Robert Whitaker: Rethinking Psychiatric Care

From the Buffalo Center for Social Research













Watch Robert Whitaker's presentation:
Rethinking Psychiatric Care: If We Follow the Scientific Evidence, What Must We do To Better Promote Long-Term Recovery?
http://stream.buffalo.edu/shared/sw/research/whitaker.html

Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of adults and children disabled by mental illness skyrocketed over the past fifty years? There are now more than four million people in the United States who receive a government disability check because of a mental illness, and the number continues to soar. Every day, 850 adults and 250 children with a mental illness are added to the government disability rolls. What is going on?
http://www.robertwhitaker.org/robertwhitaker.org/Anatomy%20of%20an%20Epidemic.html

Western fast-food diet could be major cause of ADHD

Western fast-food diet could be major cause of ADHD

Attention deficient disorder (ADHD) is a growing problem, afflicting around 5 per cent of children. Now researchers say they have pinpointed one of its main causes. Adolescents who eat a Western diet of fast food - processed, fried and refined meals – are twice as likely to suffer from ADHD as those who mainly eat healthier fare. A processed, fast food diet is very low in fatty acids, and high in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar and sodium. Omega-3 fatty acids, folate and fibre - which can be found in fish, whole grains, fruits and vegetables – help develop mental health, and aid optimal brain function. Researchers at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth, Australia studied the diets of around 1800 adolescents aged up to 14 years. Of these, 115 had been diagnosed with ADHD. Prof Wendy Oddy, who headed up the research, said that the fastfood diet also wasn’t providing enough micronutrients that can aid attention and concentration.

Source: Journal of Attention Disorders, 2010; doi: 10.1177/1087054710365990

Medicating Children: A “Whistleblower’s” Lawsuit Raises a Novel Legal Question

From Robert Whitaker's Blog, MAD IN AMERICA, at Psychology Today

"In the past few years, a number of pharmaceutical companies have admitted to federal charges that they illegally
marketed psychiatric medications for non-approved uses, with the companies paying large sums to settle the cases.
Now, a legal complaint filed by the Law Project for Psychiatric Rightsin an Alaskan federal court is raising a
related question. When healthcare providers bill Medicaid for prescriptions of psychiatric drugs to children for non-
approved uses, are they committing Medicaid fraud?
The case, United States ex-rel Law Project for Psychiatric Rights v. Matsutani, was unsealed earlier this year, and
legal papers were recently filed that have brought this novel question -- which obviously has profound implications
for the prescribing of psychiatric medications to poor children and adolescents -- into sharp focus.
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) , which is headed by Alaskan attorney James Gottstein, filed its
whistleblower complaint in April 2009. Known as a qui tam lawsuit, PsychRights sued on behalf of the federal
government under the False Claims Act, which allows private individuals to pursue legal complaints against
individuals or companies that are allegedly defrauding the government. In December, the federal government
declined to join PsychRights in the case.
PsychRights named Alaskan state officials, hospitals, mental health agencies, psychiatrists, and pharmacies as
defendants. In its complaint, PsychRights argues that the federal government has agreed to provide Medicaid
reimbursement only for those outpatient drugs that are prescribed for an FDA-approved use or for a use supported
by a medical compendium (such as the DRUGDEX Information System.) PsychRights maintains that the defendants
defrauded the federal government when they billed Medicaid (or the federal Children's Health Insurance Program)
for outpatient drugs that didn't meet this standard.
As part of its complaint, PsychRights identified 16 commonly prescribed psychiatric medications that have no
"medically accepted indication" for youth under 18 years old, and it also identified the limited number of "medically
accepted indications" that exist for 32 other psychiatric drugs. PsychRights compiled this list of "approved" uses by
methodically going through the drug compendiums, and it serves as the evidential heart of the complaint, for it
reveals that psychiatric medications are regularly prescribed to poor children for non-approved uses. PsychRights is asking the federal court to stop this practice (which it argues is harmful), and to pay hefty financial penalties for the fraudulent claims made to date."

Riveting! Thank you, Robert Whitaker.

Read the rest at
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/

Some of our previous posts on Robert Whitaker's views and anti-psych meds articles -

http://www.thestreetspirit.org.
This site is owned by The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC),
a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice and peace.

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/mad.htm

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/madinterview.htm

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/leonards.htm

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/zyprexa.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20071119112008/http://www.namiscc.org/newsletters/February02/JohnNashDrugFreeRecovery.htm

http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/12/us-kids-represent-psychiatric-goldmine.html

http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2008/05/royal-recovery-from-schizophrenia.html

Microchipping: Pets, People and Cancer

Is your pet microchipped? Have you thought about getting a chip implanted in yourself or a loved one? Then you will definitely want to have a look at this information.

Giant Babies, Obesity: Are chemicals in plastics to blame?

Are plastic chemical compounds in the environment behind the birth of giant babies and the epidemic of obesity?
Link
Our Stolen Future

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.

April 20th: Anniversary of Columbine Shooting

Today marks a sad anniversary - the
Columbine High School massacre. Did medications cause the Columbine shootings - and many others?


Film by Gary Null, 2005

'In the absence of any objective medical tests to determine who has ADD or ADHD, doctors rely in part on standardized assessments and the impressions of teachers and guardians while the they administer leave little room for other causes or aggravating factors, such as diet, or environment. Hence, diagnosing a child or adolescent with ADD or ADHD is often the outcome, although no organic basis for either disease has yet to be clinically proven. Psychiatrists may then prescribe psychotropic drugs for the children without first without making it clear to parents that these medications can have severe side-effects including insomnia, loss of appetite, headaches, psychotic symptoms and even potentially fatal adverse reactions, such as cardiac arrhythmia. And yet, despite these dangers, many school systems actually work with government agencies to force parents to drug their children, threatening those who refuse with the prospect of having their children taken from the home unless they coooperate.'

PDF: Treatment-related mania: antidepressants can cause bipolar disorder

Since product infomation documents and inserts WARN of these very side effects, isn't it time we stopped this?

Statistics on antidepressant murders, suicides and other tragedies are here

This is Dr. Ann Blake Tracy's site on the dangers of psychotropic drugs: Drugawareness.org

ADHD drugs make children hallucinate

Image from this article
Article here.

Generation Rx - the Film

"They're depriving children of their souls..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7900bL60Xbc

www.GenerationRXFilm.com
"GENERATION RX examines a culture of medicine and corruption, documenting how more and more children have been drugged with psychiatric medications earlier, and more often, than ever before.
The film uncovers a pattern of collusion between drug manufacturers and their regulatory watchdogs at the FDA - of evidence hidden from the general public, despite the risks being well-known long before antidepressant drugs were approved for the marketplace.
Ultimately, Generation RX may help parents decide whether the perceived benefits of these medications outweigh the serious risks to children."

The Rat Race: Benefits of Omega 3 Fatty Acids

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

Dr. Peter Breggin: Children Poisoning Themselves with Psychiatric Drugs

Led by psychiatry and the drug companies, society is discouraging children from becoming masters of their own lives and encouraging them to become lifelong consumers of psychiatric drugs. Spellbound by these drugs -- that is, rendered unable to perceive their drug-induced mental dysfunction -- the grown adults will accept functioning on a lower level without realizing what they are missing in the way of a drug-free, fully alert mind. This is great news for unscrupulous members of the medical and psychiatric professions, and even greater news for the pharmaceutical industry. But it's terrible news for our children and youth, and the bad news may extent into adulthood. Because their brains have been thrown into biochemical imbalance by years of exposure to psychiatric drugs, many adults find it difficult to go on living without taking more psychiatric drugs. They cannot stop taking stimulants, tranquilizers, antidepressants, neuroleptics or mood stabilizers because the withdrawal reactions have become too long severe and lasting or even permanent. It's time to stop the process in childhood. It's time to stop prescribing psychiatric medications to our children and instead to provide them needed improvements in the home, school and community.

Read the whole article at the Huffington Post


Dr. Breggin's site

Humor: 26 Week Old Fetus Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder

Biting satire here

Dr. Sears: Does your child have N.D.D.?

Want some candy? - Hansel and Gretel image by Batchelor, from the golden age of children's book illustration.
Dr. Sears tells us your child may have not A.D.D. but Nutritional Deficiency Disorder.
Get the MIND Guide to Mood and Food here
Read about Chef Jamie Oliver's school lunches project here

UK: Behaviour medications putting tots at risk

By Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian, Monday April 7 2008

New evidence has shown children's lives are being put at risk by a surge in the use of controversial tranquillising drugs which are being prescribed to control their behaviour, the Guardian has learned.

The anti-psychotic drugs are being given to youngsters under the age of six even though the drugs have no licence for use in children except in certain schizophrenia cases, the report says.

The number of children on the drugs has doubled since the early 1990s as the UK begins to follow a trend started in the US, but critics say they are a "chemical cosh" that could cause premature death.

The first comprehensive analysis, carried out by Ian Wong, professor of paediatric medicines research at the London School of Pharmacy, suggests the number of children on the drugs has surged sharply.

His analysis, to be published next month in the US journal Pediatrics, shows that between 1992 and 2005, 3,000 UK children were given anti-psychotics.

Read the article here

Canada's Anti-Drug Strategy for Parents

This is all well and good, but the biggest drug dealers are listed on the Stock Exchange.

Why lecture kids about dope when we hand them Ritalin every day?

Have a look at this 2000 BBC report, Kids on Pills