“The combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion) [in 2002]. Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself.” — Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine<\/p>\n
by Evelyn Pringle, Investigative Journalist<\/p>\n
Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May\/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs<\/em>.<\/p>\n Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs<\/em> found spending for mental health care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.<\/p>\n On April 22, 2009, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality<\/a> reported that in 2006 more money was spent on treating mental disorders in children aged 0 to 17 than for any other medical condition, with a total of $8.9 billion. By comparison, the cost of treating trauma-related disorders, including fractures, sprains, burns, and other physical injuries, was only $6.1 billion.<\/p>\n In 2008, psychiatric drug makers had overall sales in the US of $14.6 billion from antipsychotics, $9.6 billion off antidepressants, $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs and $4.8 billion in sales of ADHD drugs, for a grand total of $40.3 billion.<\/p>\n The path to child drugging in the US started with providing adolescents with stimulants for ADHD in the early 80s. That was followed by Prozac in the late 80s, and in the mid-90s drug companies started claiming that ADHD kids really had bipolar disorder, coinciding with the marketing of epilepsy drugs as “mood stablizers” and the arrival of the new atypical antipsychotics.<\/p>\n Parents can now have their kids declared disabled due to mental illness and receive Social Security disability payments and free medical care, and schools can get more money for disabled kids. The bounty for the prescribing doctors and pharmacies is enormous and the CEOs of the drug companies are laughing all the way into early retirement.<\/p>\n READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: http:\/\/www.truthout.org\/1213091<\/a><\/p>\n Actions to Take — What concerned citizens should do<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.\u00c2\u00a0Fill out the Psychiatric\u00c2\u00a0Living Will:\u00c2\u00a0follow the steps it recommends toward protecting yourself against enforced psychotropic drugging. Download it from www.cchr.org\/education<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2. Use the advance directives: Sign the “Parent’s Exemption Form Prior to Mental Health and Psychological Screening or Counseling” and the “Student Exemption Form Prior to Mental Health and Psychological Screening or Counseling.” Download these from www.cchr.org\/education<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3. Promote and distribute the\u00c2\u00a0model law\u00c2\u00a0for protection against invasive mental health screening and psychotropic drugs. Download “Regulation of the Use of Psychotropic Substances in Children and Teenagers” from www.cchr.org\/education<\/a>.<\/p>\n 4. Increase public awareness by distributing CCHR booklets, pamphlets and DVDs, and promoting the CCHR web sites. Go to www.cchr.org\/education<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n 5. Report adverse drug reactions to the FDA at http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/medwatch\/<\/a><\/p>\n 6. Help victims of human rights abuses by psychiatrists obtain justice. Go to www.cchr.org\/education<\/a> and download the “Chronology of Sample Lawsuits about Psychotropic Drugs.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The bounty for psychiatrists to drug children is enormous. Continue reading
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