Pharmaceuticals Anonymous

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Drug Rep on SURVIVOR: Merck told her to sell drugs that kill


Corinne Kaplan is a candidate on the American reality TV show Survivor.

At one point, Corinne insisted, “I have no moral compass.” The most damning illustration has to do with her (now former) job as a pharmaceutical sales rep, where she said she knowingly sold drugs to physicians that she knew would kill people. “Selling drugs is a lie. I sold drugs that I knew damn well—I sold Vioxx for Merck before it got taken off the market for killing people. I knew damn well it was dangerous; I went around telling them to write it. There’s a lot of serious lying I’ve done in my life,” she said.

That’s okay, Corinne told me, because “I’m doing a job. For me, in that case, Merck told me to go out and sell drug even though I had hesitation about it. It’s not for me to say. … Don’t listen to me. Read your fucking journals. Why the fuck are you listening to your rep? Just because I’m pretty? You think I know more about the drug? No.”

Likewise, for Corinne, being on Survivor Gabon “is work; I’m trying to make a million dollars. It really doesn’t matter. I hope everyone gets injured; I don’t care. Just not me.”

Hear Corinne talk about wanting the money, the type of person she is, her problems with production, and selling a drug she knew would kill people here.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Is chronic illness at the heart of our economic crisis?

Image: Summer, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1573

Simple, eloquent, true.

"We can virtually match the exponential climb in chronic illness with an exponential climb in all-things-industrialized! Our innate genetic requirements for health require purity and sufficiency in the way we eat, move and think, with minimal toxicity and deficiency. How are we doing in these areas in the past 50 years?

We have more toxins in our food and agricultural industry, nutritionally deficient foods, toxic water supply, more fake and processed foods, we move less as a society than ever before, we're fatter than ever, we take far more drugs than ever, we sit in traffic more than ever, we have rampant pollution, we're inundated with an overwhelming amount of stimuli like no other time in our history, we're financially stressed, we spend more time indoors in artificial lighting and temperatures, we use more toxic chemicals on our bodies, on our lawns and in our homes, our relationships are stressed, we've lost a sense of community, we're more rushed... and on and on.

As a culture, we've moved away from what we know creates health and happiness."

Link

Friday, May 22, 2009

Antidepressants can cause premature aging, wrinkles - and violence


Another adverse drug side effect - premature aging (wrinkling and muscle loss) due to antidepressants - comes to light.
Link
From Japanese news, a link between antidepressant use and violence.


Would we take these medications if we knew how harmful the side effects might be?

Kidslit: Rowan the Strange


ROWAN THE STRANGE by Julie Hearn, Oxford University Press

From the review by Katherine Langrish:

A wartime novel with a difference, this time set in England - the third in a wonderful series which might loosely be termed a family saga (the first two were IVY and HAZEL) – but each novel can be read independently of the others.

It’s 1939, and Rowan, the son of Hazel and grandson of Ivy, is about to be evacuated from London. But Rowan’s not like other children. He’s subject to odd compulsions and terrors, and after he injures his sister in one uncontrollable outburst, his parents decide he will be safer in an institution where he can be treated.

But what is madness? Where is the sanity in a countryside where Rowan sees such surreal sights as farmworkers wearing gas masks while they pick apples? And in the asylum itself, where the doctors are ‘cruel to be kind’, using literally shocking therapies in the name of sanity, how important is it to ‘cure’ madness? And if a delusion is an essential part of someone’s personality, what will happen if you if blast it away?

Rowan himself is an attractive hero: introspective, willing and anxious to please. His friend Dorothea (who sees people’s guardian angels) is a fascinating creation, ‘as bright and as bitter as a lemon’ – cynical yet innocent, vulnerable yet indomitable. And then there’s the well-meaning therapist himself, Dr von Metzer – tormented by the knowledge of what is happening to mentally ill children in Germany.

This is a subtle and compelling story – with just a touch of magical realism – in which Rowan’s schizophrenia and life at the asylum with its terrible ‘treatments’, uncertain cures, and small but important rewards (a slice of cake which you are allowed to cut for yourself; a part in the Christmas pantomime) stand for the wider madness of a world at war.

Link

We suspect that the insanity and criminal behaviour of war, and mental illness, have a similar cure - good nutrition.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Search results: Antidepressant Induced Psychosis


Here are just a few of the almost 100,000 results for a search for antidepressants induced psychosis from http://google.com:

Scholarly articles for antidepressant induced psychosis
Antidepressant-induced mania and cycle acceleration: a ... - Altshuler - Cited by 380
Radiologic correlates of antidepressant-induced ... - Figiel - Cited by 32
Treatment of Tricyclic Antidepressant-Induced Orgasmic ... - SOVNER - Cited by 35

Search Results
Which Antidepressant, Anti Depressant Induced Psychosis - Agonist ...
Read about Which Antidepressant, Anti Depressant Induced Psychosis.
agonist.org/Learning-Center/Which_Antidepressant,_Anti_Depressant_ Induced_Psychosis.htm - 9k - Cached - Similar pages -
Antidepressant-associated mania and psychosis resulting in ...
Antidepressant-associated mania and psychosis resulting in psychiatric admissions. ... Bipolar Disorder/chemically induced*; Bipolar Disorder/diagnosis ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11235925 - Similar pages -
by A Preda - 2001 - Cited by 42 - Related articles - All 4 versions
BP or Antidepressant-induced Mania
Q: BP or Antidepressant-induced Mania. Hi there; I was diagnosed with bipolar a month ago after a paxil induced mania/psychosis that was relatively severe. ...
www.bipolarworld.net/Phelps/ph_2002/ph721.htm - 15k - Cached - Similar pages -
Index to SSRI Stories
Mania & Psychosis, Antidepressants, 2004-02-02, U.S.A., ++200000 a Year Enter Hospital Due to Antidepressant- Induced Mania/ Psychosis: FDA Testimony ...
ssristories.com/index.php - 699k - Cached - Similar pages -
» Antidepressant Side Effects Cause Psychosis PSYCHIATRIC ...
18 Aug 2005 ... FDA Fails To Protect From Antidepressant Drug Side Effects ... likely that the actual rates of antidepressant-induced mania and/or psychosis ...
www.psychiatry.info/psychiatrists-in-the-news/antidepressant-side-effects- cause-psychosis/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages -
ICFDA SSRI Prescribing Draws Fire
were due to SSRI induced psychosis." Todd Zwillich, Senior Writer ... The number of doctor office visits including an antidepressant prescription more than ...
www.drugawareness.org/Archives/Miscellaneous/MRadmissions.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages -
Treatment emergent psychosis associated with mirtazapine and ...
risk of inducing psychosis. Cases of antidepressant-induced psychosis, in the absence of other causes, especially mania, should be followed up for as long ...
search.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/medjda/medjda_v5_n4_a6.pdf - Similar pages -
Plasma catecholamine metabolites in antidepressant-exacerbated ...
We have previously noted a significant number of hospitalizations secondary to antidepressant-induced psychosis and mania. ( Bowers et al., 1998). ...
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S016503270000327X - Similar pages -
by F Fortunati - 2002 - Cited by 4 - Related articles
[PDF] Suicidality, violence and mania caused by selective serotonin ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
admissions over a fourteen month period and found that 43 (8.1%) could be attributed to antidepressant- induced mania and/or psychosis. ...
www.breggin.com/31-49.pdf - Similar pages -
by PR Breggin - 2004 - Cited by 35 - Related articles - All 15 versions
Alternative Treatments For Drug Induced Psychosis - a ...
In fact, antidepressant-induced mania is generally regarded as one of the ... alleviate symptoms of psychosis in people with bipolar disorder and there . ...
www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/alternative-treatments-for-drug-induced- psychosis - 80k - Cached - Similar pages -

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Nutrition: The Key to Fixing Broken Brains

The Myth of Biological Depression - Lawrence Stevens - excerpt
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4679609/The-Myth-of-Biological-DepressionLawrence-Stevens
Mental Health and Nutrition
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6445206/Mental-Health-Nutrition

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Barnes Akathisia Scale


I visited the Wikipedia entry on Akathisia,
and learned that there is a scale to measure this iatrogenic disorder.
It's called the Barnes Scale. Read about it
here.