Schizophrenia, neuroleptic medication and mortality

Schizophrenic patients given neuroleptic medication die at an alarming rate.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/188/2/122

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/reprint/188/2/122

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v87mlpbdv096lf0v/

http://www.gims.tcu.edu.tw/981%A4%BD%BD%C3%B1M%B0Q/1103%B6%C0%A6%B6%A7%C2.pdf

That's too high a price for the patients, their families and society to pay.
Patients need and deserve proper medical workups.

Evelyn Pringle: Paxil Birth Defect Litigation - First Trial a Bust for Glaxo

Evelyn Pringle reports on the Paxil/Seroxat suit brought by Andy Vickery on behalf of plaintiffs.

From the page:

A number of birth defect cases are set for trial in 2010. Andy Vickery, who practices at the Houston firm of Vickery, Waldner and Mallia, is handling several cases, with the Novak trial set to start first. The case is unique in that it involves an infant born with heart birth defects to Derek and Laura Novak on April 4, 2002, after Laura was prescribed Paxil during pregnancy for the off-label treatment of migraine headaches.

"Although one might worry that this would cause a jury to blame the prescribing doctor," says Vickery, "in this case, we can show that GSK encouraged this use, by sending out over 1500 "medical information" letters touting the benefits of Paxil for migraine headaches, and by leaving "approved WLF reprint" articles with the prescribing doctors."

...

During opening statements in the first trial on September 15, 2009, Sean Tracey told the jury they were "going to see documents in this case that have never seen the light of day before."

"You will see internal GlaxoSmith documents that the FDA hasn't seen, that the United States Congress hasn't seen, and that no jury has ever laid their eyes on before," he said. "They have been under seal for over three years."

Many of the sealed documents related to the Paxil studies conducted on rats and rabbits. The world-renowned expert from the UK, Dr David Healy, testified on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Paxil was originally owned by a Danish company called Ferrosan, and that company did the preliminary animal studies on rats and rabbits to look at teratogenicity around 1979 and 1980.

Healy explained that a teratogen is an agent that will cause birth defects and "it could be a drug or maybe a virus or maybe an illness."

In addition to birth defects, he said, a teratogen can cause a fetus to be born dead or cause a miscarriage, which is death before birth.

Article here

Video: Simply Raw - Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days

"Let your food be your medicine"

Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days is an independent documentary film that chronicles six Americans with 'incurable' diabetes switching their diet and getting off insulin.

The film follows each participant's remarkable journey and captures the medical, physical, and emotional transformations brought on by this diet and lifestyle change. We witness moments of struggle, support, and hope as what is revealed, with startling clarity, is that diet can reverse diabetes* and change lives.

Additional wisdom is provided by Morgan Spurlock, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Robbins, Rev. Michael Beckwith, and Doctors Fred Bisci, Joel Furman, and Gabriel Cousens.

Don't miss the related videos at the link.

CFS/ME - "Magical Medicine: How to Make a Disease Disappear"

PRESS RELEASE


Magical Medicine: How to make a disease disappear
-------------------------------------------------
12th February 2010

A formal complaint has been lodged by Professor Malcolm Hooper with
the Rt. Hon The Lord Drayson, Minister of State with responsibility
for the Medical Research Council (Science and Innovation) about the
'PACE' Clinical Trial of behavioural modification interventions for
people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
(CFS).

PACE is the acronym for Pacing, Activity, and Cognitive behavioural
therapy, a randomised Evaluation, interventions that, according to
one of the Principal Investigators, are without theoretical foundation.

The MRC's PACE Trial seemingly inhabits a unique and unenviable
position in the history of medicine. It is believed to be the first
and only clinical trial that patients and the charities that support
them have tried to stop before a single patient could be recruited
and is the only clinical trial that the Department for Work and
Pensions (DWP) has ever funded.

Since 1993, the giant US permanent health insurance company
UNUMProvident has been advising the UK DWP about the most effective
ways of curtailing sickness benefit payments. The PACE Trial is run
by psychiatrists of the Wessely School, most of whom work for the
medical and permanent health insurance industry, including
UNUMProvident. These psychiatrists insist =96 in defiance of both the
World Health Organisation and the significant biomedical evidence
about the nature of it -- that 'CFS/ME' is a behavioural disorder,
into which they have subsumed ME, a classified neurological disorder
whose separate existence they deny. Their beliefs have been
repudiated in writing by the World Health Organisation.

In 1992, the Wessely School gave directions that in cases of ME/CFS,
the first duty of the doctor is to avoid legitimisation of symptoms;
in 1994, ME was described by Professor Simon Wessely as merely 'a
belief'; in 1996 recommendations were made that no investigations
should be performed to confirm the diagnosis and in 1999 patients
with ME/CFS were referred to as 'the undeserving sick'.

The complaint is supported by a 442 page Report which addresses areas
of major concern about the PACE Trial.

These include apparent coercion and exploitation of patients, flawed
methodology, apparent lack of scientific rigour, apparent failure to
adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki, the unusual personal financial
interest of the Chief Investigator, the vested financial interests of
the Principal Investigators and others involved with the trial and
the underlying non-clinical purpose of the trial.

The psychiatrists' unproven beliefs and assumptions are presented as
fact and trial therapists have been trained to provide participants
with misinformation; therapists have also been trained to advise
participants to ignore symptoms, a situation that may in some cases
result in death.

There are some extremely disquieting issues surrounding the MRC PACE
Trial and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act
allow the full story to be told for the first time.

People with ME/CFS do not seek any special consideration; they simply
wish to be treated equally to those who suffer from other classified
neurological disorders. As shown in the Report that accompanies the
complaint, the MRC PACE Trial clearly demonstrates that people with
ME/CFS are not treated equally to those with other chronic
neurological disorders.

The Report can be accessed at
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/magical-medicine.pdf
File Size 6Mb
Adobe Acrobat format

CONTACT: Professor Malcolm Hooper 0191 =96 528 - 5536

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Letter of complaint to the Rt Hon The Lord Drayson
--------------------------------------------------

Professor Malcolm Hooper Ph.D., B.Pharm., C.Chem., MRIC
Sunderland SR3


11th February 2010

The Rt Hon The Lord Drayson
Minister of State
(Science and Innovation)
1, Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET


Dear Minister

re: Complaint about the Medical Research Council

It is with deep concern that I lodge this formal complaint about the
Medical Research Council with you in your capacity as Minister with
responsibility for the MRC.

You will doubtless be aware of the serious problems at the MRC that
were documented in the 2003 Report of the House of Commons Select
Committee on Science and Technology (HC 132) in which MPs issued a
damning judgment on the MRC, lambasting it for wasting funds and for
introducing misguided strategies for its research. MPs found
evidence of poor planning and of focusing on 'politically-driven'
projects that have diverted money away from top-quality proposals.
The unprecedented attack was the result of a detailed probe into the
workings of the MRC.
Sadly, very serious problems continue to exist at the MRC, with
disastrous results for patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

The attached 442 page Report addresses the background to the MRC
'PACE' Trial on 'CFS/ME', the biomedical evidence that disproves the
assumptions of the MRC trial Principal Investigators, the many
extremely disturbing issues surrounding the PACE Trial, and
illustrations from the Manuals used in the trial.

The unproven beliefs and assumptions of the MRC Investigators are
presented as fact; trial therapists have been trained to provide
participants with misinformation, and therapists have also been
trained to advise participants to ignore symptoms arising from the
interventions, a situation that may in some cases result in death.

Patients with ME/CFS do not seek any special consideration; they
simply wish to be treated equally to those with other classified
neurological disorders. As shown in the commissioned Report that
accompanies this complaint (a bound copy of which will follow), the
MRC Trial clearly demonstrates that people with ME/CFS are not
treated equally to those with other chronic neurological disorders.

Given the long-standing recognition that at least one of the
interventions used in the trial is contra-indicated for people with
ME/CFS, an intervention that is already known to have adverse effects
on 50% of those who have already undertaken it, there is
international concern about the MRC PACE Trial.

I urge you to read the attached Report and to respond to it with due
attention and alacrity. You may wish to know that the Report is
already on international academic websites.

Yours sincerely

Malcolm Hooper

Download report here


Kris Kristofferson, "In the News"

DSM-V: Association of Women in Psychology "Landing Page"

This webpage from the Association of Women in Psychology,
a part of the APA, offers a "Landing Page" to introduce proposed revisions to the DSM-V.

Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis: Concerns about DSM-V

Mission: To provide information for people (including but not limited to professionals and journalists) about biases and other problems in psychiatric diagnosis, an especially important goal in light of the American Psychiatric Association's preparation for the 2013 publication of the next edition of the psychiatric diagnostic manual.

Bios for Group Members and Contributors
NEWS FLASH

1. Psychdiagnosis.net - website about bias in psychiatric diagnosis, including stories about people harmed in a wide variety of ways by receiving such a diagnosis and including six kinds of solutions to problems resulting from psychiatric labeling

2. Click Here for an important article in New Scientist about problems in the preparation for DSM-V

3. Click here to go to a website that is presented as allowing anyone who wants to make suggestions about DSM-V to do so.

Note: AWP’s Committee on Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis does not know what plans may have been made by the DSM-V authors to consider these suggestions.

4. Call for papers for a special issue of Social Science and Medicine, Sociology of Diagnosis

5. PSYCHOUT - A conference for organizing Resistance against Psychiatry - Call for submissions

Introduction:

Psychiatric Diagnosis: Too Little Science, Too Many Conflicts of Interest


Articles:

Anorexia Nervosa and the DSM

Borderline Personality Disorder: The Disparagement of Women through Diagnosis

Female Sexual Dysfunction Diagnoses

Gender Interupted: Controversy and Concerns about Gender Identity Disorder (GID)

Should Obesity Be Called a Mental Illness?

Problems with Parental Alienation Syndrome

Racial Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis

Social Class and Classism in Psychiatric Diagnosis

Link

Update: DSM pathologizes women and children

Diagnosing for Money and Power
'Because most undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses uncritically present the DSM as an objective scientific document, this summary focuses exclusively on the rarely acknowledged critical view. It neither provides a complete analysis of psychiatric diagnosis nor denies that the DSM, if used cautiously and appropriately, can be useful, nor does it advocate against psychiatric diagnostic.
The primary goal of this web page is to promote critical thinking of psychology and psychiatry by presenting an important, however, rarely acknowledged critique of psychiatric diagnosis.

The following summary was inspired by Dr. Paula Caplan's work and the writing cited in the Selected Bibliography at the end of this page.'

DSM Critique

Andrew Wakefield Vindicated - MMR doctor proved right in week he was condemned as 'dishonest'

MMR doctor proved right in week he was condemned as 'dishonest'

'In the week that the doctor at the centre of the controversy over the MMR vaccine and autism was called “dishonest, irresponsible and callous” by a medical disciplinary board, a new study has been published that suggests he could be right all along. Researchers in New York have discovered that children with autism spectrum disorder also had inflammation in the ileum, part of the small intestine – the exact same discovery made by Dr Andrew Wakefield, who may now lose his medical license following a 30-month hearing at the General Medical Council. Wakefield noted that the children he saw also had been given the triple MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, and he speculated that it might be the cause. After the publication of his paper in The Lancet in 1998, vaccination rates dropped dramatically as parents in the UK refused to have their children vaccinated. The new study, from the New York University School of Medicine, discovered that 143 children with autism spectrum disorder also suffered from chronic gastrointestinal symptoms, and inflammation in the small intestine. As the vaccine is compulsory in the US, where the children live, it is reasonable to assume that most, if not all, were vaccinated – although the researchers do not suggest that it was the cause of the inflammation they detected. (Source: Autism Insights, 2010; 2: 1-11).'
Story from WDDTY
http://www.wddty.com/mmr-doctor-proved-right-in-week-he-was-condemned-as-dishonest.html

A prescription for old age

By Lynne McTaggart

The over-60s make up just 8 per cent of the population, but they are prescribed more than one-third of all medicines dispensed by doctors. In fact, the average 60-plus person is prescribed at least six drugs, all of which are interacting to unknown effect.

As WDDTY has discovered, the major drugs routinely dispensed as just-in-case medicine for the over-60s—from cholesterol-lowering drugs to aspirin—cause all of the conditions that we’ve come to associate with old age: physical instability; forgetfulness; incontinence; and dementia. At least five major classes of drugs routinely prescribed to seniors cause falls, while many types of drugs cause incontinence. And virtually any drug—even those sold over the counter—is capable of bringing about some sort of cognitive impairment or ‘brain fog’, with all the hallmarks of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

I saw this close to home with our neighbour ‘Sam’, who handled all the gardening and physical labour around his daughter’s house well into his 80s. One of his party tricks was to race around the garden with his small grandson in a large wheelbarrow. When he became a bit forgetful, his doctor prescribed powerful antipsychotics. In short order, he completely lost his memory, became paranoid and difficult, landed in a nursing home, refused his food and, finally, just gave up and died.

Our neighbour’s situation begs the question of which came first: the problem, or the problem caused by the ‘solution’? If seniors given drugs present with symptoms, doctors are quick to reach for the prescription pad to hand out yet more drugs to handle what are simply side-effects from a drug that the senior probably didn’t need in the first place.

More at Link