Psychology Today interviews Dr. David Healy

The interview is here.
A follow-up blog here got this response from us:

In the 1950's, an American TV show host shocked the nation and made everyone laugh by testing a product he advertised on his show. The host was, I think, Arthur Godfrey; the product was dog food.

We applaud the work of Dr. Healy and other physicians who ask hard questions, of Senator Grassley and the patient-consumer movement in exposing the ties between pharma and the mental health industry.

Exposing and cutting pharma perks might not be as effective as establishing - let's call it the Fido Rule: Anyone who writes assessments of drugs the pharmaceutical companies have on offer must *try* them.

Ready for your medicine, Dr. Ghaemi?

Canadians spend $30 Billion a Year on Medications

That CAN'T be healthy.
Link
PDF
Two thoughts:
The father of medicine said "Let your food be your medicine"
and
Are we medicating for nutritional deficiencies? Do we take laxatives when extra fiber and Vitamin C would put us right?

Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disease

Britney Spears' manager gave her medication
It seems there wasn't much bipolar disease before certain psychiatric drugs were put into use by physicians.

"Has the pharmaceutical industry become the Pied Piper of Hamelin–ridding us of lethal diseases only to turn around and “take” our children?
Would a physician from the 1950s “have identified the frenzy to treat bipolar disorders in infants that developed in twenty-first-century American as a mania?”

In his latest book, Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disease (the John Hopkins University Press) David Healy, author of Let Them Eat Prozac, looks at the historic roots of our current “medicalized distress” in which half the population is said to suffer a mental illness at some point in life and babies are diagnosed in utero as bipolar.

Bipolar disorder, once called manic depression, has been embroiled in controversy from its first descriptions in Paris in the 1850s. The pharmaceutical companies and academics behind its current popularity as a “catch-all” disease say it dates back to the ancient Greeks.

But David Healy, professor of psychiatry and the director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University, is not so sure.

References to the frenzied behavior of mental patients found in Hippocrates’ Epidemics books 1 and III, Plato’s Phaedrus and other early writings almost certainly referred to infective states and not what we mean by bipolar disorder
infective disorders with high fevers, hysteria, postpartum manias, catalepsies and melancholies developing into manias, he writes.

Even if the disorder existed before direct-to-consumer television advertising beamed its warning signs into living rooms, it was rare says Healy. Between 1875 and 1924 only 123 patients from North West Wales were admitted to the asylum in North Wales with what we would today call bipolar disorder from a population of a quarter of a million or 12,500,000 person years."

Hmmm... Link
We suspect, too, that nutritional deficiencies have something to do with this.

UK: Four psychiatric patients in NHS care die every day

Link

Psychology Today Interviews Furious Seasons' Philip Dawdy

"The bipolar child is a purely American phenomenon": An interview with Philip Dawdy

By Christopher Lane, Ph.D. on April 7, 2009 - 12:17pm in Side Effects

Philip Dawdy, a prize-winning investigative journalist, has for several years written a powerful, well-researched, and well-regarded weblog, Furious Seasons, which focuses on American psychiatry, mental health, and the way we think about treatment options. Given his intensive work on the issues, I wanted to ask him several burning questions about ADHD, bipolar disorder, and other controversies in American psychiatry.

You've written extensively about the psychiatric diagnosis of teens and preschoolers. How do you account for the astonishing rise in the number of diagnoses we're seeing in these age groups, especially with regard to ADHD and bipolar disorder?

To me, you can lay all of this squarely at the feet of the pharma companies, which had a slew of newish drugs come online in the 80s and 90s and wanted them taken by as many humans as possible—consequences for the patients be damned—and a crew of child psychiatrists at Harvard/MGH who see deeply-flawed, ill-for-life children where other psychiatrists might see personality disorders and issues that will burn out over time. The pharma companies and the Harvard crew worked hand-in-hand to bring America a generation of ADHD kids and bipolar children, and their profound influence can be seen in the millions of children and teens who now carry lifetime diagnoses and take gobs of psychotropic drugs each day, often to their detriment.

That may sound extreme to some people, but it's worth noting that the rest of the world has not embraced these diagnostic and treatment paradigms—except Britain, where there was an initial embrace of ADHD and stimulants, but where there's now a significant backlash. Meanwhile, in France and Italy ADHD is rarely diagnosed and it's difficult to see where French and Italian culture have suffered as a result. As for bipolar disorder in kids (meaning pre-teens and younger), it's simply not an issue in the rest of the world. The bipolar child is a purely American phenomenon, as big a metaphor of our times as credit swaps, subprime loans, and government bailouts.

Continues at Link

Bloomberg: NAMI to be probed re Pharma ties

Grassley Probes Financing of Advocacy Group for Mental Health
By Nicole Gaouette

April 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Charles Grassley expanded his investigation into drug company influence on the practice of medicine by asking a nonprofit mental-health- advocacy group about its funding.

In a letter sent today to the National Alliance for Mental Illness, based in Arlington, Virginia, Grassley asked the nonprofit group to disclose any financial backing from drug companies or from foundations created by the industry.

The Iowa Republican, in a series of hearings and investigations, has focused on financial ties between the drug industry, doctors and academic institutions. His efforts have led New York-based Pfizer Inc. to begin disclosing consulting payments to U.S. doctors, and Harvard Medical School in Boston to reexamine its conflict-of-interest policies. Now Grassley is expanding his inquiries to nonprofit groups.

“I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry shapes the practices of nonprofit organizations which purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions,” Grassley wrote in his letter.

Officials at the National Alliance for Mental Illness didn’t return calls for comment.

Link

Thank Senator Grassley - or contact him with your concerns - here.

Read the Bonkers Institute's response to Senator Grassley's initiative here.

Corporate Corruption, and the Hijacking of Our Food Supply

Image adapted from graphics bank at Cornell U. Link


Health activist extraordinaire HELKE FERRIE tells it like it is regarding the powers in charge of our health, with special focus on Bill C-6 in Canada.
The article begins with a memorable quote:

Corporate Corruption, and the Hijacking of Our Food Supply
by Helke Ferrie
What is wrong with the world today? I’ll tell you what’s wrong – short-term thinking, which is the sign of a disease called arrogance. Those suffering from the disease, however, want us to believe that they are actually the world’s great protectors. The feverish rush for short-term gain is as old as history. The kings, emperors, and popes of antiquity, the dictators of the 20th century, along with big business and the governments they hijacked, all do as their ancestors did: disguise their message inside protestations of safety and offers of protection. But today we have the Internet, an educated distrusting public, and humanity has developed an attitude of disobedience. Besides, we are all getting very bored with this racket.