Suicide in the Age of Prozac

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During the past twenty years, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and American psychiatry have adopted a "medicalized" approach to preventing suicide, claiming that antidepressants are protective against suicide. Yet, the suicide rate in the United States has increased 30% since 2000, a time of rising usage of antidepressants. A review of studies of the effects of mental health treatment and antidepressants on suicide reveals why this medicalized approach has not only failed, but pushed suicide rates higher.
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Do Antidepressants Work? A People’s Review of the Evidence

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After a meta-analysis of RCTs of antidepressants was published in Lancet, psychiatry stated that it proved that "antidepressants" work. However, effectiveness studies of real-world patients reveal the opposite: the medications increase the likelihood that patients will become chronically depressed, and disabled by the disorder.

Confessions of a Trespasser

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In a recently published commentary in Psychiatric Times, Ronald Pies and Joseph Pierre made this assertion: Only clinicians, with an expertise in assessing the research literature, should be weighing in on the topic of the efficacy of psychiatric drugs. They wrote their commentary shortly after I had published on madinamerica ā€œThe Case Against Antipsychotics,ā€ and it was clear they had me in their crosshairs.

The Case Against Antipsychotics

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This review of the scientific literature, stretching across six decades, makes the case that antipsychotics, over the long-term, do more harm than good. The drugs lower recovery rates and worsen functional outcomes over longer periods of time.

Reasons Not to Believe in Lithium

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ā€˜I Donā€™t Believe in God, But I Believe in Lithiumā€™ is the title of Jamie Loweā€™s moving account of her manic depression in the New York Times. The piece reminds us how devastating and frightening this condition can be, so it is understandable that the author put her faith in the miracle cure psychiatrists have been recommending since the 1950s: lithium. The main problem is that there is no study in which people who have been started on lithium have been compared with people who havenā€™t.

The FDA Is Hiding Reports Linking Psych Drugs to Homicides

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In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined being drawn into a story of intrigue involving my own governmentā€™s efforts to hide, from the public, reports of psychiatric drugs associated with cases of murder, including homicides committed by youth on the drugs. But that is precisely the intrigue I now find myself enmeshed in.

The Reckoning in Psychiatry Over Protracted Antidepressant Withdrawal

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Medically-induced harmā€”affecting tens of millions of people worldwideā€”has taken the field decades to take seriously.
Ad for Paxil/Seroxat

How Academic Psychiatry Minimized SSRI Withdrawal

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If academic psychiatry is evidence-based, why did it take two decades to recognize SSRI withdrawal as widespread and chronic among patients?

Dr. Pies and Dr. Frances Make a Compelling Case that Their Profession is Doing...

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Over the past two months, Ronald Pies and Allen Frances, in response to a post I had written, wrote several blogs that were meant to serve as an ā€œevidence-basedā€ defense of the long-term use of antipsychotics. As I read their pieces, I initially focused on that core argument they were presenting, but second time through, the aha moment arrived for me. Their blogs, when carefully parsed, make a compelling case that their profession, in their use of antipsychotics as a treatment for multiple psychotic disorders, has done great harm, and continues to do so today.

Depression: Itā€™s Not Your Serotonin

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What if I told you that, in 6 decades of research, the serotonin (or norepinephrine, or dopamine) theory of depression and anxiety - the claim that ā€œDepression is a serious medical condition that may be due to a chemical imbalance, and Zoloft works to correct this imbalanceā€ - has not achieved scientific credibility? Youā€™d want some supporting arguments for this shocking claim. So, here you go:

The Spurious Chemical Imbalance Theory is Still Alive and Well

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The promotion of the chemical imbalance theory did occur, and continues to occur, and is a most shameful chapter in psychiatry's history.Ā  It is arguably one of the most destructive, far-reaching, and profitable hoaxes in history. I could not begin to estimate the number of clients I've talked to over the years who told me that their psychiatrists had told them they had a chemical imbalance in their brains, and that they needed to take the pills for life to correct this imbalance. Even today, I regularly receive emails from readers contesting the assertions in my posts and telling me in no uncertain terms that they have chemical imbalances in their brains that cause their problems.

The Once and Future Abilify: Depot Injections for Everyone?

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This column is partly a report on the marketing of Abilify, the atypical antipsychotic that has become Americaā€™s best-selling drug.Ā Ā  Itā€™s also an appeal for advice and feedback from the RxISK and Mad in America communities, and a call for some brainstorming about strategy.Ā  The plans laid out by drugmakers Otsuka and Lundbeck for Abilifyā€™s future, and the cooperation theyā€™re getting from leading universities, are alarming enough to me that reporting on them seems inadequate.Ā  We need action, although Iā€™m not sure exactly what kind.

The Evidence-Based Mind of Psychiatry on Display

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The writings of Pies and his colleagues, I believe, provide a compelling case study of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance arises when people are presented with information that creates conflicted psychological states, challenging some belief they hold dear, and people typically resolve dissonant states by sifting through information in ways that protect their self-esteem and their financial interests. It is easy to see that process operating here.
christ

Thou Shall Not Criticize Our Drugs

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A medical journalĀ is expected to promote an open-minded discussion of treatments, even if findingsā€”or criticismsā€”threaten conventional beliefs. But the American Journal of Psychiatry will not find space for criticism even if it comes from one of the best-known psychiatrists in the world.

Always a Mystery: Why do Drugs Come and Go?

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Iā€™ve been teaching a course on substance abuse for about 30 years now. In this course, I cover a new drug class each week and always review the history of the drug. All of the drugs of abuse, cocaine, alcohol, marijuana, opiates are not new on the human scene. They date back to the Sumerians and the Greeks. The question for me is what accounts for epidemics? I have come to believe that epidemics are supplier driven rather than a function of consumer demand. For the current opiate epidemic, the suppliers were the pharmaceutical houses.

Psych Meds Put 49 Million Americans at Risk for Cancer

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With 1 in 5 Americans taking a psychiatric medication, most of whom, long term, we should probably start to learn a bit more about them. In fact, it would have been in the service of true informed consent to have investigated long-term risks before the deluge of these meds seized our population over the past thirty years.

Largest Survey of Antidepressants Finds High Rates of Adverse Emotional and Interpersonal Effects

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I thought I would make a small contribution to the discussion about how coverage of the recent airline tragedy focuses so much on the supposed ā€˜mental illnessā€™ of the pilot and not so much on the possible role of antidepressants. Of course we will never know the answer to these questions but it is important, I think, to combat the simplistic nonsense wheeled out after most such tragedies, the nonsense that says the person had an illness that made them do awful things. So, just to confirm what many recipients of antidepressants, clinicians and researchers have been saying for a long time, here are some findings from our recent New Zealand survey of over 1,800 people taking anti-depressants, which we think is the largest survey to date.

The Inherent Unreliability of the ADHD Label

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I imagine that everybody on this side of the issue knows by now that the eminent psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, Chief Psychiatrist at Columbia, and past President of the APA, called Robert Whitaker "a menace to society." The grounds for Dr. Lieberman's vituperation were that Robert had dared to challenge some of psychiatry's most sacred tenets! But in all the furor, it was largely ignored that in the same interview Dr. Lieberman had said something else that warrants additional discussion.

Neuroleptic Drugs And Mortality

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In November of last year, Schizophrenia Bulletin published a research study that, on the face of it, would seem to upset the notion that neuroleptic drugs are toxic and that their use markedly reduces life expectancy. There are, however, some problems with the study that need to be considered.

Call To Action: Massachusetts Bill H4062 for Informed Benzodiazepine Use is Official

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On February 24th, 2016 Bill HD4554 - An Act relative to benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics was filed by Representative Paul McMurtry in the Massachusetts State House. The bill received 47 co-sponsors during the seven-day open period in which legislators can co-sponsor. This is an impressive and promising turnout.

How Should We Understand the Link Between ADHD and Early Death?

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Alarming headlines, based on a recent study, declare that diagnosis with ADHD doubles the risk of early death. Psychiatrist Stephen Faraone, commenting on the original study published in the Lancet, concludes that: ā€œfor clinicians early diagnosis and treatment should become the rule rather than the exception.ā€ This conclusion represents a false assumption that the deaths occurred in cases that were not treated.

Researching the Link Between SSRIs and Violence

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In 2010, my 25-year old son was prescribed Prozac for depression. After a psychiatrist doubled his dose, my son became acutely psychotic and had to be admitted to the hospital. Over the next twelve months, during which time he was treated with antidepressants and neuroleptics, my son had five further psychotic experiences. I thought it might be that my son was having difficulty metabolising the drugs.

Disability and Mood Disorders in the Age of Prozac

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When I was researching Anatomy of an Epidemic and sought to track the number of people receiving a disability payment between 1987 and 2007 due to ā€œmental illness,ā€ I was frustrated by the lack of diagnostic clarity in the data. The Social Security Administration would list, in its annual reports on the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs, the number of people receiving payment for ā€œmental disorders,ā€ which in turn was broken down into just two subcategories: ā€œretardation,ā€ and ā€œother mental disorders.ā€ Unfortunately, the ā€œother mental disorders,ā€ which was the category for those with psychiatric disorders, was not broken down into its diagnostic parts.

A Tale of Two Studies

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With increasing evidence that psychiatric drugs do more harm than good over the long term, the field of psychiatry often seems focused on sifting through the mounds of research data it has collected, eager to at last sit up and cry, hereā€™s a shiny speck of gold! Our drugs do work! One recently published study on withdrawal of antipsychotics tells of long-term benefits. A second tells of long-term harm. Which one is convincing?

Yesterday I Looked Forward to Taking Psych Drugs

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People hassle me for being anti-medication, and I always tell them I am NOT anti-medication; I am pro-fully-informed choice. But people like things black-and-white. They see me as being against medications, and so I'm telling you why medications may have saved my life yesterday, or at least saved me a whole bunch more trouble.