7 Reasons America’s Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity

January 12, 2012

Alter Net

By Bruce E Levine

“Most people are not mentally ill.  Yes, we’re all weird.  But this is good.  People jump to the conclusion they have ADHD, depression, or some other mental illness when in reality, it’s who they are as people.  It’s part of their personality.  Yes, depression sucks – but are you really depressed?  Or just bummed out?  Stop and think for a minute if you really are as screwed up as you you think.  Chances are, you’re just as crazy as the rest of us.  Embrace it – it’s fun being weird.”  –KTRN

Why do some of us become dissident mental health professionals?

The majority of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals “go along to get along” and maintain a status quo that includes drug company corruption, pseudoscientific research and a “standard of care” that is routinely damaging and occasionally kills young children. If that sounds hyperbolic, then you probably have not heard of Rebecca Riley, and how the highest levels of psychiatry described her treatment as “appropriate and within responsible professional standards.”

When Rebecca Riley was 28 months old, based primarily on the complaints of her mother that she was “hyper” and had difficulty sleeping, psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji, at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Kifuji prescribed clonidine, a hypertensive drug with significant sedating properties, a drug Kifuji also prescribed to Rebecca’s older sister and brother. The goal of the Riley parents—obvious to many in their community and later to juries—was to attain psychiatric diagnoses for their children that would qualify them for disability payments and to sedate their children making them easy to manage.

By the time Rebecca was three years old, again based mainly on parental complaints, Kifuji had given Rebecca an additional diagnosis of bipolar disorder and prescribed two additional heavily sedating drugs, the antipsychotic Seroquel and the anticonvulsant Depakote.

At the age of four, Rebecca was dead.

At the time of her death, Rebecca had a life-threatening amount of clonidine—enough to kill her—in her body, according to the former director of the Massachusetts toxicology lab and the medical director of a regional poison control center. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy concluded that Rebecca died from intoxication of clonidine, Depakote and two over-the-counter cold and cough medicines that led to heart failure, lungs filled with bloody fluid, coma, and then death. Rebecca’s abusive parents went to prison for the over-drugging that led to their daughter’s death.

Kifuji’s fate? The psychiatric establishment rallied around Kifuji, enabling her to return to Tufts Medical Center practicing child psychiatry without any restrictions, penalties or supervision. After Rebecca’s death, Tufts-New England Medical Center defended Kifuji. A Tufts spokesperson told “60 Minutes” in 2009, “The care we provided was appropriate and within responsible professional standards.”

Apparently, psychiatric care that is considered appropriate and within responsible professional standards includes diagnoses of ADHD for a two-year-old and bipolar disorder for a three-year-old when the symptoms of those disorders are normal behaviors for those ages; prescribing three heavily sedating drugs that have not been approved by the FDA for child psychiatric treatment; ignoring the warnings from a school nurse about over-dosages for Rebecca; and making diagnoses based almost entirely on the reports of Rebecca’s mother, who herself was diagnosed with mental illness and heavily medicated to the point of falling asleep in Kifuji’s office.

Long before the Rebecca Riley tragedy hit the headlines, I was embarrassed by the mental health profession for seven major reasons:

1. Corruption by Big Pharma

Click here for the full report.

Drugs Used for Psychotics Go to Youths in Foster Care

November 23, 2011

The New York Times

By BENEDICT CAREY

“As if being in a foster home isn’t bad enough, they are now pumping the kids full of drugs they don’t need.” –KTRN

Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid, a new study suggests.

The report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to investigate how often youngsters in foster care are given two antipsychotic drugs at once, the authors said. The drugs include Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa — among other so-called major tranquilizers — which were developed for schizophrenia but are now used as all-purpose drugs for almost any psychiatric symptoms.

“The kids in foster care may come from bad homes, but they do not have the sort of complex medical issues that those in the disabled population do,” said Susan dosReis, an associate professor in the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and the lead author.

The implication, Dr. dosReis and other experts said: Doctors are treating foster children’s behavioral problems with the same powerful drugs given to people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. “We simply don’t have evidence to support this kind of use, especially in young children,” Dr. dosReis said.

In recent years, doctors and policy makers have grown concerned about high rates of overall psychiatric drug use in the foster care system, the government-financed program that provides temporary living arrangements for 400,000 to 500,000 children and adolescents. Previous studies have found that children in foster care receive psychiatric medications at about twice the rate among children outside the system.

The new study focused on one of the most powerful classes of drugs, antipsychotics. It found that about 2 percent of foster children took at least one such drug, even though schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, for which the drugs are approved, are extremely rare in young children.

“It’s a significant and important finding, and it should prompt states to improve the quality of care in this area,” said Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University who did not contribute to the research.

In the study, mental health researchers analyzed 2003 Medicaid records of 637,924 minors from an unidentified mid-Atlantic state who were either in foster care, getting disability benefits for a diagnosis like severe autism or bipolar disorder, or in a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. All of these programs draw on Medicaid financing. The investigators found that 16,969, or about 3 percent of the total, had received at least one prescription for an antipsychotic drug.

Click here for the full report.

Big-Name Drugs Are Falling Off The ‘Patent Cliff’

October 25, 2011

NPR

By Fred Mogul

“Look at how the only thing they care about is the money. Not once in this article do they even mention the drug’s effectiveness or safety. The only concern is that they are now generic which will make the drugs cheaper. Remember kids, healthy people don’t take pharmaceutical drugs.” — Chris KTRN

Some of the most popular and expensive brand-name drugs are about to go generic.

Take Lipitor, for example. In November, the heart drug comes off-patent — and by next June, there are likely to be multiple generic versions.

With almost $11 billion in sales last year, it’s the largest blockbuster to fall off what analysts call the “patent cliff.” And it’s just one of dozens of popular high-end pharmaceuticals whose prices are expected to plummet in the coming years, including drugs like Plavix (for heart disease), Seroquel (used to treat depression) and Nexium (for digestive problems.)

Patients often pay more for name-brand drugs, even when they’re covered by insurance. Sometimes they have no choice because — unlike Lipitor — many drugs don’t yet have generic competition.

Howard Weintraub, a cardiologist at New York University, says many patients on those drugs come in and beg for free samples. Others simply don’t fill their prescriptions — or they do, but then try to stretch their resources by taking the pricey pills less often than they’re supposed to.

“People come in with their blood pressure not as well controlled, or they come in and their cholesterol’s all of a sudden mysteriously higher. And you realize, OK, the medicine hasn’t stopped working, but you also realize the medicine doesn’t work when it’s still in the bottle,” he says.

Generics already represent 70 to 80 percent of drug sales — a dominance expected to grow in the future. Michael Kleinrock, of marketing research firm IMS Health, says patent expirations over the last half-decade are one of the main reasons why Medicare spent $50 billion less than federal officials projected five years earlier. Kleinrock says the average daily cost of drugs dropped one-third from 2005 to 2010, and should drop another third between now and 2015.

“We’re already at reasonably low cost relative to 10 years ago or so,” he adds. “That said, there’s still actually more to go, which is excellent for consumers.”

The drop in drug costs because of generics is one of the few bright spots in all of American health care. But it isn’t exactly a big bright spot.

“For sure it will be felt, but because the other things are on such a heavy rise, it will only temper where rates are currently,” says Dr. Dennis Liotta, the head of pharmaceutical benefits for Emblem Health, one of New York’s largest insurers.

Liotta says the generic drug savings is significant and especially visible to people with limited means and limited health coverage. But drugs are a relatively small factor in insurance premiums. And while blockbuster drugs like Lipitor are sunsetting, University of Michigan business school professor Erik Gordon says pharmaceutical companies are trying to replace them with new, more targeted drugs — like Pfizer’s recently approved lung-cancer medication.

“The interesting thing is it will work in only 5 percent of lung cancer patients. The other interesting thing is it’s going to cost $115,000 per year, per patient,” Gordon says.

Some analysts say the growing field of costly specialty drugs could undermine the growing savings from generics. But Gordon says drug companies will still have their work cut out for them. It’s getting tougher not only to come up with new drugs, he says, but also to convince insurers and the government to pay for them — unless they make meaningful improvements in health, at a reasonable cost.

Click here for the full report from NPR.

Bipolar Drug’s Long-Term Use Questioned

May 11th, 2011

The Huffington Post

The growing use of a popular drug in the long-term treatment of bipolar disorder is based largely on a single, flawed clinical trial that may be steering doctors and patients away from drugs with a more established track record, a new review published this week in the journal PLoS Medicine suggests.

The drug, Abilify (aripiprazole), was initially used to treat schizophrenia and acute episodes of mania, the better-than-good feeling that characterizes bipolar disorder. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also approved it for long-term use in bipolar patients whose moods have stabilized (known as “maintenance” therapy).

Since then Abilify sales have more than doubled, according to market research cited in the review. And a 2008 survey of doctors found that it had become the first-choice drug for bipolar maintenance therapy among 23 percent of psychiatrists and 16 percent of primary care physicians.

The medical research does not appear to justify the widespread use of Abilify for maintenance therapy, says psychiatrist Alexander C. Tsai, M.D., one of the lead authors of the review and a visiting researcher at Harvard University. “We failed to find sufficient data to support its use.”

Tsai emphasizes that individuals taking Abilify for bipolar disorder should not abruptly stop the medication. “It may actually be working for some people,” he says. “But it’s certainly worth talking to your doctor about how it’s working for you.”

After noticing that a growing number of patients seemed to be asking for Abilify by name, Tsai and his colleagues performed an in-depth search of double-blind, randomized controlled trials–both published and unpublished–on the use of Abilify for the long-term treatment of bipolar disorder. Studies of that design are considered the gold standard of medical research.

Their search turned up just one clinical trial, data from which was used in two published studies. The trial was funded jointly by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., the Japanese company that developed Abilify, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, which markets the drug in the U.S.

That trial had several important limitations, according to Tsai and his coauthors. For one, they say, it may have been too short to judge the drug’s true effectiveness in preventing mood swings over the long term. The first phase of the trial lasted for 26 weeks, and less than one-fifth of the participants went on to complete the 48-week follow-up phase.

What’s more, the study population was limited to people whose mood had already stabilized on Abilify during the preliminary phase of the trial, and the placebo group therefore consisted of patients who were abruptly switched from Abilify to placebo. The potentially harmful effects of rapid drug withdrawal may have made the placebo group appear artificially prone to relapse–the key finding that made Abilify appear beneficial, Tsai and his colleagues say.

Psychiatrists have continued to refer to the results of the trial despite these weaknesses, Tsai says. “Frankly, I think it’s an embarrassment to the profession that [Abilify] has been accepted so uncritically for this indication.”

Gregory E. Simon, M.D., a psychiatrist at Group Health Research Institute, in Seattle, says that the perceived flaws noted in the review are not so clear-cut. “The methods of studying long-term effectiveness are complex, and experts disagree regarding the best ways to study this question,” he says.

Alternatives within the same class of drugs, known as atypical antipsychotics, include Seroquel (quetiapine) and Zyprexa (olanzapine). Older drugs, such as lithium, also remain in popular use.

Evidence for the long-term effectiveness of lithium is far stronger than that for newer medications, including Abilify, Simon says. For that reason, lithium remains his first-line treatment for maintenance therapy in bipolar disorder, despite the potentially dangerous side effects associated with too-high doses.

The increased use of Abilify for maintenance therapy may be leading to higher treatment costs for consumers, Tsai says. Abilify runs upwards of $600 for a month’s supply and is not yet available in a generic form. “But our main concern,” he adds, “is that patients are getting diverted from more effective treatments.”

Sonia Choi, the director of public affairs for Bristol-Myers Squibb, said in a statement that the company has conducted five long-term studies of Abilify in the maintenance of bipolar disorder, some of which were presented at medical conferences rather than published in peer-reviewed journals. (Dr. Tsai and his colleagues restricted their analysis to peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials.)

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka are committed to making data from those studies available to physicians, Choi said. “We are confident in the Abilify clinical development program and will continue to make available information about the efficacy and safety of Abilify from our studies in this and other indicated uses.”

Sandy Walsh, an FDA spokesperson, said the agency will review the new study.

Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post

The 5 Most Profitable Drugs: They Never Cure You

January 5th, 2010

The Village Voice

By: Jason Parham

​In this week’s cover story, writer Keegan Hamilton investigates the controversy surrounding ibogaine, the experimental hallucinogen drug that has helped kick meth and heroin addictions.

Ibogaine is illegal, even though its power to cure addicts has been proven. Hamilton’s story describes the many reasons the medical establishment and the government are wary of Ibogaine, despite its benefits, but one of them really stood out:

Because Ibogaine is an outright cure, drug companies want nothing to do with it.

Martin Kuehne, a chemist at the University of Vermont, is quoted in the story, saying, “Pharmaceutical companies don’t like cures. Really, they don’t — that’s the sad thing. They like treatment. Something for cholesterol or high blood pressure that you take for years and years, every day. That’s where the profit is.”

When we read that, a light went on. The worst thing for a drug company is a pill you take that completely cures you of your ailment with one dose, right? Where’s the money in that?

So, with that in mind, we thought we’d test Kuehne’s theory, and look at the five most profitable drugs in the United States.

Guess what they all have one in common? They never cure you.

1) Lipitor (2009 gross revenue: $7.5 billion): Designed to lower cholesterol, Lipitor uses statins to decrease LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels and increase HDL cholesterol levels. Studies indicate that high cholesterol increases one’s chance for heart disease, the leading health problem in the U.S.

2) Nexium (2009 gross revenue: $6.3 billion): This well-marketed drug decreases the amount of acid produced in the stomach, but it’s not an instant cure for heartburn.

3) Plavix (2009 gross revenue: $5.6 billion): Nobody likes a nasty blood clot, and this drug prevents that from happening, particularly after a stroke or a heart attack. The downside: Plavix increases your chances of small-injury bleeds and, if drinking alcohol, heightens your risk of stomach and intestinal bleeds.

4) Advair Diskus (2009 gross revenue: $4.7 billion): For asthma sufferers, a twice-daily inhaler to reduce the swelling in your respiratory system. Helps keep attacks from being more severe.

5) Seroquel (2009 Gross: $4.2 billion): Rounding out our top 5 is Seroquel, an anti-psychotic drug that treats schizophrenia, severe depression, and bipolar disorder by altering chemical activity in the brain.

Click here for the full report from The Village Voice

U.S. War Veterans Being Killed With High-Dose Psychiatric Drugs

December 7th, 2010

Natural News

By: David Gutierrez

Questions are being raised over whether a widely prescribed anti-psychotic drug may be contributing to the deaths of traumatized U.S. war veterans.

Among those who recently died while taking AstraZeneca’s blockbuster drug Seroquel are Marine corporals Andrew White and Chad Oligschlaeger. Both were being given multiple drugs, including Seroquel, for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both died in their sleep.

Before his death, White was being given more than double the maximum recommended Seroquel dose for patients suffering from schizophrenia.

“He was told if he had trouble sleeping he could take another pill,” said his father, Stan White.

Seroquel is the United States’ fifth-best-selling drug, and one of the top prescribed drugs by the Veteran Affairs Department. Since the start of the Afghanistan war, government spending on the drug has increased more than 770 percent to $8.6 million per year. Yet in the same time period, the number of patients being treated by the department increased by only 34 percent.

The drug is approved only for the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, yet it is commonly given to vets for insomnia and other PTSD symptoms. According to The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge, other side effects “may include dry mouth, blurred vision, and tardive dyskinesia, typified by involuntary movements of the lips, mouth, and tongue.” Other proven side effects include weight gain and diabetes, while new research suggests that the drug may also cause sudden heart failure.

Medical examiners concluded that both White and Oligschlaeger died of “multiple drug toxicity” caused by a deadly interaction between the different drugs they were taking; such deaths are not recorded as caused by any single drug. Yet family and advocates of vets are becoming increasingly concerned that Seroquel may bear a large part of the blame for such deaths, and are calling for a reevaluation of prescribing practices for the drug.

“Right now, I’m so angry, and I believe someone needs to be held accountable,” said Oligschlaeger’s mother, Julie Oligschlaeger. “The protocol absolutely has to change.”

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Antidepressants Promote Rapid Weight Gain

November 18th, 2010

Natural News

By: Jonathan Benson

Taking antidepressant drugs like Risperdal (risperidone) and Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) could cause you to gain a lot of weight very quickly, according to a recent report in CNN. Atypical antipsychotic drugs are responsible for causing voracious hunger episodes in roughly 30 percent of patients who take them, which can lead to some seriously rapid weight gain.

Earlier in the year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into antipsychotic drugs and their link to weight gain. The announcement came shortly after the agency approved two popular antipsychotic drugs for children between the ages of 13 and 17.

The drugs — which include the aforementioned as well as Zyprexa (olanzapine), Abilify (aripiprazole), and Geodon (ziprasidone) — appear to trigger enzymes that induce appetite. In one case, a young girl taking risperidone gained 5.5 pounds, or 14 percent of her body weight, within one year. And a 19-year-old college student on the same drug as well as other anti-anxiety medications gained 25 pounds in just six months.

A 2007 study conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Vermont found that both Zyprexa and Clozaril (clozapine) increased appetite levels by 400 percent. And earlier this year, a study published in the journal Obesity found that men who took Zyprexa for a mere two weeks increased their eating consumption by an average of 18 percent.

Experts are urging the public to be cautious about the use of such antipsychotic drugs. Not only do they induce appetite and subsequent weight gain, but they can also lead to high blood pressure, elevated blood-sugar levels, heart disease, and diabetes.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-10-10

Today, Kevin delves deep into the illegal immigrant controversy and gives you the health advice that could save your life! Plus, author and former meteorologist, Brian Sussman, stops by to blow the whistle on one of the biggest frauds of our era; global warming. Click here to find out how the government is misleading you.

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Health:
Big Pharma Attempts To Jump On The Fish Oil Bandwagon
AstraZeneca Only Facing Fine For Illegal Marketing
Chicken Feces Found in Commercial Beef
Children’s Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, Zyrtec Recalled
Vitamin D Cuts Cancer Risk
Teen Girls Get Bribed To Get Gardasil Vaccine
Drugging of Infants & Toddlers in the US

Government:
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Putting Security Back Into Social Security
WHO Issues Warning About Big Pharma Corruption

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Pfizer Ends Trial After Widespread Overdosing of Children With Psych Drug

October 18th, 2010

Natural News

By: David Gutierrez

Drug giant Pfizer has canceled a scheduled clinical trial of its antipsychotic drug Geodon after the FDA accused it of subjecting child participants in a prior study to “widespread overdosing.”

“After careful consideration, the company decided not to proceed with the study,” Pfizer spokesperson Gwendolyn Fisher said.

Fisher said that although the company had taken “preparatory steps” toward the trial, it had decided to abandon the study in order “to meet regulatory timelines.” No patients were enrolled.

Pfizer is seeking FDA approval to market Geodon for the treatment of bipolar disorder in children between the ages of 10 and 17. An FDA panel already rejected this use once in 2009 by a vote of 10-7, expressing concern that large numbers of participants had failed to complete clinical trials of the drug. The FDA asked Pfizer for further information on the drug’s safety in children, and the company responded by launching pediatric trials of the drug.

In April, the FDA warned the company that researchers in charge of the trials were engaging in “significant violations,” including “widespread overdosing” caused by inadequate company oversight.

Five months earlier, Pfizer had agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle a collection of federal and state criminal and civil charges that it had improperly marketed Geodon and three other drugs.

Geodon, which made Pfizer $1 billion in 2009, is already approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in adults. Its competitors AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have already secured FDA approval to use their respective antipsychotics Seroquel and Zyprexa to treat bipolar disorder in children.

Treatment of children with antipsychotics remains a controversial practice amid growing concern over major side effects such as severe metabolic changes and weight gain.

Although Geodon’s most recent safety trial has been canceled, the company made it clear that it still plans to secure FDA approval for pediatric use of the drug.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 5-4-10

Today, Kevin delves deep into the illegal immigrant controversy and gives you the health advice that could save your life! Plus, author and former meteorologist, Brian Sussman, stops by to blow the whistle on one of the biggest frauds of our era; global warming.  Click here to find out how the government is misleading you.

Self Help:
Turn Back Time
Inspiration From Teddy Roosevelt
Beef Up Your Diet
Treating Crohn’s Disease
Add Even More Nutrition To Your Salad
Kill Viruses For Good!
Join Today!

Health:
Big Pharma Attempts To Jump On The Fish Oil Bandwagon
AstraZeneca Only Facing Fine For Illegal Marketing
Chicken Feces Found in Commercial Beef
Children’s Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, Zyrtec Recalled
Vitamin D Cuts Cancer Risk
Teen Girls Get Bribed To Get Gardasil Vaccine
Drugging of Infants & Toddlers in the US

Government:
Just One State
Putting Security Back Into Social Security
WHO Issues Warning About Big Pharma Corruption

Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club

Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!

Click Below to watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!

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