Warning: contains materials related to sexual abuse of minors, and may trigger for some.
"Sisters in Law director Kim Longinotto brings viewers an intimate portrait of change in Africa with this documentary following the efforts of five women in ensuring that the abused and forgotten children of Durban, South Africa still have a fighting chance despite getting a rough start in life. Thuli, Mildred, Sudula, Jackie, and Eureka are a multiracial cadre of women who have dedicated their lives to the common cause of helping the most vulnerable and disenfranchised components of their communities - the children. Together, these five women form a united force powerful enough to overcome social and racial divisions while doing battle against the destructive forces of corruption, greed, and apathy. In post-apartheid South Africa, it's the hope and energy of groups like the Rough Aunties that help to transform a nation while inspiring positive change." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
A movie has been made about the "Rough Aunties" - and it has taken the Sundance Film Festival by storm.
Link
The film is reviewed here.
"Operation Bobbi Bear exists to:
Rescue and uphold the rights of sexually abused children.
Minimise their risk of HIV infection.
Help them towards wholeness."
Looks like one Rough Auntie is better for peace of mind than any number of tranquilizers. Make a donation and become a Rough Auntie: http://roughaunties.com/
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
London, Ontario - WOTCH
From the site:
"WOTCH Community Mental Health Services is dedicated to serving adults in South Western Ontario who live with serious mental illness. The skilled mental health professionals at WOTCH help clients achieve realistic goals and to live interdependently within the community.
With a history extending back to 1970, WOTCH (Western Ontario Therapeutic Community Hostel) is the lead agency in Middlesex County for mental health housing and is a strong component in the mental health support system in the areas of case management, community integration and life skills support, employment programs, treatment programs, clinical programs and women's mental health programs.
Approximately 120 employees provide service to more than 1,000 adult clients annually. WOTCH is a registered non-profit corporation and a registered charitable organization. WOTCH programs and services are governed by an independent Board of Trustees."
That's quite a lot of medico-social work jobs.
Here is the information on the site about what is offered at this program:
"Clinics and groups are offered to individuals as well as one-on-one assessments and interventions that include:
* Consultation Clinic with a psychiatrist
* Medical Clinic with a family physician
* Diabetes screening and self management program
* Free Foot care Clinics
* Collective Kitchen
* Nutrition Clinic"
We will enquire further as to the components of WOTCH "assessments" and the "nutrition clinic" to determine if they know about the 29 CAUSES OF SCHIZOPHRENIA.
Nutrition is the basis of good mental and physical health. "Nutrition Clinic"is last on this group's list, but Psychiatrist is first. We fear that clients in this program will be given drugs which merely substitute one problem for another - and necessitate yet another intervention, or morbidity and early mortality. See Anatomy of an Epidemic.
The staff have really nice clothes, though.
OBIT: Colin Downes-Grainger, Benzo Activist
Sad news - Colin Downes-Grainger, one of the best writers in the fight for sanity in pharmaceutical psychoactive drug use, has died. A terrible loss.
We will miss him very much. But his work remains.
PRESCRIPTION FOR INJURY
Colin Downes-Grainger
August, 2007
"This book examines the question of how it is that medicine inflicts widespread damage through mind altering drugs in particular but also a range of other drugs. It goes into the reasons why so often dangerous drugs are sold to regulators and doctors as safe and it is left to patients to discover later that this is far from true. The history of tranquillisers has been pulled together to show that doctors are not as expert as they think they are when they prescribe, that drug companies routinely exploit the existing medical system in the UK, that politicians and regulators fail to protect public health while saying that they do and that the British legal system allows almost no possibility of redress.
The Department of Health has no idea how many have been affected by tranquillisers, SSRIs and many other controversial drugs, and it does not seem to want to know. But many thousands have told their stories in the media and on the internet. The thousands who died have sadly been unable to tell their stories. In respect of tranquillisers, some people who died or who were injured did not themselves take the drugs-they were killed or injured in accidents by those who had. The benzodiazepine story is most notable because of the huge numbers of people to whom tranquillisers were prescribed-and because many of them subsequently became very sick due to over-prescribing. The history of tranquillisers is a clear description of a system which out-sources drug production to profit motivated private enterprise but then maintains a system of drugs regulation which it is almost impossible to penetrate. Medicine, Pharma and politicians defend what happens to patients in order to defend the system they have jointly created. This is the reason why they show no desire to listen, and continue to learn nothing from the chequered history of drugs.
Prescription for Injury shows clearly what the UK government would not wish included in its description of 'our way of life' - including what benzodiazepines have done to a great many patients for nearly fifty years. The question might be asked, "Is the first duty of the state really the protection of its citizens?" If it is then government has failed to protect. This examination of the past raises the suspicion that the maintenance of a failing but profitable system and the avoidance of responsibility, is seen by government as being politically more desirable than the introduction of an efficient protective healthcare agenda. The only protections that patients have against drug disasters are the enlightenment of doctors, strictly honest science and effective regulation, but all of these health safeguards have regularly failed in the past, particularly with psychotropic drugs, and the true enormity of these failings is clearly illustrated by benzodiazepines. The book is now available online."
Click to download the PDF file here.
Thank you, Colin.
We will miss him very much. But his work remains.
PRESCRIPTION FOR INJURY
Colin Downes-Grainger
August, 2007
"This book examines the question of how it is that medicine inflicts widespread damage through mind altering drugs in particular but also a range of other drugs. It goes into the reasons why so often dangerous drugs are sold to regulators and doctors as safe and it is left to patients to discover later that this is far from true. The history of tranquillisers has been pulled together to show that doctors are not as expert as they think they are when they prescribe, that drug companies routinely exploit the existing medical system in the UK, that politicians and regulators fail to protect public health while saying that they do and that the British legal system allows almost no possibility of redress.
The Department of Health has no idea how many have been affected by tranquillisers, SSRIs and many other controversial drugs, and it does not seem to want to know. But many thousands have told their stories in the media and on the internet. The thousands who died have sadly been unable to tell their stories. In respect of tranquillisers, some people who died or who were injured did not themselves take the drugs-they were killed or injured in accidents by those who had. The benzodiazepine story is most notable because of the huge numbers of people to whom tranquillisers were prescribed-and because many of them subsequently became very sick due to over-prescribing. The history of tranquillisers is a clear description of a system which out-sources drug production to profit motivated private enterprise but then maintains a system of drugs regulation which it is almost impossible to penetrate. Medicine, Pharma and politicians defend what happens to patients in order to defend the system they have jointly created. This is the reason why they show no desire to listen, and continue to learn nothing from the chequered history of drugs.
Prescription for Injury shows clearly what the UK government would not wish included in its description of 'our way of life' - including what benzodiazepines have done to a great many patients for nearly fifty years. The question might be asked, "Is the first duty of the state really the protection of its citizens?" If it is then government has failed to protect. This examination of the past raises the suspicion that the maintenance of a failing but profitable system and the avoidance of responsibility, is seen by government as being politically more desirable than the introduction of an efficient protective healthcare agenda. The only protections that patients have against drug disasters are the enlightenment of doctors, strictly honest science and effective regulation, but all of these health safeguards have regularly failed in the past, particularly with psychotropic drugs, and the true enormity of these failings is clearly illustrated by benzodiazepines. The book is now available online."
Click to download the PDF file here.
Thank you, Colin.
Nicotinic receptor - and Niacin
"AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group, today announced its biggest deal of the year with a plan to tap into the global market for antidepressants, estimated to be worth more than $20bn (£12bn).
The company, headed by David Brennan, is teaming up with US biotech specialist Targacept, which is developing an antidepressant drug that works on the brain in a different way to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and Seroxat, known as Paxil in the United States.
Under the terms of the transaction, AstraZeneca will pay Targacept $200m and a further $1bn if the medicine gets regulatory clearance and meets certain sales targets. The drug will undergo final clinical trials over the next year and is expected to be filed with the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, in 2012.
The licensing agreement means that Brennan's company will contribute to further development costs and market the drug worldwide, providing it gets regulatory clearance.
According to AstraZeneca, the deal is significant because the new product could offer a new alternative to millions of people whose depression fails to respond to SSRIs. A recent study found that SSRIs did not work for up to two-thirds of patients."
Link
"Targacept, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the design, discovery and development of NNR Therapeutics(TM), a new class of drugs for the treatment of multiple diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. Our NNR Therapeutics selectively target neuronal nicotinic receptors, or NNRs. NNRs are found on nerve cells throughout the nervous system and serve as key regulators of nervous system activity.
We currently have a robust clinical-stage product pipeline and multiple preclinical product candidates. Our most advanced product candidates are in development for major depressive disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.
Targacept is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina."
Targacept
Nicotinic receptors indicate NIACIN - Vitamin B3 - which has health-restoring effects in ALL of the conditions
mentioned above. If Niacin does no harm and is cheap, why not try B3 first?
Image: The Emperor's New Clothes
The company, headed by David Brennan, is teaming up with US biotech specialist Targacept, which is developing an antidepressant drug that works on the brain in a different way to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and Seroxat, known as Paxil in the United States.
Under the terms of the transaction, AstraZeneca will pay Targacept $200m and a further $1bn if the medicine gets regulatory clearance and meets certain sales targets. The drug will undergo final clinical trials over the next year and is expected to be filed with the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, in 2012.
The licensing agreement means that Brennan's company will contribute to further development costs and market the drug worldwide, providing it gets regulatory clearance.
According to AstraZeneca, the deal is significant because the new product could offer a new alternative to millions of people whose depression fails to respond to SSRIs. A recent study found that SSRIs did not work for up to two-thirds of patients."
Link
"Targacept, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the design, discovery and development of NNR Therapeutics(TM), a new class of drugs for the treatment of multiple diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. Our NNR Therapeutics selectively target neuronal nicotinic receptors, or NNRs. NNRs are found on nerve cells throughout the nervous system and serve as key regulators of nervous system activity.
We currently have a robust clinical-stage product pipeline and multiple preclinical product candidates. Our most advanced product candidates are in development for major depressive disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.
Targacept is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina."
Targacept
Nicotinic receptors indicate NIACIN - Vitamin B3 - which has health-restoring effects in ALL of the conditions
mentioned above. If Niacin does no harm and is cheap, why not try B3 first?
Image: The Emperor's New Clothes
NATURE: Pharmaceutical industry financial UNDERperformance
Pharmaceutical industry financial performance
doi:10.1038/nrd3049
Only 2 of the 14 large–cap pharmaceutical companies are predicted to have a positive net present value gap against a 5% compound annual growth rate in revenue for the period 2009–2015.
Oh noes...
Link
doi:10.1038/nrd3049
Only 2 of the 14 large–cap pharmaceutical companies are predicted to have a positive net present value gap against a 5% compound annual growth rate in revenue for the period 2009–2015.
Oh noes...
Link
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
USA: Pennsylvania Prisons Allegedly Bribed Judges to Sentence Kids
"Spread over two years of court cases, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are accused of taking more than $2.6 million in payoffs to sentence minors to detention centers.
Dealing exclusively with private institutions, as Conahan had helped shutter the county-run center in 2002, the judges are alleged to have received bribes from detention facilities that were paid by the county on a daily basis.
Though they had agreed to contracts with the county, the centers would ultimately receive payment according to the number of offenders they housed.
The high number of incarcerations, the fact that many underage offenders were presented without an attorney and the excessive punishments doled out for small, often first-time offenses raised suspicions among the local legal community.
Both judges have been removed from the bench and are expected to plead guilty.
Although the Wilkes-Barre case is exceptional for the high number and value of the bribes paid, it is hardly an isolated case on the international stage.
According to a 2007 study conducted by Transparency International, of 62 nations surveyed, 25 found that 1 in 10 households reported having paid a bride to access their court system."
We ask: How many of these kids were put on psychotropic drugs?
To read the rest of the article and to access important documents regarding the case, please go to this link.
To read our previous entries on the prison industry, go here.
NYT: Mystery Shoppers Check Out Conditions in Psychiatric Ward
EDE, the Netherlands
Link
The Rosenhan "Thud" Experiment
Surrounded by manicured greenery, the closed-off ward of the complex, known as De Riethorst, recalls a suburban dental clinic, and its sunny gymnasium and carpeted hallways do little to suggest that it houses up to a dozen acute psychiatric patients, many of whom are there involuntarily.
And that is why the undercover participants were all experienced psychiatric nurses. “You couldn’t have done it otherwise,” said Edo De Vries, the director of De Gelderse Roos, which released the results of the project last summer.
It and Clearfields are working on a project for 2010, most likely to involve five to eight psychiatric hospitals in the Netherlands.
Mr. De Vries said the impetus for the project came in part from a pair of patient deaths last year in psychiatric facilities in Amsterdam — one involving a suicide, the other a man who choked on food while locked in an isolation cell. Several managers and staff members were fired as a result, and others were suspended.
“Of course, incidents can happen anywhere,” Mr. De Vries said. “But what if there is something structurally wrong that we don’t know about? We have to be more transparent, and I think this method is a good tool for that.”
Link
The Rosenhan "Thud" Experiment
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
