There are various ways to analyze an institution like psychiatry. One of the most common is by mining examples. You might, for example, talk to few survivors who seem to embody what befalls most folk subject to psychiatric rule (a common research sampling strategy called by the unfortunate name “typical cases”; see Patton, 2000). Or you might pen a stirring phenomenological account based on your own experiences. All, without question, highly worthwhile.
A very different approach that I wish to demonstrate and would encourage other critics to consider employing now and then is choosing a single entry point—a moment where something feels wrong and which, for reasons that you may not yet fathom, appears to hold the promise of helping you open up the institution—and then seeing where it can lead you. This is a part of a method known as institutional ethnography (see Smith, 2006 and Smith and Turner, 2014). For the purposes of this article, I will give a simplified version and will introduce you to the bare beginnings of an inquiry—one that I found myself falling into but a couple of weeks back. The entry point is the arrival of a letter. I choose it partly because it is helpful as a demonstration, albeit also because it indeed unlocks a direction and modus operandi that it behooves us to be aware of.
In short, I arrived at my office to find a letter from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)—a huge psychiatric hospital/research institute in the centre of Toronto. I was perplexed, for as a well known critic of CAMH and as someone who had recently forced an investigation into one of their research projects, I would have thought that I was the last person that they would want to interact with. I proceeded to open the letter. It was from the coordinator of a research project. The project was investigating the use of a “new treatment” for people “with anorexia” (You can see the letter in its entirely here). To quote some of the key passages, it states,
“I am writing you on behave [their typo] of Dr. Allan Kaplan regarding a treatment study for anorexia nervosa. We hope that this study could be a great referral source for you and offer an important supplement to the therapy you provide.”
It proceeds to say,
“We offer (1) weekly visits with a psychiatrist/study physician for participants; (2) a commitment to find appropriate follow up care for participants at the completion of the study…(3) a commitment to follow up with referring clinicians to ensure continuity of care.” It ends with contact information.
Even as I started to read, I was perplexed. My immediate concern was: Why is a psychiatric research institute turning to me — a feminist therapist utterly unconnected with psychiatry, moreover, famous/infamous for organizing against it? A plausible explanation is that they had no idea who I was but had simply cobbled together a list of all therapists in the city known to work with people thought of as having “eating disorders.”
As I continued reading, my perplex turned into a kind of alarm, for the words, “We hope that this study would be a great referral source for you” signals that they are hoping to use therapists as a means of recruiting people into their study. The point is, it is bad enough that studies that place people in jeopardy are being advertised on buses, on the internet, in the main media. Now they are hoping to hook people’s own counselors or therapists into “referring” them. In essence, my first discovery.
As I pondered this, as a feminist, I began to catch a whiff of a possibly formidable new assault on women – overwhelmingly, the gender diagnosed as “anorexic.” The pressing question now was: What “treatment” were they researching? My hunch was one of the psychopharmaceutical substances. I was likewise eager to know what they were actually telling people about the product being tested.
In the interests of finding out more, I proceeded to call the coordinator. She confirmed that I had been contacted because I was on a list of therapists they had developed and clarified that this was a study on the use of olanzapine (better known by the brand name “Zyprexa”). “Would you like me to send you study material?” she offered. Shortly thereafter she emailed me an article about the use of olanzapine for anorexia as well as some general advertisements for the study (not one of which mentioned olanzapine).
What I did not receive, though I had explicitly asked for it, is the written information on olanzapine that they would be providing to prospective “participants.” I accordingly renewed my request. Her response was, “Generally [the doctor] discusses the details of the medication with the people in person if they are interested in finding out more.” (personal email, July 22, 2014) Which left me wondering if any written information is provided, and if so: a) what it says and b) why they are reluctant to share it with the very people they are theorizing as a prospective referral source and, if not, why nothing is being put in writing.
My own suspicion here? A couple of years ago, I forced an investigation into an ECT trial at CAMH, using as the basis for the complaint the very material that the principal investigator made public or handed to prospective participants. Now to be clear, the investigation in question, as expected, concluded that nothing wrong had happened. Given that the complaint caused the organization considerable consternation, however, one obvious possibility is that it is now policy to put as little as possible in writing. Be that as it may, of course, this much is clear: If little or nothing is put in writing, it is very hard to prove what is being told participants—that is, whether risks are greatly minimized or indeed mentioned at all and whether the claims being made have any credibility. What goes along with this, even if judged by less critical standards, under such circumstances, the likelihood that what consent participants give will be “informed” is negligible.
Which brings us to the nature of olanzapine itself. For those unfamiliar with it, olanzapine is an atypical antipsychotic. It is approved for use with “schizophrenia” and has never been approved for use with “anorexia.” Unfortunately, nor need it be so approved, for off-label prescribing (prescribing for purposes other than those for which a drug has been approved) is legal. Now olanzapine is a particularly risky substance known to cause all the problems that typically attend antipsychotics, but in addition causes hypoglycemia, diabetes, and hormonal imbalance, the last of which, in turn, leads to pathological weight gain—likewise well documented (see Breggin, 2008; also postings HERE and HERE.
The question that immediately presents itself is this: How many, if any, of these untoward effects do prospective participants hear about? And why do these researchers consider olanzapine effective for “anorexia” in the first place? And why in the larger scheme of things is this new “treatment approach” being pursued?
The first question remains unanswered largely because the process is not transparent. I leave you to conjecture in whose interest that lack of transparency is. In an attempt to answer the last two, I proceeded to hunt for earlier studies. I also investigated what the principal investigator himself had written.
Some salient findings? In 2007, there was a pilot study on the use of olanzapine for “anorexia.” It was funded in part by Eli Lilly—the manufacturer of Zyprexa. There were also a few other small studies. This larger study itself (the topic of the letter) is predicated on those earlier studies and it is taking place at CAMH in collaboration with Columbia University and three other U.S. sites. Correspondingly, what is being tested is precisely the proposition that olanzapine is efficacious with “anorexia.”
Question: What makes the earlier studies sufficiently promising to warrant such a study? It is here where what is essentially fancy footwork takes place. While anxiety relief is being hypothesized, the main and only convincing finding, as seen in Attia et al., (2011, p. 5), is that “in a small group of outpatients with AN, olanzapine was associated with greater increase in BMI [Body Mass Index] than was placebo.” To put this in layman’s terms, the participants on olanzapine gained more weight than the participants on placebo.
What is going on here? Quite simply, pathological weight gain caused by hormonal imbalance which in turn is caused by olanzapine is being repositioned as indicative of effectiveness for “anorexia.” In other words, not “normal” but pathological weight gain is itself being re-packaged as successful treatment. Something not hard to do, given the worry that people naturally have about the weight loss of women diagnosed with “anorexia.”
Put aside our understandable worry about women in these circumstances—and I am in no way denying that women deemed anorexic are often in very serious trouble with themselves (see Burstow, 1992)—what we have here, in effect, is the patriarchal control and harming of women, made to look palatable.
Exactly how far this new direction will go remains to be seen. That depends on what happens with other research studies on anorexia (note; there is more than one new “approach to anorexia” being researched at CAMH and around the world).
It likewise depends on how coopted therapists become, what propaganda is churned out, with what “before and after” pictures, how much money is pumped into the marketing, and what distraught family members can be brought onside. However, it is not hard to imagine a substantial chemical onslaught on young women with eating problems ensuing.
As for the participants themselves, what is the likely fate of the women once the trial ends? The answer is latent in the letter. The investigators promise to find “appropriate follow-up care at the completion of the study” and commit to ensuring “the continuity of care.” Translation? They will refer the women to doctors likely to keep them on the olanzapine, using, among other things, the pathological weight gain (repackaged as benign) as the reason why the women should continue on the “med.”
If it is now fairly clear what is going on, also why it is a win-win for the pharmaceutical industry. Further clarity arose as I unearthed and scrutinized one other publication. In an article called “Drug Rescue and Repurposing,” Kaplan, the principal investigator of the CAMH research in question states that olanzapine is being studied for “its repurposing potential.” He goes on to explain:
“Many pharmaceutical companies are moving away from developing new central nervous system drugs and psychiatric drugs in particular, due to the high costs of drug development, the absence of good animal models for psychiatric disorders, and low success rates in phase 3 clinical trials. As a result the CNS line is drying up and drug repurposing ends up an important and valuable research approach to able to develop new drugs in a cost-effective manner.” (Kaplan, 2013)
Despite the use of the term “develop new drugs” the companies, in point of fact, are not in these instances “developing new drugs” but rather, as Kaplan puts it, “repurposing.” The very words inserted into the title of his article “Drug Rescue,” correspondingly, is an answer to my final question. The pharmaceutical companies are experiencing what they see as a challenge to their bottom line — that is, purportedly they are in need of “rescue.” Stringent “repurposing” for drugs, whatever the type and whatever population can be theorized in relation to it, is the solution. The sacrifice of people for the greater good of the drug companies, I would add, is astonishingly close to being acknowledged.
To return to the beginning of this article and retrace our steps, we began with a letter offering what sounded like a benefit to the therapist. However, besides that as an antipsychiatry activist, I have no connection with psychiatry and so such communication is minimally an annoyance, in this instance something in particular did not “sit right.” And so instead of throwing away the letter or commenting on its “errors” or using it as an example of the type of letter that I receive from time to time, I approached it as a possibly useful entry point that could be employed to shed light on psychiatric processes. That is, I followed the different institutional threads that presented themselves.
What I found initially is a lack of transparency, combined with the use of a highly dangerous drug − olanzapine. Probing further, I discovered that what recommended this off-label use of the drug was nothing less injurious than the pathological weight gain arising from hormonal disturbance. And in the process I found what may well be the beginning of a new frontal pharmaceutical assault on women diagnosed with anorexia.
Finally, while of course the prevalence of “off-label” prescribing − and that its purpose is to increase industry profit − is well known, one related finding surfaced that is minimally less theorized: The immediate reason for the “repurposing” note is to get around not only the problem that stage 3 trials (the huge trials mandatory when attempting to bring a new drug to market) are expensive, but the at least as serious problem that they typically yield dismal results.
Hence the need for what is euphemistically being termed “repurposing,” and hence for studies that use whatever evidence can be mustered (including ones that can reasonably be put down to harm, pure and simple) to declare effectiveness. In essence, not only is this cost-effective, it has the added advantage of sidestepping the entire approval process, while creating the appearance of acting responsibly. A further direction that appears to have been uncovered is the use of people’s own therapists—including private feminist therapists—to secure research participants and the practice of guaranteeing repeat customers by guaranteeing “continuity of care.”
All these findings are important to make known. Moreover—and this takes us back to the beginning of this article—a modest demonstration of the value of employing an “entry point” approach.
* * * * *
A final methodological comment in conclusion: I stated at the outset that there was a relationship between what I was doing and institutional ethnography (IE). So was this an institutional ethnography study? No. What I did is to take a few IE elements and fashion an easily accessible method available to anyone. Should this intrigue you about IE itself and should you want to know what could be done if one were actually using real IE in all its dimensions and complexity, keep reading BizOMadness and Mad in America. I am in the process of training a veritable army of antipsychiatry critics in IE, so you will be hearing more about this serviceable methodology in the months and years to come.
* * * * *
This blog is a slightly revised version of one that appeared first on
BizOMadness, Bonnie Burstow’s personal website
References
Attia, Ec. et al. (2011). Olanzapine versus placebo for anorexia nervosa. Pathological Medicine, p. 1.
Breggin, P. (2008). Brain-disabling treatments in psychiatry. New York: Springer.
Burstow, B. (1992). Radical feminist therapy: Working in the context of violence. Newbury Park: Sage.
Kaplan, A. (2013). Drug rescue and repurposing. IMS Magazine. Downloaded July 30 2014 from http://www.imsmagazine.com/drug-rescue-and-repurposing-allan-s-kaplan/.
Patton, M. (2000). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). Newbury Park: Sage.
Smith, D. (Ed.) (2006). Institutional ethnography as practice. New York: Rowan and Littlefield,
Smith, D. and Turner, S. (Eds.) (2014). Incorporating texts into institutional ethnography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
“… As a result the CNS line is drying up and drug repurposing ends up an important and valuable research approach to able to develop new drugs in a cost-effective manner.”
First I thought at least they are honest what they are doing. Unfortunately they pull out some “scientific” explanation out of the hat:
“Olanzapine, among its other effects, has affinity for dopaminergic receptors in the brain, acting primarily to block the brain chemical, dopamine. The core disturbances in anorexia nervosa include disturbances in reward (anhedonia), activity (compulsive/excessive exercising), regulating intense negative feelings (affective regulation), and the interpretation of bodily sensations (enteroceptive awareness). All of these functions are known to be mediated by dopamine.” (Kaplan 2013)
Instead of being honest about Olanzapine, which “causes hypoglycemia, diabetes, and hormonal imbalance, the last of which, in turn, leads to pathological weight gain—likewise well documented”
If it really were only about dopamine, why would you choose the neuroleptic with the worst metabolic side effects? I think it’s quite obvious that they intentionally chose the neuroleptic which induces weight gain / metabolic syndrome / diabetes most effectively.
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Moments of something that is cynical disregard (the closest they come to honesty) with the mainstay being deception pure and simple.
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It also grows the market for diabetes drugs, creates more neuroleptic-addicts and people who will be diagnosed as bipolar / schizo* due to neuroleptic-induced supersensitivity psychosis.
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yes, a gift that never stops giving–for the pharmaceutic industry.
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Rock on, Dr. Burstow!!! Organize!!!
I did find a short definition of IE: the study of textually-mediated social organization
And: “Institutional ethnographies are built from the examination of work processes and study how they are coordinated, typically through texts and discourses of various sorts.”
I’m fascinated, but your Bizomadness link didn’t work. I’d love to check it out.
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I am glad that this interests you. I am not sure why the link does not work for you for it does for me. I suggest googling BizOMadness for it will surely take you there.
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Yes, I just clicked on the link that you did and indeed it does not work. Here is the url for my private website: bizomadness.blogspot.ca
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thank you
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wileywitch: I am not sure what was wrong but the link is working now. Enjoy.
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Nothing really surprises me with the pharmaceutical industry but this one beggars belief. Use a potentially dangerous side effect of a drug as a therapy! Thanks so much for this Bonnie. you truly rock and I love IE!
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Yes, using a dangerous side effect as a treatment is indeed horrifying. In a way, that is what psychopharmacy is always doing but this one is so intentional and so calculated it is stunning.
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Bonnie: It appears that I have asked too few questions of my psychiatrists over the years. I was put on zypreza about 10-12 years ago-diagnosis Bipolar. Subsequent psychiatrist have suggested that I taper off. I kicked Lamictal about Eight months ago. This entailed some bouts of insomnia, but I succeeded nonetheless. Zypreza is a little different animal. I have tried three times unsuccessfully in the past to taper off of it. I think that I tried to taper too fast. I found an increase in irritability and a disruption in my sleep pattern when I tried in the past. Currently, I am on a dose of about 1.5 milligrams. Also on .5 Milligrams of Klonopin. At my height I was 208 lbs., now down to 182, with a goal of 160-my bicycle racing weight. I think that I maybe I am a little luckier luckier than most in this regard. I do suffer from stage 3 kidney disease kidney due to 23 years on Lithium. I have managed to stay in school and employed for the last 24 years. I am also married and I have a son, so I am probably a little luckier than most who have been diagnosed as “severely mentally ill.”
It just wish, that when the psychiatric system came down on me twenty-five years ago, that I would have been given alternatives to life long medication. At the the time, I was indeed burning the candle at both ends, and could have used some type of respite from life. Over the last five years I have been educated to the fact that people critical of psychiatry had been trying to develop alternatives all along.
By reading your posts and the writings of other feminists, it seems that there are gender specific attributes of the psychiatric diagnosis that targets women more negatively than men, just as the prison industrial complex comes down harder on men. I was listening to a Pacifica radio interview a couple of months ago with a disability rights advocate from the Disability Studies program from the University of Toledo. Liat Ben-Moshe, the professor there, has a new book coming out which she co-edited with Angela Davis. Basically, she looks at the various systems of incarceration in this country, (mental hospitals, developmentally disabled homes and prisons), as their institution structures have changed over time.
It seems to me, that if are to make head way in educating the public and making policy change, we need to form alliances with liked minded people whose concerns overlap with our own. Just thought that I would pass this along.
Best Regards:
Chris Reed
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Yes, we absolutely need those alliances. Alliance with prison abolitionists, with peace-making visionaries, with people into rebuilding the commons, and we need to rebuild the much stronger links that we once had with feminism as a while. Incidentally Liat’s new book (Disability Interrogated) came out about a month and a half ago–and it truly terrific.
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Just to interject some advice: try to measure your iron levels and see if they need supplementation (too low or close to the lower limit). Zyprexa and Seroquel cause restless leg syndrome via interfering with dopamine signalling and that is exacerbated with low iron levels (iron being important for dopamine production). I found that iron supplements help with some lasting effects of these drugs, in my case RLS, maybe they could help you to tamper off. Just take care to do a blood check, too much iron can be toxic. Magnesium supplementation can also helps in a similar manner (I’m not sure if there’s a biosynthetic link but it definitely had some positive effect for me).
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Check out the work of integrative psychiatrist James Greenblatt http://www.jamesgreenblatt.com and his book: Answers to Anorexia: A Breakthough Nutritional Treatment That’s Saving Lives.
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What is Integrative Medicine? http://www.integrativepsychmd.com
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“repurposing”?
Didn’t know why but the term made me smile. Then I realised where I’d seen this used before.
I was having trouble with rolling out of bed, so my doctor prescribed Viagra. Problem fixed.
Seems to be nothing more than repackaging damage as a solution. Didn’t there used to be like an ethics committee involved with this sort of experimentation? If I were to use the Institutional Ethnographic method I’d be having a look at the names of those who approved this as well. I think that may lead one in a valuable direction. Ethics committee been to any conferences in the Bahamas lately?
Glad to see your on the ball Bonnie and have spotted this method of trapping innocents with techniques more worthy of used car salesmen than Doctors.
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Unfortunately, you could never get the names. Another part of the problem. Everything connected with research is exempt from Freedom of Information requests. Another leg of the problem.
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Which is totally ridiculous. Clinical trials and any studies involving human subjects should be 100% open, pre-registered for approval and all data should be available for anyone who can read. There is no rational excuse from keeping that stuff confidential unless one admits it’s to cover potential malpractice.
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agreed.
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Ah, yes, I do remember those ads on Craigslist offering $$$$$ for volunteers for an ECT study.
And isn’t CAMH that concrete fortress in Toronto where people with thyroid problems, nutrient deficiencies, copper/zinc imbalances, gluten intolerance, inner ear problems, toxic chemical exposure, heavy metal toxicity, a kidney not filtering properly, etc … are treated with antidepressants … the adverse effects of which are considered to ‘unmask long-standing mental illness’ and when people have been medicated to insanity, they are given (or forced to have) ECT as a ‘last’ hope.
One can even have a fall in a dance class and be given an antidepressant for pain and then be forced to have ECT to deal with the adverse effects of the antidepressant.
Keep writing Bonnie, keep exposing.
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You indeed remember totally correctly about the Craigslist. Horrific. Depressed people were being offered $645.00 a head to agree to ECT, described as a minor thing.
I will keep exposing & thanks for the support.
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I wonder if they mentioned permanent loss of memory aka retrograde amnesia or cognitive decline resulting in lower IQ and trouble learning? Let me guess – no?
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B: Alas, your guess is 100% correct
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Bonnie
Excellent exposure of the criminal nature of Biological Psychiatry.
Soon they will be “repurposing” antidepressants for teenagers as a way to prevent premarital sex and discourage excessive focus on romantic forms of bonding.
The collusion of modern psychiatry and Big Pharma seemingly knows no bounds in its attempt to transform human interaction into some form of exploitative commodity relationship.
Richard
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Thanks, Richard. and yes, who knows what “repurposing” they’ll do next?
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I’m quite certain mandating a lifetime on Zyprexa, a drug known to cause pathological weight gain, as well as brain atrophy and a host of other serious adverse effects, to a woman obsessed with being thin, is not in that woman’s best interest. And I read, not long ago, an article that told of how anorexia was introduced, I think it was into Japan, completely with marketing. Creating belief in, and actually creating “illnesses” in societies, completely with marketing, is a morally reprehensible behavior, please wake up and stop soon this big Pharma and psychiatry.
I was watching a film, then was further researching tonight, on plants in South America that may possibly have healing powers. I came across this website, and thought of your blog, Bonnie:
http://www.rain-tree.com/article4.htm
Perhaps, recommending quinine water, or use of the original source of that, the cinchona plant, may be at least an appropriate starting point for healing anorexia? Or at least may we at least say that starting treatment of the likely marketed into existence “disease” of anorexia, with toxic and torturous antipsychotics, is absolutely inappropriate. Why are antipsychotics the first line of treatment for almost everything today? Oh, because there are patents still on these “me too” fictitious “new wonder drugs,”
But the medical evidence is coming in showing these “atypical” antipsychotics are even more deadly than the antipsychotics the American APA stated the Russians were wrong to use, against the Russian dissidents in the 1970’s, who came over here claiming the antipsychotics were “torture” drugs. All the neuroleptics / “antipsychotics” are “torture” drugs, and the UN pointed out last year that “forced treatment” with them is “torture” in 2013.
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So Zyprexia should be tested for a first line of treatment for anorexia? What the corporatocracies are doing is deplorable.
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Off Label use – this has bee a propaganda template employed to bog down by adding superfluous filler-material, a cul-de-sac non-issue. They have used this propaganda gambit, as you may recal for: HEADLINE: Doctors are giving young (children and pregnant and nursing women) toxic fluorine and chlorine neurotropic drugging agents calling the “Medications” children are dieing — children are dieing, their lives are grossly harmed, their nervous systems are toxified instead of being nourished, women are miuscarying, young boys are developing lactating female type breasts, children are getting tardive dyskineisa and type two diabetes — and, AND these Medications are being used “off label” That is: they are being used on children when they have not been tested on children first. Hoiw can fake doctores give poisons to children when these poisons haven’t even been tested yet on young children. It is ethically wrong to poison children, when test children have not been pro-forma poisoned first.
Legitimate Doctors and others have written in recent years that “off label” use of drugs is (or was…) correct, normal Medical practice. Doctors such as the Country Physician or DR. WHO are DOCTORS. They are the Authority, they have the License, they are Doctor. They do not need Harvard or Tufts or Emory or Princeton or Columbia to tell them how to practice. Is there a doctor in the house?!
As Doctors they practice Medicine and they are the Medical authority. As such they study the literature. Medicines get approved for one purpose, one time. They are then available and doctors can employ them according to their ever increasing knowledge. As new uses are subsequently found and doctors study the Medical Literature the learned, studious doctors will comprehend the new information and as such can use in their personal practice. Thus from the standpoint of Doctors being autonomous, exceptional, Licensed Professionals “off label” use of medicines (IE, use other than the use that originally got the drug approved) is the way things are supposed to be.
These filler garbage cul-de-sac emphasizing articles clog and derail the communication value and that is the intent. Psychological/Behavioral labeling of children as been “with” DSM nosology deviance-from-normality characterizing categories — and “treatment” with patented centrally acting drug products-for-sale containing halogen atoms causing intentional injury and death – lets not go in that direction – let’s derail reality with filler.
Dan Burdick Eugene, Oregon USA
Dan Stradford … By using drugs to treat the symptoms, they not only expose patients to the effects of the drugs but they let the real causes go …
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/about/default.htm
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It’s also immoral, I think, to put children in drug trials. At the very least, drugs should be the very last after every other avenue has been tried for a year or two each.
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Educators have been using ethnography to study schools for years. I fear it has not helped us to rethink schools and deschool our children. Still it is worth doing.
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Actually, institutional ethnography is very different than what is called “ethnography”. A unique methodology that is quite distinct and far more political. It is invented by Dorothy Smith not that long ago, and unlike ethnography which is basically trying to describe a community, its purpose is to trace how the problems people faced may be traced to the working or what of institutions. Its strength is mapping precisely how those problems emerge.
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The insidious thing about social control is that it programs its targets take on tiers of responsibility and blame: responsibility for self; responsibility/blame for the flaws in the system which are not regarded as flaws but as benevolent provisions; responsibility/blame for the power players who control the system and do not recognize that power is responsibility.
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This is the same strategy that the oil, petrochemical and the nuclear industries have been using for decades, so it isn’t surprising that the pharma industry does the same. If it wasn’t for the toxic by-products of oil production, we would not have plastic bottles, tupperware or lego toys. Agent Orange was used in Vietnam to defoliate the jungle in the search for Viet Cong supply lines, repackaged it is Monsanto’s latest weed killer. The idea that every household should have its own little nuclear reactor in the basement arose as a response to the growing problem of nuclear waste. Einstein was right in saying that human stupidity knows no bounds!
Good article, thanks.
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It seems that the field of psychiatry took cues from the field of nutrition and is populated by salespersons for big industry.
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Atypicals are deadly and being given out more and more. My wish is I knew what I know now about psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. I went from an active well read woman to one who was incoherent, gained over 100 pounds and had profound akathisia (at the time I didn’t know what it was or that I had it). Every time I told my psychiatrist of how I was feeling on each new drug he prescribed me he replied it was all “me” not the drugs. Please keep revealing the subterfuge of psychiatry and let others be warned of its dangers. Thank you again. By the way I’m psych drug free and celebrating the fact.
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Psychiatry is inimical to women. Period. Bonnie’s papers on ECT and feminism spells out the violence being done to women by psychiatry very well. I think it’s important for we women to always bear in mind that the field of psychiatry is dominated by privileged men.
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“… the field of psychiatry is dominated by privileged men,” and some very unethical women, based upon my experience. Although it was a male psychiatrist who, based solely upon a written list of lies and gossip from the people who abused my children, which was eventually handed over; and without any personal knowledge of who I am, or what the quality of my work consisted of, proclaimed I was “irrelevant to reality” and rationalized his behavior by writing in his medical records that I was “w/o work, content, and talent,” as he was poisoning me with six drugs, every single one of which had major drug interaction warnings with the others.
Thankfully, he did eventually look at my work, and claimed it to be “work of smart female,” and me to be “insightful,” so I was weaned off the drugs. Perhaps the psychiatric practicers should start to listen to, and believe, what their patients are saying, rather than just trusting in lies and gossip from well connected child molesters? That psychiatrist was embarrassed beyond all belief, after some decent nurses had handed over my family’s medical records, including the medical evidence of the child abuse. And when I confronted him with all his delusions in his medical records, he didn’t know what to do, but declare my entire life a “credible fictional story.”
How many people here believe a “fictional” person can blog on the internet? If an industry treats people in a completely insane manner, they can make people question their sanity. But maybe this evil approach to dealing with other human beings should end? As should tranquilizing other human beings, while claiming the ADRs and withdrawal effects of the tranquilizers are “life long, incurable, genetic mental illnesses.”
Shame on our paternalistic mainstream medical system.
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Borderline personality disorder is the prime example. Usually sicked on women who dare to have an emotional breakdown in an abusive relationship. And then obviously they are being explained that it’s their fault because they create bad relationship patterns and are too controlling (aka woman who finds out that the guy is sleeping with 3 other women at the time or discovers she has no friends anymore since they all were told lies about her behind her back – well, they should not be spying on him anyway, right?).
Psychiatry is a great tool for abusers.
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It surely is. And to privileged men, women appear “crazy”.
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Yes, indeed, as Breggin has repeatedly shown, despite the propaganda the surrounds them atypicals are particularly dangerous.
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A great thing to celebrate. Mazel tov
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She confirmed that I had been contacted because I was on a list of therapists they had developed and clarified that this was a study on the use of olanzapine (better known by the brand name “Zyprexa”).
…OMG. If you want to shift from anorexia to obesity that’s probably an awesome idea…
I think it’s high time to do something about the whole off-label prescribing business. I mean, if the medicine is indeed “evidence-based” than this is clearly malpractice as there is no evidence in form of clinical trials to back it up.
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It is horrific practice. Unfortunately it is unlikely to be seen as malpractice because it is both legal and common.
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Task Force 7 Report of 1973 – 58 page. Cited for decades including citation by Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz.
Issued at the dawn of the golden age of Psychopharmacological therapy in Psychiatry once this 58 page “peer review” was published the exclusive chemical agents that would be considered for use in Psychiatry are “meds” — that being very lucrative prescription patented drugging chemicals typically containing chlorine or fluorine (as no organic chemicals used in the biology of life do).
Work on the DSM-3 started at this time. The DSM-3 expunged allpost-Freudian psychoanalytic termonology such as complexes and neuroses. DSM-3 published in 1973 made everything “Medical model,” and allowed diagnoses to be done by interview, word tests and Professional opinion and treatment to be done by ongoing maintenance drugging with by prescription xenobiotic toxic neurotropic drugs (all patented.)
All of the work done by people trying to test and treat biochemical imbalances is suppressed so that the APA/NIMH can sell patent nostrums to treat imbalances according to the theory of the “Medical model” (in other words they suppress the actual Medicine and substitute propaganda for it).
Daniel Burdick Eugene Oregon, USA
Link to PDF Document — http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEsQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psychiatry.org%2Ffile%2520library%2Flearn%2Farchives%2Ftfr1973_megavitamin.pdf&ei=wBT9U5DiFKjUigKnkICgBw&usg=AFQjCNEaKi45EfXmFVDI1N_21MH3G8q-jQ
Reply to the Task Force 7 – Abram Hoffer, M.D.
https://archive.org/stream/ReplyToApaTfr7/reply_to_apa_tfr_7_djvu.txt
http://www.doctoryourself.com/APA_Reply_Hoffer.pdf
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Orthomolecular Psychiatry: Niacin and Megavitamin Therapy
http://www.psychosomaticsjournal.com/article/PIIS0033318270716228/references
Can Psychiatr Assoc J. 1970 Feb;15(1):15-20.
Nicotinic acid in the prevention and treatment of methionine-induced exacerbation of psychopathology in schizophrenics.
Ananth JV, Ban TA, Lehmann HE, Bennett J.
In this APA and NIMH “Scientific Peer Review” done by “Professionals” there is a remarkable “test” wherein 30 psychotic patients are given a large dose of methionine and a monoamineoxidase MAO inhibitor tranylcypromine.
All 30 of their “patients” deteriorated and because niacin failed to act as an antidote, their conclusion, as appearing in the 1973 TF7 Report, is that the “credibility is low” of these Orthomolecular Psychiatrists and of the treatments that they “promulgate” via public media such as television.
The amphetamine challenge “tests” came to the attention of Robert Whitaker and Vera Sharav and others as dubious and not ethical.
I strongly suggest that they and all of us add the 1970 “test” to our list for consideration.
Notice the tactics implicit. It’s a corporate profit driven marketing gimick, as the challenge tests to make a pretense of being interested in a “dopamine hypothesis” and be doing important, ongoing really-scientific study. Total facade. Only fraud. No hypothesis, concept, or model. No Medical interest at the top.
Stand Up.
Daniel Burdick Eugene, Oregon USA
Anath and Thomas Ban
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Ananth+Ban+methionine-induced++tranylcypromine+OR+%28tranylcypromine%29++
Reply to the Task Force 7 – Abram Hoffer, M.D.
http://www.doctoryourself.com/APA_Reply_Hoffer.pdf
John Hammell – More Regarding Ortho
“When Pauling got behind Hoffer and Osmond, the drug cartel went gonzo andsought his scalp.” “The APA Task Force Report titled “Megavitamins and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry” was so incredibly biased that it couldn’t even SEEM to beobjective. They examined only negative studies, never positive ones, and didn’t include anyone with any experience with orthomolecular medicine on their panel”
https://www.facebook.com/NutritionbyNatalieRD/posts/10201002335392872
Final Autobiography piece by Abram Hoffer, M.D.
“Rose My Wife”
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=hoffer+rose+my+wife+remarkable+Task+Force+rabid+republican
Abram Hoffer writes, “Dr Morris Lipton, who had chaired the remarkable Task Force of the American Psychiatric Association which had roundly denounced our work and had published a most remarkable document, remarkable for its totally dishonest account of what we had been doing and claiming. The most rabid republican in the United States would probably have done a more honest job in attacking the Democratic Party. Humphry and I replied to this corrupt document but few paid any attention.”
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