Video: Big Pharma Exec Turned Whistleblower

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Are Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs Causing the Rise of Mental illness in America?

Who is Robert Whitaker? Wiki

Bruce Levine interviews Robert Whitaker, author of MAD IN AMERICA:

Bruce Levine: So mental illness disability rates have doubled since 1987 and increased six-fold since 1955. And at the same time, psychiatric drug use greatly increased in the 1950s and 1960s, then skyrocketed after 1988 when Prozac hit the market, so now antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs alone gross more than $25 billion annually in the U.S. But as you know, correlation isn’t causation. What makes you feel that the increase in psychiatric drug use is a big part of the reason for the increase in mental illness?

Robert Whitaker: The rise in the disability rate due to mental illness is simply the starting point for the book. The disability numbers don’t prove anything, but, given that this astonishing increase has occurred in lockstep with our society’s increased use of psychiatric medications, the numbers do raise an obvious question. Could our drug-based paradigm of care, for some unforeseen reason, be fueling the increase in disability rates? And in order to investigate that question, you need to look at two things. First, do psychiatric medications alter the long-term course of mental disorders for the better, or for the worse? Do they increase the likelihood that a person will be able to function well over the long-term, or do they increase the likelihood that a person will end up on disability?

Second, is it possible that a person with a mild disorder may have a bad reaction to an initial drug, and that puts the person onto a path that can lead to long-term disability. For instance, a person with a mild bout of depression may have a manic reaction to an antidepressant, and then is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on a cocktail of medications. Does that happen with any frequency? Could that be an iatrogenic [physician-caused illness] pathway that is helping to fuel the increase in the disability rates?

So that’s the starting point for the book. What I then did was look at what the scientific literature -- a literature that now extends over 50 years -- has to say about those questions. And the literature is remarkably consistent in the story it tells. Although psychiatric medications may be effective over the short term, they increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill over the long term. I was startled to see this picture emerge over and over again as I traced the long-term outcomes literature for schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and bipolar illness.

In addition, the scientific literature shows that many patients treated for a milder problem will worsen in response to a drug-- say have a manic episode after taking an antidepressant -- and that can lead to a new and more severe diagnosis like bipolar disorder. That is a well-documented iatrogenic pathway that is helping to fuel the increase in the disability numbers.

Read the rest of the article at Alternet Link

Update: Listen to an interview of Robert Whitaker by Dr. Mercola


Update 2: Robert Whitaker and anti-psych meds articles at
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

Niacin for Smoking Cessation

A friend writes,

I quit smoking three years ago, in just three days. I had no withdrawal symptoms. I used no patches or
meds. To do this cost me perhaps five dollars.
I owe my quit-smoking method to an observation I made whiletalking with my cousin, who is a medicated schizophrenic.
Smoking and schizophrenia, I noted, seem to go together.
During long-distance calls to him, he kept running off for a smoke. "Gotta go - have to have a
smoke".
Extraordinary! And it happened during our conversations all the time.

Readings in biochemistry had alerted me to the importance of Niacin - Vitamin B3 - in reversing and controlling one type of schizophrenia. Like pellagra, "the schizophrenias" can be cured with B3. B3 or Niacin is also called Nicotinic Acid.

Might the brain accept Nicotine and Nicotinic Acid like right- and left-hand skeleton keys? If so, did "gotta
have a smoke" mean "I need niacin"?
Was I hooked because my brain craved Niacin?

To quit smoking, I chose a time when I had no tobacco in the house. My lungs hurt and I was motivated.
From the local pharmacy, I purchased some Vitamin C and Niacin - both very cheap. I chose the B3 "flush" variety - and proceeded to load up with both. For three days, every time I went to urinate, I took 500 units of Vitamin C  (one pill, 500 mg) and 100 to 250 mg of Niacin. I experienced some uncomfortable itchy skin flushing, but nothing too painful.

I was delighted to find that Vitamin C detoxed my body, and I had no craving for nicotine. They say that after
3 days, nicotine is no longer in your system, and I have never smoked again.

Canada's Big Pharma Drug War

From
Canada's Big Pharma Drug War

by Dr. Joel Lexchin

"The Ontario government has recently announced major changes to the way that it will pay for generic drugs for those covered under its public drug plan, primarily people 65 and over and those on social welfare. The aim is to rein in rapidly increasing costs for the Ontario Drug Benefit Program. Up until recently spending has been going up by more than 10% annually and overall across Canada drug costs are the second most expensive part of the health care system behind only hospitals.

The current government made a first attempt to deal with drug spending back in 2006 when it reduced the price for generic medicines from 70% of the brand name drug to 50%. At that time, $222-million in savings (from a drug bill of $3.5-billion) from reduced generic prices and other reforms was predicted. There was never any independent analysis about whether those anticipated savings were realized. Now faced with a deficit of over $20-billion and health care costs that take up 42 cents of every public dollar, the government is looking at a new initiative to rein in at least one segment of health care costs. The question of whether that 42-cent figure represents too much spending on health care or is mostly the product of a series of tax cuts that have reduced government revenue is a crucial issue that must be taken up soon.

The Politics of Generic Drugs

One of the key factors that makes public drug plans affordable is the existence of generic versions for many of the products that are on the provincial formulary. Generic drugs work the same as the original brand-name products but are much lower in cost since generic companies don't incur the research and development expenditures and also don't engage in costly promotion of their products.

However, in order for generic drugs to get used they need to be dispensed by pharmacists and this gives the pharmacy owners a huge stick in dealing with the generic companies. In effect what the pharmacy owners tell the generic companies is that they will not stock their products unless the companies sell to them at a discount. The pharmacy owners are reimbursed by the government at the list price of the medication not the discounted price. Therefore, the discount goes to the pharmacy owners not the government. These discounts amount to about 20% of the price of the drug."

Continues at Link

NAMI's Road to Recovery and Cure

Roadmap to Recovery & Cure
"Report of the NAMI Policy Research Institute Task Force on Serious Mental Illness Research
The 40-page report is now available!

News release: NAMI Task Force Calls For Stronger, Smarter Investment In Federal Scientific Research on Serious Mental Illnesses
Roadmap to Recovery & Cure full report (PDF, 497kb)
Background information about the Task Force and a list of its members
Take Action Now for Improved Research Funding!

Use the links below to access sample letters and contact information for key policy makers:
Contact your Congressional Representatives
Contact President Bush
Contact Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH)
Contact Senators Harkin and Specter, who hold leadership positions on the Senate’s Labor, Health, and Human Services Subcommittee that oversee"

In this download there's nothing about diagnosis of the physical causes of mental illness. It's like an anecdotal drugs ad with footnotes.
PDF Link

The physical causes of mental illness are outlined here and include

*Finding the Medical Causes of "Dementia" in the Elderly: the Genesis Protocols Used by the Los Angeles County Genesis Program

*Finding the Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms:
The Extraordinary Walker Exam by Dan Stradford Founder, Safe Harbor

*Medical Causes of Psychiatric Symptoms (Extensive)

*Medical Causes of Psychosis, Anxiety, and Depression
by Ronald J. Diamond, M.D., Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin

*The Medical Evaluation Field Manual of the State of California: Basic Screening Procedures for Finding Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms

*The 29 Medical Causes of Schizophrenia

Only one road makes sense...

Study: Insurance companies hold billions in fast food stock

Imagine that.

Eight invented diseases Pharma is banking on

From Alternet. Link