Posts Tagged ‘Depression’

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Are You Depressed?

Monday, October 23rd, 2017

The sudden realization that someone might actually enjoy one’s company is a better antidepressant than anything one could get on a prescription.
[With thanks to Charles Stross, The Atrocity Archive.]

Psychiatry is heavily pushing false data about depression. You should know exactly what psychiatry and psychiatrists are:

  • Psychiatry is an antisocial enemy of the people.
  • Psychiatrists are undesirable antisocial elements.

What exactly is “depression?” The dictionary has this to say about what “depression” means:

A condition of feeling sad, despondent, hopeless, or inadequacy; A reduction in physiological vigor or activity such as fatigue.

The fact is, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Mental Health admit that there are no medical tests to confirm mental disorders as a disease but do nothing to counter the false idea that these are biological/medical conditions when in fact, diagnosis is simply done by a checklist of behaviors.

Yes, people experience symptoms of depression. This does not make them “mentally diseased” and there is no evidence of physical/medical abnormality for the so-called diagnosis of “depression.” This doesn’t mean that there aren’t solutions for people experiencing difficulty; there are non harmful, medical alternatives. But they do not require a psychiatric “label” to treat them. There is no mental illness test that is scientifically/medically proven. This isn’t a matter of opinion — psychiatrists who are opposed to the labeling of behaviors as mental illness openly admit this.

There are understandable possibilities for someone experiencing symptoms of depression. One is an undiagnosed and untreated medical condition that presents mental symptoms; and there are many of these medical conditions, requiring a full and searching clinical examination by a competent medical—not psychiatric—doctor to find the underlying undiagnosed and untreated physical problem. Go to this site for examples of medical conditions which can have mental symptoms. These all have non-psychiatric-drug alternatives.
A second possibility arises from stress, which is actually a situation in which a person is being suppressed in some area of their life — meaning there is something in their life, such as an antisocial person or element, which is putting them down, stopping them from getting better, invalidating or making less of one or one’s efforts.

Another possibility is simply a life event, such as grief, which has occasioned sadness or fatigue.

In the news now is a major source of false information about depression. Google is promoting this false information by teaming up with the National Alliance for Mental Illness to present a questionnaire to people who search for the word “depression” to recognize if what they are feeling is what psychiatrists call “clinical depression.” Don’t be fooled; this is simply an attempt to funnel vulnerable people into the mental health care system and prescribe them harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. This questionnaire takes about five minutes to complete, and is just a list of behaviors, or as Dr. Thomas Szasz said, “The term ‘mental illness’ refers to the undesirable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons.” More properly, it is just what psychiatry and psychiatrists have inappropriately labeled as “undesirable behavior;” the prime undesirable antisocial people on the planet telling you what they think is undesirable!

This questionnaire has no clinical value, using ten questions such as “Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?” or do you have “trouble falling or staying asleep?” If you are logged in to Google while taking this questionnaire you will be sharing this information about yourself with Google.

Click here for more information about psychiatric abuse.

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Knock Yourself Out

Monday, August 28th, 2017

The drug Ketamine is now being advertised as a “treatment” for “depression.” Don’t be fooled; this drug is serious business.

Ketamine, categorized as a “dissociative anesthetic,” is used in powdered or liquid form as an anesthetic, on animals as well as people. It can be injected, consumed in drinks, snorted, or added to joints or cigarettes.

By “dissociative anesthetic” we mean that this drug distorts perception of sight and sound and produces feelings of detachment (dissociation) from the environment and self.

Short- and long-term effects include increased heart rate and blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, numbness, depression, amnesia, hallucinations and potentially fatal respiratory problems. Ketamine users can also develop cravings for the drug. At high doses, users experience an effect referred to as “K-Hole,” an “out of body” or “near-death” experience.

Due to the detached, dreamlike state it creates, where the user finds it difficult to move, ketamine has been used as a “date-rape” drug. The increase in illicit use prompted ketamine’s placement in Schedule III of the United States Controlled Substance Act in August 1999.

[Update 9/5/2018 from Consumer Reports] “All these drugs [Ketamine, Phenylbutazone, Chloramphenicol] are prohibited in beef, poultry, and pork consumed in the U.S. Yet government data obtained by Consumer Reports suggest that trace amounts of these and other banned or severely restricted drugs may appear in the U.S. meat supply more often than was previously known.”

Ketamine is being promoted as an intravenous treatment for depression by an anesthesiologist in the St. Louis area. It does not cure anything, any effect it does have is of short duration, and must be administered on a regular basis to have a continuing effect. Its actual mechanism of operation is not well understood, but one can see that as an anesthetic it simply reduces ones general awareness, so the awareness of one’s depressive thoughts are suppressed. These return once the drug wears off.

Note that “depression” is not an actual medical illness; it is simply a symptom of some undiagnosed and untreated condition.

Currently, ketamine is not approved for the treatment of depression, and so this is an off-label use. Ketamine use as a recreational drug has been implicated in deaths globally. 10% to 20% of patients at anesthetic doses experience adverse reactions.

Its use to treat so-called depression is unethical and actually harmful, since it precludes the patient from finding out what is actually wrong and getting that treated.

Go here for more information about alternatives to drugs.

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The Skinny on the Skin Drug

Saturday, June 17th, 2017

We saw a TV commercial recently for the drug Otezla® (generic apremilast), from Celgene Corporation, which was approved by the FDA in 2014 for the treatment of symptoms of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis (skin lesions) and psoriatic arthritis.

Our attention was caught by the statement that Otezla is associated with an increase in adverse reactions of depression, suicidal thoughts, or suicidal behavior. We wondered why, since this drug is not used for psychiatric diagnoses, and psychiatric drugs all have such potential side effects.

The drug inhibits the enzyme phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4), but the exact way in which it is supposed to work “isn’t completely understood”.

The estimated wholesale price is $22,500 for a year of treatment.

Digging deeper, we find that apremilast is an analog of thalidomide which was primarily prescribed as a psychotropic sedative or hypnotic and which was banned in 1961 for causing disastrous birth defects. Depression is also a common side effect of thalidomide.

In 1998 thalidomide was approved again by the FDA for use in multiple myeloma, a type of cancer, because it apparently had some kind of anti-inflammatory effect. It still is not known how it is supposed to work. Analogs of thalidomide were then developed to try to limit the side effects; an analog is a compound having a chemical structure similar to that of another one, but differing from it in respect of a certain component. Analogs are developed to see if they can improve upon the function of the base drug.

Well, apparently this one side effect — depression — did not get eliminated in the transformation from thalidomide to apremilast.

If someone has been given the full range of pros and cons for a drug or other treatment (i.e. full informed consent), with all applicable alternatives and even the alternative of no treatment, and then decides to take the drug or treatment, they made a fully informed decision. But we know that such informed consent is rarely, if ever, obtained prior to a psychiatrist or other doctor writing a prescription for a psychotropic drug. Click here to learn more about informed consent.

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Terrorized by Climate Change

Saturday, June 3rd, 2017

The psycho-pharmaceutical industry has jumped full-time onto the climate change bandwagon. You don’t even need to believe in climate change, since there is also the satirical “Climate Change Denial Disorder”.

Scholarly articles are being published claiming that climate change affects mental health, along with the typical cries to fund more research, prescribe more antidepressants, and prepare for the worst. Here is an example quote: “Increasing ambient temperatures is likely to increase rates of aggression and violent suicides, while prolonged droughts due to climate change can lead to more number of farmer suicides. … Increased frequency of disasters with climate change can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder, and depression.” [Mental health effects of climate change, Indian J Occup Environ Med. 2015 Jan-Apr; 19(1): 3–7.]

The DSM-5 does not lack for possible disorders that can be tied to some climate change disaster for which antidepressants can be prescribed. Here are a few:

“Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder”
“Other specified trauma- and stressor-related disorder”
“Unspecified trauma- and stressor-related disorder”
“Specific phobia, Natural environment”
“Posttraumatic stress disorder”
or any one of over thirty depression-related disorders.

It used to be called “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (SAD). Although this is no longer classified as a unique disorder, it can still be diagnosed as a “mood disorder with a seasonal pattern.” SAD is considered a subtype of major depression or bipolar disorder. An example of a SAD diagnosis might be “Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent Episode, Moderate, With Seasonal Pattern”.

Here we have the “dangerous environment” in full bloom. A dangerous environment only persists if we fail to spread a safe environment across the world. What makes a dangerous environment? Confusion, conflict and upset.

The Merchants of Chaos who promote a dangerous environment make it seem as threatening as possible so that they can profit from it. How do you counter this? You spread the truth. Behind the truth comes the calm. You may still need technology to handle climate change, but you don’t need antidepressant drugs to do so.

The issue is not “is there or is there not climate change?” The issue is, get rid of the psychiatrists who are promoting and profiting from the confusion. Find Out! Fight Back!

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This is Your Brain on TMS

Monday, March 6th, 2017

TMS is now available in St. Louis, according to local TV commercials promoting this crippling form of brain stimulation.

Techniques such as “transcranial magnetic stimulation” (TMS) are psychiatry’s latest experiment in treatment of the “mentally ill.”

In TMS, a magnetic coil is placed near the patient’s scalp and a powerful and rapidly changing magnetic field passes through skin and bone and penetrates a few centimeters (up to 2.5 inches) into the outer cortex (outer gray matter) of the brain and induces an electrical current. Repetitive TMS (rTMS) can cause seizures or epileptic convulsions in healthy subjects, depending upon the intensity, frequency, duration and interval of the magnetic stimuli.

With ECT and psychosurgery under intense critical public scrutiny, psychiatry is now feverishly searching for a new “breakthrough miracle” – and TMS is one of the new catch phrases.

The TMS St. Louis web site (http://www.tms-stlouis.com/) says “Deep TMS Therapy is an FDA-cleared depression treatment for patients with depression who have not benefited from antidepressant medications.” Well, that makes every patient in mental health care eligible for TMS, since patently none of them have benefited from the drugs.

Why do some people say it “works”?

No one denies that people can have difficult problems in their lives, that at times they can be mentally unstable. Unfortunately, not only do psychiatrists not understand the etiology (cause) of any mental disorder, they cannot cure them. In effect, psychiatrists are still saying that mental problems are incurable and that the afflicted are condemned to lifelong suffering.
Psychiatric treatments such as TMS, however, are unworkable and dangerous, and while they may temporarily mask some symptoms they do not treat, correct or cure any physical disease or condition.

TMS may temporarily relieve the pressure that an underlying physical problem could be causing but it does not treat, correct or cure any physical disease or condition. This relief may have the person thinking he is better but that relief is not evidence that a psychiatric disorder exists. Ask an illicit drug user whether he feels better when snorting cocaine or smoking dope and he’ll believe that he is, even while the drugs are actually damaging him. Some depression treatments can have a “damping down” effect. They suppress the physical feelings associated with “depression” but they are not alleviating the condition or targeting what is causing it.

The brain is your body’s most energy–intensive organ. It represents only three percent of your body weight but uses twenty–five percent of your body’s oxygen, nutrients and circulating glucose. Therefore any significant metabolic disruptions such as TMS can impact brain function.

The brain stimulation breaks the routine rhythmic flows and activities of the nervous system. The nerves and other body systems are forced to do things they normally would not do. The human body, however, is unmatched in its ability to withstand and respond to such disruptions. The various systems fight back, trying to process the disruption, and work diligently to counterbalance its effect on the body.

But the body can only take so much. Quickly or slowly, the systems break down. Human physiology was not designed for this type of brain stimulation. Tissue damage may occur. Nerves may stop functioning normally. Organs and hormonal systems may go awry. This can be temporary, but it can also be long lasting, even permanent. Like a car run on rocket fuel, you may be able to get it to run a thousand miles an hour, but the tires, the engine, the internal parts, were never meant for this. The machine flies apart.

Side effects (adverse reactions) of TMS may include headache, scalp discomfort, facial muscle spasms, lightheadedness, fainting; altered endocrine, immune or neurotransmitter systems; loss of consciousness; seizures; mania; hearing loss; and, if the patient is depressed, the “treatment” may induce or exacerbate suicidal feelings. Adverse reactions are often delayed – i.e. may appear long after the patient has left the doctor’s office.

You may hear that TMS is called “noninvasive”, but it does impact the brain in ways that are not fully understood. One could say it is “noninvasive” in the same way that ECT is noninvasive – i.e. it doesn’t break the skin. Scorch marks not included. Little is known about the long-term side effects. Cognitive impairment has also been observed in some cases. Using different stimulation intensities and/or patterns may also have significant effects on the long-lasting outcomes.

Typical treatment involves a 40-minute session, five days a week, for four to six weeks. The cost can range from $6,000 to $10,000.

Physically intrusive and damaging practices such as TMS violate the doctor’s pledge to uphold the Hippocratic Oath and “Do no harm.”

New high-tech “treatments” for the brain will continue to be used to create the appearance of scientific progress, but in the end, psychiatry will be no closer to identifying any causes or effecting any cures; instead, their betrayal and brutality in the name of mental health continues. Psychiatry has proven only one thing — without the protection of basic human rights, there can only be diminished mental health.

Persons in desperate circumstances must be provided proper and effective medical care. The correct action on a seriously mentally disturbed person is a full, searching clinical examination by a competent medical doctor to discover and treat the true cause of the problem. Mental health facilities should have non-psychiatric medical experts on staff and be required to have a full complement of diagnostic equipment, which could prevent more than 40% of admissions by finding and treating undiagnosed physical conditions.

Click here for more information about the brutal reality of abusive psychiatric practices such as electroshock, TMS, deep brain stimulation, and psychosurgery.

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The Screeners are Screaming Again

Saturday, March 12th, 2016

The Screeners are Screaming Again

Just when you thought that calls for ubiquitous mental health screening was winding down, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is calling for widespread depression screening for children.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is made up of 16 volunteer members who are supposed to be experts in prevention, evidence-based medicine, and primary care. Task Force members are appointed by the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to serve 4-year terms. AHRQ is a federal government entity which is supposed to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide research on health care.

In February, 2016, the USPSTF recommended repeated and widespread primary care mental health screening for “major depressive disorder” in children aged 12 to 18 years. The usual “treatment” is SSRI psychiatric drugs.

While they admit that “Medications for the treatment of depression, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), have known harms,” they basically ignore the harms in order to push the screenings and the drugs.

Mental health screening is a test for so-called mental illness. A person who is screened and found to exhibit symptoms of mental distress can then be diagnosed with a mental “disease” or “disorder” and referred to a psychiatrist or psychiatric facility (or even to a General Practitioner) to be prescribed psychiatric drugs.

Mental health screening aims to get whole populations on drugs and thus under control. The kinds of drugs used create further medical and social problems, and these subsequent complications require additional taxes and laws to handle them. The net result is a sick and fearful population dependent on the government to “solve” all their problems.

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

Psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatric institutions, and other medical doctors prescribing psychiatric drugs and treatments must be made fully accountable for their funding, practices and treatments, and their results, or lack thereof — including prescribing antidepressants whose only results are harmful side effects.

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Risky Business of Sleep Drugs

Saturday, March 5th, 2016

Risky Business of Sleep Drugs

After reading about the dangers of sleeping pills in the February 2016 edition of Consumer Reports magazine, we thought you might like to know something about that.

Some psychotropic drugs are prescribed as sleeping pills. Trazodone, an antidepressant, is often prescribed off label as a sleeping pill. Benzodiazepines such as Valium are also prescribed as sleeping pills. Other examples are Ambien (an anti-psychotic), Lunesta (an anti-anxiety drug), and Sonata (another anti-anxiety drug).

These have all the potential side effects we have come to associate with psychiatric drugs — including violence, suicide, addiction, and so on.

The latest sleeping pill fad, touted as “the new insomnia drug”, is Belsomra (generic “suvorexant”). It is classified as a “sedative-hypnotic” which means it is a central nervous system depressant; it alters brain chemistry by targeting a neurotransmitter called orexin.

Belsomra is manufactured by Merck, Sharpe & Dohme Corporation, and was approved by the FDA for insomnia in August of 2014.

Guess what? This drug carries the same warnings as other psychotropic drugs; it may cause memory loss, anxiety, confusion, agitation, hallucinations, depression, addiction, and thoughts of suicide — all this along with its own special side effects: inability to move or talk, sleep-walking, sleep-driving, and drowsiness lasting through the next day.

Here is what Consumer Reports has to say about Belsomra: “…people who took a 15- or 20-milligram dose of Belsomra every night for three months fell asleep just 6 minutes faster on average than those who took a placebo. And those on Belsomra slept on average only 16 minutes longer than people given a placebo. Such small improvements didn’t translate to people feeling more awake the next day, either. Instead, more people who took Belsomra reported that they felt drowsy the next day than those who took a placebo.”

“Because of the limited benefits and substantial risks of sleeping pills, Consumer Reports’ medical experts advise that sleep drugs should be used with great caution.”

“Merck spent $36 million on TV ads for its new drug Belsomra from Aug. 1 to Nov. 24, 2015, making it the second most advertised Rx drug in that time frame, according to iSpot.tv. The ads note that Belsomra is the first drug to target orexin, a chemical that plays a role in keeping people awake. But Belsomra doesn’t work much, or any, better than other sleep drugs. And because it’s new, little is known about its long-term safety.”

One take-away here is that even if a prescription drug is not advertised or prescribed for psychiatric reasons, if it messes with the brain’s neurotransmitters and has all the same side-effects as a psychiatric drug — well, you must get the picture by now.

The Consumer Reports article goes on to discuss non-drug sleep alternatives at some length; it is a good and helpful read.

When your doctor prescribes a drug, it is good practice to ask questions so you can give your full informed consent. These are some example questions you can ask:

1. What is the evidence for the diagnosis?
2. How does the treatment affect the body?
3. How does the treatment affect the mind?
4. What unwanted effects may occur?
5. Is it approved by the FDA for this condition?
6. What is known and not known about how safe it is and how well it works?
7. What are the alternatives, including the option of no treatment?
8. Does the doctor or the clinic have a financial interest in pushing the diagnosis or treatment?

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Another Day Another Anti-depressant (Again)

Thursday, February 25th, 2016

Another Day Another Anti-depressant (Again)

On July 10, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Rexulti (brexpiprazole, an atypical antipsychotic) tablets to treat adults with so-called schizophrenia and as an add-on treatment to an antidepressant medication to treat adults with so-called major depressive disorder. We are now starting to see the TV ads for this.

Rexulti is manufactured by Tokyo-based Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. and its partner Lundbeck. It might be marketed as a replacement for Abilify (aripiprazole), although clinical trials for its usage to treat ADHD were discontinued, likely due to lack of efficacy. It is still a new drug that has not been tested over a long-term in a real-world population.

Rexulti and other such drugs have a Boxed Warning alerting health care professionals about an increased risk of death associated with the off-label use of these drugs to treat behavioral problems in older people with dementia-related psychosis.

The Boxed Warning also alerts health care professionals and patients to an increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults taking antidepressants.

It has the same pattern of debilitating side effects as any other antidepressant or antipsychotic, including addiction and suicidal thoughts and actions. The most common side effects reported by participants taking Rexulti in clinical trials included weight gain and an inner sense of restlessness (akathisia), such as feeling the need to move.

Rexulti is being touted as producing less akathisia, restlessness, and insomnia than other drugs, but it is important to be skeptical of this marketing due to the fact that clinical trials reported all of these side effects. Like all antipsychotics, Rexulti will likely have severe withdrawal symptoms.

While the way Rexulti works is completely unknown, it affects serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine neurotransmitters in the brain; and this effect is called a “serotonin-dopamine activity modulator”. Messing with neurotransmitters in the brain without really understanding how they work is serious business; we don’t recommend it. In any case, we can guarantee that this chemical-in-the-brain-based hypothesis is bogus. Full Informed Consent should be your watchword.

Rexulti was studied in two 6-week clinical trials of 1,054 patients aged 18-65. The patients selected for the studies took another antidepressant for at least 8 weeks. Twenty patients discontinued participation due to adverse reactions.  The incidences of akathisia and restlessness, and some other side effects, increased with increases in dose.

We must recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists and other medical practitioners 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. Taking such damaging drugs as Rexulti prevents people from finding out what is really wrong and fixing that.

CCHR believes that everyone has the right to full informed consent. FIND OUT! FIGHT BACK!

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The Name Game, Latuda

Wednesday, June 24th, 2015

The Name Game, Latuda

Latuda, Latuda, bo-buda
Banana-fana-fo-fuda
Fee-fi-mo-muda
Latuda

One might as well be talking gibberish, since Latuda does not make any sense. Unless you consider that it makes a lot of cents.

We recently saw a commercial on TV for Latuda (generic name lurasidone HCL), lauding its use for bipolar depression.

It’s another psychiatric drug, originally promoted for the symptoms called schizophrenia, and lately for bipolar depression. It’s similar to risperidone or olanzapine, an atypical anti-psychotic drug that alters the levels of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. The chemical class is called “benzisothiazol derivative.”

It was developed by Sumitomo Dainippan Pharma and marketed in the U.S. by Sunovian Pharmaceuticals.

The Latuda manufacturer’s website has this to say about it, “It’s not known exactly how Latuda works, and the precise way antipsychotics work is also unknown.”

Manufacturer warnings include, “Increased mortality rate in elderly patients … and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.”

867 other drugs are known to interact with it.

The side effects are similar to all other antipsychotics, and could be increased in intensity if the user drinks grapefruit juice with it.

An average dose is estimated to cost about $5,000 per year.

It was not tested in published clinical trials lasting longer than 6 weeks; and one of its trials failed to show any improvement at all.

At this point, it is definitely looking more like banana-fana than anything else. One might as well eat some bananas instead, it would be a whole lot healthier and likely just as effective.

We’re making fun of the psych drug, not the symptoms. People certainly can have mental trauma for which they might need help. We’re just saying, the psych drug is not help; it is, rather, harm.

Psychiatry is a harmful pseudo-science; they know it, they admit it. Don’t swallow it.

Go here for more information. Find Out! Fight Back!

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Germanwings Co-pilot Who Purposefully Crashed Plane Had Spent 18 Months In Psychiatric Treatment

Sunday, March 29th, 2015

Germanwings Co-pilot Who Purposefully Crashed Plane Had Spent 18 Months In Psychiatric Treatment

Numerous reports are now surfacing that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz who purposefully crashed Flight 9525 into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board, had in fact been under psychiatric care.

What media had not initially been reporting is the fact that Lubitz, in all likelihood was under the influence of antidepressants, drugs documented to cause depersonalization, mania, psychosis, and even homicidal ideation, considering he spent more than 18 months undergoing “psychiatric care.”

Late-breaking news from The Straits Times indicates that “German police have found medical treatments for psychological illness at the home of the co-pilot” and “Investigators made the discovery in a search of the home of Andreas Lubitz in the western city of Duesseldorf and seized a number ‘of medicines for the treatment of psychological illness’, Welt am Sonntag weekly said.”

Moreover, Lubitz would not be the first commercial pilot to purposefully crash a plane while under the influence of psychotropic drugs — In 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), issued a report on the probable cause of a 2008 plane crash in Mount Airy that killed everyone on board, showing that toxicology tests revealed the pilot had the antidepressant Zoloft in his system. The NTSB report stated, “Officials say the pilot ‘displayed non-professional behavior’ and that a cockpit voice recording documented the pilot singing, ‘Save my life, I’m going down for the last time'” shortly before crashing the plane.

The emerging facts regarding Lubitz’ psychiatric treatment:

Russia Today (RT) reports, “Lubitz had spent 18 months overall under psychiatric treatment, Bild (a German newspaper) reported on Friday, citing anonymous sources within Lufthansa, Germanwings’ parent company. The pilot was diagnosed with a ‘severe depressive episode’ in 2009.”

According to Reuters, “The pilot who appears to have deliberately crashed a plane carrying 149 others into the French Alps received psychiatric treatment for a ‘serious depressive episode’ …. Citing internal documents and Lufthansa sources, Bild said Lubitz spent a total of one and a half years in psychiatric treatment.”

The Guardian reports, “Investigators searching the Düsseldorf apartment of the co-pilot on the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps on Tuesday have found evidence he hid an illness from his employers, prosecutors said on Friday. The evidence is a torn-up doctors’ note, signing him off work on the day of the crash. ‘Medical documents were found that indicate an ongoing illness and suitable medical treatment,’ Düsseldorf prosecutors said in a statement.”

Mirror states that, “Killer co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was treated in hospital just two weeks before the plane crash which killed 150 people. The 27-year-old attended a clinic at the University of Dusseldorf Hospital in February and March. The most recent visit was March 10, exactly a fortnight before he guided the Germanwings Airbus A320 into its fatal descent. The hospital said Lubitz attended for ‘diagnostic evaluation’ but insisted he was not treated for depression…. They confirmed he was suffering from a serious illness which he had concealed from his employers Germanwings. One of the sick notes was reportedly signed by either a local neurologist or psychologist.”

While the psychotropic drug policies of Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, are unknown, in the U.S, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows the use of antidepressants among pilots, a policy instituted in 2008. This is despite the fact there have been 134 regulatory warnings from eleven countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Russian, Italy and Germany on antidepressants causing suicidal ideation.

Given the increasing number of questionable aircraft disasters, which, on their surface, provide no rhyme or reason for a motive, one may begin to question the use of antidepressants, especially in light of a 2007 FAA report that revealed that of the 61 air crashes between 1990-2001, “the pilot’s psychological condition and/or SSRI use was reported to be the probable cause or a contributing factor in 31% (19/61) of the accidents.”

The fact is, whether Lubitz was on psychiatric drugs, or in withdrawal from them, there is enough evidence to show that the use of antidepressants or other mind-altering psychiatric drugs by commercial pilots, in the U.S. and abroad, should be banned.

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