Bitter Pill

Furious Seasons blog owner Philip Dawdy's article on researcher Erick Turner's paper on unpublished anti-depressant efficacy data and what that meant for the class of drugs was reprinted in the Missoula Independent last Thursday. It originally ran in Willamette Week in April, so if you missed it the first time out, check it out. Link

Turner’s paper leaves little question that antidepressants don’t work nearly as well as conventional wisdom would have it. Of the 30 million daily users in this country, many millions would be no worse off if they took a placebo every day. Yet doctors continue to prescribe the drugs, people continue to take them, and Big Pharma rings up the sales.

One could argue, “What’s so wrong with that?” If people are helped by believing that something works, even if it is not medically true, doesn’t it still work?

Carlat, who called Turner’s work important, nevertheless argues that the question may not matter.

“The fact is, we’re not allowed to prescribe placebos in our practices, and we have patients coming to us and banging down our doors because they are miserable,” says Carlat. “We can’t offer them a sugar pill, but we can offer an antidepressant even if its effect is 80 percent sugar pill. A lot of our patients are getting better. That’s why we prescribe antidepressants even in the face of this recurrent data.”

However, there is evidence that taking antidepressants can be harmful to some people’s health. In recent years, the FDA has mandated warnings on all antidepressants due to elevated risks of suicide and suicidal thinking in some people under the age of 25 who take the drugs. In addition, antidepressants can cause very intense withdrawal problems for some patients, most notably with Effexor and Paxil. The drugs can also cause internal agitation—akathisia—in some patients, and, tragically, antidepressant use sometimes has been connected, however peripherally, to school shootings, most famously at Columbine High School in 1999, where one of the shooters, Eric Harris, had been taking Luvox.

There is also the not-insignificant cost of the drugs.

The mentally ill are victimized - MIND UK

Image after Kienholz. "The State Hospital"

The Mentally Ill Are Victimised

Psychiatric wards are "like pool halls...riddled with illicit drug use, bullying, and sometimes sexual intimidation". Nick Bowles, Bradford University School of Health Studies (Brindle, 2001).

"A 74-year-old was forced to have sex...in the mental health unit at Yardley Green Hospital, Birmingham...A male nurse...was charged with rape and sexual assault...but cleared of both charges. Prosecution and defence admitted the woman had been raped -but there was not enough evidence for a conviction. She died shortly afterwards." (Craven, N, and Merrick, J, 2006).

"The National Patient Safety Agency said there were at least 19 rapes of mental health patients in England, and more than 100 other improper sexual incidents in psychiatric units over the last two years...Eleven of the rapes were alleged to been by NHS staff, but the agency did not disclose whether staff were also involved in 20 cases of consensual sex, three unwanted pregnancies, and allegations of exposure, sexual advances and touching". (Carvel, J, Hall, S and Boseley, S, 2006).

"Patients were slapped, hit, stamped on, starved, kicked and taunted, a hospital trust admits" (Camber 2004).

"Essentially, if you are a mental patient, staff have a licence to assault you, and you have no protection whatsoever" (Justin Horton 2001).

"Low in the pecking order, it is tempting for nurses to vent frustrations on those even lower" (Nursing Times 1997).

"Institutions give inadequate people what they want - power ...many...people are inadequate and unfulfilled and they lust for power and control" (John Vaizey 1959).

"Both male and female bullies are drawn to the caring professions because of the opportunities for power and control over vulnerable clients" Tim Field (Feinmann, 2001).

"Patients detained in psychiatric hospitals are being denied basic human rights...according to the independent watchdog for mental health services" (Guardian 2001).

"Mind-melting drugs are still routinely administered to meet the needs of staff..." Christopher Barber, RCN Ethics Forum (Carvel, 2002).

"...drugs have become used more widely for sedating 'troublesome' residents..." (Matthew Akid 2002).

"...half of the cases of restraints in mental health are carried out in order to enforce medication..." (Mulholland, 2004).

"...up to 22,233 elderly nursing home residents are being given powerful anti-psychotics without medical grounds." (BBC 2003).

"...research found...an estimated 200 psychiatric patients died suddenly and unexpectedly each year in England...causes include... inappropriate restraint methods and high doses of medication" (Community Care 2000).

"There are so many rapes in children's and residential homes and psychiatric institutions because rapists know they can get away with it there" Harriet Wistrich -Solicitor (Taylor, 2001).

MIND's document on how the mentally ill are victimized continues here.

PharmFree: AMSA Releases PharmaFree Scorecard

Click to enlarge


PDF Link

AMSA Releases PharmFree Scorecard Grading Medical Schools' Policies On Pharmaceutical Company Access And Influence

Of all U.S. medical schools, only six received a grade of "A" on the American Medical Student Association's 2007 PharmFree Scorecard. The scorecard, which ranks medical schools according to their pharmaceutical influence policies, is the first of its kind and provides students with important new information about their medical school choices.

"It is important that we work to keep our medical schools and teaching hospitals free of the influence of pharmaceutical companies," said AMSA National President Jay Bhatt. "PharmFree medical students become PharmFree doctors and that commitment to evidence-based medicine benefits our patients and our colleagues."

The PharmFree campaign encourages medical schools and academic medical centers to develop policies that limit the access of pharmaceutical company representatives to their campuses and prohibit medical students and physicians from accepting gifts of any kind from these representatives.

Article continues at Link

Drug Reverses Mental Retardation in Mice

UCLA researchers discovered that an FDA-approved drug reverses mental retardation in mice with a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Because half of TSC patients also suffer from autism, the findings offer a possible mechanism for addressing learning disorders due to autism.

Drug Reverses Mental Retardation in Mice

Newswise — UCLA researchers discovered that an FDA-approved drug reverses the brain dysfunction inflicted by a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Because half of TSC patients also suffer from autism, the findings offer new hope for addressing learning disorders due to autism. Nature Medicine publishes the findings in its online June 22 edition.

Using a mouse model for TSC, the scientists tested rapamycin, a drug approved by the FDA to fight tissue rejection following organ transplants. Rapamycin is well-known for targeting an enzyme involved in making proteins needed for memory. The UCLA team chose it because the same enzyme is also regulated by TSC proteins.

“This is the first study to demonstrate that the drug rapamycin can repair learning deficits related to a genetic mutation that causes autism in humans. The same mutation in animals produces learning disorders, which we were able to eliminate in adult mice,” explained principal investigator Dr. Alcino Silva, professor of neurobiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Our work and other recent studies suggest that some forms of mental retardation can be reversed, even in the adult brain.”

“These findings challenge the theory that abnormal brain development is to blame for mental impairment in tuberous sclerosis,” added first author Dan Ehninger, postgraduate researcher in neurobiology. “Our research shows that the disease’s learning problems are caused by reversible changes in brain function -- not by permanent damage to the developing brain.”

Link

The single simplest thing that could be done to prevent retardation in children - see to it that they have sufficient IODINE from conception....

UK: Shrink declared plagiarist

Nice Rolex, Dr. Persaud.

The celebrity psychiatrist Raj Persaud was suspended from practising for three months today for passing off other scholars' work as his own.

The doctor, a regular on the television chat show This Morning and BBC Radio 4's All In The Mind, admitted plagiarism but denied his actions were dishonest and liable to bring his profession into disrepute.

A General Medical Council disciplinary hearing ruled that his "dishonest conduct" had undermined public confidence in the profession.

Story here.


We used to expect better from
the BBC.

Psychiatry is based on flawed theories, half-truths and lies; so in the overall picture of its dishonesty, this hardly matters....
If Persaud stole flawed and fraudulent materials, the charges should be different.

Drugging Children to Keep Them Quiet

Here is a blast from Merzenich on drugs for the "bipolar child".

Are pharmaceutical companies behind Chemtrials?

About 3 minutes into this video, you will see....

Why Doctors Can't Think

Overconfidence.
Arrogance.
Addiction.
Miseducation.
Greed.

How Prozac killed poetry: Leonard Cohen on antidepressants

"It's been 15 years since I stood up on the stage. Fifteen years ago when I was 60 - a young kid with a crazy dream - then I took a lot of Prozac." Then he reeled off the names of other prescription mood-enhancers he had taken over the years.

Did Leonard Cohen lose 15 years to antidepressants?

Jacob's Ladder Redux: Military being used as pharma guinea pigs

Washington Times report is here.

H/T and thanks to Furious Seasons.

The Chemical Dumbing-Down of America

The Globalization of Pharma

Click on image to enlarge
India, China Becoming Centers of Pharmaceutical R&D, Study Finds

Big pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson are increasingly relying on China and India for advanced research and development, a new study funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation finds.

According to the study, The Globalization of Innovation: Pharmaceuticals; Can India and China Cure the Global Pharmaceutical Market? (67 pages, PDF), Indian and Chinese scientists are rapidly developing the ability to innovate and create their own intellectual property as a result of multinational pharmaceutical companies moving R&D operations to their countries. The symbiotic relationships have enabled multinational firms to cut costs and broaden capacity while pharmaceutical firms in China and India gain revenue and develop expertise. In 2006, 5.5 percent of all global pharmaceutical patent applications named one or more inventors located in India, while 8.4 percent named one or more located in China — a fourfold increase from 1995.

In the study, the authors analyzed the business models, value-chain activities, partnerships, and technology capabilities of more than a hundred Chinese and Indian pharmaceutical firms. They found Indian and Chinese companies were making strides in the most lucrative segments of global value chains, while also prevailing in less lucrative segments, such as preclinical testing, animal experimentation, and manufacturing. However, since firms in those countries rarely have the capital and the regulatory expertise to develop a drug beyond phase II clinical trials, the commercial development of new intellectual property necessitates relationships with major multinational corporations.
from http://foundationcenter.org

pdf here

From Heroin to Methadone

Heroin used to be a big - and legal - seller for Bayer. Now a big moneymaker for Eli Lilly and other Pharma companies is Methadone.
However, Methadone is not needed if addicts are permitted to withdraw with Vitamin C.
Look at this introduction to the work of Dr. Alexander Schauss - pdf here - and learn about the Opium Wars here - and follow the money.

From the New York Times: Legal drugs cause more deaths than illegal ones.
No surprise....

Students relying on Ritalin at College: Generation Rx

Graduation is one of the most exciting events students have to look forward to this time of year. Before they can take the big walk in cap and gown for a diploma, they have to suffer through a rite of passage with which every student is familiar: finals week.

Cramming for those last few papers and exams can mean pulling all-nighters with lots of caffeine. But, rather than starting another pot of coffee, today's students are getting a much more efficient – and dangerous – push toward the finish line.

Since the debut of Ritalin, reliance on prescription analeptics, a class of amphetamines that is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, has become as commonplace as the traditional cup of strong coffee, according to an article by the New York Times.

As many as 20 percent of college students have used Ritalin or Adderall to study, write papers and take exams when the going gets tough, turning students with legitimate prescriptions into small-time campus drug dealers.

Article continues here

A Mighty Judgement Coming: Medical system responsible for sickness

Mr.Bean Hell - No pharma or med folks here yet, but there's "a mighty judgement coming".


Article at Sepp's place - go here

Most Diseases Caused by Medical System?

Medical treatments, pharmaceutical drugs and decisions based on wrong information are responsible for causing an epidemic of disease throughout the western world.
This is how Nexus Magazine introduces an article by Walter Last, a biochemist and research chemist who worked at several German universities and at Bio-Science Laboratories in Los Angeles. Last analyzes some of the glaring inconsistencies which a unique combination of pharmaceutical funding and a business approach to disease have produced in western medicine.

The article as published by Nexus is available on Walter Last's website and I suggest you take the time to read the original with citation of the documents it is based on. You can find it here:

http://www.health-science-spirit.com/medicaldisease.html

Now you can say that Ive grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And theres a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the tower of song
~ Leonard Cohen

Pharma's GSK promises a new source of GAS: "Alli"

If GSK's petition is approved, we won't have supplements any more - but the gas problem will be solved!

Listen to the wavs of the future here.

CANADA: Bills C-51 and 52 - "Stick these Bills in their Panzershreck and smoke it"

CONSERVATIVES ARE ANGRY AND RESIGNING FROM THE PARTY
OVER BILLS C 51 AND C 52 -----READ ANOTHER HEALTH CANADA HORROR STORY BELOW!

From: Ken Dyck
To: Bill Blaikie
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 11:27 PM
Subject: Bill C-51 & Bill C-52

Hi Mr. Blaikie,

This is a copy of a letter sent to the Bill C-51 Committee tendering my resignation from the PC party. If you are in opposition to Bill C-51 and C-52, you have my support and vote. I am one of the constituents in your Transcona-Elmwood riding. Please help me defeat these Bills. You may you use this and the letter below in any way you see fit to affect the passing of those two Bills. I'm angry and not as cordial as I usually am, but this is how I feel.

Sincerely,

Ken Dyck
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Dear Bill C-51 Committee Members,

I am outraged that our party, of which I am an honorary trustee campaign member, has presented to the House such treasonous pieces of legislation. The Spirit and Letter of these Bills C-51 & C-52 have nothing to do with protecting Canadians with poor quality health products, but rather the destruction of the natural health industry in Canada. These Bills will go farther than just allowing Health Canada to break the existing laws of the country, it will allow Health Canada to operate outside of the court system.

Seven years ago I fell victim to Health Canada not allowing a naturally formulated product {extremely anti-pathogenic} to be registered. Currently my brother-in-law has tried to register an all natural single ingredient product that has also been denied in the agricultural sector. Our two products and others like it would have inflicted heavy damage to the pharmaceutical companies' established market {in our opinion} while simultaneously improving the health of livestock and food chain in Canada. In our own product trials that we had conducted on numerous farms, we had completely eliminated the need for antibiotics or drugs of any kind while producing superior animals.

To add insult to injury, my brother-in-law's product was classified by Health Canada as a drug because it was too potent to be considered just another natural product. I have had other friends and associates that have had their products seized without warrant or court order under the allegation that those products were tainted with heavy metals and poisonous substances. These allegations were proved to be false by two independent lab tests but not before they were discredited on national TV by Health Canada, and internationally on the Health Canada web site. This is something that is happening right now even though there are no legal provisions do to so. The proposed legislation will also give Health Canada the power to seize bank accounts, again without a court order. They will become the judge, the jury, and the executioner modeled after Judge Dread of Marvel Comic fame. The only difference in the comic book version, Judge Dread went after the drug companies {sorry, I meant drug pushers}.

Tony Clement and Health Canada are trampling on the Constitution and the Charter and SO ARE YOU.

I have had to make the decision to remove myself from the party membership until the proponents of these two Bills are no longer with the party. I cannot in good conscience be affiliated with a party that would even consider presenting Bills like this to the House. This is high treason.

You must also consider the fact the Tony Clement may have a conflict of interest. These Bills are written in the tradition of the Liberal Party and the Communist Party, NOT the Conservative Party.

Please consider this my resignation from the party. I will be calling the office on Monday. Tony Clement and his goose stepping morons at Health Canada can stick these Bills in their Panzershreck and smoke it.

Cheers,

Ken Dyck
With thanks to Chris Gupta



Tony Clement owns 25% stake in drug company - pdf here

And more here -
SHARE with us, Tony!

And don't miss VITALITY's article, here.

Harvard doc pushes Ritalin, reaps $1.6M

Harvard Psychiatrist Didn’t Report Pharma Income

A Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of antipsychotics in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drugmakers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of the income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators, The New York Times reports.
By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Timothy Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules governing conflicts of interest, US Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican tells the Times, since some of their research is financed by government grants.

Wow!

Follow the money!
Visit Dr. Biederman here

Ironically, pro-force psych profiteer E. Fuller Torrey comments here:
“The price we pay for these kinds of revelations is credibility, and we just can’t afford to lose any more of that in this field,” said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which finances psychiatric studies. “In the area of child psychiatry in particular, we know much less than we should, and we desperately need research that is not influenced by industry money.” (NYT)


Brains... they need brains...
Instances of deliberate breach of policy, including failure to file or knowingly filing an incomplete, erroneous, or misleading disclosure form, violations of the guidelines or failure to comply with prescribed monitoring procedures, will be adjudicated in accordance with applicable disciplinary policies and procedures of the Faculty of Medicine and of the affiliated hospitals. Possible sanctions will include the following:
1. Formal admonition;
2. The inclusion in the Faculty Member's file of a letter from the Office of the Dean indicating that the individual's good standing as a member of the Faculty has been called into question;
3. Ineligibility of the Faculty Member for grant applications, Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, or supervision of graduate students;
4. Non-renewal of appointment;
5. Dismissal from the Faculty of Medicine.
http://www.hms.harvard.edu/integrity/conf.html

Doll Face

Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights: Viagra

http://en.wikipedia.org.Hieronymus.Bosch

Yes, We Have No Facebook

Pharmaceuticals Anonymous does not have an authorized social networking group at Facebook.
Adbusters comments on Facebook






http://www.vinylwallart.com/images/owl5.jpg

New York Times: Mapping the Disease Genomes

Access the map here.
Article: Redefining Disease, Genes and All