ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com
FYI
Recent public disclosures about the harmful effects of FDA-approved
psychotropic drugs and corroborating evidence from patient outcome and
mortality studies reveal that psychiatry's fixation on drugs as the
treatment of choice is a toxic prescription for debilitating adverse
effects; an impediment to recovery; and premature death.
A 15-year prospective follow-up study compared recovery outcomes in
schizophrenia patients treated with antipsychotics and those untreated or
treated without drugs was just re-published in the Journal of Nervous and
Mental Diseases (May 2007). [1] It was funded by the US Public Health
Service and the National Institute of Mental Health.
The findings from this 15-year study confirm previous international outcome
studies [2]:
40% of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who were NOT on antipsychotic
drugs showed periods of recovery and better global functioning compared to
only 5% of patients taking antipsychotics (p=.001). "These analyses
indicated that in addition to the significant differences in global
functioning between these groups, 19 of the 23 schizophrenia patients (83%)
with uniformly poor outcome at the 15-year follow-ups were on antipsychotic
medications."
The indisputably significant findings from this 15-year prospective study
provide documented evidence for the overthrow of psychiatry's harm
producing, drug-focused paradigm of care. This paradigm condemns people to
chronic disability impeding rather than fostering recovery.
The investigators, Martin Harrow, PhD. and Thomas Jobe, MD, Department of
Psychiatry, at the University of Illinois, Chicago, evaluated the outcome of
145 patients with a DSM-III psychiatric diagnosis, including 64 with
schizophrenia and a control sample of 81 nonschizophrenia patients. Patients
were evaluated on premorbid variables, assessed prospectively at index
hospitalization, and then followed up 5 times over a period of 15 years (at
2 years following hospitalization, 4.5 years, 7.5 years, 10 years and 15
year). At each follow-up, patients were compared on symptoms and global
outcome. One hundred and ten of the 145 patients (75.9%) were evaluated at
all 5 follow-ups over the 15 years, and another 23 patients (15.9%) were
evaluated at 4 of the 5 follow-ups. In controlled clinical trials the drop
out rate in short 6 week studies is 65% and more, in the CATIE study the
drop out was 74%. Thus, the significance of the findings of this
naturalistic study is enormous.
The investigators addressed the following clinically significant:
1. In a naturalistic research design, which includes patients in treatment
and those not in treatment, can schizophrenia patients not on antipsychotics
function better and show periods of recovery?
2. Which particular types of schizophrenia patients go off medications for a
prolonged period, and do factors associated with this influence subsequent
outcome and recovery?
3. Do schizophrenia patients who do not remain on medications differ in (a)
premorbid developmental achievements and (b) prognostic potential or in
personality and attitudinal factors?
Best recovery outcomes were demonstrated by patients who had stopped taking
antipsychotic drugs-and they showed significantly better global functioning
than those who continued to be treated with antipsychotics at 4 of the 5
follow-ups (p=<.001) Curiously, an earlier version of the study was
published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin in 2005, but the findings were
largely ignored, no doubt, because they pose a financial threat to the
pharmaceutical-dominated psychiatric establishment. [3]
The findings confirm that the poor outcome findings in the CATIE study,
which assessed only patients on antipsychotic drugs, are due mainly to the
drugs' ill effects.
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2006/10/follow-compass-newer-antipsychotics.html
The poor recovery of patients treated with antipsychotic drugs goes a long
way in explaining a recent analysis of government mortality data. It shows
that patients treated in the American mental health system die 25 years
prematurely. [4]
At this juncture, a compelling body of evidence documents psychiatry's
colossal failure:
1. A series of international studies consistently show that patients
taking antipsychotics have worse clinical outcomes than those who do not.
[2]
2. U.S. government sponsored studies:
--Schizophrenia CATIE study reported that 74% of patients
couldn't tolerate the antipsychotics and dropped out within 18months;
--An analysis of mortality rates among patients in 8 state mental health
systems reveals that their lives are cut short by 25 years.
3. Evidence from secret company documents uncovered during civil
liability suits and state Attorneys General lawsuits provide evidence of the
drugs' debilitating effects.
When added up the harm produced by the drug-centered treatment paradigm is a
public health catastrophe whose magnitude is comparable to a
pandemic-millions of people-including children and the elderly-have suffered
harm from FDA-licensed psychotropic drugs.[5] [Below a sample of recent
living testimonials]
The cumulative evidence is indisputable: the drugs cause harm without any
credible demonstrable benefit-and without a scientific rationale.
Psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler, co-editor-in-chief of Psychological Medicine,
acknowledged (2005):
"We [psychiatrists] have hunted for big, simple neuropathological
explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them. We have
hunted for big, simple neurochemical explanations for psychiatric disorders
and have not found them. We have hunted for big, simple genetic explanations
for psychiatric disorders and have not found them" (pp. 434-435).[6]
Despite the lack of clear evidence for neuropathological, neurochemical, or
genetic explanations for psychiatric disorders, the beliefs in such are
heavily perpetuated by psychopharmacologists and physiological psychiatrists
who are heavily invested in the drugs and their industry benefactors.
Psychotropic drugs that have consistently been shown to cause ham-to impede
rather than improve patient recovery-and to undermine vital physiological
function of hormonal, endocrine, cardiovascular systems. The body of
evidence should give Congress pause about its misallocation of public
funds-harmful treatments should not be subsidized by taxpayers. [7]
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-are-we-condemning-our-children-to.html
A superb critical review of the published disconfirming literature of
psychopharmacology, written by psychiatrists and neuroscientists whose
criticism of currently held beliefs about mental illness and the paradigm of
treatment, are mostly drowned out by this industry-dominated field. Dr.
Thomas Murray, Director of Counseling at North Carolina School of the Arts,
calls upon the counseling profession to "be cautious about supporting the
psychiatric-medical model, or any model, when it is not prepared to produce
its own body of research to test the assumptions of that model." He
encourages counselors to "get a balanced view about psychopharmacology and
the medical-model in general.to call into question the uses of technology
(e.g., brain scans), research methodology, and treatment efficacy of these
medications based on the examination of the existing research. Specifically,
I suggest counselors investigate rigorously the uses and consequences of
these medications regardless of their support or skepticism." [8]
And most importantly, Murray admonishes counselors to "examine the
consequences and the impact of associating with and imposing particular
assumptions about the biological etiology of mental disorders on clients
without evidence that such approach serves their best interest."
References:
1. Martin Harrow, PhD, and Thomas H. Jobe, MD. Factors Involved in Outcome
and Recovery in Schizophrenia Patients Not on Antipsychotic Medications: A
15-Year Multifollow-Up Study, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease,
Vol. 195, No. 5, May 2007 http://tinyurl.com/3xausr
2. Lehtinen V, Aaltonen J, Koffert T. Two-year outcome in first-episode
psychosis treated according to an integrated model. European Psychiatry 15
(2000):312-20; Lehtinen K. Finnish needs-adapted project: 5-year outcomes.
Madrid Spain, World Psychiatric Association International Congress, 2001;
Seikkula J, Aaltonen J, Alakare B. Five-year experience of first-episode
nonaffective psychosis in open-dialogue approach. Psychotherapy Research
16/2 (2006): 214-228; Leff J, Sartorius N, Koren A, Ernberg G. The
International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia. Pscyhological Medicine 22
(1992): 131-45; Jablensky A, Sartorius N, Ernberg G, Ansker M.
Schizophrenia: manifestations, incidence and course in different cultures.
Psycghological Medicine 20, monograph supplement (1992):1-95.
3. Colton CW, Manderscheid RW. Congruencies in increased mortality rates,
years of potential life lost, and causes of death among public mental health
clients in eight states. Prevalence Chronic Disability, April 2006.
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/01/lilly-zyprexa-casualties-12-billion.html
See also: Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, on average By Marilyn Elias,
USA TODAY, May 3, 2007
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-05-03-mental-illness_N.htm
4. Martin Harrow, Linda S. Grossman,3 Thomas H. Jobe,4 and Ellen S.
Herbener. Do Patients with Schizophrenia Ever Show Periods of Recovery? A
15-Year Multi-Follow-up Study, Schizophrenia Bulletin vol. 31 no. 3 pp.
723-734, 2005.
5. Gianluca Trifiro` MD, Katia M. C. et at All-cause mortality associated
with atypical and typical antipsychotics in demented outpatients,
Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety 2007; 16: 538-544. . See also, a series
of investigative reports in the national press documenting the harm
producing effects of psychotropic drugs-in particular the antipsychotics:
USA TODAY: New antipsychotic drugs carry risks for children 5/2/2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-05-01-atypical-drugs_x.htm
Boston Globe: Bipolar labels for children stir concern Hull case highlights
debate on diagnosis Rebecca Riley's parents are accused of deliberately
poisoning her with her prescription medication. February 15, 2007
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/02/4-year-old-rebecca-riley-casualty-of.html
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Psychiatrists, Children and Drug Industry's Role May 10,
2007
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/psychiatrists-retained-by-drug-industry.htm
l;
USA TODAY: Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, on average. May 3, 2007
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-05-03-mental-illness_N.htm
6. Kendler, K. S. (2005). Toward a philosophical structure for psychiatry.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 433-440.
7. Robert Whitaker, Mad in America, Perseus, 2002; Anatomy of an Epidemic:
Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.
Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol.7, No. I, Spring 2005 online
at: http://psychrights.org/Articles/EHPPPsychDrugEpidemic(Whitaker).pdf
8. Thomas L. Murray, Jr. The Other Side of Psychopharmacology: A Review of
the Literature Journal of Mental Health Counseling, Vol. 28/No. 4/October
2006/Pages 309-337.
Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
212-595-8974
veracare@ahrp.org
~~~~~~~~
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/05/18/autism_misdiagnosis/print.html
Psych meds drove my son crazy
At 17, my son was a funny, odd autistic boy. But a misdiagnosis turned him
into a violent, unpredictable man, and drove our family to the brink.
By Ann Bauer
May. 18, 2007
This is a story with a hopeful ending. Lucky, even. But be forewarned, you
have to get through a lot of hopeless, unlucky crap before you find it.
Here's how it all starts: My first-born son has autism. Now that isn't
hopeless or, in my opinion, unlucky. Autism isn't sick or crazy. It's rigid
and routine, a little eccentric. Autism is multiplying columns of numbers
easily while being unable to look anyone in the eyes; listening to only one
band's music, and always in the same order, for a period of six weeks;
refusing to eat anything orange. It's also being able to remember the exact
date and time you ate a bison burger in Chamberlain, S.D., when you were 6.
But there's a really charming side to all this, a wonderful tilted
perspective on life that, if you're a parent of autism, you come quickly to
enjoy. I was a parent like this.
Until he was 17, my son was unique and funny and odd. He was difficult in
some ways but incredibly easy in others. He washed the family's dishes
precisely, went to bed at exactly the same time each night, and sorted our
mail into careful piles. He did fairly well in school -- above average in
math, a little below in social studies -- and spent his weekends playing
tournament-level chess. He was a loner, but sweet and articulate and very
close to his only brother.
Then junior year came. He met a girl, he went to a dance, he thought life
was better. And for a night it was. Then the dance ended, the girl decided
she was interested in someone else, and the boy became depressed.
Was this cause for alarm? I thought not. Teenage boys routinely get
depressed over girls and fickle friends and school dances. It was painful,
but I assumed it would blow over. When it didn't, after six months, I took
him to a psychologist who recommended a psychiatrist who put him on a
newfangled antidepressant she said would have the added benefit of
controlling some of his obsessive tendencies, like stacking the dishes and
sorting the mail.
I didn't want to control those things -- to me, these weren't symptoms, they
were characteristics of my son. And I'd fought for 17 years to keep him
drug-free. But the psychiatrist and the psychologist and several family
members insisted: He'd become unhappy, his routines were getting in the way
of his developing a social life. This pill, they said, would help him.
Instead, he gained 30 pounds and began to lose his mind.
It happened slowly, over a period of months. First his grades began to fall.
There were some random episodes of violence -- nothing major, just an
out-of-control moment here or there. A tendency to stand up from the dinner
table, after a full meal, and walk to Arby's for a snack. Eerie giggles that
seemed involuntary. A flat expression on his once-curious face.
Senior year, he started an after-school job at an auto parts factory but
lost it when he couldn't keep up with even the elderly workers. He stopped
speaking to his brother entirely and even hit him several times. He lost
interest in music, computers and chess.
Together, my ex-husband and I took our son to a highly respected
neuropsychology clinic housed in a suburban office building. The doctors
there even looked like bankers; they wore regular clothes and carried
clipboards and fancy pens embossed with the names of drug companies, rather
than stethoscopes.
After meeting our son twice, they conferred with the original psychiatrist
(who, we discovered later, was employed by the same large healthcare
conglomerate) and came up with an altogether new diagnosis. This wasn't
autism at all, they told us, but "psychomotor slowing" -- a form of
schizophrenia. Our son was just unlucky, they said sadly, the victim of two
devastating neuro-behavioral disorders. Completely unrelated.
It was critical that we begin treating him immediately; they couldn't stress
this strongly enough. We were given a prescription for a brand-new
antipsychotic medication with the inspiring name Abilify that was
direct-to-consumer advertised in Newsweek and Time magazine. It featured a
woman gazing into an azure sky and copy promising the drug would work on the
brain "like a thermostat to restore balance."
We were skeptical. But the experts were firm: He would continue to
deteriorate if we didn't catch this now. Did we want our son to end up
institutionalized? In jail? Sick to our stomachs and desperate, we gave him
the drugs. Then he got much, much worse.
He stayed with me on weekends, and twice during the workweek he would come
to my house for dinner. We would sit at the table -- my husband (his
stepfather), his brother and sister and I -- but my once-reserved older son
would only stand over us acting crazy. Humming, shifting foot to foot,
screaming if anyone touched him or tried to move him to the side. Often, he
would talk back to the people who were speaking to him inside his head,
telling him to do things. He would not, however, say a word to us.
He wasn't eating meals. But he was eating -- constantly. After graduating
from high school, during the period when he was still holding the voices at
bay, he'd started a government job through a disability work program. I'd
given him a car and helped him open a checking account during this period of
lucidity. Now, he began stopping at fast food restaurants on his way home
from work to consume nachos, burgers, brownies and lattes. He ate with his
hands and wiped them on his clothes, which he'd quit washing. He stopped
bathing altogether.
We discontinued the Abilify, tapering it off as directed. Two days after
taking the final pill, he got out of bed at 2 p.m. and stood in one place
for a solid hour. My husband had taken our daughter roller-skating; our
younger son was at work. It was just me, alone with this 6-foot-3-inch man
I'd given birth to but no longer knew. I put my hand on his back and tried
to push him forward, toward his shoes. And he turned to look at me -- his
eyes empty and cold -- then grabbed me by both arms and beat me until the
neighbors heard me screaming and called 911.
You think you know what crazy is, but you don't. Not unless you've been
there.
In the movies, it might be depicted as quaint or flat-out violent. But
whichever way it goes -- Hannibal Lecter or the wacky old ladies of "Arsenic
and Old Lace" -- crazy is portrayed as consistent, interesting, narratively
coherent. Not so in life.
In reality, crazy is like war. It's tedious for long periods of time, until
it turns around and is devastating. It's random, senseless, all-consuming,
financially draining, destructive, ugly, sickening and gross.
It's standing in the front yard wearing nothing but torn underwear and
trying to control the thoughts of people who drive by. It's saying yes to
every question, no matter what the real answer. It's drinking compulsively,
straight from the faucet, then spewing a stream of clear-water vomit like a
geyser.
This riveting true life account can be read at:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/05/18/autism_misdiagnosis/print.html
~~~~~~~~~~
The (Michigan) Northern Express [cover story]
Are kids being overdosed?
Anne Stanton
Does Your Toddler Really Need an Anti-Depressant?
Report shows that thousands of Michigan preschoolers are being prescribed
psychiatric drugs Activist Ben Hansen looks like a regular Traverse City
nice guy. He's handsome with a neatly trimmed gray beard, often dressing in
a casual flannel shirt and a Tiger's ball cap. He lives in a tiny house in
Traverse City on the tiniest of incomes.
But don't let his modest appearance fool you. He is asking big questions of
pharmaceutical companies, or pharma, our country's most powerful industry.
And what he wants to know is this: Why are thousands of foster children and
poor children on Medicaid - children who are too young for kindergarten -
being put on antipsychotics,anti-depressants, anti-hyperactive medicine, as
well as pills that eliminate the tremors caused by these medications?
Hansen's window into this trend is data compiled by the Michigan Department
of Community Mental Health (MDCH), which oversees the Medicaid and foster
care programs.
Entire article at:
http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/features.asp?id=2465
~~~~~~~~~~~
Northern Express
Is our pill-popping society losing its mind?
Anne Stanton
Ironically, the first time Maddie Jones ever felt truly crazy was the time
she took an anti-psychotic medicine.
Last summer, Jones (not her real name) didn't have a job and went to bed
each night, terrified that she might lose her Leelanau County home. Jones
was taking 300 milligrams of Effexor for depression - a high dose, but she
still felt incredibly down. So she started seeing a renowned Traverse City
psychiatrist.
"He started prescribing all these drugs, willy-nilly," Jones said. "He'd
say, 'That didn't work, so try taking two. Hmm, that didn't work. Let's try
taking that other one.' "Then came the week from hell. I was really bonkers.
I felt I had to flee my own house. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating. I was
talking really fast all the time. I was way out of it. I actually took
photos of all the drugs because I thought I was losing my mind."
Jones asked another doctor to help wean her off from one of the two
antidepressants, one of the two sleeping pills, and the antipsychotic,
Seroquel. Now she's on one anti-depressant and only one "sleeper." She feels
much better. "I think there are psychiatrists who are legal drug pushers,
and he's one of them."
Ben Hansen, a passionate anti-drug activist, knows of stories like Maddie
Jones all too well.
Last week, he was on the phone with a foster care caseworker who suspected a
boy died from a drug overdose. The child had developed a neck twitch -
possibly due to psychiatric medications he was taking - and his doctor
prescribed an ADHD medicine. Days later, the boy died. When the caseworker
learned a reporter had been apprised, he quickly emailed that the cause of
death was still unknown.
Hansen has spent the past eight years trying to sound the alarm over the
nation's deepening addiction to mind-altering medication.
Complete article at:
http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/features.asp?id=2476
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