It should be relatively easy in almost all cases to decide if a person has committed suicide or tried to commit suicide. But as with so much else in psychiatry, this can be negotiated, obscured, and influenced by commercial conflicts of interest.1
Randomised trials
Many suicides and suicide attempts have been omitted from published reports of the randomised trials, and the omissions are biased, favouring drugs over placebo.1-3 Meta-analyses of suicidal events based on published reports will therefore underestimate the risk of suicide caused by depression drugs.
One would have thought that suicide is a hard endpoint and that we can believe analyses carried out by drug regulators based on the clinical study reports the manufacturers have submitted to them, but this is not so. Thomas Laughren was responsible for the FDA’s 2006 meta-analysis of 100,000 patients who had participated in placebo-controlled trials of depression drugs.4 Five years earlier, he published a paper,5 also using FDA data, where the suicide rate in patients randomised to depression drugs was 10 times as high as what he reported when the FDA had been challenged on the suicide issue.4 In his 2001 article, Laughren didn’t comment on the fact that hits us in the face, that the suicide rate was four times greater on drug than on placebo, which was a statistically significant difference (P = 0.03, my calculation). When Laughren left the FDA after having obscured the suicide issue, he established Laughren Psychopharm Consulting with himself as director.1
The FDA reported that depression drugs increased suicidal behaviour—preparation for suicide or worse—significantly in patients younger than 25 years, odds ratio 2.30 (P = 0.04).4 For patients older than 24, there was no such relationship, odds ratio 0.87 (P = 0.48).
But the FDA’s huge meta-analysis is untrustworthy. Although the FDA knew that the companies had cheated on them earlier in relation to suicidal events,1 the agency asked them to adjudicate possibly suicide-related adverse events in their trials and send them to the FDA. It was very convenient for the FDA to accept that the evidence it would get would very likely be flawed, as it would lessen the risk of accusations that the agency had failed earlier when they approved the drugs.
I have demonstrated that FDA’s meta-analysis grossly underestimated the suicide risk.1 There were only five suicides in FDA’s analysis of 52,960 patients on depression drugs, but an internal Lilly memo from 1990 described nine suicides in 6,993 patients on fluoxetine in the trials,6 and in a 1995 meta-analysis, there were five suicides on paroxetine in only 2,963 patients.7 And these were just two of the 18 drugs the FDA included in their meta-analysis of the placebo-controlled trials. One reason for this discrepancy is that the FDA only included events occurring during the randomised phase of the trials.
There are also issues with the placebo groups. GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Pfizer added cases of suicide or suicide attempts to the placebo arm of their trials, although they didn’t occur while the patients were randomised to placebo.8 Some of these events occurred in the run-in period, before the patients had been randomised, other events happened in the active drug group after the randomised phase was over. This is serious fraud.
A third reason why the FDA seriously underestimated the suicide risk is that the analyses only included the randomised phase, not any follow-up periods. The effect of this was shown very clearly for sertraline, marketed by Pfizer. In a meta-analysis, Pfizer found a risk ratio of 0.52 for suicidality events in adults, when all events that occurred more than 24 hours after the randomised phase was over were omitted.9 When Pfizer included events occurring during a follow-up of 30 days, there was an increase in suicidality events, risk ratio 1.47.
It is important to include suicidal events that occur after the randomised phase is over because it reflects what happens in real life where the patients will stop taking the drugs at some point, which increases the risk of suicide because of withdrawal effects.1
In 2019, independent researchers reanalysed the FDA data and included harms occurring during followup.10-12 Like other researchers, they found that suicide events had been manipulated, e.g. they removed two suicides that had erroneously been assigned to the placebo group in the paroxetine data.11 They reported twice as many suicides in the active groups than in the placebo groups in adults, odds ratio 2.48 (95% confidence interval 1.13 to 5.44, i.e. the result was statistically significant). In sharp contrast, the FDA analysis did not find an increased suicide risk in adults (see above).
Thus, the randomised trials show that depression drugs increase the suicide risk both in children and adults.
Long-term follow-up of randomised trials
Long-term follow-up of the randomised trials confirm that depression drugs increase suicides. Baldessarini et al. reviewed 17 trials and found that the incidence of suicidal ideation per 100 person-years was 3.77 (95% confidence interval 3.07 to 4.31) in the drug groups and 1.69 (1.21 to 2.38) in the placebo groups.13 When the confidence intervals are so far apart and don’t overlap, the difference is strongly statistically significant.
The number of events show the same. There were 134 vs 36 events in 3086 vs 2372 patients. For suicide attempts or suicide, the number of events were 42 (1.4%) vs 10 (0.4%).
Of note, the observed rate of suicide was seven times higher than in clinical samples of patients with major depressive disorder, and the ratio of attempts/suicides of 2.5 was far lower than in clinical samples (approximately 5), suggesting greater lethality of attempts in trials. This finding agrees with other observations. Suicides caused by depression drugs often come without warning and the method is usually violent, e.g. hanging, shooting, or jumping in front of a train, which almost guarantees that the suicide attempt succeeds.2,14 The more common approach is to take an overdose of pills, which is often a cry for help.
The reason that violent means are common in suicides on depression pills is that the pills can cause akathisia. Suicide, violence, and homicide on depression pills and other psychiatric drugs are strongly associated with akathisia,15-18 which is a state of extreme restlessness and inner turmoil. It literally means you can’t sit still. You may have the urge to tap your fingers, fidget, jiggle your legs, or endlessly pace up and down. Akathisia need not be visible but can cause inner torment with extreme anxiety. Although akathisia is one of the most dangerous symptoms that exist, psychiatrists often overlook or dismiss it. A textbook called key symptoms of akathisia “agitated depression.”19
The studies Baldessarini et al. reviewed were biased against placebo.13 Patients in such trials are virtually always on a depression drug before they are randomised. This means that patients who come on placebo are exposed to withdrawal effects, which increases the risk of akathisia. We would therefor expect the risk of suicide to be even greater than what the authors reported.
Observational studies
Many observational studies of the suicide risk are highly misleading and some even border on fraud, as authors with conflicts of interest have been eager to show that depression drugs do not increase the risk of suicide.1
However, since the randomised trials are also flawed and do not reflect what happens in clinical practice when the patients are less well controlled, it has merit to consider also observational studies. The most reliable meta-analysis I have seen is from 2021 and its methods are exemplary.20 The authors included cohort and case-control studies of newer depression drugs, all indications, with suicidal outcomes, and they did several sensitivity analyses.
The authors included 19 studies in depression and 8 in other indications totalling 1.45 million adults. Study outcomes were strongly related to whether the key authors had financial conflicts of interest or not (P < 0.001). Studies in depression without conflicts of interest reported significantly more suicides with depression drugs, risk ratio 1.94 (95% confidence interval 1.46 to 2.59). For suicide or suicide attempt, the risk ratio was 2.02 (1.66 to 2.46).
These authors also published highly disturbing results about the ecosystem of publishing in psychiatric journals.21 Based on their 27 included studies, they showed that studies reporting unfavorable results (increased suicide risk with antidepressant exposure) are less likely to be published in psychiatric journals; lead authors with financial conflicts of interest report more favourable results; and their studies are published in the most prestigious psychiatric journals.
The last meta-analysis of observational studies before theirs was published in 2009 by Barbui et al.22 It has several shortcomings. It included only SSRIs and only depression and all the included studies had lead authors with conflicts of interest.20 These six studies (described as eight but two of them seemed to have been replicated by the same authors) were also included in the 2021 meta-analysis.
Barbui et al. reported that exposure to SSRIs increased suicides among adolescents, odds ratio 5.81 (1.57 to 21.51) and suicide or suicide attempts, odds ratio 1.92 (1.51 to 2.44). For adults, these estimates were 0.66 (0.52 to 0.83) and 0.57 (0.47 to 0.70), respectively, i.e. a protective effect of SSRIs.
Barbui et al.’s meta-analysis is still influential and is often cited in contemporary research, clinical guidelines and scientific debate. A 2019 review in JAMA Psychiatry of 45 meta-analyses of adverse events in observational studies concluded that “Antidepressant use appears to be safe for the treatment of psychiatric disorders,”23 which is misleading, as Barbui et al.’s meta-analysis showed the drugs increase suicides in adolescents. This was the only meta-analysis they included that reported on suicides. They also wrote that there is “highly suggestive evidence supporting the protective role of antidepressants against suicidality in adults,” which is also misleading.
Four of the authors had financial conflicts of interest related to 60 drug companies (some were mentioned for more than one author). This can perhaps explain their nonsensical speculation that “the increased suicidality in children and adolescents who use antidepressants may be associated with the unsuccessful reduction of depressive symptoms in suicidal individuals rather than a direct result of antidepressant use.” We already know, based on the placebo-controlled trials, that depression drugs cause suicide. The authors even had the audacity to suggest that “suicidality in youth … may be due to the underlying disease rather than to the use of antidepressants.” This is the standard script for leading psychiatrists: never blame the drugs, always blame the patients or their disease for any untoward events that occur.1,24
Conclusions
Depression drugs double the risk of suicide, both in children and adults. In contrast, psychotherapy can halve the risk of suicide in patients at the highest risk of suicide, those admitted after a suicide attempt.25
A 2024 meta-analysis of trials used a combined outcome—suicide attempts, suicide, or other serious psychiatric adverse events (i.e. psychiatric emergency department visit or psychiatric hospitalisation).26 It showed that psychotherapy was superior to depression drugs, odds ratio 0.45 (0.30 to 0.67), P = 0.001; that combined treatment with depression drugs was better than using drugs alone, odds ratio 0.74 (0.56 to 0.96) P = 0.03); and that combined treatment was worse than using psychotherapy alone, odds ratio 1.96 (1.20 to 3.20), P = 0.012).
The effect of depression drugs on depression is considerably below27-29 the smallest effect that can be perceived on the Hamilton scale for depression,30 and 12% more patients drop out on drug than on placebo (P < 0.000,01) for any reason.31 As the patients consider the balance between the benefits and harms of the drugs when they decide whether to stay in the trial or to drop out, this shows that the overall drug effect is negative.
Depression drugs don’t work for depression and they increase the occurrence of the most feared outcome, suicide. I cannot see any other conclusion than that the drugs should not be used for depression. Patients with depression should be treated with psychotherapy and other psychosocial interventions. Unsurprisingly, psychotherapy has an enduring effect that clearly outperforms the effect of depression drugs in the long run.32-37
When asked what they prefer, six times as many people prefer psychotherapy for pills,38 but they get the exact opposite. In Sweden, the National Board of Health recommends that all adults with mild to moderately severe depression are offered psychotherapy, but only 1% get it.39
References
1 Gøtzsche PC. Deadly psychiatry and organised denial. Copenhagen: People’s Press; 2015.
2 Hughes S, Cohen D, Jaggi R. Differences in reporting serious adverse events in industry sponsored clinical trial registries and journal articles on antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs: a cross-sectional study. BMJ Open 2014;4:e005535.
3 Gøtzsche PC, Healy D. Restoring the two pivotal fluoxetine trials in children and adolescents with depression. Int J Risk Saf Med 2022;33:385-408.
4 Laughren TP. Overview for December 13 Meeting of Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC). FDA 2006; Nov 16.
5 Laughren TP. The scientific and ethical basis for placebo-controlled trials in depression and schizophrenia: an FDA perspective. Eur Psychiatry 2001;16:418-23.
6 Eli Lilly memo. Suicide Report for BGA. Bad Homburg. 1990 Aug 3.
7 Montgomery SA, Dunner DL, Dunbar GC. Reduction of suicidal thoughts with paroxetine in comparison with reference antidepressants and placebo. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 1995;5:5–13.
8 Healy D. Did regulators fail over selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors? BMJ 2006;333:92–5.
9 Vanderburg DG, Batzar E, Fogel I, et al. A pooled analysis of suicidality in double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of sertraline in adults. J Clin Psychiatry 2009;70:674-83.
10 Hengartner MP, Plöderl M. Newer-generation antidepressants and suicide risk in randomized controlled trials: a re-analysis of the FDA database. Psychother Psychosom 2019;88:247-8.
11 Hengartner MP, Plöderl M. Reply to the Letter to the Editor: “Newer-Generation Antidepressants and Suicide Risk: Thoughts on Hengartner and Plöderl’s ReAnalysis.” Psychother Psychosom 2019;88:373-4.
12 Plöderl M, Hengartner MP, Bschor T, et al. Commentary to „antidepressants and suicidality: A re-analysis of the re-analysis“. J Affect Dis 2020;273:252-3.
13 Baldessarini RJ, Lau WK, Sim J, et al. Suicidal risks in reports of long-term controlled trials of antidepressants for major depressive disorder II. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 2017;20:281-4.
14 Breggin PR. Brain-disabling treatments in psychiatry: drugs, electroshock, and the psychopharmaceutical complex. New York: Springer; 2008.
15 Whitaker R. Mad in America. Cambridge: Perseus Books Group; 2002.
16 Crowner ML, Douyon R, Convit A, et al. Akathisia and violence. Psychopharmacol Bull 1990;26:115-7.
17 Medawar C. The antidepressant web – marketing depression and making medicines work. Int J Risk & Saf Med 1997;10:75-126.
18 Moncrieff J, Cohen D, Mason JP. The subjective experience of taking antipsychotic medication: a content analysis of Internet data. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2009;120:102-11.
19 Videbech P, Kjølbye M, Sørensen T, Vestergaard P (red.). Psykiatri. En lærebog om voksnes psykiske sygdomme. København: FADL’s Forlag; 2018, page 119.
20 Hengartner MP, Amendola S, Kaminski JA, et al. Suicide risk with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and other new-generation antidepressants in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. J Epidemiol Community Health 2021;75:523–30.
21 Plöderl M, Amendola S, Hengartner MP. Observational studies of antidepressant use and suicide risk are selectively published in psychiatric journals. J Clin Epidemiol 2023;162:10-8.
22 Barbui C, Esposito E, Cipriani A. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and risk of suicide: a systematic review of observational studies. CMAJ 2009;180:291-7.
23 Dragioti E, Solmi M, Favaro A, et al. Association of antidepressant use with adverse health outcomes: a systematic umbrella review. JAMA Psychiatry 2019;76:1241-55.
24 Gøtzsche PC. Critical psychiatry textbook. Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom; 2022 (freely available).
25 Gøtzsche PC, Gøtzsche PK. Cognitive behavioural therapy halves the risk of repeated suicide attempts: systematic review. J R Soc Med 2017;110:404-10.
26 Zainal NH. Is combined antidepressant medication (ADM) and psychotherapy better than either monotherapy at preventing suicide attempts and other psychiatric serious adverse events for depressed patients? A rare events meta-analysis. Psychol Med 2024;54:457-72.
27 Jakobsen JC, Katakam KK, Schou A, et al. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors versus placebo in patients with major depressive disorder. A systematic review with meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis. BMC Psychiatry 2017;17:58.
28 Kirsch I, Deacon BJ, Huedo-Medina TB, et al. Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: A meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Med 2008;5:e45.
29 Cipriani A, Furukawa TA, Salanti G, et al. Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. Lancet 2018;391:1357-66.
30 Leucht S, Fennema H, Engel R, et al. What does the HAMD mean? J Affect Disord 2013;148:243-8.
31 Sharma T, Guski LS, Freund N, et al. Drop-out rates in placebo-controlled trials of antidepressant drugs: A systematic review and meta-analysis based on clinical study reports. Int J Risk Saf Med 2019;30:217-32.
32 McPherson S, Hengartner MP. Long-term outcomes of trials in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence depression guideline. BJPsych Open 2019;5:e81.
33 Spielmans GI, Berman MI, Usitalo AN. Psychotherapy versus second-generation antidepressants in the treatment of depression: a meta-analysis. J Nerv Ment Dis 2011;199:142–9.
34 Cuijpers P, Hollon SD, van Straten A, et al. Does cognitive behaviour therapy have an enduring effect that is superior to keeping patients on continuation pharmaco-therapy? A meta-analysis. BMJ Open 2013;26;3(4).
35 Shedler J. The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Am Psychol 2010;65:98-109.
36 Furukawa TA, Shinohara K, Sahker E, et al. Initial treatment choices to achieve sustained response in major depression: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. World Psychiatry 2021;20:387-96.
37 Amick HR, Gartlehner G, Gaynes BN, et al. Comparative benefits and harms of second generation antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapies in initial treatment of major depressive disorder: systematic review and metaanalysis. BMJ 2015;351:h6019.
38 Priest RG, Vize C, Roberts A, et al. Lay people’s attitudes to treatment of depression: results of opinion poll for Defeat Depression Campaign just before its launch. BMJ 1996;313:858-9.
39 Heldmark T. Alternativ behandling mot depression används för lite. Sveriges Radio 2020; Aug 24.
Thank you as always, Dr. Peter, for your truth telling.
“When asked what they prefer, six times as many people prefer psychotherapy for pills,38 but they get the exact opposite.” Yes, but it is shameful that there are so many unethical psychologists, social workers, et al … who merely function as a funnel into psychiatry.
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Thank you for this.
I don’t know about other countries but here in the USA the talking people often only work to put people on pills or different pills or perhaps more pills. I remember going to a psychologist as a teenager and being told that I might want to consider as needed Xanax. Things have only gotten worse in the industry since then and obviously not just for me.
I appreciate the focus on so called antidepressants because they are prescribed by all sorts of doctors for any reason and also people are commonly pressured to take the meds don’t stop taking the meds and why did you stop taking your meds? Etc etc etc
One additional reason to avoid antidepressants and the mental health industry: the pills are knowingly prescribed to make people docile and compliant. It’s sickening arguably worse than prescribing dangerous pills for so called depression…
The experts…talking people shock docs pill pushers all of the guild…know that the pills cause apathy and destroy people one way or another. They will laugh about telling people they have xyz and then destroying them with the toxic chemicals antidepressants included.
Szasz is correct; psychiatry is slavery.
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Psychotherapy with a supporting Psychologist in court, whom I visited weekly for over a year (and still visit him) liberated me from 35 years of psychiatric oppression and harm!!
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No kidding! With burgeoning numbers of suicides in spite of more and more medications… these providers are blind! But psychotherapy can also be implicated (when I was practicing there were attempts to treat without drugs using radical treatment methods like “reparenting” and others involving delving into “past memories” of trauma in great depth which were obviously “false memories”).
These “therapies” caused more problems than they solved. Many of them resulted in failure to recover (in my thirty years of practice observation many were left permanently disabled). I wish I could give you more scientific underpinnings; I left graduate school in clinical psychology because I could not see any benefit to the nonsense of what was being taught. The outcomes of failed psychiatric help are all around me in this assisted living facility. What I do now is simply listen and encourage as best as I can. Prayer helps me stay strong, and I “share the wealth” the best I can. Thank you for this forum. I know how important being able to blow off steam is for me.
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The more pertinent question you Peter Gøtzsche is why a good brain is being wasted on such technocratic and trivial academic preoccupations as we see here. It’s because the likes of you and Whittaker and Moncreiff and all the others just DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE TRUTH, and so you react mechanically and compulsively according to your professional, academic or journalistic conditioning, and reproduce the failed strategies of all previous critics of psychiatry who were probably at their highest social prominence in the 70s even though scientific vilification has only clearly emerged since the 90s. The first thing is to see this fact that if you’re honest, you don’t know what to do to turn the dial, and intellectual, professional, academic and public rational critique has not worked. The second thing is to observe the hopelessness of ALL your strategies which implies knowing who your audience has been and an assessment of the integrity of that audience. The forth thing is to realize that it is not psychiatry but the CRITIC of psychiatry that needs to change, to radicalize. The truth alone, no matter how painful, is this thing that radicalizes and I don’t mean just the outward truth of society and psychiatry; I also mean the inward truth of the critic of society, because none of you have understood your own impotence in turning the dial and this is the stumbling block, not the media or the industry. Social reality is what it is and to change it you must start at the centre, which is you, and work outwards. Then action is effective. But you do the opposite and get disheartened, crushed and depressed by the frustrations involved. Be the first to see this and break through.
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This may sound petty to some, but especially coming from people who work in the field, it would be good not to see the term “committed” still in use. Survivors, (those of us bereaved by suicide) have been asking for decades to abandon this stigma-laden reference. Call me sensitive. Here’s a copied/pasted bit from AFSP’s website:
AFSP’s Top 10 Tips for Reporting on Suicide
Language: Do not refer to a suicide attempt as “successful,” “unsuccessful” or as a “failed attempt,” and do not use the word “committed.” Instead, use “attempted suicide,” “made an attempt,” “died by suicide” or “took his/her life.”
Thank you for your kind consideration
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You haven’t explained at all why using the term committed causes stigma. I looked at the AFSP sight, and regarding “treatment” the first thing they say is that “Mental health professionals have specialized training to identify and understand problems that may be causing you discomfort or putting you at risk, and also in helping people with a variety of mental disorders. They can prescribe medicine, or can connect you with someone who can determine whether you need medication.” from here: https://afsp.org/find-a-mental-health-professional/ Since your response is mostly cut and paste from over there, here is from your post: “some may find this petty” or “Call me sensitive” or “Thank you for your kind consideration,” don’t cover up the fact you are quoting from a site that does exactly what this article says causes more of the problem. In reality you are trying to make out we are “insensitive,” “petty,” and “inconsiderate” would we be articulate enough to actually look at what’s being reported rather than tilting our head sideways with a concerned: “hmmmmmm” in our gaze because we followed “appropriate” cosmetology…
To be coached by someone to say: “I attempted suicide” rather than “I unsuccessfully tried committing suicide,” this is going to change the statistics more than actually acknowledging that the treatment in general makes it worse? In fact, it won’t will it? (note, that’s a rhetorical question)
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The word “committed” seems accusatory so I chose to say, “I lost my son to suicide” instead.
That being said, you need to realize that the same org that you’re quoting is also the one that promotes medications that increase suicide risk and slogans that blame us, like “100% of suicides can be prevented”. If you “know the signs” and “use the right words”.
After my son died I joined a suicide survivors support group and I posted about things that I thought could help prevent suicide since many of us were worried about our other children, and I was told to stop because they were not interested in PREVENTION, only POSTVENTION.
The weird part is that 3 of their board members had ties to the suicide prevention orgs like the one you quoted.
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Taste it, taste my black oil, taste my black coffee, taste my black milk, you taste and you taste. You flower coffins gone off to the morgue, must pay your debts to the graveyard man.
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This piece of writing is truly beautiful, No-One/Zero.
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Thank you Cat! I guess you’re a bit feline too then. I am basically a cat without a tail or fur, but I do have whiskers growing out of my eyebrows. Meow for now Cat!
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I have a flower in my right hand and a meat clever in the left hand, but it’s only possible to use one if them, so watch out. I will hack through your desires and fears, your thoughts and your dreams if I have to, to find out what’s in there. If you don’t make me use it, I have just a flower at my disposal, which means you can’t use me at all, and because I shoot only with you’re own bullets you can spare yourselves many wounds just by seeing this. So says the devil in me, because like you I have a sun in one eye and a moon in the other. And in between them is a mirror.
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I’m nocturnal at the moment hence the vitriolic excess. Anyway, I hope we’re all involuntarily destroying society in our daily actions. I think we are consciously or unconsciously. Perhaps it’s a nature response through us, through the collective unconscious, expressed in radically varied & peculiar ways from Extinction Rebellion to identitary politics to Trumpian politics which conspire unconsciously to destroy the old world and it’s mind, for the old world comes with a rapidly outmoded socially conditioned consciousness we imagine is ‘me’. This social conditioning has destroyed our health, clarity & sanity, has enslaved & instrumentalized our brains & lives so it can conduct it’s operations through us. Being socially conditioned is innimicable to true health, sanity or happiness & this is how it captures us. But you are conditioned to blame your unhappiness on the brain rather then the social process which has conditioned and dominated your life and brain just as it has the rest of nature, making it all so sad, miserable and pointless. That is the true nature of your unhappiness. Why blame t he brain at all? Because of the lies of our culture, for example of psychiatry, which becomes your sense of self and reality. The whole thing – the socially conditioned mind, it’s culture, and the process we call civilization is all. one total process which has become diseased. If the disease captures you, which it invariably has, the only solution is to escape this prison system of society and its marks on the mind, and without doing this you live in a meaningless and ugly psuedo-reality rendering everything and everyone in it as meaningless and dispensable as cartoon characters. It is precisely because of the almost infinite unrealized potential of human beings that we all must get involved in the work of destruction, without which everything is lost. Don’t hide in comforting illusions anymore because then you rely on imaginary experts to rescue things. An imaginary fire engine is of no use in a real forrest fire. Our mistake in life was trusting society and its legions of psuedo-experts in this vampire infested society.
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Dear Sir,
The pain in your replies is abundantly clear. We are each on our own journeys (pilgrimages). In this, finding our peace-of-mind is essential for focusing the distraction of desperation and anger into effective maneuvers for ameliorating humankind’s
dash to becoming lemmings. I had a spiritual mentor (RIP) who suggested “find the blessing in everything”. This led me to finding gift in everything, which transformed my state of being into great joy and gratitude. We cannot control others, but we can be an example of heroic lives that do, in fact, change
ourselves and the world.
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My sister’s best friend took her life 25 years ago after a GP prescribed an antidepressant for what was simply a stressful life situation. Two weeks after starting the drug, she was gone after not sleeping and seemingly becoming “manic”. She was a beautiful wife and mother- only 30 years old.
My sister and her friend had been close since kindergarten and her death left a huge gaping hole for so many people.
I appreciate Dr. Breggin and others trying to get information to the public, but unfortunately, most do not seek answers until the damage is done- they trust that their doctors know best. Most do not question the “expert” .
The only solution that I can see to stop this madness of drugging normal with toxic potions is for there to be massive legal cases that hurt the industry so badly, that they retreat. I do not know how this could be achieved, but words seem to fall on deaf ears, and I just cannot see doctors reforming their ways at this point.
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Whether it’s whatever it is: “depression,” “confusion or disinhibition called psychosis,” ” not being able to concentrate or be brainwashed or indoctrinated,” etc. we are to believe there’s no reason for this? God forbid someone should find out WHY they are sad, what that feeling is really about, what it teaches us, what perspective if might have, if you don’t like something, then there’s something wrong with you, God forbid you would get out of the situation. God forbid the rose colored glasses are taken from between one’s senses and the world. God forbid one would see what the mob doesn’t want to, and criticizes anyone do they see what indoctrination says one shouldn’t. Or other forms of sadness. If you lost a loved one, does the sadness help you remember the things you can’t forget, that are still with you, and might still mean they simply have transformed into another dimension etc. That they are still there in a way beyond the physical…. This God awful nonsense that one is to discriminate against a feeling….. I even had a friend who committed suicide (sorry that’s how I describe it, doesn’t change it to say she killed herself, nor do I see how that is going to help a person in such a situation other than making those “in the profession” feel better they are fussing about something that makes it sound like they are sensitive, while not really possibly relating to begin with), she committed suicide, although as soon as I was told, I had contact with her from the other side, just about; regardless, a trance medium, nothing to do with me knowing or any communication between us, happened to see some sort of flyer or so about the poor girl, and then channeled a message from her that “happened” to end up in the hands of someone I had just met, who “happened” to put her hand on it out of nowhere, that it was laying there during a phone conversation, not knowing I knew this girl at all. Then read me this message. Part of the message was that killing herself didn’t help her depression [SIC]….. (is there a difference between trying to turn off this feeling made out to be a disease with “medications” and committing suicide to get rid of it!?) this is what happens in a society where you’re not supposed to feel, where feelings are made out to be enemies, where so much… (confusion, God forbid one should find out WHY they are confused, that there might be emotional stuff they’re not supposed to see, or WHY they would disinhibit themselves to see past limitations holding them back, say perhaps to understand feelings as multidimensional)…. One feels all the time, by the way. How you pick up a pencil, open a door, all of this expresses something about yourself, how you’re feeling what is going on on the inside, it’s not like it’s helpful to become a robot and think that has nothing to do with anything…… Being human isn’t some loss that we aren’t machines……….
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The fact that you use “committed suicide” in your article is unfortunate, out of date language. Given your association with what looks like the Cochrane group, that’s surprising. As a clinician with no pharmaceutical companies or insurance pushing me around (I supervise family-based services paid by Medicaid grants), neither I nor anyone of us in our psychiatry group feel pressured to prescribe unless we determine it’s appropriate. While we concur careful selection & monitoring is important, we shouldn’t paint entire classes of medications or patients with a single brush. It is true, however in residential & hospital that insurance often pressures docs to prescribe by indirectly cutting short care unless “medication is being started or adjusted”. When appropriate we see much measurable benefit and a REDUCTION in suicidal behavior and completed suicides
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I almost can’t see how you could be more contradictory. You talk about not painting everyone with the same brush, and yet clearly state how insurances do that. Sharing statistics in general regarding “medications” is EXACTLY that, but one can’t say this without supposedly painting everyone with the same brush? The statistics shared in this article are what they are, and speak for themselves, fussing about terminology, or calling it outdated also doesn’t dismiss ANY of the statistics. Nor, does stating that in your practice, according to you, you see measurable benefit, and a reduction in suicidal behavior: one would have to talk to the patient themselves, and take the statistics from what they are, not as anecdotal evidence from someone making a living off of it. There are enough, for example, alcoholics that would say they need alcohol, or they can’t function, or any number of other substances (sugar, coffee, highly processed foods with all manner of what’s in them including food coloring, preservatives, MSG etc.), those selling such substances would make the same remarks you just have, might even fuss about the same cosmetic determinates to sound articulate, regarding terminology. You say you see “REDUCTION” in suicides, as if we can’t hear you, but it would be quite bleak would anyone say they help with suicides but this part of their treatment results in less reductions, although usually such treatment results in more. Still, this is what the article says is statistically the result. WHY do you have to state what the medications should be doing, when in general they do the opposite? What does this say about your ability to really deal with the emotional part of what’s going on when it gets critical. Why would anyone profit off of being given a chemical imbalance, while they are told it’s to treat a chemical imbalance, and the rest of the publicity stunts such as calling something which causes more suicides in general than not, has had to have a black warning label against the wishes of the drug companies, because it causes homicidal and suicidal behavior and ideation. The drugs were only approved after being given in trials with a sedative, along with getting people in the trials already on psychiatric drugs meaning they were used to having their brain chemistry, their neurotransmitters messed around with. Many of the trials had an incredible amount of people having to leave the control group because of side effects which wasn’t counted. Those in the non control group that got better after a week or two were taken out, also not counted. After the trial, those in the control group who had severe withdrawal symptoms (fever like symptoms, not being able to go to sleep, not being able to stay awake, seizures, etc.), this wasn’t reported at first. Plus, there were many many trials, and only those that in the end, after many tries came out as the companies wanted were used, all the others discarded. THAT is what you use as you state: “neither I nor anyone of us in our psychiatry group feel pressured to prescribe unless we determine it’s appropriate. While we concur careful selection & monitoring is important, we shouldn’t paint entire classes of medications or patients with a single brush. ” Excuse me also, but calling something that causes more suicides than when not prescribed, what exactly does this have to do with painting ANYTHING with a single brush? and then: “When appropriate we see much measurable benefit and a REDUCTION in suicidal behavior and completed suicide” Do you have ANY notion of how such a statement is used as cherry picking, and anyone saying they have been helped given awards in order to keep the statistics very clearly stated in this article going, that despite antidepressants causing more suicides than not, they are still implimented, you even state how the drug companies get insurances to promote this. Clearly there are many quite desperate people looking for help, and then those who seem to feel relieved when they’ve been given a chemical imbalance, even though told they are being treated for one, and the chemical imbalance they didn’t have before treatment (WITH “antidepressants”) suppresses symptoms. AGAIN, you can say that you see a REDUCTION in suicides, but what’s the long term result, and WHAT is the “REDUCTION” you are talking about, if it’s in regard to what usually happens with “antidepressants” or in “therapy?” OUR TREATMENT HAS LESS SUICIDES THAN OTHER TREATMENTS doesn’t mean that no treatment has less, which is again here stated that that IS the case……..
WHERE are you coming from? “Is it our treatment here, when implimented in an “appropriate” manner causes less suicides then such treatment in general.” Or is it “this fragment here of what’s going on where the result is more of what is trying to be prevented, this little fragment here causes less suicides than no treatment?”
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I notice that with this paragraph, I typed, I seriously get something akin to lost or “duzzy” (was “supposed” to be dizzy, hit the “u” rather than the “i,” but then there’s fuzzy as well, as how things start to look) trying to navigate through all of the cherry picking. No insult to cherries, and sorry I can’t find better terminology actually at this moment.
“Clearly there are many quite desperate people looking for help, and then those who seem to feel relieved when they’ve been given a chemical imbalance, even though told they are being treated for one, and the chemical imbalance they didn’t have before treatment (WITH “antidepressants”) suppresses symptoms. AGAIN, you can say that you see a REDUCTION in suicides, but what’s the long term result, and WHAT is the “REDUCTION” you are talking about, if it’s in regard to what usually happens with “antidepressants” or in “therapy?” OUR TREATMENT HAS LESS SUICIDES THAN OTHER TREATMENTS doesn’t mean that no treatment has less, which is again here stated that that IS the case……..”
“Our treatment has less SUICIDES THAT OTHER TREATMENTS doesn’t mean that no treatment has less,” is actually supposed to be:
Our treatment has less SUICIDES THAN OTHER TREATMENTS doesn’t mean that no treatment has more….. Given that the statement is supposed to mean their treatment causes a reduction……. but a reduction compared to WHAT!?
Sorry, with this jiggling around not even looking at what no “medications” statistically correlate with, who knows what is being used as reference.
Also, perhaps the above article shared that those who haven’t been made to think they need treatment, although encountering the same problems as those who do, that they commit suicide less. What does that say about what’s labeled as “treatment” IN GENERAL!?
And to speak of a reduction in suicides when: “When appropriate we see much measurable benefit and a REDUCTION in suicidal behavior and completed suicides” again completely doesn’t say whether this is in reference to the amount of suicides in general when “medication” is introduced, or whether it’s referring to when no medications (or even therapy) is introduced.
THAT is where we’re at also, when most reported suicide attempts are receiving “medications” and somehow there’s a reduction in the amount of consequent suicides completed in general when medications are introduced according to this phrase: “when appropriate”, then one can ignore that with no “medications” whether there are completely less, either way. We don’t know that, it’s not at all clearly stated. And again the information here shared in this article by Peter is clear, in comparison……
The statement made by Mister Cole isn’t clear.
This statement also is quite something: “neither I nor anyone of us in our psychiatry group feel pressured to prescribe unless we determine it’s appropriate” Who is determining what? To begin with is there even informed consent going on that such “medications” CAUSE chemical imbalance, when they are said to be treating one? Beyond that, at what point can such even be hidden, and ANYONE decide its appropriate to administer without informed consent, and informed consent can be denied, along with what’s shared here regarding statistical information, long term outcome etc.
HE is determining what’s appropriate, not the patient!?
AGAIN “there is a reduction in people committing suicide because of our treatment,” when it’s completely not shared whether no treatment has less of the problem which AGAIN is what the article above states……..
So that should read, perhaps: “there is a reduction of people committing suicide when the suicide is caused by our manner of treatment [using “medications”] when we determine medications are appropriate, this in comparison to the usual statistics of how many suicides the medications cause.”
Is there informed consent with all of this ETC.!?
We don’t know that that’s not the case, and all these games played with words to hide statistics……….
CONVINCING someone something is going to help them is quite different than whether or not it really is. AKA actually READ above article…….[perhaps]
And sorry regarding the mixup of whether I use positive or negative (in this case also, I wouldn’t necessarily call the negentropy, it’s just being overloaded), I hadn’t caught that yet, and it happens in other posts, but in context it does become clear what’s referred to, despite the mistakes…..
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I agree with you. A reduction in suicide compared to other methods (and how has he measured this? I don’t think he says…) might just as easily mean that fewer people are driven to suicide by this method vs. the standard. No “treatment” could very well still be superior. Since most people spontaneously recover from depressive episodes, our baseline ought to always be “untreated.” But hey, who can make money by NOT treating people? Maybe we should make it like farm subsidies – you get paid for NOT treating patients and leaving them alone!
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If they prescribed cyanide pills I think society should take them. Would you honestly want your society to survive given it’s political, social, emotional and psychological trajectory over the last 10 years? Recalling that Obama was in the Whitehouse back then has already become a culture shock now in this era of ubiquitous absurdity, not to mention stupidity.
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Dr Adam Coles,
Suicide is a personal right rather than a “behaviour” that must be “reduced”. Suicidal thoughts and attempts do not warrant unsolicited interventions, incarceration, mistreatment, or unnecessary drugging.
Moreover, research has consistently demonstrated that psychiatric drugs are neurotoxic. They lead to brain atrophy, which induces various emotional, physical, and behavioural symptoms while accelerating cognitive and neurobehavioral decline (Jackson, G., 2008, Psychrights.org). As Dr Gotzsche clearly articulated, “depression drugs double the risk of suicide, both in children and adults”.
Please cease the dishonesty, psychiatric drugs are never “appropriate”.
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I do think that depending on the case and circumstance at hand, SSRIs or any other drug can reduce the risk of suicide in that individual if it is improving his psychological well-being. It could go the opposite route too.
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What part of “antidepressants double suicides” did you not understand, registeredforthissite?
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The fact that they double suicides on average doesn’t mean they don’t work for everyone. Having lax gun laws in a country greatly increases the chance of mass shootings of innocents. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make the lives of some law abiding citizens safe from people trying to loot them.
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Dear Registeredforthissite,
Why would anyone choose to prescribe or consume a drug that doubles the risk of suicide? A drug linked to cognitive impairment and central nervous system damage—as highlighted by experts like Breggin, Whitaker, Szasz, Moncrief, and Burstow—certainly cannot be deemed universally beneficial.
Furthermore, what relevance do American gun laws hold in the context of an international health crisis driven by the greed and deceit of pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists?
Cat
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I have already answered those questions. You can glean the answer to what you’ve asked in what I’ve written.
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Ask your Psychiatry group to do the following also:
i.) Stop labelling people bipolar when the very drugs you prescribe make people manic, psychotic and delusional. You’re ruining the life on top of whatever problems they had to begin with for which you prescribed them those drugs in the first place.
ii.) Acknowledge that psychiatric labelling can have consequences as bad or even worse than whatever the original issues of a person were.
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I have seen Psychiatry graduates and their supporters try to divert from the fact that their labelling can be worse than a person’s original problems by making excuses like “even HIV patients face stigma” (HIV is an infectious disease that has nothing to do with a person’s character, conduct, personality and sanity) and “stigma will come from your behaviour and not from labels”. I’ve also seen people go as far as write “the problem with mental patients is, they won’t work on themselves to get a new diagnosis but keep blaming…”.
These are people who have almost never been through the consequences of how much gaslighting and harassment these terms potentially bring into a person’s life. They get irritated at being criticised without acknowledging the pain of people who are doing the criticising.
Anything and everything except acknowledging that what they are doing and how they are helping a person could destroy their life.
And I’ve seen them do it for their entire careers till they retire and die. Those rationalisations help them sleep better at night. But it makes other people’s lives a living nightmare.
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To Dr Coles,
“When appropriate we see much measurable benefit and a REDUCTION in suicidal behavior and completed suicides”
Let me explain why that can’t possibly be true.
1. SSRIs lower folate and people with depression are known to have low folate (as shown by multiple studies). Low Folate is associated with more severe depression, longer episodes and higher relapse.
2. SSRIs lower Vitamin D (and some lower Vit B12), which is needed for brain function and it is also a neurosteroid. Since depressed patients are known to have neuroinflammation and suicide completers have very low levels of Vitamin D, giving them something that lowers vit D would be contraindicated.
3. Folic Acid and Vit B12 are needed to recycle homocysteine and for normal methylation (including the manufacture of neurotransmitters) and SSRIs can dysregulate it.
4. About 20% of the population in the US has MTHFR mutations that cause low Folate, Vit B12 and Vit D. So for them, SSRIs could cause serious problems (the NIH page that lists drugs that cause nutrient deficiencies includes SSRIs and lists MTHFR mutations as a risk factor).
5. People with MTHFR mutations have abnormal lipids, abnormalities in purine metabolism and high homocysteine and SSRIs affect lipids, purine metabolism and increase homocysteine.
6. New studies showed over 50% of psychiatric patients have MTHFR deficiency.
So if you’re not checking Vit D, MTHFR test, methylation status, homocysteine, histamine and other drugs that may be causing nutrient deficiencies then you don’t really know if treatment is appropriate, so you must be hurting some of your patients.
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Dr Coles,
7. Studies have shown that the lower the Vitamin D, the more severe the symptoms and SSRIs lower Vit D.
8. Studies have also shown that low Vit D and Vit B12 increase addiction and relapse and SSRIs lower both.
9. Low Vit D in a pregnant mother can cause autism in the child and SSRIs lower Vit D.
10. Low Folate impairs the action of SSRIs and SSRIs lower folate.
11. Multiple studies done by Dr Lisa Pan found low cerebral folate, abnormalities in lipid and purine metabolism and higher oxidative stress in patients with treatment resistant depression who were suicidal and all were taking SSRIs (which can lower Folate and affect lipid and purine metabolism and raise homocysteine ).
12. SSRIs affect gut bacteria.
13. Other things known to increase suicide risk, like antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, T Gondi, antimalarials, PPIs, have something in common with SSRIs… all lower Folate.
I bet I can think of a few more.
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Adding a thoughtful response and, perhaps, rebuttal to the author’s important points would add to the discussion and deepen our understanding. I hope the newsletter can provide this.
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Does this make anyone else laugh? If there’s a “solution” implemented that correlates with a spike in the problem, where pray tell is the rebuttal missing? Or thoughtful responses? And who is not allowing such responses? And what does “hope” have to do with this?
This statement: “Adding a thoughtful response and, perhaps, rebuttal to the author’s important points would add to the discussion and deepen our understanding.” needs to be made EVERYWHERE where what’s reported here is missing and not allowed. Which in reality, objectively is in most places labeled as being medical.
Note: anyone can, unless there’s copyright issues, then you can make up your own post similar, clip this response, this post: “Adding a thoughtful response and, perhaps, rebuttal to the author’s important points would add to the discussion and deepen our understanding. I hope the newsletter can provide this.” and then copy it (or use your own similar statement) in ANY place online where what’s here exposed is heralded as being a solution or a treatment. Because where rebuttal is missing is where such a statement should be made, not where it isn’t.
I find this absolutely AMAZING again, the extent, the barrage of attempts to distract from what’s really being said when the truth comes out.
1) Anyone in an asylum, that has become ward of the state because they had a normal understandable, potential enlightening response to life that might bring out natural intelligence rather than socially instilled indoctrination (not conforming to statistical based norms, consensual reality deportment, the status quo….), would they have to deal with any psychiatrist there just about, and would they share the information clearly stated above that is supported statistically and scientifically, the psychiatrist is free to, and often mostly would decide they are non compliant to “treatment” then forcing them on what in the end makes things worse. And we get what’s called the revolving door syndrome, more of the problem causing alarmist responses used to say what’s causing more of it needs to be implimented because then “SOMETHING” has been done. In the meantime the same nonsense of how something creating a chemical imbalance (the “medications”) is treating one is made out to be what it isn’t, all to disable a brain that might be able to make sense out of what is being suppressed. But any information actually pointing any of this out is not allowed, just like in a fascist system, all for the sake of allowing, and coercing and forcing treatment that correlates with more of the problem, to then say there’s more need of it in general. But heh, when someone points this out in one of the only areas that it’s allowed, the very information ANYONE would need to know that’s hidden, then we get the above response, and there’s talk of “a thoughtful response.” In other words don’t actually tell me the emperor has no clothes on, you have to gentle say something that might get me to in some odd way entertain this as a faint possibility, otherwise it’s insensitive and thoughtless, because I can’t deal with the truth. Or just don’t actually contradict me, that’s not thoughtful, I’m too brainwashed, or simply dishonest while profiting from the lie, as if there’s some loss not to “profit” from such.
2) The place where rebuttal is MISSING I have already mentioned (and true scientific and statistical data), but there’s no real responsible attention to that, or what would indeed heighten EVERYONE’S understanding, bring what “would add to the discussion and deepen our understanding” but no, such phrases have to be used to make sure that God forbid someone should actually state the truth, we have to have again what’s only been allowed to be stated, shared, reported where those being forced on a treatment that makes the problem worse might find out that statistically things get worse where upon they are told they need more of what statistically gets worse…..
The very attempt to make out that here where one is completely allowed to challenge what’s said is missing counterpoint, when in reality it’s not missing here at all. Counterpoint is allowed here in contrast to where what here is being exposed as making things worse while saying it’s making things better is yet making things worse.
That’s called fascism, fundamentalism, brainwashing, etc…
I guess sacrificing a virgin or beheading someone (look see, no signs of mental illness after a beheading, all symptoms are gone despite the severe side effect) just is a bit extreme these days as we worship the pill, the status quo and consumerism.
Anyone being responsible enough to contradict this is not being “thoughtful.”
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Thank you, Peter, this will be a landmark study.
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One of my greatest frustrations is this subject of suicide. As a 75 year old retired trauma therapist, I am too old to start the research myself, but not one other entity can be persuaded to pursue this. While it is a small sample of approximately 10 clients, all went from being suicidal to being fully engaged with their lives. They did EMDR self-help on their own, and in 2 sessions abandoned all suicidal ideation. It feels terrible to me that this program could easily prevent 25 to 50% of all suicides. Please do the research on Self effective – Rapid Eye Movement.
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While I agree psychotherapy is important, I need my sertraline to even get out of bed. Surely there has to be a middle ground here?
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If a drug is necessary for you to “get out of bed,” then you are addicted. There is no “middle ground” when it comes to psychiatric drugs. All psychiatric ‘treatments’ primarily affect the brain by disabling its normal function (Breggin, P., 1991). These substances are neurotoxins and have long-lasting negative effects on the brain and central nervous system. This can lead to addiction, suicidal thoughts and suicide, and various physical, emotional, and cognitive complications (cepuk.org).
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Nothing wrong with being addicted to something that’s helping you. Whether that’s exercise or a drug. That “disabling of normal function” can help some people depending on the case at hand. Of course, they can also have long term negative effects depending on the case at hand. But that’s a compromise some people make.
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It’s amazing how you mention it’s not bad to be addicted to something, and then completely skip the fact that most likely, when the person was MADE addicted to the substance they WERE NOT given informed consent. This is found to be just fine, to report blah blah blah about antidepressants, not really say how addictive they are, not say they cause chemical imbalance, not even say they interfere with normal functions of the brain. Then when a person has been made addicted to that, and have to compromise themselves or deal with withdrawal symptoms, then all of a sudden it’s fine, what’s going on that a person most likely was NOT told would be the end result. There’s the mindfreedom hunger strike already 2003 because of the false advertising, which they APA completely excused, came up with the same attempts at shaming someone you have repeated here. https://mindfreedom.org/kb/2003/ I repeatedly have brought such things up, and you left a post below, as if I’m being repetitive, bringing this site down, not saying anything, having posts that are incredibly long……..(I do have the longest posts, or are you referring to something no one else can see?) Who do you think you’re coaching? I am supposed to believe it? I’m not here to be brainwashed in such a fashion because I say things one isn’t supposed to mention when they are part of an assumed reality, or just stuff people don’t want to hear, because it challenges their compromises.
When what is “helping you” is turning off natural articulate parts of the brain, to get a person on such they have to be told the opposite of what it does, that it causes a chemical imbalance, rather than treating one. And when this is shared, every time it should be, one BY YOU is called repetitive, because they aren’t going to negate simple honesty, and informed consent, it becomes clear what’s going on….. including there seems to be an implication of: “stop telling me the emperor has no clothes one, that’s repetitive, you’re saying nothing because I don’t want to hear that and just ignore it so call it nothing, making others ( who don’t want to hear whether whoever has whatever going on ) not want to engage with the “audience” here, and bringing this site down, when one isn’t going to want to turn of normal functions of the brain” (one would hope healthy is what normal means) healthy enough that it is interested in articulate science, rather than scientism that says that being given a chemical imbalance is treating one….
Annoying isn’t it, a healthy brain that the normal functions aren’t hampered!? (note, I’m being sarcastic…..)
You REALLY might consider not trying to make people think that when they are articulate enough to not be intimidated as if they will be punished to say things others don’t want to hear, because those others disassociate from such necessary challenges, that there is some loss of community……..
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To have something prescribed as a medication, have insurances pay for it, also have insurances inhibit therapy when it’s not prescribed, have this forced on people in an asylum setting, have them mostly prescribed without informed consent, added that these “medications” cause chemical imbalance while being falsely made out to be treating them, have these “medications” approved under a number of severely questioning if not corrupt means…..
Well yeah, alcohol, street drugs like cocaine etc. might find the same audience, as say sugar has etc. Should these also then be handed out be insurances under false advertisement? Because there are certainn people where that: “disabling of normal function” can help some people depending on the case at hand.” Is this some convenience to make them “medications.”
Here again, is what went on when these “medications” were FDA approved, although I understand I’m supposed to be intimidated by now to instead be disassociating from such truths as I’ve been told I’m being repetitive, saying nothing, making this site look bad, and “making it less likely for other people to read comments or engage with audiences on articles.” when I don’t disassociate:
The plethora of devices used to approve of antidepressants, are the same kind of games.
1) In trials used for approval often enough a sizeable amount of people had to leave the controlled group, because of the side effects of the medications, this wasn’t counted. In fact sometimes more had to leave than stayed.
Prozak side effecs http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/prozaceffex.html
And Paxel http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/paxileffex.html
2)People in the non control group who got better the first couple of weeks were taken out, as if they then weren’t depressed, although had been tested before hand. This ALSO rigs the odds despite the pseudo scientific label of “washout period.” And why would it have to be done, were the drugs so helpful?
3)Because they weren’t getting the results they wanted to, people in the trials were taken who already were on psychiatric drugs, so they were either used to having their neurotransmitters messed around with, they had been coerced into acknowledging the drugs helped them or labeled non compliant, which could mean commitment, or they indeed found the drugs helpful. In any case, this isn’t about an antidepressant anymore.
4)The same goes for people in the control group being given a sedative because of the amount of akithesia, this AGAIN is not about an antidepressant, but a drug cocktail already.
5)The period in the trials where those in the control group had to get off of a drug that wasn’t approved yet wasn’t reported at first, but when looked into it showed how people were having severe withdrawal symptoms. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stay awake, fevers, seizures…
6)There were many trials that took place, but only those with favorable results were used, and then there was still only a marginal efficacy shown, AFTER all of the game playing above….
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I am wondering why my comment has not yet been approved.
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All pending comments I see of yours have been approved. If I am missing something, please contact me by email NOT via a comment like this one, with date, time and partial text so I can identify the post in question. Asking here why it’s not been approved is a violation of our posting guidelines. Please stop doing this!
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I was gonna say it might be cuz you’re naughty canaughty like me, but I see Steve has answered your question more accurately. But if comments aren’t published it might be cuz you said bum or willy or wee.
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Observational studies confirm that I’m a big fat tit!
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I had a friend who actually facilitated a writer’s circle at a place for those who were disenfranchised. A ministry that since has gone belly up, like so much recently. But he had told me that he was mad when he woke up alive after his first suicide attempt. He also had been forced into treatment by his family, I think. He had given a speech, I think as president of his highschool at their graduation, and when they didn’t like the truths he said about what the education was geared for, they turned off his mike, rather than letting him finish. He did still write for the local press, actually, and his writing was absolutely pristine. He had actually gotten with a literary agent, was writing a book, but had a problem with his editor suggesting quite a change. I don’t remember whether it was a change of a character’s gender or something more dramatic, which I can easily see would be highly annoying, as I’ve written myself already four novels I haven’t looked into presenting to literary agents (excuse me Dickens, Shakespeare, etc. in fact just about all of the writers that have given us the ground work for literature had no need for such), and I’ve read SO MANY paint by number books with highly fabricated plots, characters, morals, situations etc. offered at say Barnes and Nobles, also by ex or current literary agent editors, I rather shield myself would I a have to deal with such dissecting my work, just to keep it alive rather than mechanized. He said he had trouble with drinking, and after the suggestion, he said something irate, and I don’t know if he hung up, but then was dropped by his literary agent. I sincerely doubt there was real interest in the quality of his work, which was extremely high. When I shared stuff, he was extremely articulate in seeing the structure of what I was expressing, which he could do in acute detail, so I could see how he could be annoyed would someone start distracting him to such a degree he would lose have to compromise time given to his actual creativity to deal with such suggestions. I guess I haven’t even processed such a loss, because I only suddenly heard that he had committed suicide. And I know that all of the “treatment” he was forced on, the addictions to controlled substances he was coerced and forced into having to deal with, the consequent loss of mental acuity not being allowed when having a healthy enough brain to make those oppressing him paranoid anymore would his true instincts and reflexes emerge. I guess I haven’t processed his death, I somehow thought he was [IS] Scriabin, and going back realize how what I experienced of him, his pristine clarity, how it reflects music he might have already have given to the world before deciding to try once again. WELL, regardless of objectivity, whether “Scriabin” is part of us because that’s the nature of art, and it as a resource for the human soul, or him, or me, or you……. Well, so in remembering this friend, I recorded this, fourth take….. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QcUh_ezANjEPvXCUKdLMEVbALV7YTCBy/view?usp=sharing And in steeling myself from my tears, I realize he was there when I heard someone play the Grieg concerto this past Friday….. because he is part of the emotions of art, and the healing it brings and THAT remains…..
I do find it perhaps beyond disgusting ( and typical and worth ignoring), that two people come to this site, don’t really acknowledge the severity of what’s shared in this article, and then go on about the cosmetics of language, which clearly is avoiding the real issue when people aren’t getting the help they need. Or simply left alone and given some legroom to find out what’s going on with them……
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the link I tried to share above for some reason didn’t show up in blue (at least on my computer click on links usually are blue) and as a click on, so I try see if this works:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QcUh_ezANjEPvXCUKdLMEVbALV7YTCBy/view?usp=sharing
or here
the hyperlink text
Well, I see both work. Apparently one has to supply a certain amount of space (more than just one open space a character would otherwise be in), for a link to be recognized as such…..
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This is a compelling critique of the FDA’s handling of suicide data in antidepressant trials. It’s alarming to see such a significant discrepancy in the suicide rates between the drug and placebo groups that wasn’t adequately addressed. It raises serious questions about the transparency and integrity of clinical trials, especially when individuals in positions of power, like Thomas Laughren, seem to have a history of downplaying crucial data. This makes one wonder how much trust we can place in regulatory bodies when it comes to the safety of these drugs.
https://www.markazeahan.com/product-category/%D9%82%D9%88%D8%B7%DB%8C-%D9%BE%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%84/
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Hello Peter.
Very good article.
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To people who are writing super long unfocused posts which say very little or are repetitive: do you think anyone actually reads them? You’re just bringing the site down and making it less likely for other people to read comments or engage with audiences on articles.
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For those who have blinders on, and can’t see the connections others express, calling them super long and unfocused when it goes into areas they haven’t the experience, willingness, or open mindedness to engage with, this isn’t a brainwashing site. And deciding, as if you know, what engages people or doesn’t, as if you have been monitoring this site, have gotten whoever wants to fill out the kind of forms one gets so often regarding what gets them to want to engage with this site and what doesn’t, and know who reads what for whatever reason, what makes it more or less likely for others to read, comment or engage with audiences on articles; even were you involved with the science of creating click bait, knowing what words to use, what colors to make what part of pages to steer eyes in whatever direction, how to get people to interact, or “engage” with audiences possibly made into such trigger happy addicts, no matter how large of an audience you were concocting thus, what would this be accomplishing was anyone doing otherwise? And what would be bringing this or ANY other site down?
People express themselves as human by the way, not as what’s going to engage with a following inarticulate enough to call anything beyond their parameters of comfort too long, unfocused, repetitive and saying very little etc….., while in the meantime indeed saying nothing, being unfocused and repetitive themselves. When anyone doesn’t understand what another says, refuses to be flexible enough to open the avenues of understanding necessary to understand what another is saying, or look into data that they otherwise are discriminatory against, and then feels the need to stereotype or discriminate, yeah, it’s easy to say they aren’t saying anything and are repetitive, but that’s the person discriminating against what another says, not what the other is saying… I think…….
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Thank you, Nijinsky.
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I know, Cat…. You’re welcome, be well……
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Psychiatrists should be banned from Cochrane Collaboration. I’ve known 2 Psychiatry guys from India, one a HOD of Dept. of Psychiatry CMC Vellore who was the ex-director of the South Asian Cochrane Collaboration, and then a guy who was a PG Registrar in 2012 in Dept. of Psychiatry CMC Vellore (did MBBS in some medical college in Bulgaria I think), both of whom were in Cochrane uptil very recently.
Cochrane is about honesty. The functioning of Psychiatry is based on dishonest and deceitful behaviour in everyday life. It’s like giving Hitler a space at a Jewish Rights conference. It’s absolutely hypocritical for these people to be some guardians of “honest research” when they can barely be honest about their profession and rely on character assassination when called out.
The ones that you already had in Cochrane are enough. Let their leaving and their deaths be the end of their association with the organisation. Don’t hire anymore Psychiatrists. Let them deal with and fix the filth in their own profession than give them space in Cochrane. They do not acknowledge an iota of damage from what they do yet they wax poetic about quality evidence and honesty in research. The pot calling the kettle black.
Much love to dentists though (or basically any other doctor). Hire them. I can’t see how any honest and ethical people can actually see what Psychiatry is and then say “hey! I’d like to study this in medical college!” and then rather than publicly talk about its harms, go on blindly defending their profession till they get rigor mortis. The ones who talk about harms are human rights watchdogs and people like Bhargavi Davar who recently died. I’ve barely ever seen Psychiatrists in my country do this.
Plenty still function on what I’d call the Jill Edwards principle: “Speaking your truth to your doctors may be healing, liberating. But, be aware they have a career & an industry to protect. They will never admit guilt & will use any means necessary to protect their interests, including belittling & pathologizing you, making threats, and might even resort to involuntary commitment to silence or punish you for calling them out”.
I just feel bad for the people who in moments of vulnerability are forced to enter into this profession. I never unnecessarily write ill about doctors or any professionals publicly for no reason. If someone is a young doctor (not in psychiatry where I have to defend myself), I’m usually kind to them even if they make some screw up so that it doesn’t affect their confidence and they can blossom into great doctors. Psychiatrists and also non-psychiatry doctors and other professionals who weaponise psychiatry are a different case.
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