sores that will not heal. The addicts will often use up and ruin the usual veins in the arms, legs, hands and feet and begin "shooting" under fingernails and under the tongue and eventually will "shoot" into the neck and have even been known to use veins around the eyeball.

Because of the urgency on the part of the Ritalin "speed ball" addict to "fix," hygiene is almost completely omitted. Needles are often shared, and for this reason epidemics of Hepatitis and AIDS, as well as the often overlooked syphilis, have hit the addict populations. These are then transmitted by contact with prostitutes or through casual sex.

As with heroin use and for that matter the use of methadone (see Information Letter #3 : Heroin and Methadone addiction, Needle Parks and Psychiatric Terrorism), the addict is too "stoned" by the Ritalin "speed ball" to work. He or she cannot keep a schedule or care for self or a family without turning to crime. This is often a life of prostitution with theft its natural companion. In desperation these Ritalin addicts will often turn to more serious crime.

Later in this article, it is pointed out that Ritalin can create a distinctly anti-social frame of mind in the addict whether that addict is a school child or an adult. In the book, "Predicting Dependence Liability of Stimulant and Depressant Drugs," by the medical researchers Klaus R. Unna, M.D., Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Illinois at the Medical Center, Chicago and Travis Thompson, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology and psychiatry, University of Minnesota, they say the following:

Perhaps the best-known effect of chronic stimulant administration is psychosis. Psychosis has been associated with chronic use of several stimulants; e.g., amphetamines, METHYLPHENIDATE (RITALIN), phenmetrazine and cocaine... [This] psychosis mimics paranoid schizophrenia or paranoia so closely that it has been misdiagnosed as such by experienced clinicians many times.

As you will learn, psychosis is only the beginning of consequential adverse effects of altering, perhaps permanently, Ritalin. States of extreme paranoia (where the person thinks all others are out to harm him or her) are common. Many very horrible crimes have been committed by people using Ritalin. Police in Vancouver recently reported crimes of all types were up in that city as a result of Ritalin use. The police chief said that 80% of the crime in Vancouver would cease if Ritalin could be taken off the market. This situation is now well underway in Europe and the US as well.

WARNING SUICIDE WARNING

Before preceding any further with the data about the drugging of children with Ritalin, a special warning must be given regarding withdrawal from Ritalin. Ritalin is a very dangerous and addictive substance. After learning of the extreme dangers associated with Ritalin use, a parent may rightly decide to take the child off this drug. This should be done with the following well understood. The longer a child is on Ritalin the greater the potential is for serious consequences to occur. The following warning is based on a study of the medical literature on the subject of Ritalin withdrawal and actual case studies:

WARNING: According to the American Psychiatric Association, SUICIDE is the major adverse consequence of withdrawal from Ritalin and similar drugs. Suicides and attempted suicides by children on Ritalin have occurred when the drug was withdrawn or the dosage reduced. Suicides and attempted suicides have also occurred at normal dose levels without warning. Children should be watched for any signs of drug induced depression or other mental disturbance as these are common with the use of such powerful chemicals, particularly for periods lasting a week or longer.

The effects of the drug may be cumulative within the brain and so the onset of adverse reactions such as suicidal thinking may be sudden and occur without warning. Special precautions should be taken during withdrawal or reduction in the amount used. Withdrawal or reduction of the amount of the substance used may also "unmask" drug induced states of severe paranoid delusional or psychotic states which can last for a year or longer after the last use of the drug. For this reason, children on Ritalin may hide their feelings and thoughts so no one will interfere with their attempt to destroy themselves.

PSYCHIATRY DRUGGING OUR CHILDREN

Why would a parent allow a psychiatrist to put his or her child on such a dangerous drug? If you have been asking that question, you are not alone. Later in the brochure there is a partial list of the hazardous effects of Ritalin as they have been noted in the medical literature. These help to answer the question "why" from the viewpoint of the parent. The answer is that parents and teachers are almost never told what Ritalin is or the harmful effect it can have on the child. If they knew the actual "criteria" which comprise the so-called mental disorder and they knew the facts about the drug, there would not be enough children on Ritalin to justify its being manufactured.

Psychiatrists are telling parents and teachers that, in effect, these children are "mentally ill" or "mentally disordered." They are told that the situation is desperate and that "early intervention" in the form of "medicine" is needed to "save the child from a life of misery, criminality or worse."

Some parents and teachers are told that Ritalin will make it easier for the child to learn and retain data. This is also a false claim and is probably the biggest lie being promoted and told about Ritalin. Ritalin is not a "smart pill." In fact, it is the opposite of a "smart pill" The vast majority of children on Ritalin have either no improvement in their scholastic achievement or their actual achievement scores will deteriorate, sometimes drastically over time.

What is the long term outlook for children raised on Ritalin on a daily or almost daily basis? Exactly what you would expect if your child were raised on cocaine on a daily or almost daily basis. An American National Institute For Mental Health funded study, tells the sad tale:
Forty-six percent of the children raised on Ritalin are charged with at least one major felony by the age of eighteen.
Thirty percent are charged with two or more such crimes by the age of eighteen.
Twenty-five percent of these children are institutionalized in mental institutions or prisons by the age of eighteen.
Fifteen percent will threaten, attempt or actually commit suicide by the age of eighteen.
Rather than solving any problems, the mass drugging of America's school children has caused a massive crime wave and a wave of child suicide which has no precedent anywhere or any time in History. Prior to 1970, when Ritalin use began to be commonplace in our schools, child suicide was virtually unheard of. Today, it is an epidemic..."

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-08-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION UNDER THE DOMINATION OF BIG PHARMA,
THE SENIOR PARTNERS OF PSYCHIATRYby Justice Lover

As we have seen in earlier posts of this series, the shrinks are running the American Medical Association (AMA), and they open widely the medical profession doors for Big Pharma
to enter and manipulate the entire medical care system in the USA.

Following are 2 articles which confirm my above statement.

The first was written five years ago by a professor of psychiatry, E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., President of the Treatment Advocacy Center and Associate Director for Laboratory Research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which supports research on schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and an adjunct professor at the George Mason University School of Law.

The article was published by the Treatment Advocacy Center. Notice that he uses the term "shrinks" to describe psychiatrists
( which is very appropriate, of course, although David Oaks, the head of Mind Freedom, keeps warning his members to be polite to psychiatrists and not use the correct
description of them as shrinks ! But he has always been good at serving the shrinks' interests, hasn't he ?).

The second is a current article by James Joyce, a former employee of NMA (National Medical Association), published by The American Prospect website.

Here are the articles :

http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/GeneralResources/article92.htm
"The going rate on shrinks:
Big Pharma and the buying of psychiatry
by E. Fuller Torrey, MD

In the United States, pharmaceutical companies spend an estimated $8,000 to $13,000 per physician per year on marketing.

It was last summer in Berlin when I first encountered pharmaceutical funhouses. I was one of 4,000 attendees at the 7th World Congress of Biological Psychiatry. Until about a decade ago, pharmaceutical companies passed out pens or notepads with their companies' logos at such events, and most speakers presented data and opinions based upon their true scientific beliefs.

That all changed when Big Pharma took over. At the congress, I counted 15 major displays on the way to the lunch area, including an artificial garden (Janssen-Cilag), a brook running over stones (Lundbeck), and a 40-foot rotating tower (Novartis). Almost all offered free food and drink, T-shirts, or other inducements designed to get psychiatrists to pause so that an army of smiling sales representatives could give their sales pitch.

Eli Lilly's display included two large, walk-through tunnels set up like funhouses. One tunnel, labeled "Zyprexa," included a mirrored room with dozens of telephones dangling from the ceiling. Was Lilly trying to convince me that God was calling, telling me to prescribe Zyprexa? The sales representative said no, the phones were meant to illustrate the communication problems common in schizophrenia, which Lilly claims Zyprexa improves. The other funhouse, labeled "Prozac," featured a 10-foot mouselike creature sitting in front of a blank television screen. I asked whether Lilly was recommending Prozac for mice. The representatives said no, the creature was really a depressed man who needed Prozac.

My favorite display, by the Dutch firm Organon, advertised Remeron, an antidepressant. It featured a small, multihued tent with purple doors and the painted head of a genie. Inside, a red-robed young woman with sprinkles in her hair was taking Polaroid pictures, one by one, of psychiatrists who had waited patiently in line for 20 minutes or more. This was no ordinary picture but rather a snapshot of one's aura, taken, as the Organon brochure noted, "with advanced biofeedback equipment." The equipment consisted of two small machines, on which I placed my hands. The result was a picture of my head peering out of a red, orange, and yellow cloud.

According to the brochure, "the aura colors give you information about your appearance, character, talents, and future energy." After taking my picture, the red-robed young woman escorted me to a yellow-robed young woman with even more sprinkles in her hair. "Hi! My name is Amber," she said, and proceeded to interpret the picture of my aura as indicating intelligence and good judgment, although with some hints of skepticism.

Sales of antipsychotic medications have quadrupled in the past four years to more than $4 billion. These drugs are a major reason why the profitability of the 11 pharmaceutical companies in the Fortune 500 "was almost four times greater" than the median for all Fortune 500 companies during the 1990s, according to a report by the Public Citizen Health Research Group.

I privately asked the Organon sales staff if they thought it wise to associate their product with auras, magic, New Age thinking, and anti-science. They said the decision had been made at "a higher level" but pointed out that the waiting line was an ideal place for engaging psychiatrists in brief, friendly chats about the virtues of Remeron.

This is, after all, big business. Antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs are among America's top-selling pharmaceuticals. Last year Prozac and Zyprexa accounted for almost half of Eli Lilly's total sales. Sales of antipsychotic medications have quadrupled in the past four years to more than $4billion. These drugs are a major reason why the profitability of the 11 pharmaceutical companies in the Fortune 500 "was almost four times greater" than the median for all Fortune 500 companies during the 1990s, according to a report by the Public Citizen Health Research Group.

Not surprisingly, psychiatrists have become a prime target of pharmaceutical companies' marketing, because prescription drugs can't be sold directly to consumers. In the United States, pharmaceutical companies spend an estimated $8,000 to $13,000 per physician per year on marketing.

At professional gatherings, of course, one must offer the attending psychiatrist more than an opportunity to view one's aura. The Berlin Congress offered 136 symposia plus workshops and lectures. Of these, 23 were clearly labeled as being sponsored by pharmaceutical companies; all focused on drugs to treat psychiatric disorders. Several other industry-sponsored talks had no disclosure of the sponsorship.

Symposia and workshops on subjects not directly concerned with drug prescriptions had little, if any, industry support. The speaker at one such symposium, which was lightly attended, said he "felt like the legitimate act at a burlesque show, included only to keep the cops out."
Each brought in two to four psychiatric experts, whom the sponsoring pharmaceutical company usually gave business-class air tickets, four-star hotel accommodations, and an honorarium, typically $2,000 to $3,000. If the expert organized the symposium, the payments went as high as $5,000, and higher still if the expert presented data very favorable to that company's drug (or at least presented unfavorable data in a very favorable light). One American expert was paid $10,000 last year to fly to Europe to give a single lecture.

Symposia and workshops on subjects not directly concerned with drug prescriptions had little, if any, industry support. The speaker at one such symposium, which was lightly attended, said he "felt like the legitimate act at a burlesque show, included only to keep the cops out."

Honoraria and future invitations are directly dependent on how experts present their data. Emphasizing adverse effects of a drug, for example, may well cost the expert a trip to future congresses. Some of the psychiatric experts sponsored by a pharmaceutical company are also on the company's speakers bureau; many own stock and thus have a direct financial interest in the success of the company's products.

The ultimate targets for this pharmaceutical extravaganza, of course, are the practicing psychiatrists who constitute the vast majority of attendees. Although meeting officials won't provide precise numbers, they acknowledge that pharmaceutical companies had sponsored more than half of the attendees. Sponsorship normally includes coach-class airfare, hotel accommodations, and registration fees as well as special receptions and parties, some literally with dancing girls.

Pharmaceutical companies in many countries can now use computerized pharmacy databases (which delete the names of the patients) to track how many prescriptions any given physician writes for any given drug. So Eli Lilly could sponsor Dr. Smith from Detroit or Manchester, send him to Berlin, and then monitor his prescribing pattern following the congress. If Dr. Smith's prescriptions for Zyprexa and Prozac do not increase sufficiently, a company representative can remind him how well he was treated in Berlin. And besides, isn't he interested in going to Copenhagen next summer?

Though the physicians had predicted that their attendance [at the all-expense paid symposia] would not affect their prescribing practices, their prescriptions for one drug increased 87 percent and for the other, 272 percent.

There is clear evidence that attending conferences such as the Berlin meeting does affect the prescribing practices of physicians. In one U.S. study, 10 physicians were invited by a pharmaceutical company to attend "all-expenses paid" symposia at "popular Sunbelt vacation sites." The company tracked the physicians' prescribing patterns for two drugs, for 22 months before and 17 months after the symposia. Though the physicians had predicted that their attendance would not affect their prescribing practices, their prescriptions for one drug increased 87 percent and for the other, 272 percent. Other studies have shown that attending drug-sponsored education courses affects drug-prescribing practices, even though the physicians deny it. Indeed, if it were otherwise, why would pharmaceutical companies sponsor such activities?

Does any of this really matter? It does, for two reasons. First, patient care suffers when physicians are misled. Psychiatrists trying to evaluate schizophrenia drugs are not told that the expert who minimizes the side effects of Zyprexa receives a $10,000 retainer from Eli Lilly and also owns substantial company stock. Or that the psychiatric expert claiming that Remeron reverses depression more rapidly in suicidal patients receives $75,000 per year from Organon to support his laboratory.

, the hoopla adds to the cost of drugs. Payments to aura interpreters and dancing girls are simply passed on to patients. The pharmaceutical company costs for the Berlin congress were at least $10 million. According to a recent report, in 2000 the 11 pharmaceutical firms in the Fortune 500 "devoted nearly three times as much of their revenue to marketing and administrative costs (30 percent of revenue) as to research and development (12 percent of revenue)."

As one observer summarized it in The New England Journal of Medicine: "Medical training should not include acquiring a sense of entitlement to the largesse of drug companies."
Plainly some changes are in order. Reform should start with medical students. As one observer summarized it in The New England Journal of Medicine: "Medical training should not include acquiring a sense of entitlement to the largesse of drug companies." Pharmaceutical companies should be banned from giving gifts to medical students and residents; the free pizza from the drug representative may seem trivial, but it sets a pattern that rationalizes accepting a free trip to Berlin later on. Practicing psychiatrists should get their continuing education from objective sources, not from drug "detail" (marketing) persons and industry-sponsored talks.

Vermont has just made a modest beginning with a law requiring disclosure of all drug-company gifts to doctors valued at more than $25. The profession's ethical standards should prohibit experts who are involved in drug trials or giving talks at symposia from owning stock in pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, most of the profession's organizations, such as the American Psychiatric Association, are themselves so indebted to drug companies that they are unlikely to lead reform.

For speakers at symposia such as the Berlin meeting, the solution is simple. Prominently displayed next to the speaker's lectern should be a sign reading: "For this talk, Dr. Smith is being paid $3,500, business-class airfare, and four-star hotel accommodations by Eli Lilly and Company."

The American Prospect

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=tracking_pharma_gifts_to_doctors#comments

"Sounds like Congress, legalized infuence peddling and limiting liabilities.

by: James Joyce
Aug 9, 2007

The National Medical Association (NMA) has strong ties to the
pharmaceutical industry with approximately 85% of all funding coming
from this industry. The NMA has approximately 1,100-1,700 paid
physician members with a large portion of them being resident
physicians and medical students although in its promotional materials
it cites over 25,000 members. The membership of the NMA has never
exceeded 3,000 physicians in any given year further a large portion
of their members are retired physicians.

Many critics believe that the
NMA is simply a front for the pharmaceutical industry and given its
stance on several issues that the pharmaceutical industry lobbyists
promote, this is a valid criticism.

There is a direct link with the NMA's position statements and policy
and the major funders of theorganization (drug companies).

Further, the NMA hosts a "health policy colloquim" each year that is soley and fully funded by Pfizer Inc.The organization uses this time to invite politicians, healthcare leaders
and physicians to talk about the health policy in the United States,
again this is fully funded, supported and attended by Pfizer Inc.
which leads many to question the credibility of the organization.

The NMA hosts a national conference each year that is attended by a
few thousand (approximately 1,000 physicians and the remainder are
spouses and families). This conference is usually held in a major US
City with Honolulu, Hawaii being the most frequented venue. In 2007
the NMA went back to Hawaii with every major pharmaceutical company
in the United States in tow-- supporting the event financially. Indeed,
physicians are unashamedly wined and dined by drug companies, attend
lectures on medications and treatment regimens that are funded by the
pharmaceutical industry and are able to receive many perks from the
industry.

This conference, a tax deductible family vacation, is the
major fundraiser for the organization. Additionally, the NMA has a
"journal" which is fully supported by the pharmaceutical industry and
is another profit center with "medical articles" that appear which
are heavily weighted pro-industry.

The NMA offers little to no outreach to patients or support for
physicians that take care of patients. Any outreach that it does
extend is fully funded by the pharmaceutical industry or the US
government with a hefty portion retained by the organization to stay
afloat. The organization often exploits its history of being the
oldest organization of Black physicians to blackmail pharmaceutical
companies and in some cases the government for funding.

However, the NMA is not the largest organization of minority physicians-- the
American Medical Association's Minority Affairs Consortium (MAC)
actually dwarfs the NMA membership and incidentially has little to no
funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The NMA further exploits
its history and misrepresentation of actual membership in efforts to
promote the recycled leaders. The "elected" leadership often consists
of the same persons in various positions and the organization is
fraught with political corruption, questionable elections and poor
policies. Additionally, financial audits have been troubling for the
organization and it refuses to release fully audited statements from
the last 20 years with only selective years being released.

The NMA has been sued by several employees-- all settled out of court to the
benefit of the former employee and has years of questionable employee
policies. This while remaining a tax exempt organization and when
challenged playing the "race" card and comparing itself to the
American Medical Association.

This is the NMA--- dig deeper and it just gets worse. Unfortunately
as a former employee-- I know this organization too well. The NMA is a
sham, a front for the pharmaceutical industry and a diservice to the
nation."

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-08-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

MORE ON THE CRIMES OF BIG PHARMA, THE SENIOR PARTNERS OF PSYCHIATRY

Emailed to me by Lynn Michaels
SSRI-Research@yahoogroups.com
of tapersafely.org :

http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

"An Important series in LA Times by Melissa Healy

A must read, six-part report by Melissa Healy of the Los Angeles Times (excerpts below) lays out the pharmaceutical industry's masterful manipulation of America's healthcare system succeeding to divert healthcare budgets for patented, expensive drugs whose benefits are uncertain at best.

The pharmaceutical industry has undermined the integrity of medicine by rendering healthcare providers, academic institutions, journals, government healthcare agencies, patient advocacy groups, and the media financially dependent on its largesse. This industry has bypassed the inconvenient scientific evidence of its products' failure to show a positive benefit/risk ratio by use of fictitious "evidence" fashioned by sophisticated public relations firms.

PR firms have also manufactured buzz about the latest "under diagnosed condition" (e.g. "female sexual dysfunction" "juvenile bipolar disorder" "restless leg syndrome") for which there just happens to be a newly marketed drug available.

To create demand, industry has recruited influential professionals and professional associations and it has sent an army of attractive sales reps "sex icons" to woo doctors into prescribing.

Industry has also recruited patient advocacy groups who can be relied on to bully third party payers to pay for the latest, most expensive drugs which are promoted as "breakthrough" therapies despite the lack of scientific evidence to back up such claims.

Drug makers are driving sales from both ends: since consumers cannot purchase drugs without a physician's prescription, advertisements directed at consumers prod consumers to prod their doctor ( "ask your doctor") for a specific brand of prescription drug. Companies simultaneously pitch the drug to doctors personally through an army of company detailers (sales reps), in separate ads, in ghostwritten journal articles, and by controlling the content of continuing medical education courses. To ensure that physicians write brand name prescription drugs manufacturers offer prescribing physicians gifts and financial enticements (bribes).

The medical profession has accepted industry's 'free handouts' and 'fee for service' arrangement by offering the untenable argument that physicians are incorruptible. On the contrary, several studies have found that physicians who accept and dispense free samples to their patients are far more likely to prescribe those drugs than those who don't take or have no access to samples.

However, the most effective drug marketing is indirect but shaped by industry--as when influential "authorities" pen their names to ghostwritten journal articles and render their opinions in the media. Industry-influenced patient groups mobilize patients -- sometimes armies of them -- to push for coverage of prescription drugs by insurance companies and states' Medicare and Medicaid agencies. To pharmaceutical companies, this can make or break the market prospects for a new drug because 80 million Americans -- among them, the heaviest prescription-drug users -- receive healthcare coverage through Medicare and Medicaid, and roughly 155 million have prescription drug coverage through private insurance companies.

Healy reports: "When insurers balk at reimbursing patients for new prescription medications, these groups typically swing into action, rallying sufferers to appear before public and consumer panels, contact lawmakers, and provide media outlets a human face to attach to a cause. Infertility patients mobilized by Resolve, for instance, have been extremely effective in extending states' insurance coverage of infertility treatments. Groups such as the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance have fielded experts and patients who have done the same for psychiatric conditions. And a wide range of patient groups, most with substantial backing from the makers of erectile dysfunction drugs, have mounted successful campaigns to get wary insurers to cover drugs such as Levitra, Viagra and Cialis."

Industry's successful marketing strategy is measureable in increased number of prescriptions, increased sales, and : In a nation that consumed $279-billion worth of prescription medications in 2006 -- spending 80% of that on brand-name products that are advertised--their efforts appear to be paying off. The number of individual prescriptions filled in the US rose from 2.9 billion in 1999 to 3.7 billion in 2006; in 1994, Kaiser calculated that each American filled on average 7.9 prescriptions per year; by 2005, that number had risen to 12.4. Does that mean Americans are sicker now than in 1994, or just popping more pills? And what about the adverse effects of these pills, are they creating chronic disease in previously healthy people??

Healy suggests that there is a push for change; that doctors are rethinking, or at least disclosing, their ties to drug companies; and that legislators are drafting and passing bills aimed at blunting the effects of prescription-drug marketing. Citing a 2004 meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, she reports that physicians reeling from public outcry over the market withdrawal of the arthritis drugs Vioxx and Bextra vowed to wean their organization from its heavy dependence on pharmaceutical funding, setting off similar self-examination among other medical societies.

Unfortunately legislators are also "on the take" relying on industry's campaign contributions. Thus, the disengagement process is painfully snail paced. There will, no doubt, be more scandals, and more preventable deaths before real changes are put in place.

The Los Angeles Times

SOLD ON DRUGS Under the influence of Savvy marketing wets our appetite for prescription pharmaceuticals. Consumers, doctors, researchers -- no one is immune
By Melissa Healy
August 6, 2007

FOR many Americans, a doctor's decision to prescribe medication is something of a sacred transaction. A physician considers the patient and symptoms and chooses the best drug for the job, drawing upon years of training and clinical experience. It is an exchange conducted in a hushed sanctuary, far from the heat and noise of the marketplace -- a place where cool judgment reigns.

That sanctuary has been breached. Today, drug manufacturers do everything in their considerable power to ensure that their brand-name prescription medications are on the lips of patients and in the minds of physicians every time the two meet across an exam table. A growing chorus of critics says their efforts have begun to rewrite the dialogue between patient and doctor, influence physicians' judgments and open the act of prescribing to forces more profit-minded than sacred.

In 2006, drug-makers spent almost $5 billion to reach out to consumers with direct advertising. But the glossy magazine ads and buzz-generating TV spots are just the most visible parts of a campaign to build and nourish markets for brand-name prescription products. The world's pharmaceutical companies spend an estimated $19 billion annually to woo doctors. They sponsor teaching programs and research at universities across the country, gaining goodwill along the way. They give money to patient groups. They hire public relations firms to share patient stories of illness and triumph.

In a nation that consumed $279-billion worth of prescription medications in 2006 -- spending 80% of that on brand-name products -- their efforts appear to be paying off. Americans filling a prescription choose brand-name products 37% of the time, even though three-quarters of all prescription drugs in the U.S. are available in cheaper generics.

"The most effective marketing is the marketing you're not aware of," says Dr. Peter Rost, a one-time pharmaceutical company marketing executive who has become an Internet-based industry watchdog. "If you see an ad, you know it's marketing. But if a friend or your doctor talks to you about a drug, you don't."

Now the size, scope and apparent effectiveness of drug companies' marketing efforts has begun to prompt cries of foul even from within the medical establishment, which has long been silent about its growth. In a handful of state legislatures across the country, lawmakers already have acted to blunt drug-company marketing, and many more are considering similar measures. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have suggested that federal legislation may come next.

At stake, critics say, are patients' health, the nation's healthcare budget and, ultimately, the trust and esteem in which Americans hold their physicians. Costs rise as more doctors prescribe brand-name drugs when cheaper, older or more effective drugs might be available.
Under-treated conditions that threaten the lives and wellness of large swaths of the population -- illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure -- may get less attention than conditions such as erectile dysfunction or insomnia, for which pharmaceutical firms have new and potentially more profitable offerings. And patients may be steered toward newer drugs with risks and side effects that are less well-known, in lieu of medications with a longer history of safe use.

"There is nothing fundamentally wrong with advertising products," Dr. Jerome P. Kassirer, a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, told a Senate committee recently. "But when financial incentives yield inappropriate or dangerous care, when they inordinately raise the cost of care, when they risk patients' lives in clinical trials, and when they damage the profession, they have gone too far."

The pharmaceutical industry counters by arguing that its marketing efforts are needed to recoup the cost of drug development and that they introduce Americans to medicines that can save lives and improve well-being. The industry's sponsorship of research and education pushes the process of drug discovery and development forward, drug-makers say. Companies' marketing to physicians keeps busy clinicians abreast of new therapies and scientific advances in a fast-changing landscape. And their advertising of drugs in mass-media outlets educates patients and improves their communication with doctors, they add.

And drug marketing improves the economic vitality of the nation, a representative of the drug industry's largest trade group, PhRMA, said at a recent Senate hearing. Prompted by drug industry marketing, more patients in recent years have sought out a doctor, and more doctors have looked for signs of under-treated conditions such as depression, diabetes and asthma among patients, Marjorie E. Powell, an attorney for PhRMA, said to the Senate Select Committee on Aging in late June. Citing a pair of studies published in 2003, Powell said that in the long run, increasing treatment of such chronic conditions should drive down the nation's healthcare bill.

As the debate rages -- among doctors, within universities, in statehouses across the nation and in the halls of Congress -- here is a look at a wide range of marketing efforts that has touched it off.

SELLING THE PATIENT Next step: Create the demand Direct, emotional ads for prescription drugs are everywhere. But they're just one way to get to the consumer

By Melissa Healy
August 6, 2007

WITH vast and profitable markets up for grabs, drug companies are aggressively reaching beyond doctors and taking their marketing messages directly to consumers.

Some of their promotional strategies have become hard to miss. Nightly news broadcasts -- a beloved habit for aging Americans -- are brought to you by the makers of prescription medications for high cholesterol, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease and erectile dysfunction; an Internet search for a specific symptom, or a visit to any popular health site, will bring up sponsored links and blinking ads for at least one prescription medication used to treat that symptom; fans of NASCAR see Viagra advertised every time No. 6 Mark Martin's car rounds the track. And women paging through a magazine for tips on reducing clutter can scarcely avoid the faces and personal stories of actresses who are managing their depression, osteoporosis or hot flashes with a brand-name pill.

In 1997, the FDA loosened regulations governing the advertisement of prescription medications directly to consumers. The change set off explosive growth in marketing aimed at a general audience long on interest and --compared with physicians -- short on professional skepticism. Today, drug makers spend roughly $5 billion a year to run advertising campaigns that use many of the same appeals that marketers use to sell breakfast cereal and toothpaste.

A study published in the Annals of Family Medicine's January-February issue analyzed the messages of 38 advertisements then running during prime-time TV and found that 95% used emotional appeals to sell the medication, often framing prescription-drug use as a means to regain lost control over some aspect of life. None mentioned lifestyle change as an alternative to product use, although roughly 1 in 5 advertisements suggested it might be a useful complement to the drug. One in 4 described the causes of the disease the advertised drug treats, who is at risk for it or how frequently the condition occurs in the population. The study's authors, led by UCLA researcher Dominick L. Frosh, suggested that without such information, consumers would have little reason to see prescription medication as a solution that involves risks as well as possible benefits.

In all, 58% portrayed the advertised drug as a medical breakthrough -- a pharmaceutical twist on Madison Avenue's "new and improved" message.
"It is time to ban direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs," wrote Dr. Kurt Stange, editor of the Annals, in an accompanying editorial. The advertisements consumers see "distort the relationship between patients and clinicians. [They] manipulate a patient's agenda and steal precious time away from an evidence-based primary care clinician agenda that is attempting to promote healthy behavior, screen for early-stage treatable disease and address mental health."

Even after 23 major pharmaceutical companies agreed to a new slate of voluntary guidelines limiting their advertising, Stange wasn't buying it. Self-monitoring, he wrote, "is not working . . . and cannot realistically be expected to work."

PhRMA, the drug manufacturers' industry group, says direct-to-consumer advertising empowers patients to take an active role in their healthcare and spurs them to discuss symptoms, diseases and treatment options with their doctors that might otherwise go unraised. The industry group frequently cites a 2002 survey of consumers that found that 43% were spurred by a prescription-drug ad to look for more information about the drug or their health.

Although direct-to-consumer advertising has spurred the most political and professional debate, it is only the most visible means of prescription-drug marketing aimed at the consumer. To build markets and encourage consumer loyalty to their products, drug makers have invested heavily in a tactic known to public relations professionals as "third-party marketing." Through voices, groups and activities that seem independent of them -- but frequently are not -- drug companies have found another way to get their messages to consumers.

'Third-party' approach ACCORDING to an article published in the British Medical Journal in 2003, the top five public relations firms specializing in healthcare earned $300 million in 2002. These firms "are expert at 'third-party technique' --helping the drug industry separate the message from what could be seen as a self-interested messenger," wrote authors Bob Burton and Andy Rowell.

Last October, a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine detailed one little-noticed third-party marketing venture. Underwritten by Eli Lilly, the campaign was designed to increase the use in hospitals of a drug commercially known as Xigris, for the treatment of sepsis, or blood poisoning. A preliminary study had suggested some safety concerns with Xigris, and an FDA advisory panel had urged more thorough study of the drug before its approval. But in 2001, the FDA approved its entry into the market. The controversy appeared to sap first-year sales of Xigris, which fell short of Lilly's expectations.

Lilly's response was to secure the services of a small public relations firm, New York-based Belsito and Co. Belsito would begin spreading the word to physicians and media outlets specializing in medical news that Xigris was being rationed and that physicians were being "systematically forced," because of the drug's high cost, to decide which patients would live and which would die. A $1.8-million educational grant from Lilly would fund the creation of a group of physicians and bioethicists -- named the "Values, Ethics and Rationing of Care Task Force" -- to study this rationing and its ethical implications. And a Surviving Sepsis campaign was launched "in theory to raise awareness of severe sepsis and generate momentum toward the development of treatment guidelines," wrote Dr. Peter Q. Eichacker and two fellow investigators based at the National Institutes of Health, in the NEJM.

Lilly's financial inspiration of the campaign aimed at physicians, patients groups and the media was not apparent to many of the audiences reached. But its effect was quite clear, concluded a case study of the campaign done by the Council of Public Relations Firms: Sales of Xigris "have begun to trend upwards. Through the first quarter of 2004, Xigris sales were up 36%."

In such campaigns, public relations companies operate as off-site extensions of a drug company's marketing department. But sometimes, the relationship of a drug company and a third-party voice is more complex. The tie between patient-advocacy groups and drug companies is a good example.

Drug makers richly support the nation's proliferating patient-advocacy groups, and only a handful of the charitable organizations refuse the sponsorship of pharmaceutical firms, says Georgetown University's Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, who has studied these ties. That link presents rich marketing opportunities for corporate sponsors with an interest in reaching the patients the organizations advise and represent, Fugh-Berman says. But it also raises real questions about the independence of patients groups, she adds.

In marketing trade publications, the value of patients' groups is widely touted. As friends and allies to potential customers, groups dedicated to patients who suffer from a specific condition can be powerful marketing tools. Patients seek information and emotional support from these groups, and trust them as an unbiased source of advice. Groups that empower patients to seek treatment are eager to foster awareness of their disease and, in the process, expand their membership. When they are successful, patients groups have a natural market-building effect.
But drug makers have the deep pockets, and patients groups -- until they're very large and well-established -- are constantly scrambling for money. As a result, according to those calling for reform, the relationship is not always an alliance of equals.

"There's an inherent conflict of interest," says Merrill Goozner, editor of Integrity in Science, a publication of the Washington-based watchdog group the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "The question becomes, 'Are you doing the best for the patients you represent, or are you doing the best for your sponsors?' "

Goozner says that patient-advocacy groups are especially vulnerable to carrying drug companies' messages, untempered by skepticism, directly to their members. "They're desperate" for a cure or treatment, he says. "And no one likes to be told that this latest breakthrough is not all it's been cracked up to be," especially when it's being pushed by a company that's been generous with funding, he adds.

Last October, the magazine New Scientist published a survey gauging the dependence of randomly selected U.S. patients' groups on drug manufacturers. Combing through the tax returns, annual reports and voluntary disclosures of 29 nonprofit patient-advocacy groups, the publication found that most accepted financial backing by companies developing or producing drugs used to treat patients supported by the group. In some groups, such as the American Heart Assn., the drug makers' financial backing was huge ($23 million in 2005) but represented a small portion (4%) of revenue. For seven groups, donations from interested drug companies represented more than one-fifth of revenue. The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance said it received more than half of its 2005 funding from the drug industry, and the Colorectal Cancer Coalition got 81% of its funding from drug makers.

New Scientist's probe found that some donations appeared directly tied to marketing interests. In 2003 and 2004, when the drug giant Pfizer was developing a drug to treat restless leg syndrome, it was a major donor to the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation. But in 2005, after Pfizer announced it had abandoned development of the potential drug, its donations to the patient group dried up.

Many of the best-known groups, including the Alzheimer's Assn., American Cancer Society and American Diabetes Assn., typically have a board of physicians who vet the scientific accuracy of the information they provide to patients. And most solicit "unrestricted" grants that allow them freedom to use the drug makers' donations as they see fit.

But even large groups often provide a gateway to the products of corporate sponsors, say those who have surveyed them. Many list FDA-approved medicines available to treat the disorder that is their focus and provide Web links that lead patients directly to marketing sites. And many offer their corporate sponsors access to their members, a potential gold mine of direct-marketing opportunity.

The corporate-donor pitch posted on the website of the national infertility patient group, Resolve, is typical of many patient groups. "Whether you become a site sponsor, a resource partner, or a sponsor of Resolve's chats, [the group's website] is the ideal place for your company to market its products and services to thousands of men and women across the country," the appeal states. Among the benefits the group lists for becoming a member of the group's "Corporate Council" are access to data on utilization of the group's programs and services and "the opportunity to establish topics and sponsor special briefings for patients, the medical community and public policy makers."

Serono and Organon, both makers of prescription medication used to treat infertility, are among the group's corporate sponsors.

Patient groups also mobilize patients -- sometimes armies of them -- to push for coverage of prescription drugs by insurance companies and states' Medicare and Medicaid agencies. To pharmaceutical companies, this can make or break the market prospects for a new drug because 80 million Americans --among them, the heaviest prescription-drug users -- receive healthcare coverage through Medicare and Medicaid, and roughly 155 million have prescription drug coverage through private insurance companies.

Strength in numbers WHEN insurers balk at reimbursing patients for new prescription medications, these groups typically swing into action, rallying sufferers to appear before public and consumer panels, contact lawmakers, and provide media outlets a human face to attach to a cause. Infertility patients mobilized by Resolve, for instance, have been extremely effective in extending states' insurance coverage of infertility treatments.

Groups such as the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance have fielded experts and patients who have done the same for psychiatric conditions.

And a wide range of patient groups, most with substantial backing from the makers of erectile dysfunction drugs, have mounted successful campaigns to get wary insurers to cover drugs such as Levitra, Viagra and Cialis.

See also: Melissa Healy. THE PAYOFF In short, marketing works Why argue with success? The Los Angeles Times.

SOLD ON DRUGS And now, a push for change
BUILDING THE MARKET From funding to findings
WOOING THE GATEKEEPER Doctor, just a little something for you Complex sales strategies go way beyond freebies.

And now, a push for change Legislators have begun to question the drug industry's pervasive influence in healthcare. Some doctors are backing them up. "

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-08-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

Emailed to me by Mel quetzcoatl_deo_228@hotmail.com :
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14606 :

Doctoring the Evidence: GlaxoSmithKline Pushes Depression Drug
by Shelley Jofre,
Special to Corp Watch
July 30th, 2007

A striking young woman with a talent for painting, Sharise Gatchell was - like many teenagers - painfully self-conscious. At 14, she moved with her family from South Africa to England where at first she found it hard to make friends. By the age of 16 she was acutely embarrassed that her periods hadn't started and felt she was sweating excessively. Just the sort of thing to make adolescence even more painful than usual. Her mother, Stephanie, took her to see a consultant physician at the local hospital. Stephanie Gatchell recalls: "During that consultation she became a bit emotional because she was explaining to him about the problems she had and how it affected her social life. Then she started crying and I was amazed. He asked her, 'Sharise, do you sometimes feel like ending it all?', and I couldn't believe it when she said 'Yes I do.' And then he started talking about paroxetine and suggesting that she try it."

"Off-label" Prescriptions Paroxetine - better known as Paxil in the U.S. - is an antidepressant. It is licensed only for adults, but doctors are allowed to prescribe any medicine if they think it will help their patient, a practice called "off-label" prescribing. Sharise was not the only teenager getting paroxetine off-label. Around 7,000 children a year were on the drug in the UK; and many more in the U.S. Within days of starting on paroxetine, Stephanie noticed a dramatic change in her daughter: she became more confident. But with the confidence came aggression and worse: "One day in the kitchen her sleeve pulled up slightly and I noticed that there were cut marks on her left arm. I couldn't believe my eyes. She was obviously self-harming while she was on the drug, something she's never ever done before."

Stephanie persuaded her daughter to stop taking paroxetine. But in 2003 Sharise went back on it without telling her mother. When her parents returned from a weekend break, Stephanie immediately realized something was terribly wrong: "I went upstairs before my husband came in, and the moment I got to the landing at the top and I turned round and looked, she was hanging from the loft hatch. I tried to revive her, but before I even started I realized I was too late." Next to her daughter's suicide note lay a packet of paroxetine. Stephanie instinctively blamed the drug and now blames herself for letting her daughter take it. But she couldn't have known what the drug's manufacturer had known for years.

GlaxoSmithKline Experiments on Children UK-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the second largest drug company in the world, which recorded 2006 sales of over $45 billion, had begun a series of clinical trials in the mid-1990s to test whether paroxetine would work in depressed children. Paroxetine had already been hailed as a wonder drug in adults as a treatment for everything from depression and stress to anxiety and even shyness. By the new millennium 100 million paroxetine prescriptions had been written worldwide, bringing in $2 billion a year for GSK and placing the antidepressant a close second to Prozac in popularity. With the adult market sewn up, the company sought new ways to make money from the drug, or "life cycle management," as the approach is known in the pharmaceutical industry.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wanted to boost the number of medicines tested for children and had introduced an incentive that would give companies a six-month extension on their patent just for carrying out pediatric trials. For paroxetine alone that would be worth $1 billion. And if GSK could be the first company to prove its antidepressant was safe and effective for children, the rewards would be even higher, as paroxetine could become the market leader. Hundreds of children were recruited from around the world to take part in three clinical trials. One group was given the drug, the other a placebo. They were randomized controlled trials (RCT) where neither the children nor their doctors knew whether they were taking the active drug or the placebo until the end of the study. This is widely accepted as the best way of working out whether a drug causes a particular effect: the gold standard in terms of evidence. But the outcome of these the trials was not what GSK had been hoping for.

Paroxetine proved no better than placebo. In the biggest trial, Study 329, which was conducted across several sites in the U.S., 11 of the 93 children who took paroxetine developed serious side-effects; seven had to be hospitalized. Significantly more had self-harmed or attempted suicide on the drug than on placebo. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) obtained confidential case reports from Study 329 which detail what happened to them: "[13 days after starting paroxetine] the patient became very angry. He punched pictures, broke glass and sustained lacerations that required six sutures... he expressed hopelessness and possible suicide thoughts." "The patient began exhibiting symptoms of disinhibition, grandiosity and expansive mood around week four [after eight weeks] the patient became agitated and said she would kill herself." "[11 days after starting paroxetine] the patient was hospitalized for psychosis with auditory hallucinations and superficial cuts." Yet this was a drug that was supposed to make children happier and reduce the risk of suicide.

The company knew it had a problem. In an internal memo to senior executives in 1998 the product director for paroxetine admitted: "The results of the studies were disappointing. The possibility of obtaining a safety statement from this data was considered but rejected. Consultation of the marketing teams confirmed that this would be unacceptable commercially." In other words, publishing the data in full would undermine the drug's safety profile and put profits at risk. It took five years for this information to reach the public domain and only then as a result of the BBC investigation. In the intervening years doctors continued to prescribe a drug to tens of thousands of vulnerable children, ignorant of the fact that it had not been shown to work and was harmful to some.

Lawsuits Reveal Questionable Paper Trail This has been described by British psychiatrist Dr. David Healy as "the biggest medical scandal since thalidomide." Dr. Healy, rather than the regulatory authorities charged with monitoring the safety of medicines, was instrumental in uncovering the evidence at the heart of the scandal. It was a series of U.S. legal actions that led Dr. Healy, as an expert witness, and the legal team with whom he was working, deep into GSK's secret archives, where they found a series of damning internal documents. What this paper trail reveals is how the company, with no hope of obtaining a children's license, devised a back-door method of marketing paroxetine for childhood depression. In came the spin-doctors to bury the inconvenient facts and spread the good news to doctors around the world that paroxetine was safe and effective for children. Drug companies discovered long ago that doctors are much more likely to be persuaded by their peers than by the hard sell of sales reps. So GSK built a business relationship with several leading academics to write articles and speak at conferences, effectively selling paroxetine for the company. They are known in the trade as "Key Opinion Leaders."

Internal company documents reveal that Professor Martin Keller, Chair of Psychiatry at Brown University in the U.S., was one of the company's leading Key Opinion Leaders. He was named as the author of Study 329. But the documents cast doubt on whether he actually analyzed the data himself and wrote the final paper. In a memo, Professor Keller thanks a ghost writer for the initial preparation of the study manuscript - a ghost writer who works for a medical public relations company hired by GSK: "You did a superb job with this. Thank you very much. It is excellent. Enclosed are some rather minor changes from me." It is clear from the internal correspondence that the ghost writer was making some important decisions about how to present the data for publication. At one point a senior GSK executive comments that: "It seems incongruous that we state that paroxetine is safe yet report so many Serious Adverse Events."

GSK suggests to the public relations person that she make clear paroxetine may have caused all 11 of the serious side-effects. But the final article says: "Of the 11 patients, only headache (1 patient) was considered to be related to the treatment." The paper never states clearly how many children became suicidal, nor does it explore whether the drug was to blame. Instead, it concludes that paroxetine is "generally well-tolerated and effective". The next step in GSK's marketing plan was to get the study published. Doctors rely on medical journals to give them advice they can trust. The first journal GSK approached spotted flaws in the study and rejected it. So the company sent it to the premier children's mental health magazine, the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Its peer reviewers also spotted the flaws, as is clear from their confidential comments: "Overall. Results do not clearly indicate efficacy, authors need to clearly note this." "The relatively high rate of serious adverse effects was not addressed in the discussion." "Given the high placebo response rate, are [these drugs] an acceptable first-line therapy for depressed teenagers?" Nevertheless, the journal published the study. Who knows how many child and adolescent psychiatrists around the world were influenced by the article's misleading conclusion?

At the same time, another of GSK's PR people was saying in an internal memo: "Originally we had planned to do extensive media relations surrounding this study until we actually viewed the results. Essentially the study did not really show paroxetine was effective in treating adolescent depression, which is not something we want to publicize."

Objective Medical Opinion? When I first started looking at Study 329 for the BBC in 2002, I was confused about its findings. The published article's conclusions seemed at odds with the details of the study. I went to Philadelphia to interview one of the authors and came across another of GSK's Key Opinion Leaders - Dr. Neil Ryan, an eminent child psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh. He was speaking at an American Psychiatric Association symposium sponsored by GSK but I had no reason at that time to think he was anything other than independent. Dr. Ryan told the audience that paroxetine was effective for children with depression. He didn't mention anything about the apparent high rate of psychiatric side-effects of paroxetine in Study 329.

But the more I studied the data, the more convinced I became that paroxetine was causing serious problems for some kids who took it. When I returned to Britain, I pursued him by telephone but he refused to talk to me about it. Fast forward four years, when the internal GSK documents revealed what had actually been going on behind the scenes. Dr. Ryan had been asking the company that sponsored his research how he should deal with my awkward questions, emailing all my correspondence to them. In one email he said: "I'll call you again later today and you can advise on how might be best to handle this."

GSK denies that it promoted paroxetine for off-label use through Key Opinion Leaders or any other route, laying the responsibility firmly at the door of individual clinicians. A statement issued by the company reads: "Any decision to prescribe a medicine outside its authorized indications, in the EU or the U.S., is made by a doctor on the basis of his/her clinical judgement and the interests of their patient." But where do doctors get the information from that gives them the confidence to prescribe off-label? From medical journals and conferences. It was the documents that in the end exposed the Key Opinion Leaders and the drug company.

Without the U.S. legal action we would have been none the wiser. The drug is now effectively banned in the UK for use in under-18s and in the U.S. it carries a "black box" warning about the risk of suicidal behaviour. This drug was GSK's golden egg for many years and a lucrative business was built around its promotion. So it is perhaps not surprising the company dismissed my investigation as media scaremongering. What is surprising, though, is how many doctors on both sides of the Atlantic who claim to practice evidence-based medicine still refuse to acknowledge the damage the drugs can do - even though the evidence comes from GSK's own RCTs and the company's internal correspondence clearly shows how they tried to cover it up.

Sales Affected by Warning Labels Dr. Mike Shooter, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a child psychiatrist who used to prescribe paroxetine, says: "I personally felt cheated and heaven only knows what the children, adolescents and their parents and their doctors on the other end of that felt. Very much the same. This has huge implications, right through medicine."

Professor Keller and Dr. Ryan seem unabashed by their role in the scandal. A few months ago Professor Keller co-authored another paper, on the impact of media reporting on prescribing. Rather than exploring how those conducting the trials overlooked the damage to children caused by the drug, he and his co-authors expressed concern that prescriptions of antidepressants to children have declined sharply in the U.S. since the addition of the black box warning - as if the increased risk of suicidal behaviour on the drugs wasn't something that should affect prescribing. The FDA is now considering whether to remove the black box warning on paroxetine and other similar antidepressants because it is scaring doctors.

In the UK, the regulatory authorities are investigating whether GSK acted fraudulently in its conduct over Study 329. Theoretically, criminal charges could be brought, but the medicine's regulator is fully-funded by the drugs industry, so don't hold your breath. Meanwhile, Stephanie Gatchell and her husband have moved away from the home that holds so many awful memories, to start a new life in Ireland. They can't forgive GlaxoSmithKline for concealing what it knew about paroxetine: "I can't understand how they could possibly be so devious, and all just because of profit. I think the decision-makers in that company should be brought to justice. They have a lot to explain."

*Shelley Jofre is a reporter with BBC TV's flagship current affairs program: Panorama. To learn more about Sharise Gatchell, see http://www.gevil.netopti.net/.
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-07-31T23:12:00.000-07:00

SSRI-Rsearch@yahoogroups.com :
Posted by: "Lynn Michaels" Lynn Michaels of tapersafely
Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:10 am (PST)
The Shrinks' Reckless Prescribing of Antipsychotic Drugs for Children
by ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP) Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

The St. Petersberg Times (Florida) has put the spotlight on the reckless prescribing of antipsychotic drugs for children."In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed suchdrugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kidson Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs.Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid childre nunder 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that stateregulators say it should be used only in extreme cases. These numbers are just for children on fee-for-service Medicaid, generally the poor anddisabled. Thousands more kids on private insurance are also on antipsychotics. "

The St. Pete Times correctly reports that the so-called atypicals were developed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults with almost no research on the long-term effects of such powerful medications on the developing brains of children. Initially billed as wonder drugs with few significant side effects, evidence is mounting that they can cause rapid weight gain, diabetes, even death.Indeed, the more that researchers learn, the less comfortable many are becoming with atypicals. However, doctors under the influence of pharmaceutical company propaganda and financial "incentives" to prescribe these drugs, are putting children's lives at risk by prescribing these highly toxic drugs. How else can anyone explain, much less justify with scientific or clinical evidence, the prescribing of 16 psychotropic drugs for 12-year old Joanne Mills' son--all at the same time?

Dr. Ronald Brown who last year headed an American PsychologicalAssociation committee that evaluated the issue, put it succinctly:"The bottom line is that the use of psychiatric medications far exceeds the evidence of safety and effectiveness. What people need to do is what's in the best interest of children instead of what's in the best interest of people's pocketbooks. But children don't vote."

Shame on a society that blindly follows the dictates of financially compromised medical professionals. Shame on a society that allows its children's best interest to be underminedby industry-influenced government policies. Parents are being misled by those who stand to gain from increased sale anduse of antipsychotics. The collaborative partnership between the pharmaceutical industry, mentalhealth providers, and public health policy officials has resulted intransforming children into a captive market. Children's health, safety, andfuture are being sacrificed on the altar of profits 'uber alles.'

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav 212-595-8974 veracare@ahrp.org

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-07-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

MORE ON CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY BY BIG PHARMA,PSYCHIATRY'S SENIOR PARTNERS
by Justice Lover

The partnership between the shrinks and the transnational drug corporations (Big Pharma) has been going for many years now, almost since the inception of Modern Psychiatry. So much so that the one cannot do without the other. Big Pharma cannot make its enormous profits without the shrinks' prescriptions, and the shrinks cannot "treat their mental patients" without the deadly poisons produced by Big Pharma. The shrinks won't do their jobs for Big Pharma without the heavy bribes they are getting (both individually and as a profession) from Big Pharma, and without the sedative effects of its potent neuroleptics, which crush the natural resistance of the patients, and allow the shrinks to continue their good life without worries.

Much less is known about the collaboration between Big Pharma and the medical profession. It has been obvious for more than 4 years now that no medical ethics could exist under the control of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), as the American Medical Association (AMA) has been for at least 4 years. As the shrinks gained control over the AMA , it became inevitable that Big Pharma would invade medicine - the entire medical profession ! - too, as the following two articles testify.

The third article bellow is about the collaboration of the AMA with the tobacco industry to the detriment of the entire public.

http://www.newstarget.com/021956.html

"Drug reps use psychological tactics to successfully influence doctors' prescribing habits
by Mike Adams
Monday, July 30, 2007

Pharmaceutical companies spend more than $15 billion each year promoting prescription drugs in the United States. One-third of that amount is spent on "detailing" -- an industry term for drug company representatives' one-on-one promotion to doctors. A paper published April 24, 2007 in the Public Library of Science journal Medicine uncovers the tactics which pharmaceutical sales representatives, commonly called "drug reps," are trained to use in promoting drugs to prescribing physicians.

"It's my job to figure out what a physician's price is. For some it's dinner at the finest restaurants, for others it's enough convincing data to let them prescribe confidently and for others it's my attention and friendship... but at the most basic level, everything is for sale and everything is an exchange," stated former Eli Lilly drug rep Shahram Ahari.

Ahari, no longer a drug rep, co-wrote the paper with Adriane Fugh-Berman, associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The paper is based on conversations between Ahari and Fugh-Berman, who researches pharmaceutical marketing.

The writers report that drug reps are trained to gather as much personal information as possible about the doctors to whom they are promoting pharmaceuticals -- from birthdays and hobbies to religious affiliation. Drug reps are trained to note any detail that can be used to establish a personal relationship with a doctor. Ahari stated, "During training, I was told, when you're out to dinner with a doctor, 'The physician is eating with a friend. You are eating with a client."

Drug reps offer gifts, and not just mugs and pens inscribed with drug names. "The highest prescribers receive better presents," wrote Ahari. Pharmaceutical companies rank doctors according to the number of prescriptions they write -- from 1 at the low end to 10 for high prescribers. According to Ahari, "Some reps said their 10s might receive unrestricted 'educational' grants so loosely restricted that they were the equivalent of a cash gift."

The source of the 1-to-10 ranking data is prescription tracking. So-called "health information organizations" (including IMS Health, Dendrite and Verispan) purchase prescription records from pharmacies. According to the authors, IMS Health buys records of about 70 percent of prescriptions filled by community pharmacies. Pharmaceutical companies purchase the records and use them to identify high-prescribing doctors.

How the AMA earns millions by helping drug companies buy influence

Prescription tracking records do not always identify doctors by name; in some cases they are identified by a state or federal license number or a pharmacy-specific identifier. To establish the identity of the prescribing doctors, pharmaceutical companies rely on the American Medical Association (AMA), which maintains a Physician Masterfile on every U.S. physician. Citing the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors wrote, "In 2005, database product sales, including an unknown amount from licensing Masterfile information, provided more than $44 million to the AMA."

Once the high prescribers are identified, the drugs reps are then directed to reward those doctors with attention and gifts. The highest prescribing doctors are the ones with whom the drug reps work hardest to build relationships. According to Ahari, "The highest prescribers (9s and 10s) are every rep's sugar mommies and daddies." Lower prescribing doctors are hardly ignored, however; Ahari explained that he was taught to "pick a handful out and make them feel special enough" and then associate increased prescribing with personal attention and a reward such as dinner at a fine restaurant.

When doctors express skepticism about a certain drug, reps will take one of several approaches. One tactic is to present the doctors with journal articles that counter the doctor's perceptions. "Armed with the articles and having hopefully scheduled a 20 minute appointment (so the doc can't escape), I play dumb and have the doc explain to me the significance of my article," wrote Ahari. The drug rep then asks the doctor to prescribe the medication based on his or her own explanation (to the sales rep) of the journal articles.

Yet another tactic, reserved for doctors who prefer a competing drug, is described by Ahari: "We force the doctors to constantly explain their prescribing rationale, which is tiresome. Our intent is to engage in discourse but also to wear down the doc until he or she simply agrees to try the product for specific instances."

The pharmaceutical industry employs 100,000 drug reps whose job is, first and foremost, to sell drugs. Their tactics are on par with some of the most clever and potent brainwashing techniques used throughout the world, including those used on political prisoners to convince them to denounce their home nations. Doctors are, in effect, being successfully targeted and influenced through advanced brainwashing campaigns designed to alter prescribing behavior and sell more high-profit drugs. Far from being immune to such techniques, it appears that physicians are remarkably susceptible to them."

=============

http://www.newstarget.com/021955.html

"Secret drug company payments to doctors remain legal in 48 states
by David Gutierrez
Monday, July 30, 2007

(NewsTarget) Only five states and the District of Columbia require that pharmaceutical companies report gifts they make to doctors, and even in these jurisdictions the laws are so poorly enforced that the details of these transactions remain a de facto secret, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers examined public records from Vermont and Minnesota, the only two states that require disclosure by pharmaceutical companies and make that data available to the public. By studying the data from 2002 to 2004, the researchers hoped to gain a better understanding of how money moves from the pharmaceutical to the medical industry.

"What we really found was laws aren't working," said study author Joseph Ross, of the geriatrics department of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
The researchers found that while reported payments were quite high, the details of those transactions were not available. In other cases, reported payments were so low as to be suspicious. For example, GlaxoSmithKline claimed zero dollars spent in Vermont in the time period studied, yet the state attorney general listed the company as making more payments than any other. In Minnesota, Amgen recorded zero dollars in payments in 2002 or 2004, but more than $4 million in 2003.

Part of the reason for this inconsistency is that gifts of drugs or items not yet on the market can be classified as "trade secrets" and not reported. But Ross believes that this loophole is being exploited.

"To designate every payment made as a trade secret ... seems improbable," he said.
Pharmaceutical companies have been known to give doctors extravagant gifts including all-expense-paid vacations or gourmet dinners as part of their marketing campaigns. According to Dr. Harlan Krumholz, an associate professor at the Yale University School of Medicine, this presents a conflict of interest that the public should know about.
Ross agrees. "If both parties think this payment is appropriate, then this information should be made available to the public," he said. "
==============

http://www.newstarget.com/021949.html

"Doctors, American Medical Association hawked cigarettes as healthy for consumers
by Mike Adams
Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Despite its stated mission, "To promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health," the American Medical Association (AMA) has taken many missteps in protecting the health of the American people. One of the most striking examples is the AMA's long-term relationship with the tobacco industry.

Both the AMA and individual doctors sided with big tobacco for decades after the deleterious effects of smoking were proven. Medical historians have tracked this relationship in great detail, examining internal documents from tobacco companies and their legal counsel and public relations advisers. The overarching theme of big tobacco's efforts was to keep alive the appearance of a "debate" or "controversy" of the health effects of cigarette smoking.

The first research to make a statistical correlation between cancer and smoking was published in 1930 in Cologne, Germany. In 1938, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reported that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers. The tobacco industry dismissed these early findings as anecdotal -- but at the same time recruited doctors to endorse cigarettes.

JAMA kicks off two decades of cigarette advertising

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published its first cigarette advertisement in 1933, stating that it had done so only "after careful consideration of the extent to which cigarettes were used by physicians in practice." These advertisements continued for 20 years. The same year, Chesterfield began running ads in the New York State Journal of Medicine, with the claim that its cigarettes were "Just as pure as the water you drink... and practically untouched by human hands."

In medical journals and in the popular media, one of the most infamous cigarette advertising slogans was associated with the Camel brand: "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette." The campaign began in 1946 and ran for eight years in magazines and on the radio. The ads included this message:

"Family physicians, surgeons, diagnosticians, nose and throat specialists, doctors in every branch of medicine... a total of 113,597 doctors... were asked the question: 'What cigarette do you smoke?' And more of them named Camel as their smoke than any other cigarette! Three independent research groups found this to be a fact. You see, doctors too smoke for pleasure. That full Camel flavor is just as appealing to a doctor's taste as to yours... that marvelous Camel mildness means just as much to his throat as to yours."

Big Tobacco's suppression of scientific evidence

At the same time that JAMA ran cigarette ads, it published in 1950 the first major study to causally link smoking to lung cancer. Morton Levin, then director of Cancer Control for the New York State Department of Health, surveyed patients in Buffalo, N.Y., from 1938 to 1950 and found that smokers were twice as likely to develop lung cancer as non-smokers.

Cigarette producers may have hoped that the public would remain unaware of studies published in medical journals. However, the dangers of smoking became widely known in 1952 when Reader's Digest published "Cancer by the Carton," detailing the dangers of cigarettes. Within a year cigarette sales fell for the first time in more than two decades.
The tobacco industry responded swiftly, engaging the medical community in its efforts. The Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) was formed by U.S. tobacco companies in 1954. By sponsoring "independent" scientific research, the TIRC attempted to keep alive a debate about whether or not cigarettes were harmful.

The industry announced the formation of the TIRC in an advertisement that appeared in The New York Times and 447 other newspapers reaching more than 43 million Americans. The advertisement, titled "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers," read:

"RECENT REPORTS on experiments with mice have given wide publicity to a theory that cigarette smoking is in some way linked with lung cancer in human beings.
Although conducted by doctors of professional standing, these experiments are not regarded as conclusive in the field of cancer research. However, we do not believe that any serious medical research, even though its results are inconclusive should be disregarded or lightly dismissed.
At the same time, we feel it is in the public interest to call attention to the fact that eminent doctors and research scientists have publicly questioned the claimed significance of these experiments.
Distinguished authorities point out:
1. That medical research of recent years indicates many possible causes of lung cancer.
2. That there is no agreement among the authorities regarding what the cause is.
3. That there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes.
4. That statistics purporting to link cigarette smoking with the disease could apply with equal force to any one of many other aspects of modern life. Indeed the validity of the statistics themselves is questioned by numerous scientists.
We accept an interest in people's heath as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business.
We believe the products we make are not injurious to health.
We always have and always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public health. For more than 300 years tobacco has given solace, relaxation, and enjoyment to mankind. At one time or another during those years critics have held it responsible for practically every disease of the human body. One by one these charges have been abandoned for lack of evidence.
Regardless of the record of the past, the fact that cigarette smoking today should even be suspected as a cause of a serious disease is a matter of deep concern to us.
Many people have asked us what we are doing to meet the public's concern aroused by the recent reports. Here is the answer:
1. We are pledging aid and assistance to the research effort into all phases of tobacco use and health. This joint financial aid will of course be in addition to what is already being contributed by individual companies.
2. For this purpose we are establishing a joint industry group consisting initially of the undersigned. This group will be known as TOBACCO INDUSTRY RESEARCH COMMITTEE.
3. In charge of the research activities of the Committee will be a scientist of unimpeachable integrity and national repute. In addition there will be an Advisory Board of scientists disinterested in the cigarette industry. A group of distinguished men from medicine, science, and education will be invited to serve on this Board. These scientists will advise the Committee on its research activities.
This statement is being issued because we believe the people are entitled to know where we stand on this matter and what we intend to do about it."

Doctors' involvement in the tobacco deception

The statement -- signed by presidents of major tobacco interests including Phillip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and R.J. Reynolds -- was designed to launch the "controversy" which I mentioned earlier. In fact, there was no controversy. The research results were clear: smoking had been proven harmful -- not just to mice, but to people who had for years been advised that smoking offered health benefits.

The TIRC promised to convene "a group of distinguished men from medicine, science, and education" and it did so. Early members of the TIRC's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) included: McKeen Cattell, PhD, MD, professor of pharmacology from Cornell University Medical College; Julius H. Comroe, Jr., MD, director of the University of California Medical Center's cardiovascular research institute and chairman of University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine; and Edwin B. Wilson, PhD, LLD, professor of vital statistics, Harvard University.

According to the New York State Archives, the TIRC's functions "included both the funding of research and carrying out public relations activities relating to tobacco and health." Faced with mounting evidence that smoking was harmful, "it became evident that this was not a short-term endeavor, and that it was difficult to manage both scientific research and public relations in one organization. As a result the Tobacco Institute was formed to assume the public relations functions, and the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR) was formed and incorporated to provide funding for scientific research."

Whether or not individual doctors supported smoking, lending their names to the TIRC gave it credibility. The Center for Media and Democracy has reported that many of the scientists who were members of the Scientific Advisory Board privately "disagreed with the tobacco industry's party line." According to the center's website: "In 1987, Dr. Kenneth Warner polled the SAB's 13 current members, asking, 'Do you believe that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer?' Seven of the SAB members refused to answer the question, even after Warner promised individual anonymity. The other six all answered in the affirmative. 'I don't think there's a guy on the [Board] who doesn't believe that cigarette smoking contributes to an increased risk of lung cancer,' one said, adding that the SAB's members were 'terrified' to say so publicly out of fear of involvement in tobacco product liability lawsuits."

If it was fear that kept doctors on board with the TIRC and its renamed version, CTR, it did not stop them from handing out research grants. The Center for Media and Democracy describes some of the early grants: "Research projects attempted to show that both lung cancer and smoking were caused by some other 'third factor,' such as a person's psychological makeup, religion, war experiences or genetic susceptibility. One research project asked whether the handwriting of lung cancer patients can reveal characteristics associated with lung cancer. Another looked for enzyme markers predicting susceptibility to lung cancer."

After three decades, the AMA finally admits smoking is harmful

After the 1964 Surgeon General's landmark report on the dangers of cigarettes, the CTR stepped up its work, providing materials to defend the tobacco industry against litigation. The same year -- three decades after medical research demonstrated the dangers of cigarettes -- the American Medical Association finally issued statement on smoking, calling it "a serious health hazard." It was not until 1998 that the CTR was shut down -- and only after the tobacco industry lost a major court case brought forward by states across the country.

Allan M. Brandt, a medical historian at Harvard, writes about the role that medical research played on both sides of the smoking debate in his new book, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America. After reviewing research, court transcripts and previously restricted memoranda from tobacco companies, Brandt summed up the misleading nature of "expert" medical testimony in tobacco litigation: "I was appalled by what the tobacco expert witnesses had written. By asking narrow questions and responding to them with narrow research, they provided precisely the cover the industry sought."

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Brandt acknowledged that his research is a combination of scholarship and health advocacy -- pointing out the means by which the American public was intentionally misled for most of the twentieth century. As Brandt stated, "The stakes are high, and there is much work to be done."

The medical conspiracy continues today

It is my belief that just as private industry and the medical community conspired to deceive the public on tobacco (and thereby profit from the public's ignorance of tobacco's extreme health hazard), the same story is repeating itself today in the cancer industry, the sunscreen industry, and the pharmaceutical industry. In each case, so-called "authoritative" doctors insist that whatever they're pushing is safe for human consumption, and that the public should buy their products without any concern about safety.

And yet these industries are much like the tobacco industry in the fact that they primarily seek profits, not health. Medicine today is in the business of making money, and that goal is achieved by selling chemical products to consumers regardless of their safety or efficacy. Big Medicine is the modern version of Big Tobacco, and over the last several decades, the American Medical Association has proudly supported both cigarettes and pharmaceuticals. In my opinion, the AMA is indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of Americans -- not just from pushing cigarettes but also for continuing to push dangerous pharmaceuticals while discrediting nearly everything in natural medicine or alternative medicine. The AMA is a truly evil organization, in my opinion, that I believe has directly and knowingly contributed to the suffering and death of Americans for more than 75 years.

Read my story, What the AMA hopes you never learn about its true history to learn more. In a just society, AMA leaders would be arrested and tried for their crimes against humanity, just as top FDA officials should be.

The cancer industry, similarly, is extremely dangerous to the health and safety of Americans thanks to its outright refusal to support anti-cancer nutrition (vitamin D, broccoli sprouts, spirulina, rainforest herbs, etc.) as well as its refusal to fight for the removal of toxic chemicals from consumer products and the workplace.

In studying the history of product commercialization by medical groups, what we consistently find is a series of cons perpetrated against consumers, masterminded by profit-seeing medical groups that conspire with corporations to maximize profits at the expense of public health. Nothing has changed today, either. The AMA isn't pushing cigarettes anymore, but it's still pushing deadly pharmaceuticals that will one day be regarded as just as senseless as smoking.

Let's face it: pharmaceutical medicine is hopelessly outdated, ineffective and dangerous. Nobody intelligent today actually believes that pharmaceuticals help people heal. In fact, the more drugs people take, the worse their health becomes! Modern medicine is actually harmful to patients!
Medical science is slow to change, and slow to give up its closely-guarded (false) beliefs. In time, however, virtually everything now supported by the medical industry (the FDA, AMA, ACS, etc.) will be regarded as insanely harmful to human health. One day, future scientists will look back on medicine today and wonder just how such an industry of evil and greed could have gained so much power and authority. The answer is found in "groupthink" and the strange knack for humans to defer to anyone in an apparent position of authority, regardless of whether such authority is warranted."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-07-25T03:12:00.000-07:00

CONFESSION BY A 38 YEARS EXPERIENCED PSYCHIATRIST :
'As a Psychiatrist, I still do not know what our profession is trying to do. '
by Justice Lover

The following article is by Dr Michael Benjamin, a psychiatrist with 38 years practice.
He is not opposed to the medical model of "mental Illness", much less is he against psychiatry, mind you. He even maintains the silence on the psychiatric profession's subservience to Big Pharma, although he says that "In the adult population, generally speaking, the influence of the Drug Companies is terrifying." Nor is he protesting psychiatric coercion. He merely admits what other shrinks are hiding ,namely, to not knowing what he and the rest of the shrinks are doing to their patients. What he says makes sense, of course, albeit not full sense, nor is it the complete truth.

Psychiatry being the quackery that it is, what else can be expected of its practitioners except lies and deceptions to cover up their ignorance/malice and subservience to Big Pharma ( in return for heavy bribes )?

Here is the article :

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/07/22/141824.php :

"A Psychiatrist Airs His Professional Doubts
Written by Dr Michael Benjamin
Published July 22, 2007

Did you ever stop to wonder or ask yourself 'what am I doing?' I did and in many ways I wish I had not. As a Psychiatrist, I still do not know what our profession is trying to do. It seems we have a series of solutions and now we are trying to find the problems that they can solve. My observations are either anecdotal or part of research that I have done as a Psychiatric Auditor and are based on my 38 years experience in the field of Psychiatry.

Psychiatrists are treating two major populations: Adults and Juveniles. These populations are further subdivided into severe and mild disturbances.

I am not a Juvenile Psychiatrist, but I speak from impressions and my readings in the field. There is nothing more heart breaking than the severely mentally ill juvenile. We have increased our arsenal of medications, but in results and understanding, compared to other medical professions, our success rate is poor. Prevention is a distant dream.

The mildly mentally ill juveniles are a cause of concern to me. Psychiatry has waltzed into learning disorders with the crusading gusto that only psychiatrists seem to have. We are witnessing the 'medicinization' of a former outlawed drug. The criteria for using Ritalin far too often go unmet. There is no doubt in my mind that children that would not be given Ritalin by experts in the field are receiving it. No one can say with honesty and certainty what the effect of Ritalin use in juveniles will have on their brains as they age. Yet the Ritalin pushers have an almost messianic fervor for their 'solution'.

In the adult population, generally speaking, the influence of the Drug Companies is terrifying. Very few research projects disprove the efficacy of a drug when the trial is sponsored by the drug's manufacturer. Harmful facts that may be discovered are not disclosed. When they are, their importance and significance are downplayed. For example, one of the major, popular, new anti psychotic drugs actively and substantially increases the risk factors for heart attacks or CVAs. In all the adult population the major medical goal is to reduce these risk factors. Only severely mentally ill psychiatric patients are the exception.

It has been shown that after 10 years of illness a psychotic not taking medications is four times more likely to be symptom free than one that is taking medications. Read that again. You would expect the complete opposite. In spite of the hype, the quality of life in patients using the older medications are better than the new. So we are paying more, endangering more and getting less. Not very impressive is it? The mantra of today's Psychiatric Services are something like this:

A patient gets ill.
He goes to the emergency room where he is admitted or referred to community service organizations.
On admission he is diagnosed, medicated and sent home to continue care in the community.
He continues his therapy in the community.
He is only re-referred if the community cannot cope.

What happens in reality?

There are no hard and fast rules or consistency as to who is received and why. A large proportion of first time hospitalized patients will never re-appear in the Mental-Health system. Why were they hospitalized in the first place?

Referrals to community care from the ER are done badly, if at all.

The vast majority of hospitalized patients remain unknown to community care after discharge.
A large proportion of the patients are no longer taking medications in a meaningful way three months after discharge from hospital.

Most of the patients seen in community care were not hospitalized.
Grim reading indeed.

Over 30% of the adult population will visit their Family Doctor in any year. 30% of them, 10% of the population, are considered to have emotional problems.

For some reason these emotional disturbances are treated as if they are mild forms of mental illness. They are not. Very often we are seeing stress caused by poor coping styles or skills. They are treated as if they have, or about to have depression, anxiety, or panic. The vast majority are offered medication. They should be offered alternative drug-free modalities such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Psychotherapy.

Of those referred to psychotherapy much less than half will get past three visits. The major explanation of 'file closure' in these cases is drop-out. 'Completion of therapy' ranks as one of the least given reasons.
Are there any bright points? Yes there are:

CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is causing a rethink of treatment. It asks a patient to think about their feelings and behavior and thus influence subsequent behavior. This is a good answer for the patients with emotional problems in primary care. It enhances coping skills. This is a different approach from the attempt to cure an illness that does not exist. We can now offer Online CBT in a Self-Help format over the Internet.

Compliance and adherence: This is not a problem inherent only to Psychiatry. Doctors are not trained to explain and ensure compliance. They do not have the time to do simple weekly follow ups. This is easily done using the Internet web sites.

Medical Management: Uniform systematic treatment is essential. It is possible to ascertain accurately patient needs and utilization. It is possible to follow the two parameters in real time. Thus ensuring efficient performance of the Mental-Health system as a unit. Alongside this, the individual patient is never unknowingly lost. This can be done in real time and online.
Yes there is a lot of criticism here. Is it justified? It certainly is honest and based on my clinical experience. I have hopefully done my part by initiating a discussion and providing solutions, as I see them to the problems as I saw them.
===========
Doctor Michael Benjamin is a Psychiatrist with 38 years experience. An active proponent of Online Self-Help Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). He has a free Online CBT program at http://www.myRay.com"

( Emphasis by Justice lover )

2007-07-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

ON THE VICTIMISATION PROCESS OF "MENTAL PATIENTS"BY THE SHRINKS' COMPULSORY "TREATMENT"by Justice Lover

There are several ways to fall into the psychiatric trap, and there are several categories of people who get that trap's door locked up on them. The official psychiatric propaganda - supported by the state apparatus and the capitalist media - is that the trapped people got there because they were "ill" in the first place, therefore "needed treatment". This false propaganda is based on a triple lie, namely, that there is such a thing as "mental illness", that there is no effective way to help people in crisis other than psychiatric "treatment", and that psychiatry holds the correct answer to the question who is "crazy" and who is "normal". Apart from this usual psychiatric trapping of people who "need treatment" there are two other kinds of psychiatry's victim-patients : those who were put in the trap by their own family against their will, and those who went there voluntarily, because of some worries they had, and then had the shrinks' trap door shut on them.

In a category of its own are the daughter and son of Benjamin Merhav, the anti-zionist Israeli who lives in Melbourne, Australia (see his autobiography, messages 8302-8327 on
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/SSRI-Research/messages/8325?viscount=-30&l=1; see also the first post on
http://outlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com/ regarding the updated situation of Ms Rebecca Merhav, his daughter). Both the son and the daughter were sent to the trap by their own mother, on "advice" of an Israeli zionist shrink who has been doing the bidding for the zionist Gestapo. Thus, both Rebecca and her brother had been ,in effect, taken hostages by the zionist Gestapo and sent to the psychiatric trap to punish their anti-zionist father for exposing zionist crimes against humanity.

There are, of course, millions of people whose ability to function has been impaired by all kinds of psychological problems, mostly because of feeling depressed, who have been lured into the traps of Big Pharma. They then become the victims of the capitalist regime which caused them to be depressed in the first place, and then the victims of the harmful (sometimes deadly !) effects of SSRI tablets by Big Pharma too !

The following article by an American physician points to the economic, social and political alienation of people by the capitalist regime, leading to depression and other psychological and psychosomatic disruptions of their lives. From there to the deadly traps of psychiatry and of Big Pharma the distance is very short.

Here is the article as published by counterpunch.com over the weekend 21/22 July :

July 21 / 22, 2007
Linking Alienation and Dissociation
The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness
By Dr. SUSAN ROSENTHAL, M.D.

Alienation and dissociation reinforce each other to create a cycle of social powerlessness. In The Hidden Injuries of Class, a worker ponders this dilemma.

"The more a person is on the receiving end of orders, the more the person's got to think he or she is really somewhere else in order to keep up self-respect. And yet it's at work that you're supposed to 'make something' of yourself, so if you're not really there, how are you going to make something of yourself?"

Capitalism alienates the majority from control over the decision-making process, putting most people "on the receiving end of orders." Dissociation is a psychological defense against feeling powerless; the worker goes "somewhere else" to preserve self-respect.

However, dissociation keeps the worker in his alienated condition, "so if you're not really there, how are you going to make something of yourself?"

Alienation and dissociation re-enforce each other in countless ways. Workers who must function like cogs in the social machine have dissociated relationships with the other cogs. There is no direct and conscious sharing of the creative, productive process. Instead of relating to each other as fellow producers, directly exchanging what they want and need, workers relate to each other as dissociated consumers, you pay my boss for what I made and I pay your boss for what you made.

Consequently, despite living, working, commuting, and shopping together, most people feel estranged from one another. We talk about what we can't control (sports, the weather) to avoid discussing what we aren't allowed to control (our work, the world).

Capitalism alienates humanity from the environment by dissociating the past and the future from the present. Only the sale is important. Every year, tons of industrial chemicals, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals enter the market as commodities with no consideration for what happens after they are sold. Once used, these products are thrown away, washed away and excreted from human and animal bodies, entering rivers, streams and lakes, returning to us in the form of contaminated food and water.

Alienation and dissociation reach their pinnacle in war. When people feel helpless to stop the madness, they must dissociate from the brutality or go mad themselves.

People who feel powerless have been compared to some laboratory animals who resign themselves to unavoidable electrical shocks. Even after their cage doors are opened, they do not escape. This phenomenon is called "learned helplessness," where the familiar, no matter how terrible, seems preferable to the unknown, no matter how promising.

People without hope do feel powerlessness. However, animals have limited ways to extract themselves from harmful situations, unlike human beings who are creative and resourceful problem-solvers. And while individuals have a limited ability to solve problems, there is virtually no limit to the problems that people can solve together.

To maintain their stranglehold over society, the people-in-power use divide-and-rule strategies that keep the majority feeling isolated, fearful, and powerless. Nevertheless, the criminal behavior of the ruling class compels ordinary people to organize in self-defense.
Cooperation counters the downward cycle of alienation and dissociation. Cooperation elicits feelings of strength and hope, so people work harder to find solutions, thereby increasing their chances of success. Cooperation and hope re-enforce each other to increase social power.

Whether we feel hopeless or hopeful, powerless or powerful depends on whether we work alone or together. Alone, we can't protect ourselves from environmental pollution, corrupt corporations, oppressive institutions and war-mongering governments. As an organized force, we have the power to change the world.
============
Dr. Susan Rosenthal has been practicing medicine for more than 30 years and has written many articles on the relationship between health and human relationships. She is also the author of Striking Flint: Genora (Johnson) Dollinger Remembers the 1936-1937 General Motors Sit-Down Strike (1996) and Market Madness and Mental Illness: The Crisis in Mental Health Care (1999) and Power and Powerlessness. She is a member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981.
She can be reached by email at: author@powerandpowerlessness.com

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)