Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis

Johnson & Johnson recalls Risperdal and Risperidone Tablets

A foul smelling odor has prompted the voluntary recall of one lot each of Johnson & Johnson’s Risperdal and Risperidone tablets.

Risperdal (generic name risperidone) is an atypical antipsychotic drug, also called a major tranquilizer, neuroleptic (nerve-seizing) drug, or chemical straightjacket. The ingestion of a single tablet of risperidone may cause significant toxic poisoning in a toddler. This class of antipsychotics may also cause increased risk of diabetes, and an increased risk of stroke and death in the elderly.

Antipsychotic drugs were originally developed in the 1950’s to treat psychosis and so-called schizophrenia. Atypical antipsychotics developed since the 1990’s were marketed as having fewer harmful side effects than the older ones. But they do not.

All antipsychotics can cause akathisia (a word derived from a, without; kathisia, sitting; an inability to keep still). Akathisia is a terrible feeling of anxiety, an inability to sit still, a feeling that one wants to crawl out of his skin. This side effect has been linked to assaultive, violent behavior and can be experienced by up to 76% of patients taking the drugs.

Putting a foreign substance such as a psychotropic drug into your body disrupts the body’s normal biochemistry. Sometimes this disruption creates a false and temporary feeling of euphoria (being “high”), short-lived bursts of increased energy or an abnormal sense of heightened alertness. However, it is not natural to feel like this. The feeling does not last and addiction can result. These drugs work by influencing the normal functions of the body: they speed them up, slow them down, dam them up or overwhelm them. This is why you get side effects with psychiatric drugs.

But do not think that these drugs heal anything. They are intended to cover up or “mask” your problems. Meanwhile, they tend to wear out your body. Like a car run on rocket fuel, you may be able to get it to run a thousand miles an hour to the end of the block, but the tires, the engine and the internal parts fly apart in doing so. Side effects can sometimes be more pronounced than a drug’s intended effects. They are, in fact, the body’s natural response to the invasion of a chemical that is confusing its normal functions.

Antipsychotic drugs damage the extensive complex network of nerve fibers that moderate motor control, resulting in muscle rigidity, spasms and various involuntary movements.

There is no question that people do experience problems and upsets in life that may result in mental troubles, sometimes very serious. But to say that these are “medical diseases” or caused by a “chemical imbalance” that can only be treated with dangerous drugs is dishonest, harmful and often deadly. What psychiatric drugs do instead is mask the real cause of problems, often denying you the opportunity to search for workable, effective solutions.

Psychiatrists routinely do not inform patients of nondrug treatments, nor do they conduct thorough medical examinations to ensure that a person’s problem does not stem from an untreated medical condition that is causing the mental disturbance. Therefore, it is recommended that all patients first see a medical doctor (especially one who is familiar with nutritional needs), who should obtain and review a thorough medical history of the patient and conduct a complete physical exam, ruling out all the possible problems that might cause the person’s symptoms. According to top experts, the majority of people having mental problems are actually suffering from nonpsychiatric disease that is causing emotional stress.

So you see, a recall of this drug due to a possible manufacturing problem may actually save some lives, as the side effects of this drug are often more horrendous than the person’s original problem.

For more information, go to http://www.cchrstl.org/sideeffects.shtml.

The medical research world has been concerned about the problem of ghostwriting for more than a decade.

The issue has been repeatedly raised in the mainstream media over the past few years, with most of the commentary focused on the ethics of academics serving as authors on papers they did not write and on some of the most egregious actions by pharmaceutical companies.

But these efforts miss the ways in which Big Pharma has developed new forms of medical research to serve its own interests.

Big Pharma firms spend twice as much on promotion as on research and development (R&D). But it is worse than that: more and more medical R&D is organized as promotional campaigns to make physicians aware of products. The bulk of the industry’s external funding for research now goes to contract research organizations to produce studies that feed into large numbers of articles submitted to medical journals.

Internal documents from Pfizer, made public in litigation, showed that 85 scientific articles on its antidepressant Zoloft were produced and coordinated by a public relations company. Pfizer itself thus produced a critical mass of the favorable articles placed among the 211 scientific papers on Zoloft in the same period. Internal documents tell similar stories for Merck’s Vioxx, GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil, Astra-Zeneca’s Seroquel, and Wyeth’s hormone-replacement drugs.

In the ghost management of research and publication by drug companies we have a new model of science. This is corporate science, done by many unseen workers, performed for marketing purposes, and drawing its authority from traditional academic science. The high commercial stakes mean that all of the parties connected with this new corporate science can find reasons or be induced to participate, support, and steadily normalize it. It also biases the available science by pushing favorable results and downplaying negative ones – and sometimes through outright fraud.

Click here to read the entire article on pharmaceutical ghost-writing.

The underlying problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as “diseases,” combined with the profit-motives of pharmaceutical companies vying for a piece of the resultant psychiatric “treatment.”

Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

Are our children really at risk or is Patrick McGorry selling us Voodoo Science & Snake Oil? Should we trust our children’s lives to Patrick McGorry?

Do we want our children to be labelled with Psychosis Risk Syndrome? The Australian Federal Government has handed $400 million dollars to Patrick McGorry for a national program to create early psychosis prevention and intervention centers, where children as young as three years old can be diagnosed as “at risk of developing psychosis” and given harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs.

Since you already know that psychiatric drugs are harmful for adults, what do you think the effects would be on a three-year-old?

What kind of lunacy would screen toddlers for “the potential to develop mental illness later in life” and give them mind-altering drugs?

Read the full article here: http://utopia.edu.au/2011/05/voodoo-science-snake-oil/.

For more information about early intervention programs, go here: http://www.cchrint.org/tag/early-intervention/.

What is America’s most dangerous prescription drug? It’s not Adderall or Oxy. It’s Klonopin. And doctors are doling it out like candy, causing a surge of hellish withdrawals, overdoses and deaths.

Klonopin is the brand name for the generic clonazepam, which was originally brought to market in 1975 as a medication for epileptic seizures. Since then, Klonopin, along with the other drugs in this class, has become a prescription of choice for drug abusers from Hollywood to Wall Street. In the process, these substances have also earned the dubious distinction of being second only to opioid painkillers like OxyContin as our nation’s most widely abused class of drug.

Klonopin is used as an anti-anxiety drug, in the class of drugs that are also called minor tranquilizers, benzodiazepines or sedative hypnotics. Daily use of these drugs is associated with physical dependence, and
addiction can occur after only 14 days of regular use. The typical consequences of withdrawal are anxiety, depression, sweating, cramps, nausea, psychotic reactions and seizures. There is also a “rebound effect” where the individual experiences even worse symptoms than they started with as a result of chemical dependency.

Alcoholics and drug addicts are most likely to run into Klonopin during detox, when it is used to prevent seizures and control the symptoms of acute withdrawal. Klonopin takes longer to metabolize and passes through the system more slowly than other benzodiazepines, so in theory you don’t need to take it so frequently. But if you like the high it gives you, and  keep increasing your dosage, the addictive effects of the drug accumulate quickly and can often be devastating. The drug’s label clearly specifies that it is “recommended” only for short-term use—say, seven to 10 days—but once exposed to the pill’s seductive side-effects, many patients come back for more. And not surprisingly, many doctors are happy to refill prescriptions to meet this consumer demand.

Read much more about this at
http://www.cchrint.org/2011/06/02/americas-most-dangerous-pill-klonopin/

and find out more about psychiatric drug side effects at
http://www.cchrstl.org/sideeffects.shtml.

Florida has plied children in state juvenile jails with heavy doses of powerful antipsychotic medications.

The pills, widely viewed as the “big guns” of psychiatry, can cause suicidal thoughts and other dangerous side effects.

Yet, in state-run jails and residential programs, antipsychotics were among the top drugs bought for kids – and they routinely were doled out for reasons that never were approved by federal regulators, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.

Reacting to the newspaper’s findings, the head of Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice ordered a sweeping review of the department’s use of antipsychotic medications. As it stands now, DJJ doesn’t track prescriptions and has no way of telling whether doctors are putting kids on pills simply to make them easier to control.

Read the full article in The Palm Beach Post here.

All human rights organizations set forth codes by which they align their purposes and activities. The Mental Health Declaration of Human Rights articulates the guiding principles of CCHR and the standards against which human rights violations by psychiatry are relentlessly investigated and exposed.

A. The right to full informed consent, including:

1. The scientific/medical test confirming any alleged diagnoses of psychiatric disorder and the right to refute any psychiatric diagnoses of mental “illness” that cannot be medically confirmed.

2. Full disclosure of all documented risks of any proposed drug or “treatment.”

3. The right to be informed of all available medical treatments which do not include the administration of a psychiatric drug or treatment.

4. The right to refuse any treatment the patient considers harmful.

B. No person shall be given psychiatric or psychological treatment against his or her will.

C. No person, man, woman or child, may be denied his or her personal liberty by reason of mental illness, so-called, without a fair jury trial by laymen and with proper legal representation.

D. No person shall be admitted to or held in a psychiatric institution, hospital or facility because of their political, religious or cultural beliefs and practices.

E. Any patient has:

1. The right to be treated with dignity as a human being.

2. The right to hospital amenities without distinction as to race, color, sex, language, religion, political opinion, social origin or status by right of birth or property.

3. The right to have a thorough, physical and clinical examination by a competent registered general practitioner of one’s choice, to ensure that one’s mental condition is not caused by any undetected and untreated physical illness, injury or defect and the right to seek a second medical opinion of one’s choice.

4. The right to fully equipped medical facilities and appropriately trained medical staff in hospitals, so that competent physical, clinical examinations can be performed.

5. The right to choose the kind or type of therapy to be employed, and the right to discuss this with a general practitioner, healer or minister of one’s choice.

6. The right to have all the side effects of any offered treatment made clear and understandable to the patient, in written form and in the patient’s native language.

7. The right to accept or refuse treatment but in particular, the right to refuse sterilization, electroshock treatment, insulin shock, lobotomy (or any other psychosurgical brain operation), aversion therapy, narcotherapy, deep sleep therapy and any drugs producing unwanted side effects.

8. The right to make official complaints, without reprisal, to an independent board which is composed of nonpsychiatric personnel, lawyers and lay people. Complaints may encompass any torturous, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment received while under psychiatric care.

9. The right to have private counsel with a legal advisor and to take legal action.

10. The right to discharge oneself at any time and to be discharged without restriction, having committed no offense.

11. The right to manage one’s own property and affairs with a legal advisor, if necessary, or if deemed incompetent by a court of law, to have a State appointed executor to manage such until one is adjudicated competent. Such executor is accountable to the patient’s next of kin, or legal advisor or guardian.

12. The right to see and possess one’s hospital records and to take legal action with regard to any false information contained therein which may be damaging to one’s reputation.

13. The right to take criminal action, with the full assistance of law enforcement agents, against any psychiatrist, psychologist or hospital staff for any abuse, false imprisonment, assault from treatment, sexual abuse or rape, or any violation of mental health or other law. And the right to a mental health law that does not indemnify or modify the penalties for criminal, abusive or negligent treatment of patients committed by any psychiatrist, psychologist or hospital staff.

14. The right to sue psychiatrists, their associations and colleges, the institution, or staff for unlawful detention, false reports or damaging treatment.

15. The right to work or to refuse to work, and the right to receive just compensation on a pay scale comparable to union or state/national wages for similar work, for any work performed while hospitalized.

16. The right to education or training so as to enable one to earn a living when discharged, and the right of choice over what kind of education or training is received.

17. The right to receive visitors and a minister of one’s own faith.

18. The right to make and receive telephone calls and the right to privacy with regard to all personal correspondence to and from anyone.

19. The right to freely associate or not with any group or person in a psychiatric institution, hospital or facility.

20. The right to a safe environment without having in the environment, persons placed there for criminal reasons.

21. The right to be with others of one’s own age group.

22. The right to wear personal clothing, to have personal effects and to have a secure place in which to keep them.

23. The right to daily physical exercise in the open.

24. The right to a proper diet and nutrition and to three meals a day.

25. The right to hygienic conditions and nonovercrowded facilities, and to sufficient, undisturbed leisure and rest.

With the close of this session of the Missouri legislature on May 13, a budget was finally passed for the Missouri Department of Mental Health (DMH) for the coming year (Fiscal Year 2012.)

Here are the damages:

General Revenue consists of individual and corporate state income taxes, sales and use taxes, and other general income. Federal Funds come from the U.S. Federal Government (taxes again, and likely a healthy dose of borrowed money.) Other Funds include various special purpose trusts.

The total this year, over $1.2 billion dollars, is slightly greater than last year’s budget. Based on the current state population of nearly 6 million, that averages to $207 per person.

Several salient points can be made from the graph of Missouri DMH budgets over the last 41 years.

1. There was a huge jump in the budget starting in 2004.

2. Most of that huge jump has been federal money.

3. Are you kidding? $1.2 billion dollars out of, roughly, $23 billion for the whole state? That’s about 5% of the whole state budget!

Something Can Be Done About It

Although this budget has been passed for the coming year, it is not too soon to start visiting, calling and writing your local, state and federal officials and representatives to make your views known for the next set of budget deliberations. Here are some suggestions.

Giving more tax dollars to the Department of Mental Health merely perpetuates the cycle of state tax largesse and promotes psychiatric fraud and abuse. Curtailing and cutting the budget would force the Department of Mental Health to reduce their costs, thereby forcing useless and unnecessary state institutions either to improve their services or close shop.

A budget cut would force the Department of Mental Health to re-evaluate all citizens held in state custody and thus force the Department to recommend release of those who are no longer deemed a threat, thus saving the state more money. It is an obvious fact that the more patients, residents and clients the Department must care for, the more tax money they can ask for.

The Department of Mental Health is an easy place to cut spending in the effort to save our health care system, as the citizens of this state have long used the Department of Mental health as an emergency health care provider. The unprecedented use of Missouri’s Mental Health psychiatric facilities as emergency health care has hidden a long overlooked problem that the state’s poorer citizens are enduring.

It may be time to consider the idea of folding the Department of Mental Health into the Department of Health and Senior Services; to restructure the Department of Mental Health and allow the new system to provide emergency medical services to this state’s poorer citizens.

Establish rights for patients and their insurance companies to receive refunds for mental health treatment which did not achieve the promised result or improvement, or which resulted in proven harm to the individual, thereby ensuring that responsibility lies with the individual practitioner and psychiatric facility rather than the government or its agencies.

Provide funding and insurance coverage only for proven, workable treatments that verifiably and dramatically improve or cure mental health problems.

Become a member of CCHR St. Louis and help support the purpose of restoring human rights to the field of mental health.

People who obediently follow the herd, never markedly sad, angry or excited; children who play quietly and never annoy or talk out of turn – this is the object of the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries. And when anyone steps out of line, the answer is simple: stamp them “abnormal” and give them a pill.

Psychiatry’s worst social meltdown concerns our youngest. The threat of ADHD, bipolar, autism and other alleged childhood diseases – which duped teachers, counselors and parents are on constant lookout for – presses children into a “socially acceptable” mold.

And who decides when a child or adult has crossed from normality into abnormality? Psychiatrists – a field financially joined at the hip with Big Pharma.

Read the full article here.

What can you do about it?

Get educated about psychiatric fraud and abuse.

Write your local, state and federal representatives and express your dismay about mental health screening of children.

Become a member of CCHR St. Louis and help us fight back.

Mental health testing planned for three-year-olds as part of early intervention program

Every three-year-old child in Australia could have their mental health tested under an early intervention program currently being funded by the Australian government.

Patrick McGorry, an Australian psychiatrist at the University of Melbourne who pushes early intervention programs, has a following in the psychiatric industry who are eager to exploit a large class of potential patients, children as young as three years old whom they can diagnose as “at risk of developing psychosis.”

They use an organization called the  International Early Psychosis Association to promote early intervention internationally.

Of course, their primary published recommendations for “treatment” are antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and sedatives.

Since you already know that psychiatric drugs are harmful for adults, what do you think the effects would be on a three-year-old?

What kind of lunacy would screen toddlers for “the potential to develop mental illness later in life” and give them harmful and addictive mind-altering drugs?

For more information about this, read these posts:

http://www.cchrint.org/tag/early-intervention/

and

http://www.cchrint.org/2011/04/21/psychiatrist-patrick-mcgorry-ticked-off-cchrs-busted-him-over-bogus-early-intervention-claims/.

What can you do about it?

Get educated about psychiatric fraud and abuse.

Write your local, state and federal representatives and express your dismay about mental health screening of children.

Become a member of CCHR St. Louis and help us fight back.

“Nearly one in seven elderly nursing home residents, nearly all of them with dementia, are given powerful atypical antipsychotic drugs even though the medicines increase the risks of death and are not approved for such treatments, a government audit found.”

[http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/article_f0fc1438-7aaf-11e0-8be7-0019bb30f31a.html]

Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said, “Too many of these institutions fail to comply with federal regulations designed to prevent overmedication, giving nursing home patients antipsychotic drugs in ways that violate federal standards for unnecessary drug use.”

The summary from HHS report OEI-07-08-00150 published May 4, 2011, said, “For the period January 1 through June 30, 2007, we determined using medical record review that 51 percent of Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotic drugs were erroneous, amounting to $116 million.”

For more information about psychiatry harming the elderly, download and read the CCHR booklet, Elderly Abuse — Cruel Mental Health Programs — Report and recommendations on psychiatry abusing seniors, from http://www.cchrstl.org/elderly.shtml.