PSYCHIATRIC INFORMATION

Vancouver (OPENPRESS) September 5, 2005 — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog group, said Tom Cruise’s remarks on NBC’s Today Show recently represent a growing public awareness about the national crisis of children and adults being prescribed damaging mind-altering drugs.

Brian Beaumont, President of the British Columbia chapter of CCHR said, “The Today Show interview was a warning that people need to be beware of psychiatry and its purported research rather than accepting at face value concepts such as a chemical imbalance in the brain causing their problems, which can deny them real help.”

(OPENPRESS) September 4, 2005 — The psychiatric profession purports to be the sole arbiter on the subject of mental health and “diseases” of the mind. However, psychiatric “disordersâ€? are not medical diseases and psychiatrists admit in their own literature that they have no idea how the mind works.

In medicine, strict criteria exist for calling a condition a disease: a predictable group of symptoms and the cause of the symptoms or an understanding of their physiology (function) must be proven and established. Chills and fever are symptoms. Malaria and typhoid are diseases. Diseases are proven to exist by objective evidence and physical tests. Yet, no mental “diseases” have ever been proven to medically exist.

The Psychiatric News is reporting that since the FDA has ordered drug companies to place a strong black box warnings on anti-depressants there has been nearly a 20% drop in the number of prescriptions for these drugs. The black box warning is over the drastic increase in the amount of people who kill themselves after taking these drugs. It seems that a big side effect of antidepressants like Paxil, Effexor, Prozac, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft and Remeron is an increase of up to 700% in the number of people who kill themselves. I think drugs that cause people to commit suicide should never be prescribed. So a 20% drop is just a good start.

In another news article vindicating Tom Cruise, Scientists have discovered that antidepressants cause a dramatic increase in birth defects. A recent medical study showed that the risks of a baby having heart defects were increased by 60 percent if their mother had taken antidepressant drugs like Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft. There was also an increased risk for premature birth and other malformations of the baby. The results of the study were presented at last week’s International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology conference in Nashville.

According to Dr. Richard Bentall, Professor in Experimental Clinical Psychology, and his colleagues have made a statement that many of the arbitrary categories for psychiatric diseases are unworkable and perhaps even false. The biologic disease theory is flawed and often doesn’t result in long term results for the patient.

He even goes so far as to say that “diseases” like Schizophrenia may not even exist at all.

Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft have been the big topic in the news lately. It seems that much of the scientific evidence showing the link between suicide and antidepressants has been being kept secret by the big drug companies like Glaxo Smith Kline, Eli Lilly and Pfizer.

I guess I could see why… Who wants to tell their customers: “Not only do our drugs make you fat and kill your sex drive, but they also make you want to kill yourself”!

I’m glad to see more sensible advice being given in the media when it comes to taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Many people are so quick to turn to these powerful mind altering drugs like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. Because the pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars on marketing to doctors and publicity campaigns to the public - it is a common misconception that these drugs are needed to “cure” anxiety and depression. Even many doctors are falsely convinced that there are “chemical imbalances” causing these problems. After all, you hear about it in the media all the time… right? The facts are: psychiatry and the big drug companies have yet to even produce scientific evidence proving that the chemical imbalances even exist! So exactly what are these drugs (and all their side effects) needed for?

A great commentary by Kathie Zatkin that I found today in the Berkeley Daily Planet has some great points. She covers the FDA, big drug companies and their deep pockets, the failure of doctors and psychiatrists to adequately inform their patients on the risks of psychiatric drugs and the growing mountain of evidence that not only are drugs like antidepressants extremely harmful, but they barely work any more effectively than a sugar pill. All of these great points. Some excerpts from her commentary:

It is alleged that her 37 year old neighbor and friend murdered this grandmother after being given psychiatric “treatment” for depression.

Apparently, the two were good friends prior to the attack and it was quite unexpected. This sounds very familiar to me… a person ends up being treated for depression by being prescribed an antidepressant and then commits horrible acts of violence on people who are their friends or relatives. The article doesn’t explicitly say which drug he was on, but my observation in these matters points to antidepressant side effects. Especially in the light of the mountain of evidence being published about these drugs causing suicidal thoughts and violence.

While browsing the news today, I learned of a new side effect from psychiatric drugs like antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft & Paxil), Zyprexa, Risperdal and other drugs prescribed for psychiatric reasons. That side effect is weight gain. Apparently, in some cases, drastic weight gain (to the tune of over 100 pounds). Yesterday, the New York Times has pointed this out in an article about some drugs causing weight gain.

While this is a minor side effect when compared to death, suicide and psychosis - I nonetheless thought I should point this out.