Yearly Archives: 2012

How, in a democratic society, do children become ethical and caring adults? They need a history of being cared about, taken seriously, and respected, which they can model and reciprocate. Today, the mental health profession has gone beyond behavioral technologies of control. It now diagnoses noncompliant toddlers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and pediatric bipolar disorder and attempts to control them with heavily sedating drugs. While Big Pharma directly profits from drug prescribing, the entire corporatocracy benefits from the mental health profession’s legitimization of conditioning and controlling.

Ben Goldacre writes about Glaxo's, as well as the pharmaceutical industry's, history of broken promises regarding access to clinical trial data.

1 Boring Old Man theorizes (with a nod to Bob Fiddaman) that the recent appearance of data from study 329 and Glaxo's pledge to...

It’s stunning what a quarter milligram of a benzodiazepine can do to the body. I’ve been detoxing off a high dose of benzodiazepines since September of 2011. The first few months were a failure. But this past May, I found my expert and thought I had the formula. Things were going well for detoxing off a substance many deem more addictive that heroin. That is, I realized, until they weren’t.

AltMentalities publishes a letter dreaming of a "world, much like our own, (where) there is still suffering. There is still poverty, crime, crushing...

Video games provide an example of an idealized relationship; in which authority is ever-attentive, un-preoccupied, and in which consequences are immediate and consistent, without prejudice or grudge. How understandable that in our relatively imperfect world, with unpredictable relationships, in which the hope of achievement and mastery is elusive or non-existent, children fall into behavior that appears to be unhealthy in comparison.

Beyond Meds offers an audio recording of Will Hall "a living example of someone who now thrives as a result of trusting his gut...

"The last four years have seen a 90% increase in the number of serious adverse drug reports received by the Food and Drug Administration," according to a report by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices." Among them, a "signal" that Cymbalta causes "an array of problems such as crying, suicidal ideation, and anger, and other symptoms including effects on appetite and weight gain."

The Baltimore Sun reflects on "the kind of author no one reads but everyone knows about. That's unfortunate. Too many mental health professionals haven't the foggiest...

Our "friends" at NAMI Ohio took the occasion of so-called "Mental Illness Awareness Week" to try and drum up support for their efforts to loosen criteria for involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC) laws in Ohio. I would encourage those interested, particularly those in Ohio, to contact Ohio legislators as NAMI suggests; but to encourage them to vote DOWN any changes to the current law. Remind them that anosognosia is deliberately being mis-applied...

Over the last 30 years Dr. Martin Harrow, Ph.D., has collected data from over 1000 interviews with people who have lived experience with mental illness. His research has been the basis for a number of papers delineating the effect of medications on those he interviewed. Further analysis of the data will answer several questions that provide the basis for a better understand of the long term effects of anti-psychotics on the treatment of schizophrenia.

“It’s hap­pening," said researchers at Northeastern University, "Kids are becoming irri­tated, aggres­sive, impul­sive, agi­tated, hos­tile. So you ask the ques­tion: Why?” They found (through study...

The New York Times describes a growing trend among doctors: prescribing medication to fix a "made up" diagnosis in children, in order to compensate...

1 Boring Old Man revisits the Robert Gibbons articles in light of David Healy's presentation to the APA last week; "His papers had no...

Beyond Meds lays bare the irony that "practicing simple healthy habits is called 'alternative' health and/or medicine." Beyond Meds →

Neurochambers' Chris Chambers, a freshly-minted associate editor for journal Cortex, asks for comments on "the most important thing I have committed to this blog...

The line between legal and illicit, "addictive" vs. "necessary", becomes vanishingly thin when it comes to the medications prescribed in areas of the country that are being stripped of their natural resources. The mechanisms of science, medicine and our government that were once thought to protect and serve are instead leaving residents on a trail of pain, addiction, dependence and poverty produced by the intersection of two highly profitable industries. (Editor's note)

The big fines paid by the drug companies are not effective, yet the government is ignoring the simple solution of enforcing Medicaid and Medicare's restrictions to drugs that are prescribed for medically accepted indications. It is hard to take seriously the government's stated commitment to rooting out fraud when this massive fraud is consciously allowed to continue. I know it is consciously allowing the fraud to continue because the government has been antagonistic to our whistleblower cases raising this point. Massive harm is not enough to cause government action. Massive fraud when the government is drowning in red ink is not enough either. What is it going to take?

This article is about coercion in its various forms – that which is direct, unequivocal, almost thuggish, and that which is more subtle, usually masked as well-meaning, referred to by David Oaks as “velvet gloved.” The Tolstoy quote above, which was sent to me by a friend and colleague, Diana Gonzalez, aptly sums this up. This article is also about the upcoming struggle over New York’s involuntary outpatient commitment law, Kendra’s Law, and which of the principal stakeholders of New York’s public mental health system -- professionals, providers, family members, bureaucrats and politicians, peer/survivors and their advocates – will line up for, and which against.

Although I have always been conservative in my use of these drugs, I now include in my discussion with patients my concerns about brain atrophy and long term outcome. This is added to an ongoing conversation I have had regarding the risks of tardive dyskinesia and metabolic effects of these medications. In my opinion, informed consent is a process, so these are conversations that I have been having repeatedly with my patients.

Ben Goldacre answers readers' questions in the The Guardian. Article → 

Standing up for what I believe in with a determined voice is a new experience for me, and I sometimes find myself riddled with self-doubt and insecurity. But the beauty in this is that I know with firm resolve that my feelings, my thoughts, and my unique experience of reality will never again be violated by psychiatry, and that my purpose here is to help others gain the same freedom.

Monica Cassani, reflecting on David Healy's explication of the ways the psychiatric system as it currently operates turns "patients" into hostages, and her own...