What Should We Really Call Psychiatric Drugs?

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There is a single scientific term that most appropriately describes psychiatric drugs. Not long ago, I used it in court on several occasions during my testimony to explain why psychiatric drugs can have such disastrous effects on the brain, mind, and behavior.

My use of the term angered experts on the other side who declared, in effect, “if you search the scientific literature, only Dr. Breggin uses that word to describe psychiatric drugs.” In fact, there is a long tradition of using the dread word that has been largely expunged from the official psychiatric literature but remains alive in research and at times pops up in the clinical literature.

The dread word, which I urge everyone to start using on a regular basis, is neurotoxin. The word “neurotoxin” so unhinges my colleagues because it is a true descriptor for every psychiatric chemical and because it opens the door to an honest analysis of how these poisons impact on the human brain and mental life.

What is a Neurotoxin?

A toxin is “any substance poisonous to an organism.”  A neurotoxin is “a substance that alters the structure or function of the nervous system.” A similar alternative definition for neurotoxin is “a poisonous substance that acts on the nervous system and disrupts the normal function of nerve cells.” Medically, a neurotoxin is “any toxin that acts specifically on nervous tissue.”1

There is no rational way to argue against putting psychiatric chemicals into the category of neurotoxins. All psychiatric substances alter “the structure or functions of the nervous system” and disrupt “the normal function of nerve cells.” All of them act “specifically on nervous tissue.”

How Drug Companies Seek to Create Psychiatric Neurotoxins

Drug companies tailor their future products to disrupt and alter the brain functions of normal animals before they begin to test them on humans. When a potential psychiatric drug fails to alter, disrupt or impair normal function in the mammalian brain, the drug companies discard it as useless for a psychiatric treatment.

Prozac, for example, resulted from an intense search for a chemical that would disrupt the normal functioning of serotonin neurotransmission in the animal and human brain. Similarly, it is not a coincidence that all “antipsychotic” drugs disrupt dopamine neurotransmission in the animal and human brain.

The biochemical aim of all psychiatric drugs is disruption of normal neurotransmission in the brain. The first great psychiatric researchers, Delay and Deniker, knew this and openly discussed the neurotoxic effects of the drugs that started the revolution in psychiatry in the 1950s, including Thorazine (chlorpromazine) and Haldol (haloperidol).

Denial of Neurotoxicity

The problem for modern psychiatry is that use of this dread word, neurotoxin, at the least undoes the naïve or fraudulent assumption that psychiatric drugs are relatively safe and that they do more good than harm. Accepting that all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxins makes ridiculous all claims about psychiatric drugs “correcting biochemical imbalances,” “enhancing neurotransmitters,” or “treating illnesses.” When taking a neurotoxin in sufficient doses to observably change human mental life and behavior, there is little or no chance that the benefits exceed the risks, even in the short term, and there is a near certainty of some degree of persisting harm after months and years of exposure.

By calling psychiatric drugs neurotoxins, we make clear that they are not inherently therapeutic and that their effects probably result from harming brain function. Based on what we know about neurotoxins in general, from nerve gas to antipsychotic drugs, calling them neurotoxins should, at the least, make us wary of potential toxic catastrophes and almost inevitable long-term irreversible ill effects.

How Neurotoxic Are Psychiatric Drugs?

A brief scan of any FDA-approved Full Prescribing Information for any psychiatric drug will confirm that it produces a broad array of serious neurotoxic impacts. The alleged benefits of the drugs are hard to prove scientifically, and they are marginal at best; but their neurotoxic effects are indisputable and too often lethal.

The FDA-approved Full Prescribing Information for every antidepressant contains the following warning, in this case from the 2017 Lexapro version:

All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric. P. 6

By reminding us that even “nonpsychiatric” patients can be afflicted with these potentially tragic effects, the FDA makes clear that the drug, and not the patient’s mental disorder, is the cause of these reactions. Only a potent neurotoxin could have such a devastating impact on the brain, mind, and behavior.

The description of antidepressant effects remarkably parallels a general discussion of “Behavioral Manifestations of Neurotoxicity in Psychiatric Manifestations of Neurotoxins”:2

Neurotoxicity is the disruption of the nervous system resulting from exposure to environmental toxins. Typical manifestations include changes in cognitive function and the development of neurodegenerative memory disorders, changes in neurologic function, and mood/psychiatric disturbances. … Mood changes that are often seen to varying degrees in neurotoxicity include increased anxiety, depression, irritability, impulsiveness, and psychosis. P. 202

Like any potent neurotoxin, antidepressants can cause extreme neurotoxic crises. Most antidepressants cause a serotonin syndrome that so disrupts the brain that many untreated patients will die. The FDA-approved Full Prescribing Information for Lexapro describes this neurotoxic crisis along with its more general toxic effects:

Serotonin syndrome symptoms may include mental status changes (e.g., agitation, hallucinations, delirium, and coma), autonomic instability (e.g., tachycardia, labile blood pressure, dizziness, diaphoresis, flushing, hyperthermia), neuromuscular symptoms (e.g., tremor, rigidity, myoclonus, hyperreflexia, incoordination) seizures, and/or gastrointestinal symptoms (e.g., nausea, vomiting, diarrhea). Patients should be monitored for the emergence of serotonin syndrome. P.7

All psychiatric drugs have their own litany of serious neurotoxic effects and all display their own manifestations of extreme neurotoxicity, such as serotonin syndrome, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, lithium encephalopathy, benzodiazepine-induced CNS depression, or stimulant neurotoxicity.

Drug companies struggle mightily to manipulate their clinical trials to demonstrate even marginal “therapeutic effects” for their drugs. Yet despite their best efforts to rig their trials and to manipulate their outcomes, in every clinical trial the neurotoxic effects are overwhelmingly more obvious and consistent than any supposed beneficial effects. Psychiatric chemicals are known neurotoxins with alleged therapeutic benefits.

Similarly, when speaking of the harmful effects of psychiatric chemicals, it is time to let go of euphemistic terms like side effects, adverse effects, or adverse events. We need to speak of neurotoxic effects.

And what should we call so-called “beneficial” or “therapeutic effects”? They could be called the “sought-after neurotoxic effects.” These include myriad signs of neurotoxicity, such as mild euphoria or, much more commonly, sedation, emotional numbness, apathy, depersonalization, or indifference to oneself and others.

Overview

All psychoactive drugs—that is, all drugs that affect the brain and mind—have neurotoxic effects of varying intensities. All of them achieve their sought-after effect by impairing higher brain functions, often dulling or numbing the ability to feel. Psychiatric neurotoxins are especially harmful because drug companies develop them to target major neurotransmitter systems such as serotonin and dopamine, sometimes blocking their functions and sometimes making them hyperactive, and in all cases rendering them severely abnormal.

Whether people are taking street neurotoxins, like LSD or methamphetamine, or social neurotoxins such as marijuana and alcohol, or prescribed neurotoxins such as psychiatric chemicals, all neurotoxins impair the individual’s ability to perceive or to understand the degree of mental and emotional dysfunction that the drugs are inflicting on them (see “medication spellbinding”). That is why many people continue taking harmful chemicals, including psychiatric neurotoxins, even as the quality of their lives becomes increasingly impaired. They lose touch with the real state of their emotional and mental functioning. Distressed friends and family members frequently try to tell these victims of neurotoxicity that they are getting worse, often to no avail.

Principles of Neurotoxicity

Based on clinical experience and information published in my books and articles, here is a formulation of some key principles of neurotoxicity. Each principle applies to all psychiatric neurotoxins, including so-called antipsychotics; mood stabilizers; antidepressants; tranquilizers, anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping medications; and ADHD drugs:

  1. The severity and frequency of long-term neurotoxic damage tends to increase with higher doses and longer exposure.
  1. Acute neurotoxic reactions can occur at any time, and may take characteristic forms for the chemical class of the neurotoxin, such as neuroleptic malignant syndrome, serotonin syndrome, amphetamine psychosis, lithium encephalopathy, and sedative coma. All acute neurotoxic crises must be suspected of causing lasting harm, unless otherwise proven. The evidence indicates that all can cause permanent injury to the brain and mind.
  1. Neurons, among all cells in the brain and body, are particularly sensitive or vulnerable to environmental toxins, such as psychiatric drugs, carbon monoxide, and lead.
  1. Neurons, compared to other cells in the brain and body, have little regenerative or recuperative powers, and they take longer to recover from injury.
  1. Neurons, more than any other cells in the body, exist in infinitely complex and subtle relationships with each other, so that even subtle impairments of one set of neurons or one neurotransmitter system is bound to negatively affect others. (Relationships among neurons are probably more complex than any other relationships in the universe. They must be so complex to generate and/or express all the remarkable qualities of human life, including thought, feeling, speech and creativity.)
  1. Injury and death of neurons negatively affects those around them and can lead to their dysfunction and death.
  1. Neurogenesis (the growth of new neurons) does occur, but it is not an indicator that the psychiatric neurotoxin is improving brain function. To the contrary, neurogenesis is usually a response to and a marker for injury, such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, ECT, or toxic assault. In addition, dying neurons are easily confused in their appearance with newly generated neurons.
  1. Because the brain is such an integrated organ, and because neurotoxicity rarely if ever affects only a discrete area of the brain, neurotoxicity will have generalized negative effects on varied mental functions such as emotional regulation and cognition, and on physical functions, such as sensation and motor control and coordination. Neurotoxicity rarely produces discrete effects, such as a stroke-like paralysis limited to one side of the body or blindness in one eye. Instead, it will harm the overall function of the individual’s brain, mind and conduct, often in barely perceptible ways, such as a slight emotional flatness or lack of engagement with others and with life. Because of individual variation and the complex circumstances typically surrounding the administration of psychiatric neurotoxins, the neurotoxic response from person to person is highly variable, but always reflects the infliction of harm on the brain, mind and behavior.

Once again, this variety or spectrum of neurotoxic effects is suggested in the FDA-approved Full Prescribing Information for any and every psychiatric drug. Furthermore, the true degree of dangerousness of the psychiatric neurotoxin always vastly exceeds the array that finds its way into the Full Prescribing Information. The neurotoxic effects described in the Full Prescribing Information are the result of vigorous drug company negotiations with an all-too-acquiescent and ineffective FDA.

It is time to clean up the misleading mess of words in psychiatry. We need to reject the concept of psychiatric medication and replace it with psychiatric neurotoxin. We can stop talking about side effects or adverse effects and directly address neurotoxic effects. Therapeutic or beneficial effects should be replaced with sought-after neurotoxic effects, including euphoria, emotional blunting, apathy, and indifference to one’s own suffering. The impact of this straight talk will be invigorating and clarifying for all who wish to know, to speak and to write the truth about what psychiatry and the drug companies are really pushing on society—an epidemic of neurotoxicity.

Show 2 footnotes

  1. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, 27th Edition (2000), Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
  2. Mason, L., Mathews, M., and Jan, Dong. (2013, June). Neuropsychiatric Symptom Assessment in Toxic Exposure, pp. 201-208, in Rusyniak, D. & Dobbs., M. (Eds.) Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 36 (2), 201-307. Philadelphia: Elsevier.

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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87 COMMENTS

  1. I was with you until you trotted out the drug war propaganda. Thank you for actually using the word poison to describe psychiatric drugs. Few people, especially doctors, possess the cajones to call psych drugs poison, so kudos.

    Cannabis on the other hand is not only neuroprotective, it’s extremely useful in easing the withdrawal symptoms caused by a range of neurotoxic legal pharmaceuticals such as psychiatric drugs, opioid painkillers and Zdrugs. http://norml.org/component/zoo/category/cannabis-and-the-brain-a-user-s-guide

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      • Any drug that can miraculously reduce seizures in children and restore some of their neuronal function like marijuana should not be considered a neurotoxin.
        Perhaps the concern is with so-called “skunk” marijuana which has been linked to psychotic episodes in some individuals.

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        • Though I am not a user, I am all for decriminalizing MJ. With that said, what do you all have to say about the link between MJ and other street drugs triggering schizophrenia? On my street in the 1970’s we had two boys from different homes become schizophrenic in their late teens.

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      • A research at a big university in NYC got a huge grant to study Effexor as an aid to quitting marijuana in so-called marijuana addicts. I’m sure it was a little unsettling when she found that subjects who took Effexor smoked more marijuana during their effort to stop smoking pot than did those who did not take it.

        I’ve never met a marijuana addict, so I wonder about the people who volunteer for the studies. Are they addicted to pot, or something else?

        Nonetheless, just as you found in your own experience, marijuana seemed to help people cope with the unpleasantness that is Effexor. I hope they continued to use pot after the study ended. Some of them will have experienced withdrawal symptoms…from Effexor.

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        • BetterLife, I was going to suggest a video called, MY EXPERIENCE ON, & GETTING OFF PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION – https://youtu.be/7Ls698KaxUw where she talks about her withdrawals from Effexor. It was remarkable, but sadly do to Googles severe censorship of internet content [those exposing the truth.] Google deleted her channel. I too went through pure hell coming off Effexor. It drove me completely mad and homicidal. If it wasn’t for marijuana to calm those rages I would have killed someone. Pot was a life saver for me during my withdrawals calming the mental torture and physical symptoms. Between the pot & this music I discovered I wouldn’t have made it. The withdrawal madness lasted for five months where I was so homicidal my psychotic mind told me this killing spree I planned every day was perfectly fine. This is the definition of ‘insanity’. While psychiatry calls it ‘care’. So thankful to be off those toxic drugs.

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        • betsycam, I didn’t use any particular strain of marijuana while withdrawing, I used whatever I could get my hands on. It relieved the brain zaps, uncontrollable crying, racing heart rate, fluctuating blood pressure, escalating anxiety, excruciating migraines, chronic insomnia, flu like symptoms, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, roller-coaster mood swings, anger, rage, and violence, to name a few. I couldn’t have made it without the pot. It rescued me from the ravages of insanity from the withdrawals to being centered with the universe, God & humanity. And while in the midst of pure mental torture, I welcomed it.

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        • Hi Betsycam, I used pot for Effexor withdrawal. My worst symptom was the extreme vertigo- for two weeks I could barely walk, could not read at all or watch tv, nothing that required me to track visually. It did not take away the vertigo, but staying really high during that time gave it a context that made it bearable existentially, if that makes any sense. I’d recommend a good sativa-dominant hybrid strain that’s potent in thc and mix it with one that’s high in cbd. If you know your tolerance for edibles, I found it helpful to have an edible on board especially through the night, BUT I would caution against experimenting with edibles during withdrawal if you aren’t used to ingesting cannabis, because edibles can be a completely different experience than you have smoking cannabis and many first-timers ingest too much because they underestimate the time it takes to feel the effects (can take up to an hour, depending). Ingesting too much can be an unpleasant experience, and defeat the purpose.

          Hope that info is helpful for you, and best of luck withdrawing!

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  2. The word neurotoxin got me off the drugs. Read Medication Madness The role of psychiatric drugs in cases of violence, suicide and crime during my last visit to a psychiatrist. Only wish I’d had the courage to read it out to them, but the fear of being detained in a hell hole and drugged up was very strong.

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  3. Thank you, Dr. Breggin for having the courage to continue to speak out and call these medications what they truly are — neurotoxins! “By reminding us that even “nonpsychiatric” patients can be afflicted with these potentially tragic effects, the FDA makes clear that the drug, and not the patient’s mental disorder, is the cause of these reactions. Only a potent neurotoxin could have such a devastating impact on the brain, mind, and behavior.” This is exactly what happened to me — I was prescribed psyche medications ‘off label,’ never given ‘informed consent’ and convinced by the neurologist that they were safe and effective for my health situation. Nothing could’ve been farther from the truth… as these drugs have completely ruined my mental and physical health.

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  4. Thank you, Dr. Breggin. I’ve been calling them drugs, and psychiatric drugs at that, but neurotoxins is certainly more to the point, and an apt definition/description that may help save people from some of the harms to which they’ve been subjected. I will see that it enters my lexicon, and that it is put to good service in the future.

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  5. When I saw the headline to this article with no byline I was going to respond with a one-word answer: neurotoxins. Then I saw that the author is Dr. Breggin, from whom I’d originally gotten the term, which I have used ever since. It should be used over & over again till people get it.

    Frank, check your email.

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  6. Great article as usual Dr. Breggin. What should we really call psychiatric drugs? I like the more accurate term “neurotoxins,” because it conveys a meaning that is closer to the truth. But even “neurotoxins” is too ephemeral a term, for anyone who has survived neurotoxic drugging. I do question the use of the term “psychiatric drugs” as well. I’ve seen the terms “psychotropic drugs” and “psychiatric drugs” used interchangeably, but I prefer the former to the latter, since these drugs are not just psychiatric… they actually alter the brain, that is, they are “psychotropic,” or brain changing. Neurotoxins works well for now. These neurotoxins are like the fiery breath of the dragon of psychiatry, or the venomous ooze of her gory maw, or the noxious sting in her fangs and claws. The time has come to slay the dragon of psychiatry.

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    • I am attempting to sue my ex pychiatrist for medical malpractice for treating me for a chemical I’m balance that I don’t have. Would anyone know if this has been done successfully yet? Dr. Breggin the kind soul has been trying to educate the world on love and caring for people and the idiots have not listened. If they get sued for medical malpractice for misdiagnosis and mistreatment with meds, they might start paying attention and stop harming people.

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      • Try to find other survivors and make it a class action suit. Make a big enough stink and–although you will likely “lose” you can truly discredit and embarrass those liars in the big pharma/psych racket. That’s why Big Pharma often settles out of court. While they could pay less by winning the case, they would lose face and people would be more apt to avoid their poisons.

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  7. Someone in my building frequently changes their SSID frequently suggestive of my privacy such as “toons”, Spolied Baby Guest Network” “1910 Yonge Street ( which is my SSID but hidden SSID which means they hacked into my wifi) “SpagettieNetwork Guest”, —- and “RisingFromAshes Slowly”_ suggesting of their admissions of using neurotoxins to me.

    I feel my life is threatened, literally. Help People in MIA if you know anything about the influence by Mr. Janus of Royal Conservatory of Music.

    I have been lying on my bed unconscious for two days and felt very dizzy afterwords. I had impaired cognition and movement.

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  8. Dr. Breggin, Thank you for your article and for this new clarity about what these psychiatric chemicals really are.

    But what should we do about it? Myself, especially for those doctors who are giving these drugs to children, I want to see them prosecuted in the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity. But how do we get there?

    As I see it there are the following problems:

    1. Most neurotoxin prescriptions are being given out by psychologists and psychotherapists, not psychiatrists. These psychologists and psychotherapists want this prescription capability because it adds to their professional status, and to their fees.

    2. The vast majority of psychiatric medicine is being taken voluntarily. It seems to have the same appeals as do street drugs and alcohol.

    3. If someone is endorsing talk therapy, then they are also part of the same pattern of lies. They are saying that the distress a client may feel originates in and is solved by massaging their own thinking, not by the much harder effort of politically organizing and effecting political change. So if you say talk therapy could help, then prescription or street chemicals presumably could too. So could electro-shock and lobotomy. So could euthanasia.

    4. What I see on the ground is that they use these chemicals to manage the poor. They see any signs of agitation or anger as a malady to be corrected.

    5. Some posting here on MIA also seem to see it this way, fixing people in the name of ~~mental health~~.

    6. And then there are those who champion street drugs, like methamphetamine, LSD, and marijuana, and they seem to believe that a person is improved by these, rather than seeing that all these are is a tune out. They call them an ‘event’, not an addictive habit, but they don’t seem to realize is that that is still an escape, opening for them a door of non-engagement.

    The only things which restore someone’s public honor is a demonstrated ability to publicly organize, and a displayed willingness to take personal risks in acting to protect ones self and others.

    The mental health movement is rooted in the bogus sciences of social Darwinism and eugenics, and these work by destroying ones public honor.

    So we need to make some plans and take some actions. As I see it, you cannot be anti-psychiatry or anti-psychiatric neurotoxins unless you are also against talk therapy and against street drugs.

    https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1970/dope.htm

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    • Quick point of clarification regarding your comment, “Most neurotoxin prescriptions are being given out by psychologists and psychotherapists, not psychiatrists. These psychologists and psychotherapists want this prescription capability because it adds to their professional status, and to their fees.”

      Exceptionally few psychiatric drugs are prescribed by psychologists/psychotherapists. Prescriptive authority for psychologists is legal only in New Mexico, Louisiana, and Illinois, and only for specially trained psychologists in those states. The Illinois statute requires so much training that it’s likely no psychologist will ever bother to complete it. Although the American Psychological Association has been aggressively lobbying for prescriptive authority for decades, their campaign has been a spectacular failure, and many psychologists are opposed to prescriptive authority.

      It’s certainly true that “These psychologists and psychotherapists want this prescription capability because it adds to their professional status, and to their fees.” But > 99% of prescriptions for psychiatric drugs in the US are not written by psychologists/psychotherapists. Here in Australia where I live now, no psychologists/psychotherapists can prescribe and I would be shocked if that ever changes.

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      • I’m not sure about things that have wrongly been referred to as “antipsychotics”, but I know that general practitioners hand out prescriptions for “antidepressants” as if they’re candy. So, I suspect that they give out neurotoxins too. It’s not just psychiatrists that we must confront about these drugs.

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        • Many GP’s here do indeed hand out antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs (like benzos) easily and often. In the Australian healthcare system, a referral from a GP or psychiatrist is required for people to have Medicare pay for their sessions with a psychologist. Almost every client who sees me sees a prescriber first. Many of them are prescribed psychiatric drugs by their GP as part of the handoff to a psychologist. An even higher percentage referred by psychiatrists are given drugs, often drug cocktails. The price many Australians pay to access a psychologist is to first meet with a medical doctor who unnecessarily prescribes one or more psychiatric drugs. I can’t even imagine the societal cost, financial and otherwise, of organising a healthcare system this way.

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        • Although Stephen is no longer with us, his comment still stands truthfully. Canadian doctors certainly hand out neurotoxins like candy. Literally like candy. Do not appear sad. Or angry. Do not use your doctor for anything but your tummyache and even then, you might be offered a toxic lolly. PLUS, you have a very accurate account of you as a patient. Only a doctor can give “accurate accounts”, since he is the one who has the “objective” view.
          Just ask your doc. “Do you have an educated unbiased view?”

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  9. Neurotoxic pHARMaceutiKILLS/Slow Motion Homicide Pills/Slow Motion Suicide Pills?;)From The Medically Arrogant “Mental Health” Front Line Neurotoxing pHARMaceutiKILLERS. Committing Crimes Against Humanity. Every-Single-Day. Most of Them do it with No Guilt, Shame and/or Accountability.

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  10. I began psychiatric residency in 1957 and the terms used then for psych drugs were chemical straight jacket and chemical lobotomy. I was interested in helping people to discover themselves, so I was unwilling to drug them. Since I also wanted to find a better part of myself i chose to flee psychiatry for psychoanalysis, and work through my sadness and loneliness.
    This seemed to provide a good foundation for a long career as a psychotherapist.
    I appreciate your work, and your book Toxic Psychiatry was the first one that seemed to confirm my beliefs and observations.

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  11. Neurotoxin describes paychiatric poisons so accurately. When i go for my next injection i’ll say “I’m here for my neurotoxin!”. I dont believe my nurses are vengeful but do believe they are incredibly misguided. Thank you!

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      • I had fun playing mind games with an air headed psych nurse I met at the polls on election day. She was raving about how wonderful electroshock was. Apparently she got this “knowledge” from a video they showed in training. Noticed other psych workers spouting the same garbage like something from The Manchurian Candidate.

        I have never experienced electroshock, but I’ll take the word of those who have been through it over some idiot who thinks watching a video makes her an expert on how this form of brain damage makes you feel.

        Anyhow, I smiled sweetly and told Nurse Rached what a wonderful person she must be. And, oh, I have friends with psychiatric problems. I have been wondering if they could standardize some kind of spinal tap or blood test to determine the severity of the patients’ chemical imbalance and remove some of the guesswork from prescribing those “life saving medicines.”

        Would you believe she swallowed the bait? Seriously. She told me that was a wonderful idea and she would talk to the doctor. I smiled and said I was sure it would help her career greatly.

        Hee hee! 😀

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  12. I think they are simply mind-altering drugs and like every other mind-altering drug they have their properties.

    I suppose most of the anger comes from people having them forced onto them, not being told what the harms of them can be, being mislabelled with disorders for the negative effects of the drugs, ending up with permanent disabilities, or being prescribed them based on the notion that they are “treating X condition”, when what they are more practically doing is changing a person’s thinking in a certain way or suppressing certain behaviours and feelings.

    If they were completely legal (not just by prescription) and voluntary, and were never forced on to people, or actually had full disclosure of what they really do, people may have talked about them a bit differently.

    P.S. I’m not in anyway trying to mitigate the harm that they can cause.

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    • Actually registered,
      I think they should be sold OTC, with complete info, combined with experienced users info. They should be sold alongside MJ, shrooms, etc etc. I doubt they would ever be bought after the first package.
      And why not sell them OTC? They are not “addictive” I hear. I hear that all effects are in the person’s head. Not really from drugs. So it seems they are mostly good for you. Non addictive, no bad effects, no brain damage. Better and safer than advil

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  13. I have to have a relationship with psychiatry i have no choice. I have to be weaned off my injection slowly and i cant get the injection safely anywhere else but on the NHS. I dont believe in by being aggressive with people helps. They just say you’re ill anyway. But i honestly believe my nurse thinks he is helping people by giving them drugs. I do dispise the system and their training but i don’t believe they are all control freaks but most of them are.

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  14. In the NHS UK, patients get the option (so long as the patient finds NHS Choices website and is able to do it, many on the neurotoxins will not ) to give a review on NHS Choices, it can get quite entertaining and sickening :

    https://www.nhs.uk/Services/hospitals/ReviewsAndRatings/DefaultView.aspx?id=2455&SortType=1#cmnt1985292

    ‘you know what, schizophrenics don’t require treatment with tablets’

    Sounds like he read this. Keep up the good work everybody !

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  15. The only reason i had the option was because i kept on refusing to take the drugs at all and was hospitalized but kept on calling the police and they said that the MHT had to do something about it.

    Also i got a second opinion from Dr David Healy and he said that they were more than likely treating drug induced symptoms. I think Dr David clinched it for me!! I am lucky but still on the Haldol because even 2mg reduction a month affects me after 45 years of being on neurotoxins! I have to wait until i am ready again.

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  16. Unbelievable! Usually, in any circumstance, one honest person is a huge blessing. But, psychiatry casts you as a crank for not toeing the party line about neurotoxins. Of course, the people who matter most – psychiatry’s VICTIMS – know you’re right. Humans were NEVER meant to chemically alter moods, core beliefs, and strategic cognitions. And ANYONE is endangered, when they consume a class of drugs that purport to “program” them. Thank you for your life-saving candor, Dr. Breggin. #justsaynotopsychiatricnarcotics

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  17. For human survival and im sure this applied to first humans also you need hope. Without hope there is no purpose to life and living. Even beyond death there has to be hope and i have my spiritual beliefs. Whilst so many things i have lost hope about including the survival of this planet i feel in my bones that humankind will survive. And that all of us in our brains have an essence and that and some see ghosts, but this electrical charge lives on! And i believe there are higher beings aliens that guide us and our loved ones to sleep and awakening and to higher planes when we reach the top and the light which we call heaven. So although it matters what we experience on Earth we are here for the ride. We chose this beforehand for the experience no matter how painful. I am actually looking forward to my afterlife and being back in heaven again. So it doesnt really matter much to me that i have still 100mg of Haldol in my body each month because the essence of who i am is still intact. Sorry for going on!

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  18. How would we sum up psychiatric drugs in one word? After being prescribed these drugs for decades, forced to come off them cold turkey, and then spending two years extensively researching them, this is the easiest question I’ve answered in my 62 years on this planet. -GENOCIDE

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    • Julie Greene said Eugenics is what Psychiatry actually is. They may not sterilize or gas us (long term poisoning is supposedly kind) but by branding us crazy, segregating us, and putting us on crippling drug regimens they pretty much eliminate us from the gene pool.

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  19. Yes Genocide! And what i call “The Silent Halocaust”. And Eugenics. All of this against those insane and mad. And our history is full of this since probably time began. Would i change this in my life if i had to live it over again? Would i be a different person without going mad? The answer is i can’t say because from the age of 17 to now 66 i have always had it. It has always been a part of my life. I believe i use part of my brain more often than others do so in a way that makes me not only different but superior. Although i am treated inferior. I have those around me i want around me. I have a choice in my life. My brain is intact. I am happy most days. Not every human being has this.

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  20. It is extremely hard to stay positive. When these drugs and those morons classed as doctors prescribe them.

    My son was told by a psychiatrist to stop taking the 2mg respiradone she prescribed him and to take it PRN. He has responded to this in an extremely negative way and has become aggressive and was delusional. I couldn’t put my finger on it because i knew he wasnt ill and fell out with him myself for a while thinking such a low dose wouldnt affect him until i read Dr Peter’s book last night looking for something else and it was there in black and white.

    He has lost friends been a victim of criminals and is struggling to survive.

    I will be informing the psychiatrist’s secretary in the morning that if and when my son ever recovers, because he is taking Depakote too PRN not being sound , that i will be contacting my solicitors with a view to suing her.

    The heartache as a mother who suffers from these conditions herself and the fact that my husband died in a psychiatric unit 8 years ago last November 30th and it was Xmas time and my son became so so aggressive towards me i will never ever forgive!

    The ‘Silent Holocaust’ and all those fighting for their sanity the warriors that we are will one day be recognized by the masses and we will be vilified.

    There should be monuments for all those who have died at the hands of doctors nurses and police and wreaths should be placed on a day of remembrance in their memory.

    The outrage that is given and the distruction in psychiatry’s wake in the name of “Care” is worse than the Nazis ever committed because it has continued in several lifetimes, generations and more.

    Anyone who survives will one day be known as HEROES!!

    As far as i am concerned because my son like so many do not commit crimes whilst under the catastrophic influence of these neurotoxins are almost Super Human Beings!! And are as my son remains and will always be is my Hero!!

    I will be contacting my solicitor in the morning and like all amazons i will remain until i die fighting!!

    To say thankyou to Dr Peter and all those speaking out the pioneers in humanity that they are will never be enough. But i will always be in their debt.

    One thing i know is certain tomorrow is another day!! Keep fighting Keep hoping. One day we will win this war!! This ‘The Silent Holocaust’.

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  21. I might have shared this but for the fact that I am totally against breggin’s likening psychedelics and cannabis to psychiatric drugs and putting them all into a category of ‘neuro-toxic’ or poison. This is extremely dangerous and is I think old school ‘anti-psychiatry’, although R.D. Laing was very accepting of psychedelics. But the spokespeople for challenging the bio=medical psychiatric model have usually also accepted the total anti-drug stance of the insane cult of Scientology, who are also of course anti-psychedelics and cannabis, but have noting to say about their poisonous belief system. I would be interested to know if Breggin was of that club who embrace Scientology as being ‘friends’ against the monster which is big pharma & psychiatry. maybe people like Breggin whould look deeper and see just how neuro-toxic are the belief systems imposed on generations via various forms of propaganda. Then he may care to review the copious amounts of data which reveal how psychedelics can greatly heal people, psychologically, physically and spiritually. There is one thing I am about, and that is breaking down a wall between the understanding of socially-controlling psychiatry and its neurotoxic drugs and the potential; for healing that psychedelics offer. This who carry on this war of words and action against psychedelics I have no time for, because they themselves have not made the effort to look into this.

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    • Juliano, I grew up in the late 60’s & 70’s when it was socially acceptable to use psychedelics, and we all did for recreational use (I now know why Timothy Leary introduced them.) And we were told we were frying our brains. Do you remember the TV commercial they used dropping an egg into a hot frying pan? They even started the ‘war on drugs’. And now big pharma wants to profit from them. Big pharma has run out of new drugs, tweeked every drug they’ve already created and now want a piece of the pie by profiting from turning psychedelics into ‘medicine’. So back when we doing our ‘psychedic’s we were actually ‘taking our medicine’! I agree they may be helpful in treating so called ‘mental illness’ in minute doses. But, it will just be abused, sold on the street, and over prescribed making big pharma even wealthier. When psychiatrists/doctors put patients on drugs, they never take us off them. We become patients for life, and if they refuse to clinically study the long term effects of SSRI’s, neuroleptics, and benzodiazepines now, theirs nothing for me to believe they’ll ever study long-term effects of taking psychedelics on humans. Big pharma all about money. They could care less about people. Maybe we should bring LSD, mescaline, peyote of the early 70’s back to the streets. Sure made me laugh a lot back then. It was fun and there weren’t any adverse effects unless laughing is bad for us. I’d buy it on the streets long before I financially support Big Pharma, the genocidal machine. Dr. Breggin’s opinions on psychedelics & pot doesn’t effect me in the least. I look at the tremendous amount of good things he’s done. May we all take our psychedelics, laugh and be happy.

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  22. I think what is important here is informed consent and not force. Liberty is a human right! Doctors and nurses encountering people in emotional crisis have to give what first aid is available to them. But when people become rational they have a right to informed consent.

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  23. I like to get my hands on those potheads! I pump them full of BRAIN KILLING NEUROTOXINS and watch them suffer. How dare they consume mind altering substances without a script. When they eventually die from my poison cocktail, I keep that BRAIN IN A JAR!! God forbid they try to heal themselves with Psychedelics!! Me and my Torture Advocacy Center would be out of business! BRAINS!! I NEED BRAINS!!

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  24. Its one thing being angry but that gets you nowhere. Im sorry to have to inform people that although i realise that these psyche drugs dont help so many people and they damage people they do in fact help some and my husband was one of them. Suffering from extreme mania and psychosis he went on to lead a fairly normal life for 17 years before he died. On clopixol and sodium volproate. You could say it worked as a placebo but i dont care how it worked for him it worked. They do work for some people. I have been torn between anti and bio psychiatry and in fact both are right. You should have informed consent that is tantamount and instead of squabbling the two should get together for their patients’ sake. It seems the ones suffering here are the patients and they come first not doctors and nurses but patients. The ones damaged should be supported and there shouldnt be squabbles about who actually benefits. I dont believe my MHT are vindictive gross people i believe them when they say they want to help. I believe also Dr Peter is right too but i am one of the lucky ones and have bedn on these meds for 45 years and just have weight gain a little and nothing else. Am fit! And its questionable whether my bad days are actually down to the drugs? But i have suffered side affects on drugs before. Now i am on a lower dose of Haldol. Am fine! Not so for everyone i know i have witnessed many things in hospitals.

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  25. Dr Breggin, I fully support you and appreciate you saying that psychiatric drugs are neurotoxins which I feel is exactly what they are as a RN who had Lyme disease and drugged for years unnecessarily. But please be more specific with the way you refer to cannabis or marijuana. I am learning now as a member of the American Cannabis Nurse Association that cannabis has profound medicinal uses for all types of diseases, including mental illness, and it has profound abilities to stimulate neurogenesis of brain cells. I know personally it has helped me reclaim a lot of my life and recover from the damage that benzodiazepines did to me. I am in my 14th month totally drug free after being given psychiatric drugs and a psychiatric disease label. I do feel that of course cannabis like caffeine, sugar, and other substances can be used in excess. But the science is there, cannabis is a natural alternative for the treatment of mental illness and other disease states. Warmly, Jackie Mcknight Jackson Tn.

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  26. I take it all back my MHT havent got my best welfare at heart and are totally abusive. They are now refusing to come to my house when i am totally depressed and cant venture out with what they have done to me and my son over xmas. I need my injection and they are refusing to come. I will be withdrawing within 5 days.

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  27. Drugs are damaging. Ah well. What next?

    Campaign against sugar? Never gonna happen.

    Campaign against alcohol? O dear. What a mess that made.

    Okay let’s fuck up cannabis users…

    They say that antipsychotics take off an average of 25 years from a persons life. Ah well. They will still be living considerbaly longer than people from 200 years ago. And what would they be doing with this extra 25 years? Fuck all, for the most part. No loss then?

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  28. No-one is born with a lifetime guarantee. Life is not a marketing strategy.

    More dangerous than choosing to take antipsychotics is choosing to be a rockstar. Choosing to be a rockstar reduces average lifespan to levels from about 5000 years ago. Talk about regression? No, no. Sing about it. Thrash around wildly about it. Then die. That is cool. No-one is ever going to say it is uncool.

    I believe there is a general lack of sincerity in this world. And when people bemoan statistics about shortened lifespans, I question just how much they actually care. I mean they go on about it so much, makes me think their concern is so haughty they must have secret stashes of schizophrenics all over their home, like hidden Jews in WWII.

    Except there are no equivalent Ann Franks are there, being protected by the oh-so-sincerly-feeling-folk? Hardly any to be mentioned.

    Not that it is easy. I had a close friend who was threatening to be a rockstar. So I kidnapped him and locked him in the attic. To save his life, while he withdrew from his churlish narcissism. He was very ungrateful and continually threatened to kill me if I do not at the very least give his guitar and amp back.

    For his own good I refused his demands. He is now pushing 50 years old. And I believe is now retarded in emotional growth. But he is alive! And I think he’ll make at least 70. Which for his rockstar cohort, is something of a miracle.

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    • rasselas.redux, This was the most disturbing comment/post I’ve ever seen. It looks like something out of Goebbels propaganda handbook. It looks like it came from Nazi, Germany rather than the United States of America, if it indeed was written here. This was so sickening I had to go throw up.

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  29. jordanfallis, the brain may be able to heal, but in my case the cognitive impairment seems permanent. I’ve lost 85% of all lifetime personal memories, I no longer dream, and when I do, I’m unable to remember them at all. I don’t believe the brain heals that much following decades of taking toxic psychiatric drugs, ECT’s and multiple cold-turkey withdrawals. Yes, I recovered my ‘normal’ range of emotions but as for the rest of my brain – it’s screwed.

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  30. I was actually diagnosed with Toxic Encephelopathy and Medication Major Neurotcognitive Disorder from an adverse reaction to Lexapro. Toxic E is the actual medical term for Neurotoxocity. I am unable to work, watch a movie in 27 months. I also have severe neurological damage with fatigue and coordination issues. The headaches are unreal. People often think of the mental aspects of pych med injuries. But they can destroy people physically and cognitively too.

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  31. Neurotoxins. It deserves a bump and I create work for Steve.

    Many great comments also.

    Thank you Dr Breggin. Want you to know that I and many others appreciate
    every minute you’ve been alive and active and typing. I’m certain you’ve made
    many people’s lives better.
    I was just thinking about you as I do quite often and Hope you are doing okay.

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  32. Great article Dr Breggin- neurotoxin, is- neurotoxic, causes- neurotoxicity, glad i get the order of the how it is or works-word placement- wise- factors- now. Excellent.. im ready to rock and roll, and……loving it. Like Max..:-). Did Max say that ? , i think he did.

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