Psychiatric Drugs as Agents of Trauma by Charles L. Whitfield, MD

http://www.musehousepress.com/Psychiatric_Drugs_As_Agents_of_Trauma_JRS508.pdf

Psychiatric Drugs as Agents of Trauma by Charles L. Whitfield, MD

Excerpted from: The International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine 22 (2010) 195-207

DOI 10.3233/JRS-2010-0508

IOS Press

Volume 22, Number 4, 2010

Private Practice of Trauma Psychology, Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine; Consultant and Research

Collaborator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3462 Hallcrest Dr., Atlanta,

GA 30319-1910, USA and Board of Directors of the Leadership Council on Child Abuse

& Interpersonal Violence, Baltimore, MD, USA

Tel.: +404 843 3585; E-mail: c-bwhit@mindspring.com

Abstract. Drawing on the work of numerous psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists and my own observations, I describe how most common psychiatric drugs are not only toxic but can be chronically traumatic, which I define in some detail throughout this paper. In addition to observing this occurrence among numerous of my patients over the past 20 years, I surveyed 9 mental health clinicians who had taken antidepressant drugs long-term. Of these 9, 7 (77%) experienced bothersome toxic drug effects and 2 (22%) had become clearly worse than they were before they had started the drugs. Based on others’ and my observations I describe the genesis of this worsened condition which I call the Drug Stress Trauma Syndrome.

These drug effects can be and are often so detrimental to the quality of life among  a  distinct but significant minority of patients that they can no longer be considered trivial or unimportant. Instead, they are so disruptive to many patients’ quality of life that their effect becomes traumatic, and are thereby agents of trauma. These observations and preliminary data may encourage others to look into this matter in more depth.

Game Brain

This article from Men Style/GQ is a little way off our usual Pharma trail, but certainly made us think - and wonder how many damaged brains we will see in the future in users of certain medications. The cruelty of corporate executives involved in these cases is noteworthy and clear; we do not doubt that similar coverups and indifference occur in fields other than sports.

"Let’s say you run a multibillion-dollar football league. And let’s say the scientific community—starting with one young pathologist in Pittsburgh and growing into a chorus of neuroscientists across the country—comes to you and says concussions are making your players crazy, crazy enough to kill themselves, and here, in these slices of brain tissue, is the proof. Do you join these scientists and try to solve the problem, or do you use your power to discredit them?"



"The coverage that week had been bracing and disturbing and exciting. Dead at 50. Mike Webster! Nine-time Pro Bowler. Hall of Famer. “Iron Mike,” legendary Steelers center for fifteen seasons. His life after football had been mysterious and tragic, and on the news they were going on and on about it. What had happened to him? How does a guy go from four Super Bowl rings to…pissing in his own oven and squirting Super Glue on his rotting teeth? Mike Webster bought himself a Taser gun, used that on himself to treat his back pain, would zap himself into unconsciousness just to get some sleep. Mike Webster lost all his money, or maybe gave it away. He forgot. A lot of lawsuits. Mike Webster forgot how to eat, too. Soon Mike Webster was homeless, living in a truck, one of its windows replaced with a garbage bag and tape.
...
Omalu stared at Mike Webster’s brain. He kept thinking, How did this big athletic man end up so crazy in the head? He was thinking about football and brain trauma. The leap in logic was hardly extreme. He was thinking, Dementia pugilistica? “Punch-drunk syndrome,” they called it in boxers. The clinical picture was somewhat like Mike Webster’s: severe dementia—delusion, paranoia, explosive behavior, loss of memory—caused by repeated blows to the head. Omalu figured if chronic bashing of the head could destroy a boxer’s brain, couldn’t it also destroy a football player’s brain? Could that be what made Mike Webster crazy?"

Article continues here.

The New York Times has more here.

Bipolar Disorder Secondary to Head Injury - a MEDLINE Search by Ivan K. Goldberg, M.D. can be found here.

To view healthy and sick brains at the Harvard Whole Brain Atlas, go here.

The Sports Legacy Institute is here.