CBS’s 60 Minutes airs a segment on E. Fuller Torrey tonight (7 pm, ET). Torrey speaks about mass killings in the interview, saying “about half of these mass killings are being done by people with severe mental illness, mostly schizophrenia, and if they were being treated they would have been preventable.” Comments on the 60 Minutes website point out that many of the shooters have, in fact, been in treatment.
Note from the editor:
Viewers can also tweet comments to #60Minutes.
I hope they address the negative side effects of the treatments and their possible relationship to some of these crimes. People seem to want to think some pill is going to prevent crime and the only thing that needs happen is get more folks drugged up with Rx psych meds. There are hideous adverse effects that cause hallucinations,severe agitation, restlessness, “out-of-body” feelings, total lack of empathy for others, …I could on and on because, yes, I took many of these meds that the naïve public wants to believe is a “cure all.” They are not an answer in and of themselves for all people and can often cause more problems in some individuals because of side effects. For instance, I was told I could drive taking a certain medication~~I was hallucinating for godsake! What kind of craziness is this that people want to turn a blind eye to the consequences of side effects just because big pharmaceutical companies say they are the answer and are safe for all. These companies are in business to make a profit; they’re not ‘good Samaritans’ looking to save the world. No lives should EVER be lost because a doctor doesn’t take side effects seriously. Not by suicide, nor by homicide. Please, start listening to those who have experienced the adverse effects of these drugs. Many, I am afraid, did not live to elaborate on what they experienced. Please, listen.
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Well said, Cory.
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I would find it comical were it not so tragic that psychiatry readily endorses the theory that illegal drugs such as cannabis and PCP induce the experiences referred to as psychosis, without fully understanding the science but happy to rely upon the what is obvious merely from observation. Yet when it comes to legal (and wildly profitable) neuroleptic drugs, the same or better evidence (both scientific and observable to a layperson) shows that addiction results in withdrawal-induced psychosis, then psychiatry makes every effort to establish a consensus that there exists insufficient evidence of the connection. Including efforts in the form of interpreting damning scientific evidence as support for the opposite proposition: i.e. that psychosis following discontinuation proves that the psychosis was biologically based. And what is more, psychiatry is then happy to have it both ways: illegal drugs, which are bad, cause every bad thing that was ever suspected of them, including psychosis. But, no matter. Even if a psychosis was precipitated by an illegal drug, psychiatry deems that the person still has an illness. The illegal drug use, it is explained, was just a trigger of a pre-existing biological propensity to suffer from a mental illness. This is nothing new to this audience, but it is truly remarkable, as others here have observed, that there was absolutely no discussion whatsoever on the program of the possibility that the conduct might have been influenced by powerful, brain altering drugs. If Lanza had taken PCP, the drug would have been to blame and all over the news. Then, quietly and not on the news, had Lanza survived, it would be established that, PCP notwithstanding, the PCP triggered a pre-existing disorder. Though if were on the news, it would be because his defense attorneys would have raised it as an insanity defense. Which would, in this environment, play very well to a jury.
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It is BECAUSE of your “treatment” that I personally would LOVE to see you dead, psychiatry!
PSYCHIATRY IS THE *ANTICHRIST*
Put THAT on TV (and don’t tell me that’s a “national insecurity issue”). C’mon, Obama – tell us. Tell the whole wide world who the antichrist is. Or is that the pope’s job?
Or is the job of some NOBODY with a really big mouth and zero fear of YOU, government.
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It was hard to stomach the brief statement by Torrey on the 60 Minutes web site, but I was happy to see the comments exposing this fraud.
Thanks for posting this, which I had read about. I wonder if they will bring up the connection between psych drugs like SSRI’s and school/public/work shooters. Any possibility Bob Whitaker and/or Dr. Peter Breggin could get on the program and tell the truth for a change? Somebody should certainly point out the new position of the NIMH on neuroleptics based on the most credible studies and the fact that these drugs make people worse with more potential for violence, but as Bob Whitaker pleads, “Dr. Torrey, Please stop the lies.”
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Donna,
It used to be that outfits like 60 minutes would present both sides of a story but sadly, in the name of chasing sensationalistic headlines, pursuing the facts goes out the window. Since NRP refused to interview Bob when the Anatomy of an Epidemic book came out, my guess is that 60 minutes would do the same thing.
And folks like Peter Breggin have no chance in heck of getting on programs like that. I hate to say that but in my opinion, it is the truth.
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It must be great to have hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and to be a psychiatric mogul. After months and months of victory after victory for Torry’s enemies, he gets to go on T.V. to 20-30 million American viewers and destroy it all with blatant lies and what should be considered prejudice hatespeech in hi attempts to demonize “mentally ill” people in the publics mind.
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Agreed that E Fuller Torrey did what psychiatry does best, exploit tragedies to propagandized his ideas.
However, it’s unlikely that he was seen by 20-30 million people. The average audience for 60 Minutes in 2012 was 12 million. So it is more likely it is half that amount.
Still no question that we don’t have to underestimate the quacks. Also the presence of Lieberann affirming that schizophrenia is a “brain disease” should convince the most open to dialog with the quacks that psychiatry is not our friend.
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Wow, excellent comments on the CBS website, cannotsay 2013. Relevant, coherent and persuasive. Well done; you are doing a really good job. I wish I could engage in discussion on this subject without frothing at the mouth.
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Francesca – same here! I end up frothing as well & then just getting really depressed about it all. These idiots are too powerful & persistent. Somehow we have to organize ourselves better as well as encourage sympathetic professional organizations to SPEAK UP MORE. This nonsense should NOT still be going on in 2013!
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Where do they get off – how can they claim “brain disease” with no evidence of same? Why are these claims allowed to slide by with no one in the mainstream ever challenging them on it – asking for proof?
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The numbers are in,
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratings/2013/09/30/sundays-broadcast-ratings-nbc-snf-triumph-over-competing-premieres-409110/broadcast_20130929/
“60 Minutes” (11.405 million viewers, #4; adults 18-49: 1.5, #T15)
Read more at http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratings/2013/09/30/sundays-broadcast-ratings-nbc-snf-triumph-over-competing-premieres-409110/broadcast_20130929/#6slYJhwS3h7CR6El.99”
Although that’s a lot of people, it’s not even 4% of the American people. I haven’t seen anywhere echos of the piece, including my conservative circles where people usually scapegoat on “mental illness” second amendment issues. I think we are good :D.
I don’t think that the special had the effect its promoters thought was going to have.
Do not forget either that we also have great allies elsewhere thanks to the great work done by many in the last few years,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/09/25/guns-mental-health-gun-control-mass-shooting-editorials-debates/2873387/
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11 million is about 5,000 times the amount of people in Whitaker’s camp, judging by his facebook profile. I’m not trying to demoralize anybody, but without there being laws that would force such professionals to be honest and concordant with the science(there ought to be such laws, since lives are at stake), then this stuff is going to continue to happen.
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Try thinking about this from Fuller Torrey’s perspective. For a couple of years now he’s watched Whitaker travel the world doing talks while he sits back and enjoys himself, no doubt thinking “When the time comes, I’ll just pull some strings with the mainstream media and crush him like an ant with my lies and distortion.”
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I don’t see things that way at all.
What you say might have been true 20 years ago, but in our age, 50 % of Americans get their news from the internet http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/189819/pew-tv-viewing-habit-grays-as-digital-news-consumption-tops-print-radio/ . And that’s just the news.
A 60 minutes story is not nearly as influential as it once was. Also it goes both ways. It’s 1.5 years that 60 minutes aired the story on Irving Kirsch, the story got much more follow up than yesterday’s in media outside CBS, but SSRIs are still over-prescribed.
Torrey got his 10 minutes of fame but nobody cares. In fact his TAC Facebook page has something like 2500 likes.
The fragmentation of media has an impact beyond this matter. One of the advantages of the Obama campaign (out of many) over the Romney campaign in 2012 was its media strategy. Money wise, both campaigns spent a similar amount. However, while Romney focused his spending in traditional media, Obama had a more heterogeneous approach, with Google hangouts, appearances in cable shows, etc. To put things in perspective, the first episode of the show “The Bible” at the History Channel earlier this year had higher ratings than yesterday’s 60 minutes.
The reality is that both the NIMH and the APA are officially distancing themselves from the Torrey program. That’s inevitable. As John Grohol from Psych Central says here: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/09/30/60-minutes-connecting-mental-illness-to-violence-with-little-data-facts/ , Torrey’s influence in mainstream psychiatry doesn’t go beyond his forced drugging agenda.
I have been following the media reaction to the story. Nobody, outside CBS, made any mention to it. Of the 3 stories aired yesterday by 60 Minutes, the one that got the highest follow up by other media, and by a huge margin, was the story on Bill O’Reilly because of his appeal to the Holy Spirit as the inspiration of his books :D. That should tell you that Torrey failed miserably again to gain followers.
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Lies:
1) “It’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the fact that the majority of the people pulling the triggers have turned out to be severely mentally ill — not in control of their faculties — and not receiving treatment.”
— Fact: Most of them were already “in treatment”/on psych drugs.
2) “In the words of one of the country’s top psychiatrists, ”
— Fact: Fuller Torrey is not considered one of the nations top psychiatrists, not even by maintstream psychiatric itself. He doesn’t get published in mainstream journals, he’s never considered for jobs with the APA or NIMH, he doesn’t even get invited to NAMI conferences anymore! He is a nobody in the world of research and academia, and a nobody in the world of mainstream psychiatric. He has lots of money that he got from a memorabilia collector and he once publied — decades ago — a best selling book… That’s it.
3) “these were preventable tragedies,”
Holy sh… I didn’t even have to to the next sentence to find the next LIE!
— Fact: There is no evidence to suggest that psychiatrists can predict who will become violent OR that “treatment” with drugs can prevent it. On the other hand, there IS evidence that they are no better than chance at determining who will become violent and that psychiatric drugs CAN CAUSE violent behavior.
4) “There is something eerily similar about the shooters, as if they were variations of the same person. All young males, often with the same glazed expression, loners who exhibited bizarre behavior, and withdrew into their own troubled world.”
— Fact: And all, or at least mostly, ALREADY ON PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS — Which scientific evidence has shown can cause ALL OF THAT!
I cant go on. But surely somebody better at this than me will pick apart all their lies and blog about it, then a few hundred members of the choir will read it and struggle to get their voices heard while Torrey rides his T.V. momentum to have new laws — and possibly even federal laws — passed.
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” Comments on the 60 Minutes website point out that many of the shooters have, in fact, been in treatment.”
Not anymore. I went there and could only find 5 comments, all supporting the 60 minutes episode… Including one from a guy at the FEMHC, which isn’t surprising in the least. Just add them to the list of traitors along NCMHR after they supported “in principle” a national database of “mentally ill”.
It appears there are no real allies in this war. None at all.
Correction: As of right now, there are only FOUR comments.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-500251_162-50156091.html?assetTypeId=58
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Hi JeffreyC,
I just read several comments against Torrey on the 60 minutes website as I clicked on the link provided at the top in the blog entry. I didn’t look at the link you provided but I am assuming it is a different area.
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I found lots of comments, the vast majority of them reflecting disappointment/disgust with the lack of objective reporting. Four pages all together, and 90% were negative. I didn’t even feel compelled to comment, because all I’d wanted to say was covered more than once by others. Well done!
—- Steve
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Ifeel like I’m in the twilight zone. I went back and clicked that link and now there are 90 comments, but nearly all of them in favor of the segment… Is that the right page?
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Dr. Jaffe of the Mental Illness Policy Organization made a comment on the 60 minutes blog thanking CBS for including the point of view of schizophrenics’ who were grateful for treatment. Could somebody please explain this aspect of the show to me? Were patients saying they found forced drugging “liberating”? Were they presuming to speak for the rest of us? Why do people almost invariably think that what “works” for them has to “work” for everybody?
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