Posts Tagged ‘antidepressant’

« Older Entries

Treatment Resistant Depression is Apparently a Thing

Monday, February 6th, 2023

Psychiatrists like to fund research studies for so-called “Treatment Resistant Depression” (TRD). They say that if someone has been given antidepressant drugs but their symptoms haven’t improved, they may have treatment-resistant depression.

Of course, the treatments of choice for TRD are more psychiatric drugs, such as ketamine and esketamine (dissociative anesthetics), olanzapine (an atypical anti-psychotic drug) and fluoxetine (Prozac). Some claim that Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT or shock treatment) “work” for this. Of course, all these “treatments” just knock your brain for a loop, so you don’t feel depressed, or much of anything anymore. None of these actually address the root causes for these symptoms, which psychiatrists conveniently forget to tell you.

One study suggests that between 29% and 46% of patients are still depressed after taking antidepressant drugs. Another study claims 20%-60% do not respond to psychiatric drugs. Well, we’ve known for years that not only is there no such “mental illness” as depression, but also that these mind-altering drugs don’t help.

People can, of course, experience symptoms commonly labeled as depression. In fact, there are hundreds of genuine medical conditions which can produce such mental symptoms — each of which has clinical tests and recognized medical treatments which do not involve psychiatric drugs.

While the fraudulent psychiatric “brain chemical imbalance” theory has been debunked for many years, it has been held firmly in place by the psycho-pharma public relations machine in order to sell more harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. These drugs make patients for life since the drugs do not cure anything and have devastating side effects.

Psychiatrists have known since the beginning of psychopharmacology that their drugs do not cure any disease, and that antidepressants do not have any legitimate medical value. These are just public relations theories to support the marketing and sale of drugs. This is why the words “depressed” or “depressive” occur 77 times in various fraudulent diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), in a vain attempt to legitimize this so-called “disease.”

Troubled patients being misled about what causes their problems and being told that they need to take a psychotropic drug to “correct” this is a form of coercion. Giving patients such misinformation prevents their making an informed decision and has already resulted in many millions of people taking antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs with harmful side effects, erroneously believing these would “correct” something that simply never existed.

These drugs mask the real cause of problems in life and debilitate the individual, so denying him or her the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future. This is the real reason why psychiatry is a violation of human rights. Psychiatric treatment is not just a failure — it is routinely destructive to the individual and one’s mental health.

If you know someone who has bought into these lies, suggest they investigate non-psychiatric, non-drug alternatives. Contact your local, state and federal representatives and demand that they stop government funding of these drugs.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

Wasted Billion$ Spent On Violence Prevention

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

Ignores How Psychotropic Drugs Cause Hostility, And Their Role In Mass Shootings & Stabbings

Although there are numerous reasons for acts of mass violence, funding poured into violence prevention mental health programs has ignored a potential pivotal source, especially in schools: the treatment.

By Jan Eastgate
President, CCHR International
July 11, 2022

Mental health professionals suggest that the latest spate of mass killings require more psychiatric services and stronger involuntary commitment laws to prevent future violence. However, this would most likely increase acts of violence because psychiatric drugs are usually the first line of treatment and carry a risk of inducing suicide and hostility in a percent of those taking them. Taxpayer appropriations have been funneled into everything related to prevention except investigating psychotropic drug links to acts of violence. A financial audit of violence prevention mental health programs should be conducted to show accountability for results.

Since the Columbine high school massacre in 1999 where two students—the ringleader on an antidepressant—killed 13 and injured 24, national violence prevention programs in schools have been implemented, with billions of dollars invested in this.

Another $1 billion of federal funds was recently allocated for community violence intervention (CVI), which includes mental health services.[1]

Funding has been a bottomless pit without a commensurate decline in mass violence. The Safe Schools Act of 1994 had a goal that by the year 2000, every school in America would be free of violence.[2] The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 allocated more federal funds for school-based violence prevention programs.[3]

Yet school shootings increased by 37% between the 1990s and 2013 and continued unabated.[4] This figure doesn’t factor in acts of school violence that do not involve guns.

Since 2000, there have been at least 27 acts of mass violence in schools committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs or having undergone unnamed mental health treatment, resulting in 33 deaths and 83 wounded. At least seven of the killings involved stabbings.[5] Something drove them to kill.

Some 76 million Americans take psychotropic drugs, of which over 2.1 million are children and adolescents taking antidepressants despite a Food and Drug Administration suicide black box warning for teens and young adults. Between 1999 and 2014, there was a 64% increase in the percentage of people of all ages using antidepressants.[6]

Increased mental and/or physical agitation has caused about 5% of subjects taking antidepressants to drop out of clinical trials. When that percentage is applied to the 41 million individuals in the U.S. taking antidepressants, it begs the question how many of that 2.05 million could potentially become so agitated that they would kill?[7]

The antidepressant market is a highly lucrative one that would be protected at any cost. The global market was estimated at $5.2 billion in 2019 and over $80 billion is spent in a year worldwide in psychiatric drug sales. The Central Nervous System drugs (including ADHD drugs) market is expected to reach $131 billion by 2025.[8]

Psychiatrists, often backed by Big Pharma, misdirect policymakers by saying there is no “scientific” evidence of psychiatric drugs causing violence, even though violent behavior, including homicide are reported side effects.

“Most people who commit these kinds of acts of severe violence are only prescribed medication because of their horrible thoughts, moods, and ideas,” Dr. Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychotherapist stated.[9]

But that’s the point: having been prescribed the drugs, they acted on those thoughts and killed.

“Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” international psychopharmacology expert Prof. David Healy says.[10]

What role such drugs may have had on San Antonio, Texas teen Rodolfo Aceves (19) who was arrested on June 27th, 2022, for planning a mass shooting at an Amazon Delivery Station where he worked in unknown. He has a history of mental health treatment and was institutionalized at age 16.[11]

Robert Crimo III, 21, the July 4th Illinois parade shooter was reported to have experienced personality changes a few years ago when he and his girlfriend broke up. He started taking psychedelic drugs, seemingly illicitly.[12] While not confirmed which hallucinogens he took, as an example, psilocybin adverse effects include: Impaired judgment and feelings of detachment, psychosis, anxiety and panic attacks.[13] In April 2019, police went to the family home after receiving a report Crimo had tried to take his own life a week earlier. They were told mental health professionals were handling the matter!

Psychiatrists are currently trying to have psychedelics re-introduced as mainstream mental health treatment after being banned in the 1970s.

Missing the Mark

The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been collecting data on school-associated violent deaths since 1992, defined as a fatal injury (e.g., homicide, suicide, or legal intervention). Only violent deaths associated with U.S. elementary and secondary schools, both public and private, are included.[14] CDC uses the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System that monitors “health-risk behaviors of students.” The high school survey, for example, is 21 pages of questions, none of which identify if the student is taking prescription psychotropic medications or abusing them—missing the mark entirely on a potential source of violent and suicidal behavior.[15]

Blaming the “Illness,” Not the Drug

Many psychiatrists deflect legislators’ attention away from iatrogenic drug-induced violence by arguing that no studies have been done on the association between the risk of committing homicide and the use of psychotropic drugs.[16] That’s also the point. It’s a safe bet that they won’t because, how could a legitimate study be ethically approved to deliberately induce violent behavior using a prescription drug?

Until now, this seems only to have been done clandestinely in the 1970s under the CIA’s MK-Ultra program when psychiatrists carried out experiments to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.[17] CCHR has copies of CIA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing psychotropic drugs were tested to see if a subject could be chemically induced to assassinate.[18]

While not excusing the crime, today, courts recognize the “overwhelming probable” relationship between antidepressant and murder, “treatment-induced psychosis” and, in one case a jury determined that the antidepressant paroxetine “can cause some people to become homicidal and/or suicidal” and that the drug was 80% responsible for a normally calm and caring father to kill his family.[19]

Drug Withdrawal Creates Violence (Not Mental Illness)

Another key point ignored is the debilitating withdrawal effects some people taking prescription psychotropic drugs can experience which are documented to include violent and suicidal behavior. Many of the studies on withdrawal effects are published in CCHR’s report Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide.

Psychiatrists obfuscate withdrawal effects by blaming the person’s “untreated” mental illness. By involuntarily committing prospective aggressive individuals and keeping people incarcerated for longer periods (usually on psychotropics) they argue the person can get the treatment he or she needs.

But close inspection shows that not to be true. Consider the history of Brandon Scott Hole, 19, who shot and killed eight people and injured seven others at a FedEx building, before committing suicide in April of 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana.[20] From age 10, he’d received psychiatric treatment. In September 2011, his agitated behavior spurred his mother to take him to a center where he was given anxiety medication. A year later, after starting 5th grade, he was still aggressive and prescribed more of the same medication, with records showing only “mild benefit.” Yet another drug was added, and he also underwent behavioral therapy. In 2013, he spent a period in juvenile detention and put on probation for several months, then released. By 2020, he was suicidal. Medical records indicated that he suffered from six different disorders. The teen originated: “I can get very, very angry. I have very little control over myself when that happens” to which records say he will benefit from medication for psychiatric symptoms. On March 31, 2022, he meets a social worker for therapy. On April 15, he murdered eight innocent people described as an act of “suicidal murder.”[21] Hole had suicidal thoughts “almost daily” in the months prior to the attack and attempted suicide on “more than one occasion,” according to an FBI special agent.[22]  Clearly, the six different mental disorders he’d been given during his short life were not effectively treated and the medication may have exacerbated his thoughts.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) stresses, “It is important to note that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent.”[23] But as one online writer puts it: Psychiatrists argue that “mental illness does not cause violence…. Why, then, do we think that expanding access to mental health services will reduce mass violence?”[24]

A man who allegedly attacked the Cuban Embassy, firing at it 32 times in April 2020, had been evaluated at a psychiatric hospital and prescribed an antipsychotic in March. Although he may not have been compliant in taking it daily, antipsychotic withdrawal effects include hostility. The drug remains in the system, potentially impacting upon mental faculties and emotional behavior.[25]

On July 3rd in Denmark, a suspected gunman, Noah Essenes, 22, said his antipsychotic drugs weren’t working before a shooting spree in a Danish shopping center that left 3 dead and 27 injured.  He was remanded into psychiatric “care”—which clearly had previously failed him—and charged with murder and attempted murder.[26]

John Read, Ph.D.’s article “The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs,” published in the June 2022 edition of Addictive Behaviors Reports reported that in an online survey of 585 antipsychotic users from 29 countries, who had tried to stop taking the drugs, 72% reported classical withdrawal effects, including anxiety and agitation; 52% of these categorized those effects as “severe,” 18% reported psychosis as a withdrawal effect and 23% took at least one year to successfully withdraw completely.[27]

When an antipsychotic, and thereby the dopamine neurotransmitter blockade, are removed, or reduced, “the brain is overwhelmed with dopamine…. This can result in a withdrawal psychosis,” Read said.[28]

Antidepressants also have serious withdrawal effects that can last years.

In 2012, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Journal published a study about persistent withdrawal effects six weeks after cessation of taking SSRI antidepressants. Researchers reviewed self-reporting adverse events and found post-withdrawal symptoms “may last several months to years.” Symptoms included disturbed mood, emotional liability, irritability, and poor stress tolerance.[29]
As Healy and others wrote in Children of the Cure: Missing Data, Lost Lives and Antidepressants, an antidepressant manufacturer that recognized the withdrawal effect, held a meeting of “opinion leaders” and invented the term “antidepressant discontinuation syndrome” to deflect from dependence problems.[30]

From the 14 studies that provided usable data, researchers calculated that 56% of antidepressant users experienced withdrawal symptoms when they discontinued the drug. The duration of symptoms varied widely, but some patients reported problems lasting up to 79 weeks after stopping the antidepressant.[31] 

Time magazine once listed the top 10 prescribed drugs linked to violence, of which eight were psychotropic drugs—five which were antidepressants.[32]

Finnish researchers published the findings in a 2015 study that determined benzodiazepines could increase the risk of a consumer committing a homicide by 45% and antidepressant by 31%. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology also found that “…benzodiazepines and [SSRI antidepressants] are the main pharmacological classes able to induce aggressive behavior.”[33]

Funding Violence-Causation?

It seems that in the U.S. with the spate of mass killings involving teens, and with massive funding of violence-prevention programs in schools is not decreasing.

Funding continues to be invested in programs without ever looking at the potential psychotropic drug link to violence.

In the wake of Columbine, the School Emergency Response to Violence was Created, where “Project SERV” funds were used for a variety of activities, including mental health assessments, referrals, and services for victims and witnesses of violence. and more.[34]

In December 2012, the Attorney General’s Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence developed “Project Prevent” to provide grants for mental health services. Laudably, counseling was to be provided to help students cope with the effects of violence. But also funded was conflict resolution programs and other school-based violence prevention strategies, which have also been implicated in some of the cases of mass violence in schools. [35]

As of 2019, 15 states require character development or social and emotional learning in schools.[36]
CVI programs employ “violence interrupters” or “neighborhood change agents” who are skilled in intervention.[37]

Forced Treatment: The Wrong Way to Go

As for increasing involuntary commitment laws to lock up and maintain individuals on psychiatric drugs, an estimated 54% of admissions to psychiatric facilities in the U.S. are involuntary.[38]

Recent United Nations Agency and World Health Organization reports condemn coercive-forced psychiatric treatment, especially because there is an overreliance on mental health drugs, as a February-April 2022 Annual Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, points out.[39]
The Commissioner’s 2018 report noted that “forced medication, and other forced measures” should be repealed. “States should reframe and recognize these practices as constituting torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.[40]

An Alaska Supreme Court decision in 2006 was pivotal in protecting patients from forced “medication,” because of their risks. Represented by attorney Jim Gottstein Esq., Faith Myers challenged the constitutionality of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) to force her to take psychotropic drugs when she was involuntarily committed to the facility on February 3, 2003. The court found in her favor because of “the nature and potentially devastating impact of psychotropic medications….” Further, “Psychotropic drugs ‘affect the mind, behavior, intellectual functions, perception, moods, and emotion’ and are known to cause a number of potentially devastating side effects…Courts have observed that ‘the likelihood [that psychotropic drugs will cause] at least some temporary side effects appears to be undisputed.’”[41]

WHO said that countries must ensure that patients have “the right to refuse admission and treatment is also respected.”[42] Importantly, “People wishing to come off psychotropic drugs should also be actively supported to do so, and several recent resources have been developed to support people to achieve this.”[43]

For good reason. No one should suddenly stop taking a psychotropic drug without medical approval and supervision.

Acts of Violence During Withdrawal

Of nearly 410 drug regulatory agency psychiatric drug warnings, 17 were for addiction or withdrawal effects.[44]

A small example of cases of killers going through withdrawal includes:

2008: DeKalb, Illinois: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking prescribed drugs Prozac (antidepressant), and anti-anxiety/sedative-hypnotics, Xanax (alprazolam) and Ambien but had stopped taking Prozac three weeks before the shooting. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system.[45]

December 2006: North Vernon, Indiana: 16-year-old Travis Roberson stabbed a Jennings County High School student in the neck, nearly severing an artery. Roberson was in withdrawal from the antidepressant Wellbutrin, which he had stopped taking days before the attack.[46]

April 2006: Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 17-year-old William Barrett Foster took a shotgun to East Chapel Hill High School, where he took a teacher and a fellow student hostage. After being talked out of shooting the hostages, Foster fired two shots through a classroom window before fleeing the school on foot. Foster’s father testified that his son had stopped taking his antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs without telling him (which can cause severe withdrawal effects).[47] 

Acts of Violence Involving Antipsychotics

January 2019 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Dakota Theriot, 21, was accused of killing five people in Louisiana. The victims included his parents and three members of a family with whom he’d been living for a short time. Investigators said he smoked weed and drank alcohol that mixed poorly with the antipsychotic drugs he’d been prescribed.[48]

June 2018 – Westminster, Colorado: Jeremy Webster, 23, killed a 13-year-old and injured the boy’s mother and brother in a road rage shooting. A man in another car was also shot. Webster had a psychiatric history and had changed medication that day. He had been prescribed an antidepressant and an antipsychotic.[49]

December 2014 – Montgomery County, Pennsylvania: Iraq War veteran Bradley Stone, 35, killed his ex-wife, her mother, grandmother and sister, and the sister’s husband and 14-year-old daughter and then committed suicide. According to the Medical Examiner, he had both the antidepressant trazodone and the antipsychotic risperidone in his system at the time of his death. Just one week prior to the murders, he had seen his Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, whose evaluation stated Stone had no suicidal or homicidal ideation.[50]

November 2014 – Tallahassee, Florida: Myron May, 31, entered a library where hundreds of students were studying, began shooting and, wounding three before he was shot and killed by police. He had checked himself into a psychiatric center about three months prior. Shortly after this, his friends discovered a new pill bottle among his prescriptions, the antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine).[51]

June 2014 – Seattle, Washington: 26-year-old Aaron Ybarra opened fire at Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and wounding two others. Ybarra planned to kill as many people as possible before killing himself. In 2012, he reported that he had been prescribed the antidepressant Prozac and antipsychotic Risperdal (risperidone). A report from his counselor in December of 2013 said that he was taking Prozac at the time and planned to continue to meet with his psychiatrist and therapist as needed. His lawyer said Ybarra had a long history of mental health issues for which he was taking Prozac at the time of the shooting.[52]

February 2013 – Chalk Mountain, Texas: Eddie Ray Routh, 28, shot and killed Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was the subject of the movie, American Sniper, and Kyle’s friend, Chad Littlefield, at a firing range. He had been prescribed the antipsychotic risperidone and the antidepressant, Zoloft, the latter not recommended for anyone aged younger than 25 because of the risk that it may cause suicide. Routh’s father would later report that the cocktail of pharmaceuticals “made Eddie worse,” adding, “I ain’t no doctor. I ain’t no rocket scientist or nothing, but I could tell a difference in him.” He had various hospitalizations over the next few years and was said to be “paranoid and impulsively violent” and was prescribed a cocktail of psychotropic drugs that included two powerful antipsychotics, Haldol and Seroquel and the antidepressant Paxil. He was also mixing prescription drugs known to cause aggressive and psychotic behavior with alcohol and marijuana.[53]

Recommendation: A financial audit on all government funding of violence-prevention mental health/behavioral programs should be conducted with outcome evaluation to show accountability for results.

Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide is a compelling resource detailing more than 30 studies and over sixty cases of mass shootings and acts of violence committed by those taking or withdrawing from prescribed psychotropic drugs. 

References:
[1] https://bja.ojp.gov/program/community-violence-intervention/overview; “APA Statement on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” Psychiatric Times, 24 June 2022, https://www.psychiatry.org/News-room/News-Releases/APA-Statement-on-the-Bipartisan-Safer-Communities

[2] “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016,” A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice

[3] Ibid.

[4] Allison Paolini, “School Shootings and Student Mental Health: Role of the School Counselor in Mitigating Violence,” ACA (American Counseling Assoc.) Knowledge Center, Vistas, 2015

[5] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters

[6] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psychiatric-drugs/; “By the numbers: Antidepressant use on the rise,” American Psychological Assoc., Nov. 2017, citing Pratt L.A., Brody D.J., & Gu Q. Antidepressant use among persons aged 12 and over: United States, 2011–14. NCHS Data Brief, No. 283. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/11/numbers

[7] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, p. 3

[8] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/11/08/psychiatrists-and-the-hallucinogenic-drug-industry-are-seeking-to-replace-failed-antidepressants/; “A view into the central nervous system disorders market,” Nature, 1 Sept. 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-020-01119-8

[9] https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/aug/16/whats-behind-dubious-claim-psychiatric-drugs-fuel-/

[10] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/

[11] Snejana Farberov, “Texas teen arrested for plotting mass shooting at Amazon warehouse: cops,” New York Post, 5 July 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/07/05/texas-teen-accused-of-plotting-mass-shooting-at-amazon-warehouse/

[12] Safia Samee Ali, Natasha Korecki and Corky Siemaszko, “Highland Park shooting suspect’s past littered with ‘red flags,” NBC News, 5 July 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/highland-park-shooting-suspects-littered-red-flags-rcna36766

[13] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/01/09/cchr-warns-against-psychedelic-trips-potentially-planned-for-55m-americans/;https://drugabuse.com/drugs/hallucinogens/psilocybin-mushrooms/effects-use/

[14] Op. cit., “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016”

[15] https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/questionnaires.htm

[16] “Psychotropic drugs and homicide: A prospective cohort study from Finland,” World Psychiatry. June 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471985/

[17] “The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief,’” NPR, 9 Sept. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief

[18] Project Artichoke Document, on file at CCHR

[19] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence and Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, pp. 3-4

[20] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/20/cchr-renews-calls-for-investigation-into-psychiatric-drug-induced-mass-killings/; “Suspect in Indianapolis mass shooting was former FedEx employee, known to law enforcement,” Fox 59 News, 17 Apr. 2021, https://fox59.com/news/indianapolis-fedex-shooting/ap-officials-identify-suspect-in-mass-shooting-at-indianapolis-fedex-facility/

[21] Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno, “Timeline: FedEx shooter had over a dozen mental health care, law enforcement encounters,” Indianapolis Star; Yahoo! News, 16 Nov. 21, 2022, https://news.yahoo.com/timeline-fedex-shooter-had-over-155332886.html

[22] “Indianapolis FedEx Shooter Who Killed 4 Sikhs Was Not Racially Motivated, Police Say,” NPR, 28 Jul. 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/1021935687/indianapolis-fedex-shooting-sikhs-not-racially-motivated-police-say

[23] https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/apa-statement-on-firearm-violence

[24] Megan Wildhood, “Expanded Mental Health Services Won’t Stop Mass Shootings,” Mad in America, 24 June 2022, https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/06/mental-health-services-mass-shootings/

[25] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/;https://web.archive.org/web/20220221184646/http://cubamoneyproject.com/2020/05/03/shooter-trump/

[26] James Crip, “Pictured: ‘Gunman’ charged with killing three in Copenhagen shopping mall attack,” Daily Telegraph (UK), 5 July 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/05/pictured-gunman-charged-killing-three-copenhagen-shopping-mall/

[27] John Read, Ph.D., “The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs,” Addictive Behaviors Reports, 15 June 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006667/

[28] Ibid.

[29] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/side-effects-can-persist/

[30] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/08/25/new-study-further-confirms-severe-withdrawal-effects-of-antidepressants/, citing: David Healy, M.D., Joanna Le Noury, Julie Wood, Children of the Cure: Missing Data, Lost Lives and Antidepressants, (Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative Inc., 2020), pp. 43-44

[31] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/06/antidepressant-withdrawal-warning-vital/; “How Hard is it to Stop Antidepressants?” American Psychological Assoc., 1 Apr. 2020; https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/stop-antidepressants

[32] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/06/antidepressant-withdrawal-warning-vital/, citing: Maia Szalavitz, “Top Ten Legal Drugs Linked to Violence,” TIME Magazine, 7 Jan. 2011, https://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence/

[33] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/, citing: David DiSalvo, “Common Painkillers And Sedatives Linked To Increased Risk Of Homicide, According To Study,” Forbes, 4 June 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2015/06/04/common-pain-killers-and-sedatives-linked-to-increased-risk-of-homicide-according-to-study/#1083a9581aef and Nadege Rouve, Haleh Bagheri, et al., “Prescribed drugs and violence: a case/noncase study in the French PharmacoVigilance Database,” European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 7 June, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21655992

[34] Op. cit., “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016”

[35] Ibid.

[36] https://www.childtrends.org/blog/state-laws-promoting-social-emotional-and-academic-development-leave-room-for-improvement

[37] https://www.vera.org/community-violence-intervention-programs-explained

[38] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/06/29/us-could-learn-from-reform-of-coercive-mental-health-practices/; “Involuntary Commitments: Billing Patients for Forced Psychiatric Care,” The American Journ. of Psychiatry, 1 Dec. 2020, https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030319

[39] Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, 49th session, Human Rights Council, “Summary of the outcome of the consultation on ways to harmonize laws, policies and practices relating to mental health with the norms of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and on how to implement them,” 28 Feb.–1 Apr. 2022

[40] Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mental health and human rights, 24 July 2018, A/HRC/39/36.

[41] Faith Myers vs. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Supreme Court, 2-11021, Superior Court No. 3AN-03-00277, Opinion, No. 6021, 30 June 2006, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ak-supreme-court/1004032.html

[42] “Guidance on Community Mental Health Services: Promoting Person-Centered and Rights-Based Approaches,” World Health Organization, 10 June 2021, p. 6, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025707 (to download report)

[43] Ibid., p. 201

[44] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, p. 3

[45] “Report of the February 14, 2008 Shootings at Northern Illinois University,” NIU, https://www.niu.edu/forward/_pdfs/archives/feb14report.pdf; “Girlfriend: Shooter was taking cocktail of 3 drugs,” CNN, 20 Feb. 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/20/shooter.girlfriend/index.html; Dave Newbart, “NIU shooter had trace amounts of drugs in system,” The Chicago Sun-Times, 15 Mar. 2008, http://schoolshooters.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/41/

[46]  https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; “Authorities: Teen’s Knife Attack At School Was Planned,” The Indy Channel, December 5, 2006, https://ssristories.org/teen-knife-attacks-fellow-student/

[47]  https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; Meiling Arounnarath, “Forum to ponder school gun incidents, Fraser will discuss the situation nationally and locally,” NewsObserver.com, posted November 28, 2006, http://ssristories.com/show.php?item=1310; Leah Friedman, “Police keep tabs on teen suspect,” NewsObserver.com, February 24, 2007, http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/news/2007/02/24/2367179.htm; “Student Charged In April Hostage Incident At Chapel Hill School,” WRAL.com, June 19, 2006, http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1055759/

[48] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing: Emma Kennedy, “Sheriff: Dakota Theriot case is ‘extremely horrific example’ of failed mental health system,” The Advocate, 3 Feb. 2019, https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_bef1127c-25c4-11e9-a111-8b4106437e1b.html; Emma Kennedy, “Dakota Theriot, accused of killing five, faces the death penalty. Coronavirus may delay his trial,” The Advocate, 8 July 2020, https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/livingston_tangipahoa/article_a6b433fe-c151-11ea-a3da-5f0c20c13ed4.html

[49] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/ citing: Janet Oravets, “Judge enters not guilty plea, sets trial date for Westminster road rage suspect,” 9News.com, 7 Jan. 2019, https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/judge-enters-not-guilty-plea-sets-trial-date-for-westminster-road-rage-suspect/73-fc8c9737-e6a7-4fd4-b80e-9ee7e8c458bc

[50] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing, Ralph Ellis, Susan Candiotti and Ashely Fantz, “Police in Pa. search for man suspected of killing ex-wife, 5 former in-laws,” CNN, 15 Dec 2014, https://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/us/pennsylvania-shootings/; Jacqueline Klimas, “Bradley Stone cleared by Veterans Affairs doctor one week before murders, suicide,” Washington Times, 17 Dec 2014, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/17/bradley-stone-cleared-veterans-affairs-doctor-one-/; Dan Stamm and Vince Lattanzio, “Montgomery County Spree Killer Bradley Stone Dies of Drug Overdose: ME,” NBC 10 Philadelphia, 24 Dec 2014, https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/bradley-stone-death-overdose-report/159969/

[51] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/ Michael Laforgia, “FSU shooter’s friends tried to get help for him months before the shooting,” Miami Herald, 22 Nov 2014, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article4064977.html; Jordan Culver, et al., “Shooter identified as Florida State alum Myron May,” Tallahassee Democrat, 21 Nov 2014, http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/fsu-news/2014/11/20/shooter-identified-fsu-alum-myron-may/70007494/

[52] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; “Seattle Pacific University shooting: Gunman says he “wanted to kill many more,” The Independent, 9 Jun 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/seattle-pacific-university-shooting-gunman-says-he-wanted-to-kill-many-more-9505394.html; “Suspect in Seattle Pacific killing had well-documented demons,” The Seattle Times, 6 Jun 2014, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/suspect-in-seattle-pacific-killing-had-well-documented-demons/; Steve Miletich, et al., “Report: SPU suspect ‘wanted to hurt himself and others’ in 2010,” The Seattle Times, 6 Jun 2014, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/report-spu-suspect-wanted-to-hurt-himself-and-others-in-2010/

[53] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing, Rick Jervis, “‘American Sniper’ killer found guilty in murders,” USA Today, 24 Feb. 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/24/american-sniper-murder-trial-verdict/23896859; Nicholas Schmidle, “In the Crosshairs,” The New Yorker, 3 Jun. 2013, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/03/in-the-crosshairs; Mike Spies, “Inside the Tortured Mind of Eddie Ray Routh, the Man Who Killed American Sniper Chris Kyle,” Newsweek, 23 Nov. 2015, https://www.newsweek.com/2016/01/08/inside-tortured-mind-man-who-killed-american-sniper-chris-kyle-397299.html

Psychotropic Drugs' Role In Mass Shootings

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

World Psychiatric Group Must Tell Its Members To Expunge Chemical Imbalance Myth

Monday, August 29th, 2022

CCHR, a global mental health industry watchdog, has demanded the World Psychiatric Association advise its 180 members to remove all references to a chemical imbalance causing mental disorders from their websites and literature.

By CCHR International Mental Health Industry Watchdog August 9, 2022

Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a 53-year mental health industry watchdog, has demanded the World Psychiatric Association issue a Positioning Statement urging all of its members to remove any reference or suggestion that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes mental disorders from their websites. In a letter sent to Dr. Afzal Javed, president of the WPA, CCHR called on the organization to condemn the theory and now wants the organization to also send an advisory to national psychiatric associations to inform their members to remove references to the disproved chemical imbalance theory from their websites, literature and any patient informed consent forms.

WPA has 145 member societies, mostly national psychiatric associations, including the American Psychiatric Association, and 36 affiliate member associations, representing some 250,000 psychiatrists worldwide.[1] As the association says it emphasizes the need for “the highest possible standards of clinical practice and ethical behavior in psychiatry,” CCHR says a priority must be that psychiatric groups to stop misleading consumers that a chemical imbalance underlies their mental health issues.[2]

The letter to Dr. Javed at the WPA Congress held in Bangkok, Thailand, pointed out that the chemical imbalance theory was a myth that has been exploited in the mental health field for over 30 years to fuel antidepressant sales, but was recently thoroughly debunked by researchers from University College London (UCL) in a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. The researchers reviewed major studies published over several decades and found no convincing evidence to support the theory that a chemical imbalance causes a mental disorder. The letter said the WPA should formally condemn the debunked theory because to do otherwise constitutes consumer fraud and violates patient informed consent rights.

In 2019, the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK had already responded to research that found no proof of low serotonin levels causing depression, and issued a position statement dismissing the idea that antidepressants “correct a chemical imbalance in the brain.”[3] However, the American Psychiatric Association website continued to promote mental health issues as “brain disorders,” without evidence to prove this, and its patient leaflets declared “antidepressants may be prescribed to correct imbalances in the levels of chemicals in the brain.”

As one of the UCL researchers stated, this misleading situation has arisen because it serves the interests of the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical industry. “Our view is that patients should not be told that depression is caused by low serotonin or by a chemical imbalance, and they should not be led to believe that antidepressants work by targeting these unproven abnormalities,” the lead researcher said.

CCHR says the WPA must take immediate action to ensure this view is conveyed to its members. Giving patients misinformation prevents their making an informed decision and has already resulted in many millions of people taking antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs with harmful side effects, erroneously believing these would “correct” something that simply never existed, CCHR wrote to Dr. Javed.

In 2020, WPA issued a Position Statement, “Implementing Alternatives to Coercion” which acknowledged that coercion in psychiatry has long been subject to controversy and contravenes patients’ rights, including violation of “rights to liberty; autonomy; freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment….”

The WPA admitted that coercion in psychiatry is “over-used,” contravening patients’ rights—although CCHR says it should never be used.

It pointed out that practices that constitute coercion include, “treatment without consent (or ‘compulsory treatment’), any form of treatment including the use of psychotropic medication; seclusion locking or confining a person to a space or room alone; restraint actions aimed at controlling a person’s physical movement, including prolonged or unsafe holding by other person(s), the use of any physical devices (‘mechanical restraint’, chaining, etc.) and the use of psychotropic drugs for the primary purpose of controlling movement (‘chemical restraint’).”

It warned that the use of coercive practices “carries the risk of harmful consequences, including trauma” and individuals subject to physical coercion are susceptible to harms that include physical pain, injury and death.”

CCHR wants this statement expanded so that WPA tells its members that to purport, in any way, that a chemical imbalance may be a source of people’s mental travails, harms patients, and could constitute consumer fraud. Troubled patients being misled about what causes their problems and being told that they need to take a psychotropic drug to “correct” this, is a form of coercion and contradicts the WPA 2020 Position Statement and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that the statement is based upon.

References:

[1] https://www.wpanet.org/
https://www.wpanet.org/members-affiliates
[2] https://www.wpanet.org/what-we-do
[3] Royal College of Psychiatrists, “Position statement on antidepressants and depression,” May 2019

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

The Hoax of Antidepressants

Monday, July 4th, 2022

Over time, using antidepressants is not associated with significantly better health-related quality of life (HRQoL), compared to people with depression who do not take the drugs.

These are the findings of a study published April 20, 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE.

The study included all noninstitutionalized U.S. adults (?18 years) who had depression documented in their medical condition files during the first year of the two-year follow-up. Over the duration of the study (2005–2016), on average there were 17.47 million adult patients diagnosed with depression disorder every year with two-year follow up. About 57.6% of these patients received treatment with antidepressant drugs.

The researchers recommend that “Physicians, mainly primary care providers who are caring for most of these patients, may need to reconsider referring patients with depression to receive some kind of non-pharmacological therapy.”

The research study concludes with this quote:
“The ultimate goal of using antidepressant medications or psychotherapy is to improve patients’ important outcomes, such as HRQoL. The real-world effect of using antidepressant medications does not continue to improve patients’ HRQoL over time, as the change in HRQoL was comparable to patients who did not use any antidepressant medications.”

This is not even to mention the potentially horrific side effects of antidepressant use. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has this to say about antidepressant side effects: “Antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children and adolescents with MDD [major depressive disorder] and other psychiatric disorders.”

Recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior as “diseases.” 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.

If you are taking any of these drugs, do not stop taking them based on what you read here. You could suffer serious withdrawal symptoms. Click here for more information about harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs.

Psychiatrists euphemistically call withdrawal side effects “discontinuation symptoms” to disguise the addictive nature of these drugs.

You should seek the advice and help of a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor or practitioner before trying to come off any psychiatric drug.

Contact your local, state and federal officials and let them know your viewpoints about harmful psychiatric treatments.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

Suicide Attempts Increasing In Children

Monday, June 27th, 2022

Responding to federal data on increased suicide attempts by children taking antipsychotics, CCHR reiterates warning that psychotropics are linked to suicidal and homicidal acts, requiring government action.

Suicides among young people have been on the rise with federal data reporting that among those 10 to 24 years old, overall rates of deaths by suicide in the U.S. increased 57% from 2000 to 2018. More and more of these attempts are from ingesting toxic substances or overdosing on medications, a study finds. 

Astonishingly, from 2015 to 2020, researchers found suicide attempts using chemicals, including antipsychotics, soared by 28% among those aged 6 to 9 years old. The increase in children being prescribed mind-altering chemicals in the U.S. is a shocking reflection on the risks being taken with such young minds because many of the prescriptions carry a risk of suicide and violent behavior. These can drive individuals to committing irrational acts of violence and suicide.

Researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine found that the most commonly abused substances are the pain relievers acetaminophen and ibuprofen, but these were followed by atypical antipsychotics—like aripiprazole (Abilify)—the latter increasingly prescribed not only for psychosis, but also for depression. Atypical antipsychotics are added to an antidepressant, despite benefits on functioning or quality of life ranging between very small and zero, according to a PLoS Medicine study.

CCHR has consistently warned about prescription drug abuse, especially as around 21% of patient visits to psychiatrists for anxiety disorder treatment involved an antipsychotic prescription in 2004–2007, double that of 1996–1999. Children behaving badly became a target market from the early 2000s. Clinical trials recruited preschoolers to test antipsychotics for purported bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotics to children in one third of all visits, which is three times higher than during the 1990’s, and nearly 90% of those prescriptions written between 2005 and 2009 were prescribed for something other than what the FDA approved them for. Antipsychotics have been described as a chemical lobotomy because of their ability to disable normal brain function.

All antidepressants now carry the FDA’s “Black Box” warning, alerting that they may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children and young adults. The increase in psychotropic drug prescriptions has also brought an increase in acts of violence being committed.

The greatest increase in self-poisonings between 2015 and 2020 occurred among 10 to 12 year olds, increasing 109%. In the 13 to 15 age group, the increase was 30%; and among 16- to 19-year-olds, it was 18%. Girls were hugely overrepresented, accounting for nearly 78% of cases.

CCHR reiterates its call for mandatory toxicology tests when mass shootings and acts of violence are committed and for a database to register drug use found in the blood system of the perpetrator.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

The Suicide Risk Assessment Fraud

Monday, February 28th, 2022

“A disappointing, and perhaps the most telling, finding was that there has been no improvement in the accuracy of suicide risk assessment over the last 40 years.”

Suicide Risk Assessment doesn’t work. In fact, research suggests it not only doesn’t help, but also it may hurt.

One study looked at the last 40 years of suicide risk assessment research. They found no statistical method to identify patients at a high-risk of suicide in a way that would improve treatment.

Another study of people who had already harmed themselves found that there was no evidence to support the use of risk assessment scales.

Combined with ineffective suicide risk assessment, patients labeled with depression or suicidal ideation often receive prescriptions for dangerous psychotropic drugs laden, and even labeled, with side effects that encourage the exact symptoms they are marketed to treat.

Suicide prevention is a social issue, rather than a medical one. A psychiatrist prescribing an antidepressant is thus not really providing a valid treatment, and the widespread use of suicide risk assessment diverts social and health care practitioners from engaging with patients to find out and handle whatever is really the problem.

Risk assessments, screenings, school mental health programs and more funding are often presented as solutions to suicide, and since the onset of the Covid pandemic calls for more screenings and funding are louder than ever. Yet these so-called solutions are actually contributing to the problem by masking truly effective solutions and proliferating the use of psychotropic drugs whose side effects include suicide and violence.

No one denies that people can have difficult problems in their lives, that at times they can be mentally unstable. Mental health care is therefore both valid and necessary. However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen individuals and thereby society by restoring people to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well-being. Psychiatry is not workable.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

New Study Tells Consumers the Truth of Potential Lethal Electroshock and Antidepressant Risks

Monday, February 21st, 2022

Over 14,800 ECT patients were 16 times more likely to try to commit suicide than a control group of 58,369; antidepressants can also induce suicidal feelings and frightening long-term withdrawal effects.

By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
February 7, 2022

A new study published in Psychological Medicine questions the two principle physical treatments recommended for depression: antidepressants and electroshock therapy (ECT) and raises the alarm about their adverse effects on the brain.[1] Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a 53-year mental health industry watchdog, says the study contains vital information for consumers recommended for ECT, including the risk of suicide, all of which adds weight to the argument that the potentially brain-damaging practice should be prohibited as a mental health treatment.

The study by two UK experts, John Read, Ph.D., a psychologist and Joanna Moncrieff, M.D., a psychiatrist, discusses the need for non-harmful alternatives that are safe and effective. They cite the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandates that ECT machines have signs stating: “The long-term safety and effectiveness of ECT treatment has not been demonstrated.” Yet, the practice is given to an estimated 100,000 Americans every year, including, in some states, children aged up to five years old.

Antidepressants can also cause long-term sexual dysfunction and severe withdrawal effects, the study shows.

The authors wrote: “With the World Health Association and the United Nations calling for a paradigm shift away from the medicalization of human distress, new evidence about millions of people struggling to get off antidepressants, and ongoing debate about the value and safety of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT),” and questions “biological psychiatry’s ‘medical model’ when we become sad or depressed.”

The authors debunk the theory that chemical imbalances cause depression and that treatments work by correcting underlying biological dysfunctions, triggered, for example, by a supposed genetic predisposition. They point that “there is no evidence that there are any neurochemical abnormalities in people with depression, let alone abnormalities that might cause depression.”

Many medical experts confirm there are no medical tests (X-rays, blood or urine tests, MRIs, etc.) that can prove a physical source for people’s emotional issues.[2]

Yet, the authors add, until January 2021, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) website advised: “Psychiatric medications can help correct imbalances in brain chemistry that are thought to be involved in some mental disorders.” This is not true.

The authors went on to say, “At present, most drugs are assumed to work according to a ‘disease-centered’ model of drug action, which proposes that they act on the biological processes assumed to underpin symptoms, in the same way as drugs do in most medical conditions.” However, “Like other psychiatric drugs, [antidepressants] are psychoactive substances that cross the blood-brain barrier and alter normal mental processes and behavior by changing the normal functioning of the brain.” [emphasis added]

“That long-term antidepressant use may lead to persistent brain modifications is also evidenced by the prolonged and severe withdrawal state they can induce…around 56% of people experience withdrawal effects after discontinuing antidepressants, and for 46% of those the effects are severe. In general, the longer someone takes an antidepressant, the more likely they are to experience a withdrawal reaction, and the more severe it will be.”

The study also discloses:

  • Hundreds of placebo-controlled trials suggest that antidepressants are marginally better than placebo at reducing depressive symptoms as measured by depression rating scales.
  • The majority of placebo-controlled trials have been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry, which has an investment in inflating results, but government-funded research also fails to confirm that antidepressants have beneficial effects.
  • SSRI antidepressants cause “sexual dysfunction in a large proportion of users, and more worryingly, some people report that this persists after stopping the drug.”
  • “The adverse effects of withdrawal can be so intolerable that some people trying to discontinue treatment have to reduce by tiny amounts over many years, and accumulating evidence suggests that the effects may even persist for months or years after the drugs are finally stopped.” 

Electroshocking Harms Mental Health

As is the case for antidepressants, the various biological deficits that are supposedly corrected by ECT have never been demonstrated, the authors continue. “[T]he story of ECT appears to be one of a biological intervention being claimed to correct biological deficits, but in reality having negative effects on healthy brains, some of which are misconstrued as signs of improvement.” 

A neutral observer would assume that the effects on the brain of repeatedly passing sufficient electricity through it to cause seizures are likely to be negative. ECT advocates, however, “tend to interpret abnormal brain changes caused by multiple electrocutions as beneficial, sometimes even linking them to reduced depression. They don’t consider that the changes might be negative or might be characterized as brain damage.”

The authors further discuss inequities in ECT studies:

  • In the 84 years since the first ECT there have only been 11 randomized placebo-controlled studies (RCTs) for its target diagnosis, depression, all before 1986. A recent review, involving Dr. Irving Kirsch, Associate Director of Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School, highlighted the poor quality of the 11 studies.
  • Only four studies describe their processes of randomization and testing the blinding (procedure in which one or more parties in a trial are unaware of which participants are subjects of the treatment and those who are not, and helps to reduce bias). None convincingly demonstrate that they are double-blind. Five selectively report their findings. Only four report any ratings by patients. None assess Quality of Life. The studies are small, involving an average of 37 people.
  • No studies showed that ECT outperforms placebo beyond the end of the treatment period.
  • Nevertheless, all five meta-analyses of these flawed studies somehow conclude that ECT is effective.
  • The meta-analyses failed to identify any evidence that ECT prevents suicide, as often claimed. Numerous studies have found ECT recipients are more likely than other patients to kill themselves.
  • In a 2020 study, 14,810 ECT patients were 16 times more likely to try to kill themselves than a matched control group of 58,369. Other studies cited so-called reduce suicides were so small as to be negligible and were not even for depression.
  • A 2021 U.S. study found that 1,524 homeless US veterans who received ECT had made significantly more suicide attempts, at 30 days follow up, than 3,025 matched homeless veterans who hadn’t had ECT. The difference remained significant at 90 days and 1 year.
  • A review of 82 studies found that one in 39 ECT patients (25.8 per 1000) experience ‘major adverse cardiac events,’ the leading cause of ECT-related deaths.
  • As well as the short-term memory loss, which is widely acknowledged, between 12% and 55% of ECT recipients suffer persistent or permanent memory loss (typically defined as six months or longer).
  • Even the APA acknowledges that “ECT can result in persistent or permanent memory loss.”

The fact that discrepancies and bias in ECT studies are exposed draws strong opposition from advocates of the procedure, as doctors Read and Moncrieff point out. The advocates’ “defense” is to “shoot the messenger.”

“Researchers and ECT recipients who question the efficacy and highlight the adverse effects of ECT, are often publicly denigrated, by ECT advocates, as ‘anti-psychiatry ideologues’, ‘extremists’ ‘Scientologists’ and ‘non-medical zealots,’” or “part of a ‘guild war’ between professions.” [See CCHR’s report, Why Psychiatry Sees Itself as a Dying Industry.]

Read and Moncrieff continue: “The President and Chair of the International Society for ECT and Neurostimulation recently accused authors (including two ECT recipients) who had published some inconvenient findings of being ‘ideologically driven,’ of ‘spreading misinformation’ and of having ‘questionable motives.’”

Of note, the Church of Scientology established CCHR in 1969 as an independent organization, along with eminent professor of psychiatry, the late Dr. Thomas Szasz. CCHR comprises members of the church and people of various faiths or none at all. It has been outspoken against electroshock since its inception and has been pivotal in obtaining laws that either introduced safeguards such as informed consent to treatment (and the right to refuse it), as well as banning use of ECT on minors. In Australia, CCHR obtained a ban on deep sleep treatment (DST) that involved ECT and drugs, with criminal penalties, including jail, should anyone administer it. Indeed, in 2002, U.S. psychiatrist Richard Abrams, co-owner of Somatics LLC, which manufacturers an ECT device, wrote: “Absent Scientology there would hardly be an organized anti-ECT movement in the United States or anywhere else.”[3] This, from a “doctor,” who egregiously and misleadingly claims that ECT is about ten times safer than childbirth![4]

A Call for Alternatives

Read and Moncrief call for non-harmful alternatives: “We propose an alternative understanding that recognizes depression as an emotional and meaningful response to unwanted life events and circumstances.” This alternative view, they say, “is increasingly endorsed around the world, including by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and service users who have suffered negative consequences of physical treatments that modify brain functions in ways that are not well-understood.”

Furthermore, “believing you have a brain disease requiring medical intervention can be profoundly disempowering. It encourages people to view themselves as the victims of their biology, to adopt pessimistic views about recovery, increases self-stigma and discourages people from taking active steps to improve their situation.”

“Common sense,” they add, “suggests that the conditions needed to lead an emotionally balanced and fulfilling life, relatively free of major ongoing worry and distress, include a dependable income, housing, secure and rewarding employment, engaging social activities, and opportunities to form close relationships. Some people may need relationship counselling or family therapy, others support with employment or finances. People who feel severely depressed for a long time may simply need to be cared for, reassured with kindness and hope, reminded of times when they have felt good, and kept safe until they feel better, which they often do with time. There is no scientific evidence for some of these suggestions. We learn how to support our fellow humans through our life experience, through being cared for ourselves, and sometimes through art and literature.”

As the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Dr. Dainius P?ras, a Lithuanian psychiatrist, wrote: “Current mental health policies have been affected to a large extent by the asymmetry of power and biases because of the dominance of the biomedical model and biomedical interventions. This model has led…to the medicalization of normal reactions to life’s many pressures, including moderate forms of social anxiety, sadness, shyness, truancy and antisocial behavior.”

In 2021, the World Health Organization echoed these sentiments in its “Guidance on Community Mental Health Services” which says the biological model has resulted in “an over-diagnosis of human distress and over-reliance on psychotropic drugs to the detriment of psychosocial interventions.”[5] The document offers 22 examples of alternatives to drugs and electricity, Read and Moncrieff stress.

CCHR’s has a strong position against ECT; it wants it prohibited. Over 125,000 people have supported its online petition calling for the ban. Sign here.

References:

[1] John Read, Ph.D., Joanna Moncrief, M.D., “Depression: why drugs and electricity are not the answer,” Psychological Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/depression-why-drugs-and-electricity-are-not-the-answer/3197739131D795E326AE6913720E6E37

[2] “No Medical Tests Exist,” CCHR International, https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-disorders/no-medical-tests-exist/

[3] Richard Abrams, M.D., Electroconvulsive Therapy, Fourth Edition, (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 10

[4] Richard Abrams, M.D., “The Mortality Rate with ECT,” Convulsive Therapy, 1997

[5] Jan Eastgate, “World Health Organization New Guidelines Are Vital To End Coercive Psychiatric Practices & Abuse,” CCHR International, 11 June 2021, https://www.cchrint.org/2021/06/11/world-health-organization-new-guidelines-are-vital-to-end-coercive-psychiatric-practices-abuse/

Ban ECT
http://www.banect.org/

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

Is Sneezing Related to Mental Health?

Monday, January 3rd, 2022

Do you sneeze when you emerge into bright sunlight?

Sneezing is a natural response that removes irritants from the nose. But is sunlight a nasal irritant?

Officially known as “photic sneeze reflex” or “photic sneeze syndrome”, sun sneezing is a condition that triggers a sneeze when people are exposed to bright lights. It affects an estimated 18 to 35 percent of the population. Some think it is a genetic condition, as it often occurs within families.

Apparently the reflex isn’t triggered by light itself, but by a change in light intensity.

Sun sneezing has been documented for many centuries. While the exact mechanism of the photic sneeze reflex is not understood, the most common explanation can be traced to psychiatrist Henry Everett whose 1964 theory proposed that the effect resulted from mixed up nerve signals in the brain.

Some psychiatrists and psychologists have jumped on this bandwagon, possibly because the phenomenon can’t yet be explained, so it may be a ripe area for getting government funds for brain research.

One study suggested that individuals who sun sneeze are more likely to suffer from psychological distress.

Another theory says that intractable sneezing is a manifestation of a psychiatric condition called “conversion disorder” [a condition in which the brain and body’s nerves are unable to send and receive signals properly, sometimes thought to occur because of a psychological conflict].

In the psychiatric billing bible the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), there are nine entries with some type of “Conversion disorder,” or “functional neurological symptom disorder.”

So if you sneeze when you walk outside, you can be labeled with a mental disorder and prescribed an antidepressant.

The fifth cranial nerve, called the trigeminal nerve, is thought by some to be related to sneezing. Some psychiatrists speculate that a malformation in this nerve causes it to be overstimulated in bright light. Some psychiatrists have also targeted the trigeminal nerve for harmful therapies.

For example, a prescription-only device, called the Monarch external Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (eTNS) System from NeuroSigma, sends an electric current into the brains of children diagnosed with so-called ADHD.

Find Out! Fight Back against psychiatric fraud and abuse.

Why does sudden exposure to the sun cause sneezing?

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

Forgiveness – A Benefit or a Detriment?

Monday, December 27th, 2021

There are lots of quotes and sayings about forgiveness, not least from the Bible, and there is an abundance of published psychological and psychiatric “research” about it and its relationship to mental health. But we know that when so much discussion and argument about a subject persists, the total truth is generally widely unknown or unacknowledged, and speculation predominates.

Current research is limited by the fact that there is yet no consensus on the definition and measurement of forgiveness. Yet it is not necessary to know everything about it in order to use it. It’s not necessary to know “why” in order to know “how.”

It’s not that forgiveness is necessarily good or bad, but there may be more to know about it. And there is more to know about how psychiatry and psychology continue to promulgate crackpot theories for dealing with it, particularly how psychiatry focuses on harmful psychotropic drugs as the cure-all for all things related to mental health.

What Might It Be?

A common definition for forgiveness is a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.

One opinion is that forgiveness should also include offering something positive—empathy, compassion, understanding—toward the one who hurt you.

A contrary opinion is that forgiving someone is a sign of weakness.

Another opinion is that prayer is required.

Some psychiatrists suggest that a part of the brain monitors and controls forgiveness and revenge, and that functional magnetic resonance imaging can illustrate this notion; which leads to the speculation that bombarding the brain with electrical or magnetic energy can influence this.

And there are several different proposed psychological multi-step process models that purport to move one through various emotional stages in addressing a given situation.

The psychiatric billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), lists a number of diagnoses for which forgiveness might be considered as a treatment, but which more likely result in a money-making prescription for an antidepressant. Here’s an example: a diagnosis of “Victim of crime.”

Our Advice

We’re not going to give a conclusive definition here, nor specify how to definitively handle such situations. We think guidance from one’s own circle of supporters is a primary consideration. But we do have a bit of advice we can add to the fray.

When one forgives, one validates and accepts that another’s action against one was bad. There is no reason one must accept it. There may be such things as justice and mercy involved, but the real way to deal with it is to continue loving one’s fellows because one understands them in spite of their provocation. Considered in this light, forgiveness is pretty low on the scale of usefulness.

The wrong thing to do is accept a psychiatric diagnosis and a psychiatric treatment.

The wrong thing to do is accept a psychiatric diagnosis.
Bad Dog

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

Drug-Smart St. Louis Month

Monday, October 11th, 2021

The St. Louis Metro region continues to be the epicenter of the drug overdose epidemic in Missouri and accounted for approximately 55% of all drug overdose deaths in Missouri in 2019 and 2020.

While the majority of these drug-involved deaths involved opioids in St. Louis City and County in 2020, we observe that illegal stimulants were also a major contributor. Unfortunately, legal stimulants, depressants and other prescribed psychotropic drugs can also share in the shame, as violence, suicide and heart attacks are known potential side effects of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs.

Recreational use of prescription drugs is a serious problem with teens and young adults. National studies show that a teen is more likely to have abused a prescription drug than an illegal street drug. Depressants, opioids and antidepressants are responsible for more overdose deaths (45%) than cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and amphetamines (39%) combined.

To promote drug education, October 2021 has been proclaimed “Drug-Smart St. Louis Month in St. Louis County, Missouri“:

[L-to-R Stephen Forney, Ellen Maher-Forney, Dr. Sam Page, Moritz Farbstein]

“I, Sam Page, St. Louis County Executive, do hereby proclaim the month of October 2021, as Drug-Smart St. Louis Month in St. Louis County, Missouri, and do hereby recognize the Foundation for a Drug-Free World – St. Louis Chapter, volunteers and St. Louis drug educators and encourage the citizens of St. Louis County to participate in drug education activities.”

The fact missed by most is that psychiatric, mind-altering drugs have been found to be the common factor in an overwhelming number of acts of random senseless violence and suicide. On the surface, the idea of psychiatric treatment, tranquilizers or antidepressants creating hostility and violence may not make sense. After all, they are supposed to make people better, calm and quiet. But the reality is that they can and do create such adverse effects. This is called “Drug Induced Psychosis.”

It could be dangerous to immediately cease taking psychiatric drugs because of potential significant withdrawal side effects. No one should stop taking any psychiatric drug without the advice and assistance of a competent medical doctor.

Psychiatric treatments such as drugs, electric shock and involuntary commitment are supposed to assist people who need help, not kill them. Too often, delinquency, suicide and violence have been falsely attributed to someone’s “mental illness,” when in fact the very psychiatric methods used to “treat” such “illness” are the cause of the problem. In addressing the rise in drug overdoses, senseless violence and suicide in society, the role of psychiatric drugs must be investigated.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | No Comments »

« Older Entries