What remains to be seen is how long will youth who are being labeled and then prescribed neuroleptic drugs will continue to be “less impaired.” It is no doubt Human Experimentation to use psychotropic drugs “off label;” WHY the hell is it a Standard Clinical Practice? Crimes against humanity should not be a standard of care!
Antidepressants are not the only psychotropic drugs which cause akathisia and increase risk of suicide and homicide due to genetic differences in metabolizing psychotropic drugs, I find it very troubling that only the SSRIs are the focus even though they are not the only drugs known tho cause akasthisia, suicide and homicide…I’d be willing to bet the SSRIs are not killing as many as people as the neuroleptic drugs are…But then when a neuoleptic drug is the cause it’s usually a person with a diagnosis of schizophrenia schizo-affective, or bipolar disorder; people with these diagnoses are the most marginalized of psychiatric patients. I can’t help but notice that the other drugs known to cause the same fatal adverse effects are not a part of this discussion on suicide prevention through genetic testing; which is disturbing since those who die from the adverse effects of other classes of drugs are just as dead and leave behind family members who mourns them. I wonder why the sole focus for this effort appears to be on the SSRIs? It seems like eugenics to me.
Excellent article. I would like to point out though that it was psychiatrists who were first to exterminate people in Germany’s institutions before the Third Reich started doing it. The Nazis got the idea and the methods used from the psychiatrists…
Thanks for your global perspective and observations on how all the little stuff is big stuff Alice.
Dr. Ivana Fulli,
Unfortunately, your comment was removed before I had a chance to read it, so I have no idea what you said. I am puzzled however by your stating here in this thread that your censored comment was in response to “an unwised attack on a couragous sufferer of a mother” I will assume that you are characterizing the comment left by Rossa Forbes in this manner. I want to say, that such a characterization of her comment is so far off the mark, it’s simply ridiculous. Part of the whole bio-diesease paradigm is that it in effect attibutes emotional and behavioral difficulties to a biological mechanism within the individual, and thereby assigns blame for emotions and behavior to a so-called “disease” the person supposedly has. Emotional and behavioral difficulties children have DO NOT develop in a biological vaccuum doctor. I am utterly disgusted by Liza Long’s blog post. The woman seems to think it’s ok to abuse her kid, and then play victim. I really don’t think that what she did takes courage; it takes something, not sure what it is, but it isn’t courage. She fails to demonstrate any responsibility for how her own behavior may cause or exacerbate the behavioral problems her child has, does not even demonstate awareness of her own inappropriate behavior. Worse than this, IMO, is this woman showed no compassion and no respect for her son in what she wrote. Maybe she wrote this post on a bad day; but, I suspect after reading her own website, that blaming her child and playing the victim /parent martyr is typical for her.
Being unethical doesn’t mean it does not happen. It does. In my opinion, off label prescriptions of psychotropic drugs, particularly prescriptions which are not based on clinical trial evidence, or even minimally supported by data about the drugs’ safety and effectiveness, (which is more common than not, in psychiatry) is Human Experimentation. Calling it “Off Label” instead of calling it what it is, is deceptive, and I believe it is done to deceive. This off label prescribing is theoretically supposed to be based on actual evidence of safety and efficacy, even if it is not from drug trials, the drugs have been in use for a very long time and STILL there is not the evidence available that what is being done in Standard Clinical practice is supported by EVIDENCE. So haw the hell did this become a STANDARD PRACTICE? By a quasi-democratic practice called voting. A group of people gathered and voted on their educated opinions—this is not a scientific or a medical endeavor; it does not even resemble science or ethical medcine. It is a dishonest and not at all ethical use a consensus of subjective opinions in place of the empirical data which should be the foundation of any and all medical standards of care. What are the Standards of Care in psychiatry, ie. practice parameters, treatment algorithms, etc. if they are not science-based ethical medical standards? What they are is an affirmative defense for criminal medical malpractice. In effect, and in fact, Human Experiemntation without the knowledge or the consent of the participants is standad practice for treating psychiatric diagnoses.
In a manner of speaking they did create some spin. After stating the drugs were ineffective for every diagnosis they were tested on in the study, the authors state, “Caution in the use of these drugs is warranted in middle-aged and older patients.” It seems obvious that if the treatment is ineffective, it shouldn’t be “recommended.” Since the negative effects are debilitating and disabling and potentially fatal, stating the drugs are not useful so they should not be used would have been ethical. Instead, the authors urge using caution when prescribing ineffective treatments with fatal risks. That is spin. Informed Consent in this instance would necessitate telling patients the treatments don’t work for most people their age with their diagnosis and telling them about the serious negative effects—somehow, I just don’t think this will be done, do you?
One of the underlying problems is that our society allows the medical profession to police itself. In spite of the overwhelming evidence that the medical profession is incapable of actually being accountable for maintaining it’s own ethical standards; and protecting patients. Doctors simply do not report colleagues who provide unethical clinical care to Medical licensing boards. In the rare instances doctors are brought before licensing boards, rarely do they lose their medical license. Doctors who ignore the Ethical Guidelines of the medical profession and whose medical care (or lack thereof) harms patients, are tolerated by their colleagues. In psychiatry, unethical practitioners are elevated to positions of authority in the APA and AACAP, are active in formulating public policy, determining what the standards of care are, and are given federal grants to conduct research. The primary mechanisms for accountability are in the control of the medical profession, which brings us back to the beginning: medical professionals rarely report unethical conduct of other medical professionals; and apparently are even less likely to conduct adequate unbiased investigations when reports are made and it becomes necessary. The underlying conflict of interest in having medical professionals police themselves is that being accountable would initially increase the premiums they pay for malpractice insurance.
When one considers the academic fraud, illegal marketing, and ethically questionable (to say the very least) manner in which psychiatric diagnoses and practice parameters, and treatment algorithms become Standards of Practice, I would bet fear is preventing ethical investigation into wrong-doing. With so much corruption permeating every aspect of psychiatric practice, many investigations will find not only the bodies of evidence sought, but also evidence of further unethical and criminal behavior.
Meltzer speaks of being offended, why would anyone think it an insult for a researcher to be asked for raw data, to in effect, “show his work”? It should be customary. This is not the dark ages when knowledge is hidden from the masses, let alone other professionals in the same field. It is trust, but verify in science; and one who is unwilling to verify, should not be trusted…The fact that he is evasive and insulting does nothing to detract from his juvenile implication that it’s an insult to have been asked for raw data. Why would any professional think it an insult to be asked for data that should be openly shared with other medical professionals as a matter of course?
I for one have a bad feeling about this drug and not only because my son takes it. If one looks at what is available–it is patently obvious there has been a consistent effort to declare this drug better than EVERY other drug for at least a decade—articles stating it treats addiction, aggression, and a handful of other common “off label” marketing targets we are all now familiar with. Rarely will one find an article which does not decry the need to use Clozpine more often for schizophrenia and/or for more diagnoses. Clozapine is used less frequently in real world practice that any other neuroleptic drug, yet the number of deaths attributed to Clozapine in the AERS data makes it the number three killer out of all the FDA approved drugs. Seeing what it is doing to my son makes me biased, however, there is something seriously wrong when there is such a disparity between the claims of superiority being made, and the number of patients with fatal outcomes…So I have something to say for any person claims what a wonder drug it is–prove it SHOW ME the DATA. I’m just a mother and what I see is Clozapine robbing my son of his abilities while his health declines.
It is not a cultural perspective–no mainstream journalists in this country address the Human Rights violations of psychiatric patients. The failure of journalists to ethically report the news is in no small part responsible for the American people being uninformed and misinformed.
The only place I know that the figure one million is used to quantify the children diagnosed with bipolar is in an essay written by psychologist, Jacob Azerrad, Ph.D. published on the ahrp website. There is no citation for the statistic and there is the error in the essay of calling Clonidine and Trileptal antipsychotics—Clonidine is a blood pressure medication, and Trileptal is a seizure medication. http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/829/52/
Another awesome post Jonathan, thank you. The reality is there was professional literature which effectively demonstrated the fallacy of the APA and AACAP party line of the drugs being a safe and effective treatment for psychosis—it was literature which was ignored when the academic psychiatrists wrote their Practice Parameters and Treatment Algorithms which were became the Standard of Care in Mental Health treatment. The illegal marketing and the fraudulent billing which paid for the drugs prescribed off label could have never been done without those Practice Parameters and Treatment Algorithms, both of which substituted consensus when the research data did not support their use. Stanley is on the right track but IMO it is the Standard of Care which includes the parameters and algorithms used in clinical practice that is also used to absolve prescribers for the harm done to patients…Some professionals actually claim that not using these unethically developed standards would be unethical! The idea that patients can only be treated using these corrupt standards because they are “professionally accepted standards;” the fact that they are only “standards” because of a quasi-democratic process, not because they are based on or supported by the clinical research data. the parameters and the treatment algorithms are only standards of care because they were VOTED on—not because they are derived from ethical scientific research or based on the use of ethically sound medical judgement. Morally reprehensible really, all things considered. Ultimately, the Standards of Care in psychiatry are to persuade professionals to adhere to the bio-disease paradigm and serve the primary purpose achieving the marketing goals of pharma, while providing an affirmative defense for the professionals using them for medical malpractice.
The line “so for those who stay the course and persevere, there will be very lucrative rewards” reads sounds like a recruitment effort aimed at psychiatrists and other prescribers who are or may be questioning the standard of care that is promoted by the APA and the AACAP. It is a standard of care that serves the marketing agenda of the pharmaceutical industry; and is without a evidence base to support it, which is WHY it has failed. “Stay the course” is Tom Insel’s rally cry for Translational Science—he fails to understand (apparently) that there must be science available to translate…
Jeffrey Lieberman is one of the “research psychiatrists who was added onto the TEOSS drug trials late in the game—as near as I can tell, once it was apparent the TEOSS trials had failed, NIMH determined to shore up this colossal failure up by adding Harvard, and Lieberman to the list of investigators. I wonder if Lieberman’s willingness to go along with the charade was rewarded by becoming President-elect of the APA…
The TEOSS trials were seeding trials conducted with the intent to gain FDA approval for pediatric use. Drugs were subsequently approved for pediatric use by the FDA for limited use; but as is Standard Practice in psychiatry, the drugs are prescribed off label, the cost is fraudulently billed to Medicaid, in the vast majority of cases. As 1 Boring Old Man and I, among others– have pointed out, the rampant Medicaid fraud—which is ongoing despite multiple illegal marketing lawsuits—could not have been done without the cooperation of the APA and AACAP, which makes both of these organizations complicit in an ongoing criminal enterprise. I have no doubt that the treatment protocols, treatment algorithms and practice parameters which are written by members of the APA and AACAP, and are without empirical support serve the purposes of pharma primarily. These standards are marketed by the APA and AACAP as CME and are disseminated in “peer-reviewed” journals and recommend using psychotropic drugs off label in spite of the lack of evidence for prescribing the drugs in this manner. The only logical conclusion, is that they were written in order to support the marketing agendas of pig pharma… Psychiatry has re-defined “Standard of Care” to mean plausible deniability. Psychiatry’s standards are meant to serve as a defense for medical malpractice. The standards were written to support the marketing agendas of pig pharma and serve as a legal defense for the rampant medical malpractice that results from their use.
This is what Lieberman and Insel are urging professionals to, “stay the course” on…and the hope of new drug discovery “around the corner” is also used by Insel–and these discoveries have been claimed to be “around the corner” longer than I have been alive…enough is enough! To quote Grace Jackson, M. D. “No one is really paying attention to what’s going on. . . The issue is how many Medicaid kids are being drugged to death, not how many kids in fostercare are being over medicated.”
I would add that no one should be medicated because a lack of medical ethics has become acceptable in mental health ‘treatment.’
There is not doubt in my mind whatsoever that in a Just society every single psychiatrist who has “treated” my son would be facing criminal charges. Every single one lied to me—Mental health so called professionals wonder why I can’t be more ‘respectful’ i.e. just accept what we do don’t question OUR Authority; The current “provider” is either just plain stupid or IDK what. She has ‘no idea’ why I would possibly have any “anger and trust issues” or why my son is absolutely TERRIFIED of going to any kind of medical clinic or hospital. Knowing the absolute power and control they have is THE ONLY reason I do not tell her or the punk psycho pharmacologists at the clinic what the heck I think of them and their lack of respect for my son. I too can be locked up and drugged into a state of disability—
Stevie, One is not apt to learn anything useful if one does not have a genuine positive regard for others who have different views due to different experiences than you do. At this point, I am skeptical of your intent—I am wondering at this point if you purposely avoid direct communication and use metaphors and other sorts of avoidance and diversion tactics purposely? Say what you mean, mean what you say. As other’s have observed, using ‘nice’ polite words is NOT the same thing being ‘nice’ or ‘polite.’ Using ‘civil’ words is not the same thing as being civil. You have repeatedly stated your desire to learn and participate in a dialogue. You have also repeatedly stated you don’t care for what others share, or the manner in which they share their views–these two views are obviously contradictory.
Perhaps if you consider what you think about how wrong someone else’s opinion is, is not so important. Try to consider that perhaps, just maybe, there are opinions and experiences that are JUST AS VALID as you consider your own to be…You may discover that you have the ability to respect others in the same measure you yourself want to be respected. Who knows, you may even one day discover you have a genuine positive regard for others, even if/when you don’t agree with them. Other people’s opinions and experiences are meaningful to them; just as your own are to you. Perhaps if one can not validate the idea someone expresses, one should not necessarily simply assess it (and by extension the person) as unworthy, invalid—or just as bad, imply the person may belong to a particular group.
Dr. Moffic, I admire the fact that you continue to be willing to participate in the dialogue here on this site–it takes courage. I know this from personal experience, although not the same as yours—I know what it is to take a stand and be THE ONLY ONE who does so. So I know from my experience that courage is not the absence of fear; and I also know how threatening it feels when others are shall we say, are less than receptive to what one has to say. That said, I can’t help but question the veracity of your statement,”I know way over 50 who would meet much or all of your criteria.” Because it seems to me, if this is in fact the case—how could these ethical psychiatrists remain unknown and silent? I have no doubt they have an ethical duty as physicians speak up and to act in defense of psychiatric patients who were and are being victimized; children and adults who continue to experience a great deal of harm.
The fact of the matter is one of your colleagues, Ronald Pies, writes how he admires you for your efforts here but then disparages and maligns the people who voice their anger, pain, and outrage due to the harm they have experienced; in a manner he disapproves of! That he seems to believe this is realistic way to defend his profession, defend his integrity; and defend what’s left of the integrity of the psychiatric profession is ironic; to say the very least!
This entire mess exists because of the utter and complete failure of the psychiatric profession to hold individual unethical psychiatrists accountable–worse, the profession has allowed these criminals to be YOUR LEADERS electing them to positions of power in within your professional societies. It is because of unethical academics, unethical peer reviewers and editors of “professional journals” and unethical professors of psychiatry who are not censured, discredited, or let’s be honest, PROSECUTED for their criminal behavior, that the profession is in a position of needing to defend itself. So, I am less than sympathetic to any blame being assigned to any VICTIMS or their defenders–all due respect, if psychiatrists spent half the time spent pointing the finger at other medial specialties and psychiatric survivors on holding unethical psychiatrists accountable, and purging your “professional” literature of the marketing agendas that are ineptly disguised as “research;” it would go a long way towards earning the respect and trust that your colleagues seem to believe the profession still has.
So where are the voices of these more than 50 of your colleagues who leave you, their colleague, to to speak on their behalf? In my opinion, any professional who is aware of the facts, yet remains silent, is complicit in the human rights crimes that are being perpetrated by the psychiatric profession. The silence is DEAFENING.
Thank you so much for this article. It is amazing to me that this bs is swallowed whole by so many…My son who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia has a tremendous amount of insight. Due to being mistreated by so many “professionals,” he has serious trust issues. The arrogance of some so called professionals who seem to believe that their license to practice or a degree means they do not need to develop a relationship with a person is stunning and seemingly prevalent. EARNING the trust of a person one hopes to help, should be a primary focus, but it is not. Supposedly the patients/person with a diagnosis lacks insight… HA! What a crock! It is ludicrous to expect anyone to share their thoughts/insights with anyone, professional or not, with someone who has not earned their trust. Thanks again for posting this; and for taking apart the myths pedaled by TAC among others…
I agree with Ted, “I don’t want to fight with CCHR, but neither do I think we should be associated with them either.” Truly grateful for you saying so!
Malene, you have obviously done your homework; thank you so much for sharing what you have found.
Chrys and Darby I appreciate you both sharing links—I will be adding them my website as well.
Thaey may have dropped it from DSM 5 consideration but there are clinical trials in this country currently “treating” pre-psychosis it with a PACT type model family “support” including the neuroletic drugs.
Here is a little piece of psychiatric survivor history you participated in:
Highlander Statement and Call To Action
“In the tradition of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and thousands of men and women concerned about social justice and progressive change, thirty people with long histories of fighting for human rights in mental health gathered for three days at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. We argued, came to consensus, and then quietly shared our pain, our concerns, our fears, and our hopes for the future.”
We came to understand that our personal stories have power and that they must be heard. We must tell them to other people who have been damaged by psychiatric treatment, to the public, to lawmakers and to political candidates as well. We are compelled to share our collective struggle and claim our place as a civil rights movement along side of those who have been similarly discounted, disenfranchised, and marginalized: people of color; gay, lesbian, bisexual; and transgendered people; people with physical disabilities; women; people belonging to religious,ethnic, and linguistic minorities; Jews and others now at risk for ethnic cleansing; and people forced to live in poverty amidst the great wealth and abundance of corporate USA.
In the Highlander tradition, we came away from those three days on the mountain determined that we will not allow anyone to do for us, to discount us, or to pat us on the head instead of looking us in the eye. We came away invigorated and ready to act individually and collectively to insure that self-determination, respect, ethical behavior, and humane voluntary services and supports become the foundation of a reinvented mental health system. This system must first and foremost do no harm.
We came away ready to make this a reality.
The Highlander Call for Action:
We call upon all people committed to human rights to organize and fight against the passage and implementation of legislation making it easier to lock up and forcibly drug people labeled with psychiatric disorders, legislation that is creating the back-wards of the twenty-first century not just in hospitals, but also in our own homes.
We call upon all people committed to human rights to work together to build a mental health system that is based upon the principles of self-determination, on a belief in our ability to recover, and on our right to define what recovery is and how best to achieve it.
We call upon people who have used mental health services to heal each other by telling our stories. We call for the creation of literature and other arts that use our truths to educate, to inform, and to validate our culture and our experience.
We call upon elected officials, political candidates, and those with power over our lives to recognize and honor the legitimacy of our concerns through their policy statements, legislative proposals, and their actions; and we hereby give notice that we will do whatever it takes to insure that we are heard, that our rights are protected, and that we can live freely and peacefully in our communities.”
Ten years ago in the summer of 2000, MindFreedom published this issue of Dendron, with the headline, “The psychiatric survivors movement turns 30!” On page 5 is The Highlander Statement and Call to Action.On the cover: Sally Zinman, George Ebert, Ted Chabasinski, Judi Chamberlin, and Jay Mahler
Awesome post Maria! Since there is no requirement prescribers usually report adverse events—even death—due to the often biased way drug trials are structured and the biased manner the results are reported in the ‘peer-reviewed’ professional literature, many medical professionals don’t even know what the known adverse reactions are, let alone recognized the symptoms as a potential adverse effect. This being the case, there is no way to accurately assess the safety and efficacy rates for any FDA approved drug in real world practice. It is plain that the FDA does not work for the people of the US, they are in effect and in fact serving to protect the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
Thank you so much Leah–I feel both my son and I were well represented at Torrey’s Tirade. This post brought tears to my eyes. You say what I have thought at least a million times…
Thank you for a thoughtful post. Like Rossa I can attest that there are mommy bloggers which are clinging with ferocity to the false notion that family dynamics do not play a role in causing or exacerbating their children’s distress, emotional difficulties. Ironically, they also seems devoted to the notion that as parents, they always act in their child’s best interests, regardless of how their children are impacted by their actions. While a parent’s intent may in fact be to act in an adult or a minor child’s best interest, it is not the parent’s intent that leaves the biggest impact; it is the effect their actions have that is experienced by their child.
There is not a day that goes by that I have not remembered that my intent have my children taken care of when I was unable to do so led to them experiencing things which gravely harmed them. As children and as adults, my children know that their feelings about these events are honored and respected by me. It is a lesson in humility to own my mistakes. It is my willingness to do everything in my power to help them to overcome the harm they’ve experienced that has earned me my both of sons’ respect. There is no way I could have possibly done so without honoring what they themselves said hurts them; especially when it is something I have done or said—it is impossible to act on another person’s behalf without listening to what they say, and honoring it for the truth that it is.
The unethical medical research conducted in the United States is often a violation Federal Law, and a violation of participants Individual Rights; supposedly protected under the US Constitution. It is also a violation of International Law i.e. The Nuremberg Code.
Voluntary agreement of the participant is required
Research must help society
Research should be based on previous knowledge
Should not cause mental and physical suffering, and avoid risk of injury and death.
Very little (if any) of the research in this country on psychiatric drugs is in fact based on previous knowledge; but is conducted in spite of knowledge gained from previous research. Standard Clinical practices, treatment protocols, algorithms, and practice parameters for the psychiatric diagnoses are not based on the evidence base; but are often obviously contradictory to the data collected from the drug trials conducted to gain FDA approval for the drugs which are then recommended by a consensus of opinion, as ‘necessary medical treatment.’ I’ve said it elsewhere: A consensus of opinion is evidence of agreement. A consensus is not empirical evidence. It is used as a substitute for the empirical data which an ethical medical recommendation should be supported by and based upon. These recommendations which are used in Standard clinical practice do not have the empirical support demonstrating efficacy, effectiveness or safety. This being the case, it is in fact a massive fraud that is being perpetrated; in effect, psychiatric care in standard clinical practice is Human Experimentation, care that is being ‘provided’ often without Informed Consent, and worse, compelled under Court Order and forced upon in spite of the overwhelming evidence of harm. Standard psychiatric care induces iatrogenic diseases, causing disability which lowers quality of life; and inevitably leads to early death.
I am a MadMother whose son has been a victimized because he was a victim of violent crime when he was a three year old foster child. Instead of providing ethical compassionate care he was given Risperdal—which was illegally marketed and not approved for any use in children until ten years later. It did not help him; it hurt him. He and I were blamed for the failure of this unethical treatment that did not treat his symptoms but in fact traumatized him further–he was ‘treated’ for severe PTSD, and Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Both of which were from having been physically assaulted, then put in a freaking closet by a Washington State foster parent. the woman killed four infants and was not licensed for children my son’s age when he was placed in her ‘care.’
I am disgusted, to say the very least. How in the hell could my son being victimized and traumatized lead educated professionals to conclude that my son has a genetic neuro-biological disease–it is akin to blaming the victim, and these professionals who in fact perpetrated crimes which violate the Nuremberg Code, victimized him further by the unethical treatment they provided to ‘treat’ his injuries…
Since the Risperdal didn’t work; he was then used in the TEOSS Drug Trials and ultimately disabled. While the cost of his care was paid for with Federal Medicaid and Federal Child Welfare funds, amounting to over a million dollars in fraud; the toll paid by my son continues to be steep.
All symptoms of distress a human being experiences are coping strategies which result from interpersonal conflicts or intrapersonal conflicts–IMO. In the absence of empirical evidence of an actual disease–what we have is a professionally marketed illusion. Selling the lie was easy, because people do not want to believe that their own actions really do determine how well or not well a person can be, and can become… Abdication of personal responsibility for our fellow man—or, as I remember it I am my brother’s keeper.
It is ludicrous and ironic really. It also necessitates a good deal of mental gymnastics and a lack of critical thinking to authoritatively state psychiatric diagnoses are no-fault neurobiological diseases; while casting oneself as a parent as the VICTIM, due to a minor or adult child’s difficulties. These martyrs have no difficulty describing how devastating it is to them personally, and even describe how they are beset with illnesses, and distress from the interpersonal difficulties take place between them and their children. Martyrs are assisted in casting themselves as victims by mental health professionals and other believers in the illusion. It is an intrinsic part of how the illusion is sold. That parents are in need of information, respite (if they are also care givers)and emotional support is plain; it is also equally apparent that referring to, or thinking of these parents in terms like ‘poor unfortunate parents’ or as ‘victims,’ is simply part of the marketing plan.
What troubles me about studies like this, is it is a thinly veiled attempt to prove that being neglected, abused and/or traumatized, causes a neurobiological disease. (followed closely by the claim that this ‘disease’ causes a ‘lack of insight.’ As we know, this is necessary to the plan because it justifies depriving psychiatric patients of their Human Rights, and ‘treat’ the patient by force. That the treament will traumatize them, give them actual diseases…leading to the well-documented diminished quality of life and early death; is a successful treatment outcome.
Charles Nemeroff received a grant to demonstrate PTSD is a brain disease—if one wants to make something up to further the marketing agenda of the pharmaceutical industry to sell teratogenic drugs as necessary treatment, to widen the net and increase the number of people labeled as inferior,lacking insight and due to a brain disease, i.e. neurobiolgical disease; Chuck has the experience and has demonstrated the the lack of integrity required to perform such a task.
How we treat one another matters, always; for all people of all ages it really does matter… What truly sickens me is I know it matters much more to people in crisis, yet part of the marketing of madness as if it is a disease rests on a premise that how we treat one another matters less for people who are given a psychiatric diagnosis. Giving people psychiatric ‘care’ instead of love, compassion, understanding and assistance is all part of the illusion. All successful lies have a grain of truth– with a psychiatric diagnosis do not have the same Human Rights those who have not been diagnosed as ‘less than.’
Thank you for being so diligent Duane. I do what I can. I have to pick my battles. My primary responsibility is to take care of myself and my son. After that, it is to do what is in my power to prevent another child from experiencing what he has–
I have. I also have contacted Carper—NO response. I have contacted some good ol boys that I voted for as well I got a form letter in response. As to the Felony perjury and fraud committed perpetrated in 2010, I contacted DOJ, HHS, protection and advocacy ALL of them have told me they can do nothing…The DOJ initially assured me my complaint had reached the proper department. After McClellan’s let’s say ‘questionable testimony on Dec. 1, I called the DOJ and was told they do not investigate the crimes I reported…Duane, my only comfort at all and I know you understand what I mean, is that local Law Enforcement is aware—and treat my son with respect; and they are in fact the only public servants who do. Other than my faith, it is this that gives me any sense of security at all. I thank God for small, and big favors.
Decreased stigma ScienceDaily (2010-09-16) — “A new study finds no change in prejudice and discrimination toward people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems despite a greater embrace by the public of neurobiological explanations for these illnesses. The study raises vexing questions about the effectiveness of campaigns designed to improve health literacy.” The “Anti-Stigma” Campaign Increased Discrimination I find the author’s claim that it was “Probably after the expansion of psychoanalysis, psychiatry started to reach a wider population, the so-called ‘well-worried” ludicrous. The pharma-funded anti-stigma campaign urged early screening and diagnosis and pharmacological treatment that led to pathologizing the normal reactions to traumatic subjective experiences, inter-persononal conflicts, environmental and sociological deficits; such as poverty. As a mother whose son was diagnosed as a preschooler after being victimized by violent crime; I can attest that once a psychiatric diagnosis was given, all undesirable behavior was viewed as if it were a symptom of psychiatric illness–by psychiatrists, and the social service system.
As for chronicity and comorbidity, psychiatry fueled both of these; first, by claiming in the absence of empirical data that psychiatric diagnoses are the result of brain diseases which can be treated but never cured. This fraud became the foundation of the public mental health system. Those unfortunate enough to have no other option but to rely upon the public mental health system were treated with teratogenic drugs, and told they had diseases which required treatment compliance. The treatment often caused the comorbid conditions due to the teratogenic effects of this ‘treatment.’ Psychiatrists then attributed iatrogenic diseases, cognitive and neurological impairments to the psychiatric diagnosis/‘disease’ being treated or diagnosed a comorbid psychiatric diagnosis which required drugs to treat, but could not be cured.
I am sick of doctors abdicating responsibility and blaming the pharmaceutical companies, the drug-centered paradigm of care and the reimbursement system when none of these factors would have the influence or devastating impact they have, without the cooperation of psychiatrists themselves! Let’s be real: psychiatrists were active participants in the development and the adoption of the biomedical paradigm of care, and it’s drug-centered treatment approach, not passive, unwitting victims… It’s time for psychiatry to be responsible and hold unethical practitioners accountable and stop blaming everyone else.
The same goes for blaming the media; ultimately they, like patients and the general public, have been misinformed by psychiatrists, but like psychiatrists they failed to adhere to the ethics of their chosen profession. Doctor you are blaming those who have been misinformed by the psychiatric profession; including poor people who seek subsistence through the social service system, for relying on the biased, and false information they relied upon. Many believed what they were told, because it was told to them by a doctor! Are you aware that there is no way in hell a person can be declared disabled by a psychiatric diagnosis without a psychiatrist attesting to the diagnosis? Your perspective blames victims for being victimized…
Thank you Faith for your comment. I did the research I’ve done initially to find a way to help my son. I desperately needed to find a way to help him. Initially, I believed that what had happened in his case was an anomaly; it is not. I wish it were. I am discouraged, and out of ideas.
Thank you Michael. I really believe this is about personal responsibility. I am real tired of doctors claiming they have to prescribe drugs off label because it is demanded by someone for them to do so; it’s an abdication of professional responsibility; a lame attempt at blaming someone else for their own behavior, plain and simple. As for the biased information published in professional journals, and direct to professional marketing that convinced them that prescribing neurotoxins to children is an ethical way to ‘treat’ them; I am fed up with this lame excuse–it is an excuse, not a reason, for failing to do due diligence in order to ethically serve their patients. I am a high school drop out with two years of college–it took me one week of research to discover that psychopharmacology is based on a consensus of opinions, not Clinical Trial data–that is no way to formulate treatment STANDARDS. Consensus is evidence of agreement, it is not a way to ethically empirically validate a treatment recommendation! In all reality, believing consensus can be substituted for empirical evidence demonstrates ignorance, or willful blindness to the ethical, scientific, and philosophical foundations of medicine in the Hippocratic tradition.
I am sorry to hear of your experience. The unethical use of teratogenic drugs has been happening for decades, and so has the Medicaid fraud. The FDA has never even come close to fulfilling it’s duties to protect the American people–I really appreciate Dr. Marcia Angell’s opinion on this. She points out that psychiatric drugs are teratogens, as are drugs used for cancer and should not be used off-label for children at all.
Those who are children now is what compels me to write. From my ‘About Me’ page: “If my life, and what was done to my son and my family means anything at all, it’s meaning for me must be derived from sharing what I have learned and working to keep it from happening to anyone else. I must share what I’ve learned to hopefully spare another family the same experiences.”
While this intent may not be apparent in everything that I write, it is what drives me. I will never forget what I have seen; I will forever remember the kids who were at CSTC with my son. So many called me mom; being known as ‘mom’ is an honor, a privilege and a blessing.
More than one psychiatrist has pointed out that consumers/peer leaders have become the greatest asset the bio-medical paradigm has…NAMI has a pretty tight reign on my home State’s so-called ‘consumer movement;’ it is only for drug treatment compliant consumers—there is no advocacy for people harmed by the policies NAMI promotes.
One of the issues I am aware of is the rush to diagnose a person with schizophrenia absent actually excluding conditions which can be the cause of the symptoms.
In my son’s case, Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy was excluded by taking it off his Medical Chart—obviously, is not ethical–in fact, it is illegal.
My eldest son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was given neuroleptics—which he was told were to help him sleep. Three things bought about the dx. 1. His younger brother had been dx. 2. he talked about his interest in Neurolinguistic programming(which the diagnostician believed was an entrenched delusion, since they had never heard of it) 3. At the time, he worked for Earthlink and was getting training–this was reported as he thought he was getting Earthling training…
The thing is, he was diagnosed and lied to about the diagnosis and the reason neuroletic drugs were prescribed. I can’t help but wonder how common is it for a person to be diagnosed with schizophrenia–a diagnosis of exclusion–so carelessly and unethically as my both of my son’s were?
Altering a Medical Record is a crime, like every other crime committed in the ‘treatment’ of my traumatized son; I reported it. And, also like every other crime, it was never investigated.
There is a carelessness about the manner in which a diagnosis is applied, and treatment provided. Most troubling is the failure of professionals to consider the context of a persons distress, particularly after a diagnosis is attached. Which to me is a failure to exercise critical thinking skills.
In my youngest son’s case, he had been on a neuroleptic drug for five years as a child prior to being diagnosed with schizophrenia; then he was used in drug trials—It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy is not ‘excluded’ by removing it from a person’s medical record; or that a child who has taken a teratogenic drug known to cause psychosis for five years will have some serious issues if the drug is withdrawn too quickly…reckless and careless are the terms which best describe the mental health care system as my family has, and continue to experience it.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. I am obviously coming at the issue from that of a parent; who is aware of enormous betrayal–which has an affect on how I look at an issue. So, I appreciate your comment, immensely. Intuition is a valuable guide, and as you said, it can be misleading…
Thank you Dr. Steingard for your post. I appreciate your calling it like it is—That some psychiatrists have a BELIEF that neuroleptics work, is not the same thing as having evidence the neuroleptics actually work. I would add that not only do psychiatrists and others who treat patients by giving them teratogenic drugs need to examine their Beliefs about the drugs as ‘necessary medical treatment,’ but, that —the rest of us need to decide whether it is moral to legally mandate people to take neuroletic drugs, when it does not appear that it doing so is based on ethical or even medical principles, but upon a BELIEF the drugs ‘work.’ Particularly, since it is a false belief. The empirical data clearly demonstrates that the neuroleptics are minimally efficacious for a small minority of people who experience symptoms of psychosis. The data pretty clearly demonstrates these drugs cause serious debilitating iatrogenic diseases and neurological impairments.
Belief in something absent any empirical evidence supporting one’s belief, is all well and good in Religion. It has no place in Medicine. It certainly is not an ethical medical decision to use one’s belief as an excuse or a justification for abdicating one’s primary professional responsibility and ethical duty to the patient. First, foremost and always is the dictum to, “First, do no harm…” It seems that psychiatry and mental health professionals who practice ‘psycho’ pharmacology are not aware of, and don’t ‘BELIEVE in’ the Hippocratic Oath.
Words matter. Calling neuroleptics ‘antipsychotics,’ when they are ‘anti’ psychotic for only a small percentage of people who experience psychosis; is misleading—I dare say it is dishonest… The word neurlopleptic at least is descriptive of what the drugs mechanism of action is.
from my blog post, “The Failure to protect foster children and children on Medicaid”:
“Ten years before there was any “approved” pediatric use for Johnson and Johnson’s ‘Risperdal,’ it was given to my son. It was prescribed “off label,” an innocuous term for “experimental use.” I believe the term off label is used because it sounds innocuous; it disguises the fact that Human Experimentation using teratogenic drugs is what is being done. Human Experimentation with psychiatric drugs is now embedded within Standard Clinical Practices. I also believe that is why the term neuroleptic has been replaced with the word, ‘antipsychotic.’ The word Neuroleptic is French, a combination of the word neuro, meaning nerve; and the Greek word ‘leptikos’ which means, ‘disposed to take’ equivalent to ‘lēp’ meaning ‘to seize.’ The word neuroleptic actually describes what this class of drug does to the human body. Neuroleptics act on the parasympathetic nervous system; which explains the myriad of negative effects they are known to have. It is why the drugs cause a wide variety of diseases and progressive cognitive and neurological impairments; and it is why they shorten people lives… But then, all substances that cause disease also cause a loss of life…”
Change requires ‘we’ thinking THIS IS ABOUT ALL OF US. Bringing about needed social change isn’t pretty—we humans do not undertake personal transformation gracefully or with ease for the most part; and groups of individuals will have their own ideas of how to proceed and who should have a role…THAT is the primary stumbling block. Once it is considered a matter of who should have a role, participate in any respect; it is no longer about WE it has become an us and them equation and it is divisive not inclusive. All groups of people have factions or cliques each focused part of the endeavor which justifies the formation of the clique, each is certain their view is more important and has more validity.
I apologize for being wordy, and not focused on the actual topic which is Corrina’s advocacy and her business ideas which are offering people hope and a hand up; actually validating their self worth by actually including the people who directly benefit from the beginning…It is an excellent example of an open minded approach solving a complex set of needs which fully includes the perspectives and input of the people who are to be directly helped. It is, in a nutshell, a plan for doing what needs to be done to transform the (I don’t even know what the heck to call it anymore!)system.
I am certain of little, but I am certain of this: Any successful effort to right the wrongs must be for and about ALL OF US. It is in the connections between people that symptoms become manifest. How can a solution not include respect for ALL OF US? It is the cliques and the factions, most of whom IMO have valid reasons for feeling and being ex- and not in- clusive. All people deserve respect and consideration; which is not to say one must agree with or believe it is expected of them never be critical, but I hope that if nothing else, remember that many of those who are grievously harmed and killed, cannot speak for themselves. Those among us who are the walking wounded are counting on US, which right now doesn’t look like it’s a good thing. I have so much anger and rage and every day I see the harm being done to the emotions, the spirit and the intellect of my precious son. I really want to believe that there is a WE.
There has been a lot of criticism leveled about administrative minutia in discussion threads on the Mad in America site. e.g. people who disapprove of administrative decisions made as to ground rules for comments and choice of bloggers. I for one am turned off by much of it, and find it detracts from the issues and experiences shared in blog posts. An obvious solution for people who disapprove of administrative decisions, and/or feel they slighted by administrative decisions; are also capable of starting a site which encompasses their ideals. Surely starting a site which encompasses the ideals espoused by Mad in America critics is a plausible solution? It seems that doing so would be more productive than continuing to dissect and criticize the decisions disapproved of. The same criticisms being repetitively leveled are not very productive and tend to detract from any positive that exists. The principles which form the basis of the administrative decisions that are considered onerous and repetitively criticized are worthy of being respected; even if they are not approved of. Given the long-term experience with blogging and participating in various online forums, this seems a more productive way to deal with what critics believe is lacking on this site.
Steven, I find your comment extremely petty and offensive. Are you intentionally being obtuse and willfully blind? Regardless, of your intent, the tone is judgmental. You seem to be implying that you feel injured when people who have been grievously harmed by psychiatry openly express themselves—How dare you be anything less than supportive of people who feel the need to give voice their pain and rage about being harmed by their experiences with psychiatry! Shame on you for suggesting a victim should censor their comments out of consideration of people who belong to a group of professionals that are directly responsible for having caused their pain and anguish! BTW when you and your fellow colleagues bash those who consider themselves psychiatric survivors and people who have recovered after a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the sites you do it on are for ‘professionals only.’ So, why are you offended? Is it lack of ability to control? The sites you and your fellow professionals use to bash psychiatric survivors by belittling their valid claims of harm; maligning their character and speculating on the nature and relevancy of their advocacy; DO NOT ALLOW those whom are discussed with such disdain to respond. So you and your colleagues unimpeded validate one another’s disrespectful attitudes, and by so doing, allow mistaken assumptions misinterpretations, and personal biases to become further entrenched; which negatively affects your ability to understand or help your patients! The contrast in how sites which only allow psychiatric professionals to participate in the discussion threads and this one is an excellent example of HOW Stigma is taught and reinforced in the psychiatric profession. It also clearly illustrates that the STIGMA of a psychiatric diagnosis is real and is inextricably attached to the diagnosis itself; and always has been…
Doctor you are minimizing the deleterious effect of the practice parameters and treatment algorithms ‘peer-reviewed’ journal articles written by PSYCHIATRISTS, symposiums conducted by PSYCHIATRISTS; the information is/was relied upon; it was used and used by general practitioners to diagnose and treat psychiatric illnesses. General practitioners relied on experts in psychiatry erroneously and you are blaming them for doing so. Obviously, relying on information pedaled by psychiatry harmed patients.
How does minimizing the effect unethical psychiatrists have had on all of us mitigate this betrayal? Does abdicating individual and collective responsibility, and blaming others who believed the information was valid, ethically presented and based on actual SCIENCE help? General practitioners and patients relied on psychiatrists to be honest, ethical, and to conform to ethical scientific methods and ethical medical principles; they were betryed. Does it help psychiatrists sleep better to deny accountability, and abdicate responsibility for the harm done to patients?
It’s time to be REAL, we’re in this mess because psychiatrists went along with the marketing agendas of the pharmaceutical industry. Placing the blame elsewhere serves only to validate skepticism and deepen well-earned mistrust, psychiatry needs to take responsibility and make amends. Stop pointing the finger of blame and take some responsibility for correcting the grievous mistakes that have been made, that continue to harm patients.
Practice Parameters and treatment algorithms, that are based on a consensus of ‘professional opinions have no place in a medical specialty that is claiming to be Evidence Based. Consensus is a quasi-democratic process, not a scientific endeavor. Consensus is evidence of AGREEMENT, consensus is not evidence of scientific validity, therapeutic value, safety or efficacy. The recommendations contained in Practice Parameters and treatment algorithms are still in use, but instead of trying to undo the harm caused to patients by them, the corrupt work products are being defended, instead of thrown out. Why is that? They are not derived from the a Scientific Evidence Base. Indeed, most of the recommendations are not supported by the evidence, but are contradictory to the the evidence! The clinical trial evidence used to gain FDA approval, was incomplete and therefore biased and corrupt. It is only corrupt because unethical psychiatrists corrupted it.
“Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
Hippocrates
“Primum non nocere”
“Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts.
As to diseases, make a habit of two things–to help, or at least to do no harm.” Hippocrates
Or, to paraphrase, Matthew 7:5:
Psychiatry needs to first take the beam out of it’s own eye, and then it will perhaps see clearly how to remove the splinter from another medical practitioner’s eye.
San Francisco psychiatrist, Dr. Ira Steinman, in his speech, TREATING the “UNTREATABLE”, presented at the IXth National Meeting of ISPS, the International Society for the Psychological Treatment of Schizophrenia, NYU, March 2008, states that it’s possible—I believe him… here is a link to it http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL063B00635EE74470&feature=mh_lolz
Thank you so much for sharing your Mother and Son Journey! It means so much to know my son and I are on a path traveled by others who know that life is a beautiful, complex journey. We have arrived; willing to grow, open to possibilities.
Best regards to a mother and son, from another mother and son.
Well done! The pharmaceutical industry effectively exploited the same strategy in marketing the painkillers–claiming that a narcotic is not addictive if the patient is in pain…What I don’t get at all: how do educated medical professionals come to the point where they’re blind to the harm caused? No comprende nada.
What remains to be seen is how long will youth who are being labeled and then prescribed neuroleptic drugs will continue to be “less impaired.” It is no doubt Human Experimentation to use psychotropic drugs “off label;” WHY the hell is it a Standard Clinical Practice? Crimes against humanity should not be a standard of care!
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Antidepressants are not the only psychotropic drugs which cause akathisia and increase risk of suicide and homicide due to genetic differences in metabolizing psychotropic drugs, I find it very troubling that only the SSRIs are the focus even though they are not the only drugs known tho cause akasthisia, suicide and homicide…I’d be willing to bet the SSRIs are not killing as many as people as the neuroleptic drugs are…But then when a neuoleptic drug is the cause it’s usually a person with a diagnosis of schizophrenia schizo-affective, or bipolar disorder; people with these diagnoses are the most marginalized of psychiatric patients. I can’t help but notice that the other drugs known to cause the same fatal adverse effects are not a part of this discussion on suicide prevention through genetic testing; which is disturbing since those who die from the adverse effects of other classes of drugs are just as dead and leave behind family members who mourns them. I wonder why the sole focus for this effort appears to be on the SSRIs? It seems like eugenics to me.
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The Sunday Dialogue please remember: “As we speak, we remember those who cannot speak…”
http://involuntarytransformation.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-sunday-dialogue-please-remember-as.html#
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Excellent article. I would like to point out though that it was psychiatrists who were first to exterminate people in Germany’s institutions before the Third Reich started doing it. The Nazis got the idea and the methods used from the psychiatrists…
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Thank you for posting this John.
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Thanks for your global perspective and observations on how all the little stuff is big stuff Alice.
Dr. Ivana Fulli,
Unfortunately, your comment was removed before I had a chance to read it, so I have no idea what you said. I am puzzled however by your stating here in this thread that your censored comment was in response to “an unwised attack on a couragous sufferer of a mother” I will assume that you are characterizing the comment left by Rossa Forbes in this manner. I want to say, that such a characterization of her comment is so far off the mark, it’s simply ridiculous. Part of the whole bio-diesease paradigm is that it in effect attibutes emotional and behavioral difficulties to a biological mechanism within the individual, and thereby assigns blame for emotions and behavior to a so-called “disease” the person supposedly has. Emotional and behavioral difficulties children have DO NOT develop in a biological vaccuum doctor. I am utterly disgusted by Liza Long’s blog post. The woman seems to think it’s ok to abuse her kid, and then play victim. I really don’t think that what she did takes courage; it takes something, not sure what it is, but it isn’t courage. She fails to demonstrate any responsibility for how her own behavior may cause or exacerbate the behavioral problems her child has, does not even demonstate awareness of her own inappropriate behavior. Worse than this, IMO, is this woman showed no compassion and no respect for her son in what she wrote. Maybe she wrote this post on a bad day; but, I suspect after reading her own website, that blaming her child and playing the victim /parent martyr is typical for her.
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Well done Laura!
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Being unethical doesn’t mean it does not happen. It does. In my opinion, off label prescriptions of psychotropic drugs, particularly prescriptions which are not based on clinical trial evidence, or even minimally supported by data about the drugs’ safety and effectiveness, (which is more common than not, in psychiatry) is Human Experimentation. Calling it “Off Label” instead of calling it what it is, is deceptive, and I believe it is done to deceive. This off label prescribing is theoretically supposed to be based on actual evidence of safety and efficacy, even if it is not from drug trials, the drugs have been in use for a very long time and STILL there is not the evidence available that what is being done in Standard Clinical practice is supported by EVIDENCE. So haw the hell did this become a STANDARD PRACTICE? By a quasi-democratic practice called voting. A group of people gathered and voted on their educated opinions—this is not a scientific or a medical endeavor; it does not even resemble science or ethical medcine. It is a dishonest and not at all ethical use a consensus of subjective opinions in place of the empirical data which should be the foundation of any and all medical standards of care. What are the Standards of Care in psychiatry, ie. practice parameters, treatment algorithms, etc. if they are not science-based ethical medical standards? What they are is an affirmative defense for criminal medical malpractice. In effect, and in fact, Human Experiemntation without the knowledge or the consent of the participants is standad practice for treating psychiatric diagnoses.
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In a manner of speaking they did create some spin. After stating the drugs were ineffective for every diagnosis they were tested on in the study, the authors state, “Caution in the use of these drugs is warranted in middle-aged and older patients.” It seems obvious that if the treatment is ineffective, it shouldn’t be “recommended.” Since the negative effects are debilitating and disabling and potentially fatal, stating the drugs are not useful so they should not be used would have been ethical. Instead, the authors urge using caution when prescribing ineffective treatments with fatal risks. That is spin. Informed Consent in this instance would necessitate telling patients the treatments don’t work for most people their age with their diagnosis and telling them about the serious negative effects—somehow, I just don’t think this will be done, do you?
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Thank you.
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There is something that seriously stinks about this drug trial. After a little digging I concluded that it was a seeding trial.
“A Seeding Trial: Side Effects of Newer Antipsychotics in Older Adults” http://involuntarytransformation.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-seeding-trial-side-effects-of-newer.html
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One of the underlying problems is that our society allows the medical profession to police itself. In spite of the overwhelming evidence that the medical profession is incapable of actually being accountable for maintaining it’s own ethical standards; and protecting patients. Doctors simply do not report colleagues who provide unethical clinical care to Medical licensing boards. In the rare instances doctors are brought before licensing boards, rarely do they lose their medical license. Doctors who ignore the Ethical Guidelines of the medical profession and whose medical care (or lack thereof) harms patients, are tolerated by their colleagues. In psychiatry, unethical practitioners are elevated to positions of authority in the APA and AACAP, are active in formulating public policy, determining what the standards of care are, and are given federal grants to conduct research. The primary mechanisms for accountability are in the control of the medical profession, which brings us back to the beginning: medical professionals rarely report unethical conduct of other medical professionals; and apparently are even less likely to conduct adequate unbiased investigations when reports are made and it becomes necessary. The underlying conflict of interest in having medical professionals police themselves is that being accountable would initially increase the premiums they pay for malpractice insurance.
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When one considers the academic fraud, illegal marketing, and ethically questionable (to say the very least) manner in which psychiatric diagnoses and practice parameters, and treatment algorithms become Standards of Practice, I would bet fear is preventing ethical investigation into wrong-doing. With so much corruption permeating every aspect of psychiatric practice, many investigations will find not only the bodies of evidence sought, but also evidence of further unethical and criminal behavior.
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Meltzer speaks of being offended, why would anyone think it an insult for a researcher to be asked for raw data, to in effect, “show his work”? It should be customary. This is not the dark ages when knowledge is hidden from the masses, let alone other professionals in the same field. It is trust, but verify in science; and one who is unwilling to verify, should not be trusted…The fact that he is evasive and insulting does nothing to detract from his juvenile implication that it’s an insult to have been asked for raw data. Why would any professional think it an insult to be asked for data that should be openly shared with other medical professionals as a matter of course?
I for one have a bad feeling about this drug and not only because my son takes it. If one looks at what is available–it is patently obvious there has been a consistent effort to declare this drug better than EVERY other drug for at least a decade—articles stating it treats addiction, aggression, and a handful of other common “off label” marketing targets we are all now familiar with. Rarely will one find an article which does not decry the need to use Clozpine more often for schizophrenia and/or for more diagnoses. Clozapine is used less frequently in real world practice that any other neuroleptic drug, yet the number of deaths attributed to Clozapine in the AERS data makes it the number three killer out of all the FDA approved drugs. Seeing what it is doing to my son makes me biased, however, there is something seriously wrong when there is such a disparity between the claims of superiority being made, and the number of patients with fatal outcomes…So I have something to say for any person claims what a wonder drug it is–prove it SHOW ME the DATA. I’m just a mother and what I see is Clozapine robbing my son of his abilities while his health declines.
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Thank you. You’re way nicer than I am…
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It is not a cultural perspective–no mainstream journalists in this country address the Human Rights violations of psychiatric patients. The failure of journalists to ethically report the news is in no small part responsible for the American people being uninformed and misinformed.
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The only place I know that the figure one million is used to quantify the children diagnosed with bipolar is in an essay written by psychologist, Jacob Azerrad, Ph.D. published on the ahrp website. There is no citation for the statistic and there is the error in the essay of calling Clonidine and Trileptal antipsychotics—Clonidine is a blood pressure medication, and Trileptal is a seizure medication. http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/829/52/
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Another awesome post Jonathan, thank you. The reality is there was professional literature which effectively demonstrated the fallacy of the APA and AACAP party line of the drugs being a safe and effective treatment for psychosis—it was literature which was ignored when the academic psychiatrists wrote their Practice Parameters and Treatment Algorithms which were became the Standard of Care in Mental Health treatment. The illegal marketing and the fraudulent billing which paid for the drugs prescribed off label could have never been done without those Practice Parameters and Treatment Algorithms, both of which substituted consensus when the research data did not support their use. Stanley is on the right track but IMO it is the Standard of Care which includes the parameters and algorithms used in clinical practice that is also used to absolve prescribers for the harm done to patients…Some professionals actually claim that not using these unethically developed standards would be unethical! The idea that patients can only be treated using these corrupt standards because they are “professionally accepted standards;” the fact that they are only “standards” because of a quasi-democratic process, not because they are based on or supported by the clinical research data. the parameters and the treatment algorithms are only standards of care because they were VOTED on—not because they are derived from ethical scientific research or based on the use of ethically sound medical judgement. Morally reprehensible really, all things considered. Ultimately, the Standards of Care in psychiatry are to persuade professionals to adhere to the bio-disease paradigm and serve the primary purpose achieving the marketing goals of pharma, while providing an affirmative defense for the professionals using them for medical malpractice.
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I forgot to thank you Dr. Steingard; I appreciate your blog posts more than I can say.
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The line “so for those who stay the course and persevere, there will be very lucrative rewards” reads sounds like a recruitment effort aimed at psychiatrists and other prescribers who are or may be questioning the standard of care that is promoted by the APA and the AACAP. It is a standard of care that serves the marketing agenda of the pharmaceutical industry; and is without a evidence base to support it, which is WHY it has failed. “Stay the course” is Tom Insel’s rally cry for Translational Science—he fails to understand (apparently) that there must be science available to translate…
Jeffrey Lieberman is one of the “research psychiatrists who was added onto the TEOSS drug trials late in the game—as near as I can tell, once it was apparent the TEOSS trials had failed, NIMH determined to shore up this colossal failure up by adding Harvard, and Lieberman to the list of investigators. I wonder if Lieberman’s willingness to go along with the charade was rewarded by becoming President-elect of the APA…
The TEOSS trials were seeding trials conducted with the intent to gain FDA approval for pediatric use. Drugs were subsequently approved for pediatric use by the FDA for limited use; but as is Standard Practice in psychiatry, the drugs are prescribed off label, the cost is fraudulently billed to Medicaid, in the vast majority of cases. As 1 Boring Old Man and I, among others– have pointed out, the rampant Medicaid fraud—which is ongoing despite multiple illegal marketing lawsuits—could not have been done without the cooperation of the APA and AACAP, which makes both of these organizations complicit in an ongoing criminal enterprise. I have no doubt that the treatment protocols, treatment algorithms and practice parameters which are written by members of the APA and AACAP, and are without empirical support serve the purposes of pharma primarily. These standards are marketed by the APA and AACAP as CME and are disseminated in “peer-reviewed” journals and recommend using psychotropic drugs off label in spite of the lack of evidence for prescribing the drugs in this manner. The only logical conclusion, is that they were written in order to support the marketing agendas of pig pharma… Psychiatry has re-defined “Standard of Care” to mean plausible deniability. Psychiatry’s standards are meant to serve as a defense for medical malpractice. The standards were written to support the marketing agendas of pig pharma and serve as a legal defense for the rampant medical malpractice that results from their use.
This is what Lieberman and Insel are urging professionals to, “stay the course” on…and the hope of new drug discovery “around the corner” is also used by Insel–and these discoveries have been claimed to be “around the corner” longer than I have been alive…enough is enough! To quote Grace Jackson, M. D. “No one is really paying attention to what’s going on. . . The issue is how many Medicaid kids are being drugged to death, not how many kids in fostercare are being over medicated.”
I would add that no one should be medicated because a lack of medical ethics has become acceptable in mental health ‘treatment.’
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Well done! Thank you Richard.
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Sinead,
There is not doubt in my mind whatsoever that in a Just society every single psychiatrist who has “treated” my son would be facing criminal charges. Every single one lied to me—Mental health so called professionals wonder why I can’t be more ‘respectful’ i.e. just accept what we do don’t question OUR Authority; The current “provider” is either just plain stupid or IDK what. She has ‘no idea’ why I would possibly have any “anger and trust issues” or why my son is absolutely TERRIFIED of going to any kind of medical clinic or hospital. Knowing the absolute power and control they have is THE ONLY reason I do not tell her or the punk psycho pharmacologists at the clinic what the heck I think of them and their lack of respect for my son. I too can be locked up and drugged into a state of disability—
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Thank you Cledwyn Bulbs! My first thought was, “if the outcomes are so good why are they still being seen in services???”
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Stevie, One is not apt to learn anything useful if one does not have a genuine positive regard for others who have different views due to different experiences than you do. At this point, I am skeptical of your intent—I am wondering at this point if you purposely avoid direct communication and use metaphors and other sorts of avoidance and diversion tactics purposely? Say what you mean, mean what you say. As other’s have observed, using ‘nice’ polite words is NOT the same thing being ‘nice’ or ‘polite.’ Using ‘civil’ words is not the same thing as being civil. You have repeatedly stated your desire to learn and participate in a dialogue. You have also repeatedly stated you don’t care for what others share, or the manner in which they share their views–these two views are obviously contradictory.
Perhaps if you consider what you think about how wrong someone else’s opinion is, is not so important. Try to consider that perhaps, just maybe, there are opinions and experiences that are JUST AS VALID as you consider your own to be…You may discover that you have the ability to respect others in the same measure you yourself want to be respected. Who knows, you may even one day discover you have a genuine positive regard for others, even if/when you don’t agree with them. Other people’s opinions and experiences are meaningful to them; just as your own are to you. Perhaps if one can not validate the idea someone expresses, one should not necessarily simply assess it (and by extension the person) as unworthy, invalid—or just as bad, imply the person may belong to a particular group.
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Dr. Moffic, I admire the fact that you continue to be willing to participate in the dialogue here on this site–it takes courage. I know this from personal experience, although not the same as yours—I know what it is to take a stand and be THE ONLY ONE who does so. So I know from my experience that courage is not the absence of fear; and I also know how threatening it feels when others are shall we say, are less than receptive to what one has to say. That said, I can’t help but question the veracity of your statement,”I know way over 50 who would meet much or all of your criteria.” Because it seems to me, if this is in fact the case—how could these ethical psychiatrists remain unknown and silent? I have no doubt they have an ethical duty as physicians speak up and to act in defense of psychiatric patients who were and are being victimized; children and adults who continue to experience a great deal of harm.
The fact of the matter is one of your colleagues, Ronald Pies, writes how he admires you for your efforts here but then disparages and maligns the people who voice their anger, pain, and outrage due to the harm they have experienced; in a manner he disapproves of! That he seems to believe this is realistic way to defend his profession, defend his integrity; and defend what’s left of the integrity of the psychiatric profession is ironic; to say the very least!
This entire mess exists because of the utter and complete failure of the psychiatric profession to hold individual unethical psychiatrists accountable–worse, the profession has allowed these criminals to be YOUR LEADERS electing them to positions of power in within your professional societies. It is because of unethical academics, unethical peer reviewers and editors of “professional journals” and unethical professors of psychiatry who are not censured, discredited, or let’s be honest, PROSECUTED for their criminal behavior, that the profession is in a position of needing to defend itself. So, I am less than sympathetic to any blame being assigned to any VICTIMS or their defenders–all due respect, if psychiatrists spent half the time spent pointing the finger at other medial specialties and psychiatric survivors on holding unethical psychiatrists accountable, and purging your “professional” literature of the marketing agendas that are ineptly disguised as “research;” it would go a long way towards earning the respect and trust that your colleagues seem to believe the profession still has.
So where are the voices of these more than 50 of your colleagues who leave you, their colleague, to to speak on their behalf? In my opinion, any professional who is aware of the facts, yet remains silent, is complicit in the human rights crimes that are being perpetrated by the psychiatric profession. The silence is DEAFENING.
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Thank you so much for this article. It is amazing to me that this bs is swallowed whole by so many…My son who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia has a tremendous amount of insight. Due to being mistreated by so many “professionals,” he has serious trust issues. The arrogance of some so called professionals who seem to believe that their license to practice or a degree means they do not need to develop a relationship with a person is stunning and seemingly prevalent. EARNING the trust of a person one hopes to help, should be a primary focus, but it is not. Supposedly the patients/person with a diagnosis lacks insight… HA! What a crock! It is ludicrous to expect anyone to share their thoughts/insights with anyone, professional or not, with someone who has not earned their trust. Thanks again for posting this; and for taking apart the myths pedaled by TAC among others…
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I agree with Ted, “I don’t want to fight with CCHR, but neither do I think we should be associated with them either.” Truly grateful for you saying so!
Malene, you have obviously done your homework; thank you so much for sharing what you have found.
Chrys and Darby I appreciate you both sharing links—I will be adding them my website as well.
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Thaey may have dropped it from DSM 5 consideration but there are clinical trials in this country currently “treating” pre-psychosis it with a PACT type model family “support” including the neuroletic drugs.
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Thank you Corinna for linking to my blog, much appreciated!
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Great article Ted.
Here is a little piece of psychiatric survivor history you participated in:
Highlander Statement and Call To Action
“In the tradition of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and thousands of men and women concerned about social justice and progressive change, thirty people with long histories of fighting for human rights in mental health gathered for three days at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. We argued, came to consensus, and then quietly shared our pain, our concerns, our fears, and our hopes for the future.”
We came to understand that our personal stories have power and that they must be heard. We must tell them to other people who have been damaged by psychiatric treatment, to the public, to lawmakers and to political candidates as well. We are compelled to share our collective struggle and claim our place as a civil rights movement along side of those who have been similarly discounted, disenfranchised, and marginalized: people of color; gay, lesbian, bisexual; and transgendered people; people with physical disabilities; women; people belonging to religious,ethnic, and linguistic minorities; Jews and others now at risk for ethnic cleansing; and people forced to live in poverty amidst the great wealth and abundance of corporate USA.
In the Highlander tradition, we came away from those three days on the mountain determined that we will not allow anyone to do for us, to discount us, or to pat us on the head instead of looking us in the eye. We came away invigorated and ready to act individually and collectively to insure that self-determination, respect, ethical behavior, and humane voluntary services and supports become the foundation of a reinvented mental health system. This system must first and foremost do no harm.
We came away ready to make this a reality.
The Highlander Call for Action:
We call upon all people committed to human rights to organize and fight against the passage and implementation of legislation making it easier to lock up and forcibly drug people labeled with psychiatric disorders, legislation that is creating the back-wards of the twenty-first century not just in hospitals, but also in our own homes.
We call upon all people committed to human rights to work together to build a mental health system that is based upon the principles of self-determination, on a belief in our ability to recover, and on our right to define what recovery is and how best to achieve it.
We call upon people who have used mental health services to heal each other by telling our stories. We call for the creation of literature and other arts that use our truths to educate, to inform, and to validate our culture and our experience.
We call upon elected officials, political candidates, and those with power over our lives to recognize and honor the legitimacy of our concerns through their policy statements, legislative proposals, and their actions; and we hereby give notice that we will do whatever it takes to insure that we are heard, that our rights are protected, and that we can live freely and peacefully in our communities.”
Ten years ago in the summer of 2000, MindFreedom published this issue of Dendron, with the headline, “The psychiatric survivors movement turns 30!” On page 5 is The Highlander Statement and Call to Action.On the cover: Sally Zinman, George Ebert, Ted Chabasinski, Judi Chamberlin, and Jay Mahler
I have gathered a little bit of stuff on the history of the psychiatric survivor movement and it’s on the page Nothing About Us Without Us. http://involuntarytransformation.blogspot.com/p/nothing-about-us-without-us.html
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oops! I meant to say, Since there is no requirement prescribers usually do not report adverse events!
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Awesome post Maria! Since there is no requirement prescribers usually report adverse events—even death—due to the often biased way drug trials are structured and the biased manner the results are reported in the ‘peer-reviewed’ professional literature, many medical professionals don’t even know what the known adverse reactions are, let alone recognized the symptoms as a potential adverse effect. This being the case, there is no way to accurately assess the safety and efficacy rates for any FDA approved drug in real world practice. It is plain that the FDA does not work for the people of the US, they are in effect and in fact serving to protect the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
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Thank you Ted Chabasinski—I totally agree!
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Thank you so much Leah–I feel both my son and I were well represented at Torrey’s Tirade. This post brought tears to my eyes. You say what I have thought at least a million times…
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Thank you for a thoughtful post. Like Rossa I can attest that there are mommy bloggers which are clinging with ferocity to the false notion that family dynamics do not play a role in causing or exacerbating their children’s distress, emotional difficulties. Ironically, they also seems devoted to the notion that as parents, they always act in their child’s best interests, regardless of how their children are impacted by their actions. While a parent’s intent may in fact be to act in an adult or a minor child’s best interest, it is not the parent’s intent that leaves the biggest impact; it is the effect their actions have that is experienced by their child.
There is not a day that goes by that I have not remembered that my intent have my children taken care of when I was unable to do so led to them experiencing things which gravely harmed them. As children and as adults, my children know that their feelings about these events are honored and respected by me. It is a lesson in humility to own my mistakes. It is my willingness to do everything in my power to help them to overcome the harm they’ve experienced that has earned me my both of sons’ respect. There is no way I could have possibly done so without honoring what they themselves said hurts them; especially when it is something I have done or said—it is impossible to act on another person’s behalf without listening to what they say, and honoring it for the truth that it is.
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The unethical medical research conducted in the United States is often a violation Federal Law, and a violation of participants Individual Rights; supposedly protected under the US Constitution. It is also a violation of International Law i.e. The Nuremberg Code.
Voluntary agreement of the participant is required
Research must help society
Research should be based on previous knowledge
Should not cause mental and physical suffering, and avoid risk of injury and death.
Very little (if any) of the research in this country on psychiatric drugs is in fact based on previous knowledge; but is conducted in spite of knowledge gained from previous research. Standard Clinical practices, treatment protocols, algorithms, and practice parameters for the psychiatric diagnoses are not based on the evidence base; but are often obviously contradictory to the data collected from the drug trials conducted to gain FDA approval for the drugs which are then recommended by a consensus of opinion, as ‘necessary medical treatment.’ I’ve said it elsewhere: A consensus of opinion is evidence of agreement. A consensus is not empirical evidence. It is used as a substitute for the empirical data which an ethical medical recommendation should be supported by and based upon. These recommendations which are used in Standard clinical practice do not have the empirical support demonstrating efficacy, effectiveness or safety. This being the case, it is in fact a massive fraud that is being perpetrated; in effect, psychiatric care in standard clinical practice is Human Experimentation, care that is being ‘provided’ often without Informed Consent, and worse, compelled under Court Order and forced upon in spite of the overwhelming evidence of harm. Standard psychiatric care induces iatrogenic diseases, causing disability which lowers quality of life; and inevitably leads to early death.
I am a MadMother whose son has been a victimized because he was a victim of violent crime when he was a three year old foster child. Instead of providing ethical compassionate care he was given Risperdal—which was illegally marketed and not approved for any use in children until ten years later. It did not help him; it hurt him. He and I were blamed for the failure of this unethical treatment that did not treat his symptoms but in fact traumatized him further–he was ‘treated’ for severe PTSD, and Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Both of which were from having been physically assaulted, then put in a freaking closet by a Washington State foster parent. the woman killed four infants and was not licensed for children my son’s age when he was placed in her ‘care.’
I am disgusted, to say the very least. How in the hell could my son being victimized and traumatized lead educated professionals to conclude that my son has a genetic neuro-biological disease–it is akin to blaming the victim, and these professionals who in fact perpetrated crimes which violate the Nuremberg Code, victimized him further by the unethical treatment they provided to ‘treat’ his injuries…
Since the Risperdal didn’t work; he was then used in the TEOSS Drug Trials and ultimately disabled. While the cost of his care was paid for with Federal Medicaid and Federal Child Welfare funds, amounting to over a million dollars in fraud; the toll paid by my son continues to be steep.
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All symptoms of distress a human being experiences are coping strategies which result from interpersonal conflicts or intrapersonal conflicts–IMO. In the absence of empirical evidence of an actual disease–what we have is a professionally marketed illusion. Selling the lie was easy, because people do not want to believe that their own actions really do determine how well or not well a person can be, and can become… Abdication of personal responsibility for our fellow man—or, as I remember it I am my brother’s keeper.
It is ludicrous and ironic really. It also necessitates a good deal of mental gymnastics and a lack of critical thinking to authoritatively state psychiatric diagnoses are no-fault neurobiological diseases; while casting oneself as a parent as the VICTIM, due to a minor or adult child’s difficulties. These martyrs have no difficulty describing how devastating it is to them personally, and even describe how they are beset with illnesses, and distress from the interpersonal difficulties take place between them and their children. Martyrs are assisted in casting themselves as victims by mental health professionals and other believers in the illusion. It is an intrinsic part of how the illusion is sold. That parents are in need of information, respite (if they are also care givers)and emotional support is plain; it is also equally apparent that referring to, or thinking of these parents in terms like ‘poor unfortunate parents’ or as ‘victims,’ is simply part of the marketing plan.
What troubles me about studies like this, is it is a thinly veiled attempt to prove that being neglected, abused and/or traumatized, causes a neurobiological disease. (followed closely by the claim that this ‘disease’ causes a ‘lack of insight.’ As we know, this is necessary to the plan because it justifies depriving psychiatric patients of their Human Rights, and ‘treat’ the patient by force. That the treament will traumatize them, give them actual diseases…leading to the well-documented diminished quality of life and early death; is a successful treatment outcome.
Charles Nemeroff received a grant to demonstrate PTSD is a brain disease—if one wants to make something up to further the marketing agenda of the pharmaceutical industry to sell teratogenic drugs as necessary treatment, to widen the net and increase the number of people labeled as inferior,lacking insight and due to a brain disease, i.e. neurobiolgical disease; Chuck has the experience and has demonstrated the the lack of integrity required to perform such a task.
How we treat one another matters, always; for all people of all ages it really does matter… What truly sickens me is I know it matters much more to people in crisis, yet part of the marketing of madness as if it is a disease rests on a premise that how we treat one another matters less for people who are given a psychiatric diagnosis. Giving people psychiatric ‘care’ instead of love, compassion, understanding and assistance is all part of the illusion. All successful lies have a grain of truth– with a psychiatric diagnosis do not have the same Human Rights those who have not been diagnosed as ‘less than.’
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Thank you for being so diligent Duane. I do what I can. I have to pick my battles. My primary responsibility is to take care of myself and my son. After that, it is to do what is in my power to prevent another child from experiencing what he has–
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I really can’t proof-read my own writing…would be nice to be able to edit comments…oh well, you get the point.
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I have. I also have contacted Carper—NO response. I have contacted some good ol boys that I voted for as well I got a form letter in response. As to the Felony perjury and fraud committed perpetrated in 2010, I contacted DOJ, HHS, protection and advocacy ALL of them have told me they can do nothing…The DOJ initially assured me my complaint had reached the proper department. After McClellan’s let’s say ‘questionable testimony on Dec. 1, I called the DOJ and was told they do not investigate the crimes I reported…Duane, my only comfort at all and I know you understand what I mean, is that local Law Enforcement is aware—and treat my son with respect; and they are in fact the only public servants who do. Other than my faith, it is this that gives me any sense of security at all. I thank God for small, and big favors.
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“The “Anti-Stigma” Campaign Increased Discrimination” was supposed to link to the article in my comment above. http://involuntarytransformation.blogspot.com/2010/09/mental-illness-stigma-entrenched-in.html
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Decreased stigma ScienceDaily (2010-09-16) — “A new study finds no change in prejudice and discrimination toward people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems despite a greater embrace by the public of neurobiological explanations for these illnesses. The study raises vexing questions about the effectiveness of campaigns designed to improve health literacy.” The “Anti-Stigma” Campaign Increased Discrimination I find the author’s claim that it was “Probably after the expansion of psychoanalysis, psychiatry started to reach a wider population, the so-called ‘well-worried” ludicrous. The pharma-funded anti-stigma campaign urged early screening and diagnosis and pharmacological treatment that led to pathologizing the normal reactions to traumatic subjective experiences, inter-persononal conflicts, environmental and sociological deficits; such as poverty. As a mother whose son was diagnosed as a preschooler after being victimized by violent crime; I can attest that once a psychiatric diagnosis was given, all undesirable behavior was viewed as if it were a symptom of psychiatric illness–by psychiatrists, and the social service system.
As for chronicity and comorbidity, psychiatry fueled both of these; first, by claiming in the absence of empirical data that psychiatric diagnoses are the result of brain diseases which can be treated but never cured. This fraud became the foundation of the public mental health system. Those unfortunate enough to have no other option but to rely upon the public mental health system were treated with teratogenic drugs, and told they had diseases which required treatment compliance. The treatment often caused the comorbid conditions due to the teratogenic effects of this ‘treatment.’ Psychiatrists then attributed iatrogenic diseases, cognitive and neurological impairments to the psychiatric diagnosis/‘disease’ being treated or diagnosed a comorbid psychiatric diagnosis which required drugs to treat, but could not be cured.
I am sick of doctors abdicating responsibility and blaming the pharmaceutical companies, the drug-centered paradigm of care and the reimbursement system when none of these factors would have the influence or devastating impact they have, without the cooperation of psychiatrists themselves! Let’s be real: psychiatrists were active participants in the development and the adoption of the biomedical paradigm of care, and it’s drug-centered treatment approach, not passive, unwitting victims… It’s time for psychiatry to be responsible and hold unethical practitioners accountable and stop blaming everyone else.
The same goes for blaming the media; ultimately they, like patients and the general public, have been misinformed by psychiatrists, but like psychiatrists they failed to adhere to the ethics of their chosen profession. Doctor you are blaming those who have been misinformed by the psychiatric profession; including poor people who seek subsistence through the social service system, for relying on the biased, and false information they relied upon. Many believed what they were told, because it was told to them by a doctor! Are you aware that there is no way in hell a person can be declared disabled by a psychiatric diagnosis without a psychiatrist attesting to the diagnosis? Your perspective blames victims for being victimized…
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Thank you Faith for your comment. I did the research I’ve done initially to find a way to help my son. I desperately needed to find a way to help him. Initially, I believed that what had happened in his case was an anomaly; it is not. I wish it were. I am discouraged, and out of ideas.
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Thank you Michael. I really believe this is about personal responsibility. I am real tired of doctors claiming they have to prescribe drugs off label because it is demanded by someone for them to do so; it’s an abdication of professional responsibility; a lame attempt at blaming someone else for their own behavior, plain and simple. As for the biased information published in professional journals, and direct to professional marketing that convinced them that prescribing neurotoxins to children is an ethical way to ‘treat’ them; I am fed up with this lame excuse–it is an excuse, not a reason, for failing to do due diligence in order to ethically serve their patients. I am a high school drop out with two years of college–it took me one week of research to discover that psychopharmacology is based on a consensus of opinions, not Clinical Trial data–that is no way to formulate treatment STANDARDS. Consensus is evidence of agreement, it is not a way to ethically empirically validate a treatment recommendation! In all reality, believing consensus can be substituted for empirical evidence demonstrates ignorance, or willful blindness to the ethical, scientific, and philosophical foundations of medicine in the Hippocratic tradition.
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I am sorry to hear of your experience. The unethical use of teratogenic drugs has been happening for decades, and so has the Medicaid fraud. The FDA has never even come close to fulfilling it’s duties to protect the American people–I really appreciate Dr. Marcia Angell’s opinion on this. She points out that psychiatric drugs are teratogens, as are drugs used for cancer and should not be used off-label for children at all.
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Thanks for your comments Duane and Rossa.
Those who are children now is what compels me to write. From my ‘About Me’ page: “If my life, and what was done to my son and my family means anything at all, it’s meaning for me must be derived from sharing what I have learned and working to keep it from happening to anyone else. I must share what I’ve learned to hopefully spare another family the same experiences.”
While this intent may not be apparent in everything that I write, it is what drives me. I will never forget what I have seen; I will forever remember the kids who were at CSTC with my son. So many called me mom; being known as ‘mom’ is an honor, a privilege and a blessing.
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More than one psychiatrist has pointed out that consumers/peer leaders have become the greatest asset the bio-medical paradigm has…NAMI has a pretty tight reign on my home State’s so-called ‘consumer movement;’ it is only for drug treatment compliant consumers—there is no advocacy for people harmed by the policies NAMI promotes.
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One of the issues I am aware of is the rush to diagnose a person with schizophrenia absent actually excluding conditions which can be the cause of the symptoms.
In my son’s case, Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy was excluded by taking it off his Medical Chart—obviously, is not ethical–in fact, it is illegal.
My eldest son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was given neuroleptics—which he was told were to help him sleep. Three things bought about the dx. 1. His younger brother had been dx. 2. he talked about his interest in Neurolinguistic programming(which the diagnostician believed was an entrenched delusion, since they had never heard of it) 3. At the time, he worked for Earthlink and was getting training–this was reported as he thought he was getting Earthling training…
The thing is, he was diagnosed and lied to about the diagnosis and the reason neuroletic drugs were prescribed. I can’t help but wonder how common is it for a person to be diagnosed with schizophrenia–a diagnosis of exclusion–so carelessly and unethically as my both of my son’s were?
Altering a Medical Record is a crime, like every other crime committed in the ‘treatment’ of my traumatized son; I reported it. And, also like every other crime, it was never investigated.
There is a carelessness about the manner in which a diagnosis is applied, and treatment provided. Most troubling is the failure of professionals to consider the context of a persons distress, particularly after a diagnosis is attached. Which to me is a failure to exercise critical thinking skills.
In my youngest son’s case, he had been on a neuroleptic drug for five years as a child prior to being diagnosed with schizophrenia; then he was used in drug trials—It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy is not ‘excluded’ by removing it from a person’s medical record; or that a child who has taken a teratogenic drug known to cause psychosis for five years will have some serious issues if the drug is withdrawn too quickly…reckless and careless are the terms which best describe the mental health care system as my family has, and continue to experience it.
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Thank you for sharing that perspective. I am obviously coming at the issue from that of a parent; who is aware of enormous betrayal–which has an affect on how I look at an issue. So, I appreciate your comment, immensely. Intuition is a valuable guide, and as you said, it can be misleading…
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Thank you Dr. Steingard for your post. I appreciate your calling it like it is—That some psychiatrists have a BELIEF that neuroleptics work, is not the same thing as having evidence the neuroleptics actually work. I would add that not only do psychiatrists and others who treat patients by giving them teratogenic drugs need to examine their Beliefs about the drugs as ‘necessary medical treatment,’ but, that —the rest of us need to decide whether it is moral to legally mandate people to take neuroletic drugs, when it does not appear that it doing so is based on ethical or even medical principles, but upon a BELIEF the drugs ‘work.’ Particularly, since it is a false belief. The empirical data clearly demonstrates that the neuroleptics are minimally efficacious for a small minority of people who experience symptoms of psychosis. The data pretty clearly demonstrates these drugs cause serious debilitating iatrogenic diseases and neurological impairments.
Belief in something absent any empirical evidence supporting one’s belief, is all well and good in Religion. It has no place in Medicine. It certainly is not an ethical medical decision to use one’s belief as an excuse or a justification for abdicating one’s primary professional responsibility and ethical duty to the patient. First, foremost and always is the dictum to, “First, do no harm…” It seems that psychiatry and mental health professionals who practice ‘psycho’ pharmacology are not aware of, and don’t ‘BELIEVE in’ the Hippocratic Oath.
Words matter. Calling neuroleptics ‘antipsychotics,’ when they are ‘anti’ psychotic for only a small percentage of people who experience psychosis; is misleading—I dare say it is dishonest… The word neurlopleptic at least is descriptive of what the drugs mechanism of action is.
from my blog post, “The Failure to protect foster children and children on Medicaid”:
“Ten years before there was any “approved” pediatric use for Johnson and Johnson’s ‘Risperdal,’ it was given to my son. It was prescribed “off label,” an innocuous term for “experimental use.” I believe the term off label is used because it sounds innocuous; it disguises the fact that Human Experimentation using teratogenic drugs is what is being done. Human Experimentation with psychiatric drugs is now embedded within Standard Clinical Practices. I also believe that is why the term neuroleptic has been replaced with the word, ‘antipsychotic.’ The word Neuroleptic is French, a combination of the word neuro, meaning nerve; and the Greek word ‘leptikos’ which means, ‘disposed to take’ equivalent to ‘lēp’ meaning ‘to seize.’ The word neuroleptic actually describes what this class of drug does to the human body. Neuroleptics act on the parasympathetic nervous system; which explains the myriad of negative effects they are known to have. It is why the drugs cause a wide variety of diseases and progressive cognitive and neurological impairments; and it is why they shorten people lives… But then, all substances that cause disease also cause a loss of life…”
http://involuntarytransformation.blogspot.com/2011/03/is-medicaid-fraud-endorsed-by-federal.html
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Thank you Nancy for plainly stating this horrific truth.
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Change requires ‘we’ thinking THIS IS ABOUT ALL OF US. Bringing about needed social change isn’t pretty—we humans do not undertake personal transformation gracefully or with ease for the most part; and groups of individuals will have their own ideas of how to proceed and who should have a role…THAT is the primary stumbling block. Once it is considered a matter of who should have a role, participate in any respect; it is no longer about WE it has become an us and them equation and it is divisive not inclusive. All groups of people have factions or cliques each focused part of the endeavor which justifies the formation of the clique, each is certain their view is more important and has more validity.
I apologize for being wordy, and not focused on the actual topic which is Corrina’s advocacy and her business ideas which are offering people hope and a hand up; actually validating their self worth by actually including the people who directly benefit from the beginning…It is an excellent example of an open minded approach solving a complex set of needs which fully includes the perspectives and input of the people who are to be directly helped. It is, in a nutshell, a plan for doing what needs to be done to transform the (I don’t even know what the heck to call it anymore!)system.
I am certain of little, but I am certain of this: Any successful effort to right the wrongs must be for and about ALL OF US. It is in the connections between people that symptoms become manifest. How can a solution not include respect for ALL OF US? It is the cliques and the factions, most of whom IMO have valid reasons for feeling and being ex- and not in- clusive. All people deserve respect and consideration; which is not to say one must agree with or believe it is expected of them never be critical, but I hope that if nothing else, remember that many of those who are grievously harmed and killed, cannot speak for themselves. Those among us who are the walking wounded are counting on US, which right now doesn’t look like it’s a good thing. I have so much anger and rage and every day I see the harm being done to the emotions, the spirit and the intellect of my precious son. I really want to believe that there is a WE.
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There has been a lot of criticism leveled about administrative minutia in discussion threads on the Mad in America site. e.g. people who disapprove of administrative decisions made as to ground rules for comments and choice of bloggers. I for one am turned off by much of it, and find it detracts from the issues and experiences shared in blog posts. An obvious solution for people who disapprove of administrative decisions, and/or feel they slighted by administrative decisions; are also capable of starting a site which encompasses their ideals. Surely starting a site which encompasses the ideals espoused by Mad in America critics is a plausible solution? It seems that doing so would be more productive than continuing to dissect and criticize the decisions disapproved of. The same criticisms being repetitively leveled are not very productive and tend to detract from any positive that exists. The principles which form the basis of the administrative decisions that are considered onerous and repetitively criticized are worthy of being respected; even if they are not approved of. Given the long-term experience with blogging and participating in various online forums, this seems a more productive way to deal with what critics believe is lacking on this site.
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Steven, I find your comment extremely petty and offensive. Are you intentionally being obtuse and willfully blind? Regardless, of your intent, the tone is judgmental. You seem to be implying that you feel injured when people who have been grievously harmed by psychiatry openly express themselves—How dare you be anything less than supportive of people who feel the need to give voice their pain and rage about being harmed by their experiences with psychiatry! Shame on you for suggesting a victim should censor their comments out of consideration of people who belong to a group of professionals that are directly responsible for having caused their pain and anguish! BTW when you and your fellow colleagues bash those who consider themselves psychiatric survivors and people who have recovered after a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the sites you do it on are for ‘professionals only.’ So, why are you offended? Is it lack of ability to control? The sites you and your fellow professionals use to bash psychiatric survivors by belittling their valid claims of harm; maligning their character and speculating on the nature and relevancy of their advocacy; DO NOT ALLOW those whom are discussed with such disdain to respond. So you and your colleagues unimpeded validate one another’s disrespectful attitudes, and by so doing, allow mistaken assumptions misinterpretations, and personal biases to become further entrenched; which negatively affects your ability to understand or help your patients! The contrast in how sites which only allow psychiatric professionals to participate in the discussion threads and this one is an excellent example of HOW Stigma is taught and reinforced in the psychiatric profession. It also clearly illustrates that the STIGMA of a psychiatric diagnosis is real and is inextricably attached to the diagnosis itself; and always has been…
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Doctor you are minimizing the deleterious effect of the practice parameters and treatment algorithms ‘peer-reviewed’ journal articles written by PSYCHIATRISTS, symposiums conducted by PSYCHIATRISTS; the information is/was relied upon; it was used and used by general practitioners to diagnose and treat psychiatric illnesses. General practitioners relied on experts in psychiatry erroneously and you are blaming them for doing so. Obviously, relying on information pedaled by psychiatry harmed patients.
How does minimizing the effect unethical psychiatrists have had on all of us mitigate this betrayal? Does abdicating individual and collective responsibility, and blaming others who believed the information was valid, ethically presented and based on actual SCIENCE help? General practitioners and patients relied on psychiatrists to be honest, ethical, and to conform to ethical scientific methods and ethical medical principles; they were betryed. Does it help psychiatrists sleep better to deny accountability, and abdicate responsibility for the harm done to patients?
It’s time to be REAL, we’re in this mess because psychiatrists went along with the marketing agendas of the pharmaceutical industry. Placing the blame elsewhere serves only to validate skepticism and deepen well-earned mistrust, psychiatry needs to take responsibility and make amends. Stop pointing the finger of blame and take some responsibility for correcting the grievous mistakes that have been made, that continue to harm patients.
Practice Parameters and treatment algorithms, that are based on a consensus of ‘professional opinions have no place in a medical specialty that is claiming to be Evidence Based. Consensus is a quasi-democratic process, not a scientific endeavor. Consensus is evidence of AGREEMENT, consensus is not evidence of scientific validity, therapeutic value, safety or efficacy. The recommendations contained in Practice Parameters and treatment algorithms are still in use, but instead of trying to undo the harm caused to patients by them, the corrupt work products are being defended, instead of thrown out. Why is that? They are not derived from the a Scientific Evidence Base. Indeed, most of the recommendations are not supported by the evidence, but are contradictory to the the evidence! The clinical trial evidence used to gain FDA approval, was incomplete and therefore biased and corrupt. It is only corrupt because unethical psychiatrists corrupted it.
“Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
Hippocrates
“Primum non nocere”
“Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts.
As to diseases, make a habit of two things–to help, or at least to do no harm.” Hippocrates
Or, to paraphrase, Matthew 7:5:
Psychiatry needs to first take the beam out of it’s own eye, and then it will perhaps see clearly how to remove the splinter from another medical practitioner’s eye.
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yasmine,
San Francisco psychiatrist, Dr. Ira Steinman, in his speech, TREATING the “UNTREATABLE”, presented at the IXth National Meeting of ISPS, the International Society for the Psychological Treatment of Schizophrenia, NYU, March 2008, states that it’s possible—I believe him… here is a link to it http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL063B00635EE74470&feature=mh_lolz
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Thank you so much for sharing your Mother and Son Journey! It means so much to know my son and I are on a path traveled by others who know that life is a beautiful, complex journey. We have arrived; willing to grow, open to possibilities.
Best regards to a mother and son, from another mother and son.
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Well done! The pharmaceutical industry effectively exploited the same strategy in marketing the painkillers–claiming that a narcotic is not addictive if the patient is in pain…What I don’t get at all: how do educated medical professionals come to the point where they’re blind to the harm caused? No comprende nada.
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