My Trip Through the Polypharmacy Blender

A long story by Rory Tennes on the Risx website, describing his descent into psychiatric hell.

We only present a few snippets, and recommend reading the full article.

I was asked by David Healy to write my own story after he read my comment on another RxISK story. I agreed but have been surprised how hard it was to sit down and do it. I knew the story, the words were in my head. Yet I avoided getting started. Perhaps it was because of the painful emotions I knew it would bring to the surface. Or maybe because it reminds me of the pain and suffering my family had to endure, how much we lost and the fact that I may not be able to do anything about it. Or it could be my frustration from the cognitive difficulties I still have, making writing a difficult task that drains what little energy I have.

My trip started this way: I was ill, injured and in pain. I went to my doctors for help, and they proceeded to drug me into oblivion. My PCP or “family doctor” diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. I don’t think he really knew what I had, but once he put a name on my symptoms, he started throwing drugs at them. I was in constant pain, chronically fatigued and began to have severe bouts of anxiety. For four years I saw doctor after doctor but none of them could tell me what was wrong, or why I was getting worse not better despite all the drugs. It turns out I had autoimmune arthritis. I’d had it for 30 years, and since it was misdiagnosed and untreated for so long, my spine was a total wreck.

I have worked in construction for 38 years, as a skilled tilesetter with my own business. I love the work but it can be rough on the back. I am now on disability due to a combination of my disease and the multiple toxic “treatments” I was put on.

[...]

Before my trip through the Pharma looking glass began, I had quit drinking altogether. I had been sober for five years, solidly sober and liked it. In October 2010 I was on Trazodone and Wellbutrin. When Flexeril and Naprelan were added, within weeks I suddenly had strong urges to drink, which had been totally absent until that point. I now know that Flexeril (cyclo-benzaprine) acts just like a tricyclic antidepressant and should never be mixed with trazodone or Wellbutrin. The urge and the thoughts of drinking came on suddenly and very strong.

I made two trips to alcohol rehab, attended AA regularly but could not stay sober to save my life. I had numerous run-ins with the law as well. My behavior had become so bizarre, unpredictable, unstable and dangerous that I thought I had lost my mind and myself completely. I had no control over my thoughts, emotions or behavior, no matter what I did or how hard I tried. I watched my family suffer horribly in fear and confusion at what was happening.

Now I know why. Drugs can drive people to drink for relief from the agonizing akathisia that they cause. Couple that with the disinhibiting effect of the drugs, and it’s a recipe for alcoholism. That’s not just true for the antidepressants, but Lyrica too. The warning on Lyrica says that “People who have had a drinking problem in the past may be prone to abuse Lyrica.” It really should say: “If you take Lyrica you may have strong, uncontrollable urges to drink.” Lyrica can cause alcohol abuse, I have no doubt. So can Cymbalta, Zoloft and several other drugs I was on. I didn’t have a chance in hell to stay sober on those drugs.

[...]

Long Island woman says psych ward doctors believed she was delusional for insisting Obama follows her on Twitter

From the New York Daily News

A Long Island woman’s insistence that President Obama follows her on Twitter made doctors at the Harlem Hospital psych ward think she was delusional and suffering from bipolar disorder — but she was actually telling the truth, a lawsuit charges. Kam Brock’s frightening eight-day “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” ordeal at the mental facility included forced injections of powerful sedatives and demands she down doses of lithium, medical records obtained through her suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court show. They also indicate that doctors didn’t believe the leader of the free world followed her on Twitter — though @BarackObama follows over 640,000 accounts, including hers. They were also skeptical she worked at a bank, records show.

“I told (the doctor) Obama follows me on Twitter to show her the type of person I am. I’m a good person, a positive person. Obama follows positive people!” Brock, whose Twitter handle is @AkilahBrock, said.

A “master treatment plan” from Harlem Hospital backs up the Astoria Bank worker’s story.

“Objective: Patient will verbalize the importance of education for employment and will state that Obama is not following her on Twitter,” the document reads.

It also notes “patient’s weaknesses: inability to test reality, unemployment.”

Adding insult to insanity, the hospital hit Brock with a bill of $13,637.10, she charges in her suit seeking unspecified damages.

The bizarre experience began Sept. 12, when the NYPD seized her prized 2003 BMW 325Ci in Harlem because they suspected she was high on weed, her attorney, Michael Lamonsoff, said. Cops found no marijuana but confiscated her ride anyway, he said. The NYPD declined to comment.

The following day, Brock walked into the NYPD’s Public Service Area 6 stationhouse in Harlem to retrieve her car, her suit charges. Brock — an eccentric 32-year-old born in Jamaica with dreams of making it big in the entertainment business — admitted in an interview she was “emotional,” but insisted she in no way is an “emotionally disturbed person.” Nevertheless, cops cuffed her and put her in an ambulance bound for the hospital, her suit charges.

“Next thing you know, the police held onto me, the doctor stuck me with a needle and I was knocked out,” Brock said, tearing up. “I woke up to them taking off my underwear and then went out again. I woke up the next day in a hospital robe.”

Lamonsoff said race may have been a factor in the way Brock was treated. “How would you act if you were being told you were crazy?” he said. For eight days, she attended group therapy, endured injections of sedatives, and took lorazepam and lithium, medical records show, according to Lamonsoff.

When she was finally let go, the doctors didn’t tell her why she was being allowed to leave, Brock said. Harlem Hospital declined to comment. The city Law Department said the suit would be reviewed.

Psychiatric Misdiagnosis Due To Cultural Differences

As seen in this recent article at Philly.com

[...]

Interpreting language is complex, and many things can get in the way of effective communications, says Price-Wise. First, many people don’t know much about physiology and anatomy. It’s difficult to communicate what’s not well understood by the patient or interpreter. Second, the interpreter must be able to remember what the patient said, and the patient may have taken quite a bit of time to describe his or her problems. Third, the interpreter may give a summary of what he or she thought was important and, unwittingly, leave out clinically-relevant information; alternatively, the interpreter may decide not to relay information, because it’s embarrassing, or the interpreter may not relay information from the doctor to the patient to avoid upsetting the patient. Untrained interpreters may also add their own opinions. These errors and omissions can impact a diagnosis or treatment plan, Price-Wise notes. Trained interpreters, on the other hand, have the same conversation as if they spoke the same language, Price-Wise says.

Further complicating communications are false cognates, words that sound alike in two languages but have different meanings. For example, “embarrasada” in Spanish means pregnant, not “embarrassed.”

Price-Wise also broached a case in which a teenager who arrived in the emergency room was treated for a drug overdose, because his family believed he had food poisoning, “intoxicado,” in Spanish. In fact, he had a brain hemorrhage that was overlooked as a result of the misinterpretation of a word that sounded like “intoxicated.” He was left a quadriplegic.

[...]

“Our work suggests that, in African Americans compared with both Latino and non-Latino whites, clinicians excessively weight psychotic symptoms…in African-Americans as the expense of mood and anxiety symptoms during clinical assessments, leading to an erroneous conclusion of schizophrenia in the former,” says Stephen M. Strakowski, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience, psychology, and biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Strakowski points out that hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorders are not disease specific. They can occur as a result of a brain tumor, stroke, or infection, among other non-psychiatric conditions, or drug abuse, depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, among others.

“Schizophrenia is not supposed to be diagnosed until other causes of psychosis are ruled out,” Strakowski says.

Strakowski says the reasons for the overweighting are not known, but he thinks it could be that clinicians are misinterpreting distrust of doctors among African Americans as paranoia, or clinicians may be missing the symptoms of PTSD, which, Strakowski says, can mimic psychotic symptoms. He also thinks it’s possible that it could result from a delay among African Americans in getting treatment so that they are more ill on presentation. Or, it may be due to a failure among clinicians to understand the cultural differences in idioms of distress with regard to mood symptoms.

[...]

Judge allows portion of lawsuit filed by man locked up for 19 years

From a Report in the Journal Star

A federal judge ruled last week that parts, but not all, of a Florida man's lawsuit can go forward against his former doctors at the Lincoln Regional Center, where he was locked up for more than 19 years on a misdiagnosis.

For years, John Montin's doctors said his denials that he was mentally ill were evidence that he was.

But in 2013, his treatment team agreed with him. It was a medication-induced psychosis that led to an incident in Hayes County and his commitment at the Regional Center, the team said, and a judge let him out.

In July, Montin sued his former doctors, alleging:

• that his former doctors and treatment team members had deprived him of his rights, a so-called 1983 civil rights claim, and
• that they hadn't met the standard of care, a state medical malpractice claim.

He is seeking more than $22 million in damages for incorrectly being labeled mentally ill and for unnecessarily being held and subjected to treatments he didn't need. He also is seeking $760,000 in lost wages and $10 million in punitive damages.

In a decision that was neither all good nor all bad for either side, Senior U.S. District Judge Lyle Strom refused to dismiss Montin's case, a move the doctors had sought. But the judge also refused to let Montin go forward on a number of theories, including unnecessary bodily restraint.

While the doctors' annual reports might have kept Montin in the locked hospital for more than 19 years, they hadn't shackled him to his bed or otherwise physically restrained him there.

Montin also cannot go forward on a theory that his doctors hadn't made truthful disclosures in their reports. In other words, Montin had alleged that at some point the doctors had to know his diagnosis was wrong.

But Strom did allow Montin to go forward on a theory alleging that the doctors retaliated against him because he kept filing lawsuits.

And the judge refused to throw out the case on an argument by the Nebraska Attorney General's office, which represents most of the defendants, that the state employees couldn't be sued because they were acting essentially as part of the judicial process.

"The court disagrees," Strom wrote in the order.

Much much more at the link

The sham drug idea of the year: 'pink Viagra'

Snippet from from an Op-Ed featured in the LA Times by Ellen Laan and Leonore Tiefer

Ellen Laan is an associate professor of sexology at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and a Kinsey Institute research fellow. Leonore Tiefer is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine and founder of the New View Campaign

Many women report losing their desire for sex, some temporarily, some permanently. Is this a relationship problem, a normal aspect of life changes or, as the pharmaceutical industry maintains, an “unmet medical need”? That was the question under consideration for two days of meetings in late October, during which the Food and Drug Administration heard from sexual medicine experts and women with sexual complaints.

It was a rowdy meeting by sedate, scientific standards, and months of public relations campaigning had preceded it. The International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, which is largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry, had joined with Sprout Pharmaceuticals and other companies with skin in the game to develop two slick campaigns, “eventhescore.org” and “womendeserve.org,” which argued that the FDA's failure to approve a drug to treat women's sexual problems was “sexist.” After all, men have Viagra and its various relatives.

The patients told stories of their frustrations and distress, but they appeared to have been coached to demand drug solutions. They acknowledged that their travel expenses to the meeting had been paid. Wearing matching green scarves and buttons proclaiming “#WomenDeserve,” the women described the mixed results and side effects of their various off-label treatments, including implanted testosterone pellets, testosterone gels and antidepressants. They insisted they had no nonmedical problems. Their desire had simply “turned off like a light switch,” as one woman said, sometimes as much as 30 years earlier, and they wanted it back, routine and predictable.

As professional sexologists and advocates of women's sexual rights, we were horrified by the campaigns' use and abuse of the language of equality to pressure the FDA to approve a potential billion-dollar blockbuster “pink Viagra.”

The only two drugs for women's sexual dysfunctions that have come to the FDA in the 16 years since Viagra was approved were rejected. One was Sprout's drug, flibanserin, then owned by a German company. The drugs for women didn't work and were unsafe. Not approving them isn't sexism, it's proper regulation.

The campaigns to “even the score” are deceptive for several reasons.

[...]

There is absolutely no evidence for womendeserve.org's claim that “a biological lack of desire to have sex negatively impacts 1 in 10 American women.”

No diagnostic test has identified any biological cause — brain, hormone, genital blood flow — for most women's sexual problems. On the contrary, abundant evidence shows that low sexual desire in women typically reflects a difference in desire between two partners. It is unethical and unscientific to attribute a couple's discrepancy in desire to the woman's biological deficit. In study after study, women's response to both test medications and placebo drugs is high. These repeated findings do not support the “unmet medical need” theory.

Emphasis added by this blogger.

Be sure to read the full Op-ED at this link

Two Top Liability Risks for Psychiatrists: Patients with Suicidal Behavior and Psychopharmacology

Snippets from a Press Release by PRM, still relevant today

Patient suicides may trigger the most lawsuits, but according to PRMS data, cases with the largest verdicts or settlements don't involve the death of a patient, but significant and permanent physical and neurological damage requiring lifelong care. Such damage can occur from things like renal failure from lithium toxicity, severe Stevens-Johnson Syndrome or brain damage from a suicide attempt.

"Defensive medicine is not the answer," said Jacqueline Melonas, RN, MS, JD, Senior Vice President of Risk Management for PRMS. "Care that has a sound clinical basis that also is well-documented is the best way to avoid or, if necessary, defend lawsuits."

[...]

Donna Vanderpool, MBA, JD, Assistant Vice President of Risk Management for PRMS, noted that breach of duty or negligence is just one element of a malpractice lawsuit. Other elements include duty of care (to meet a standard of care), damages or harm to the patient, and causation (the harm was caused by the breach).

"A plaintiff has to prove all four elements to win a medical malpractice lawsuit," Vanderpool noted.

During the session, PRMS also focused on another high-risk area for psychiatrists: psychopharmacology.

"Most psychiatric ailments are treated at least in part with medication, and much can go wrong when prescribing," said Denita Neal, JD, a Risk Manager with PRMS. Issues might include prescribing negligently, failing to monitor the medication or failing to obtain inadequate informed consent.

The Drugs, They Do Nothing!

Some selected snippets from this report

Short-term Intensive Treatment Not Likely to Improve Long-term Outcomes for Children with ADHD

Initial positive results gleaned from intensive treatment of childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are unlikely to be sustained over the long term, according to a recent analysis of data from the NIMH-funded Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA). The study was published online ahead of print March 2009 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Using reports from parents and teachers as well as self-reports from the children, now high school-aged, the researchers found that the youth’s functioning remained improved overall compared to their functioning at the beginning of the study, suggesting that available treatments can still be effective. However, they also found the following:

• The eight-year follow-up revealed no differences in symptoms or functioning among the youths assigned to the different treatment groups as children. This result suggests that the type or intensity of a one-year treatment for ADHD in childhood does not predict future functioning.
  
• A majority (61.5 percent) of the children who were medicated at the end of the 14-month trial had stopped taking medication by the eight-year follow-up, suggesting that medication treatment may lose appeal with families over time. The reasons for this decline are under investigation, but they nevertheless signal the need for alternative treatments.
  
• Children who were no longer taking medication at the eight-year follow-up were generally functioning as well as children who were still medicated, raising questions about whether medication treatment beyond two years continues to be beneficial or needed by all.

Basically, parents become disillusioned with the failed promise of the easy fix of drugs for the treatment of this "condition"

'Are You Sure You're Not Psychotic?' Asks Shameless Drug Company.

Commentary by Martha Rosenberg on OpEd News

If 100 million Americans have high cholesterol and only 8 million have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, how can AstraZeneca's Seroquel not cholesterol pill Crestor be its second best selling pill?

Right after its number one pill, the Purple Performer Nexium?

Can anyone say disease mongering?

For years, AstraZeneca has tried to convince depressed people they are really bipolar and need to take the atypical antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) which is only approved for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

"Is It Really Depression or Could It Be Bipolar Disorder?" trumpet the ads, urging unaware victims to take a Symptom Quiz and find out how sick they really are.

Full color spreads run in general interest magazines showing a rampaging woman her mouth contorted--think female Dark Knight--asking readers is this you?

"Are there periods of time when you have racing thoughts? Fly off the handle at little things? Spend out of control? Need less sleep? Feel irritable? You may need treatment for bipolar disorder."

Now the FDA says AstraZeneca can not--repeat not--market Seroquel for depression.

In December the FDA denied approval of Seroquel for major depressive disorder and asked the company instead for more information in a complete response letter (CRL).

Oops.

Of course to be AstraZeneca's number two pill, Seroquel must be used by more than the nation's schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients who number only 8 million.

Almost half of Seroquel's 2006 sales were for off label uses says Bloomberg news including depression, autism and hyperactivity in adolescents and dementia, insomnia and Alzheimer's disease in the elderly.

Which wouldn't be so bad if Seroquel were safe.

But AstraZeneca faces nine thousand lawsuits--15,026 plaintiffs-- alleging the company failed to adequately warn patients about Seroquel side effects like severe weight gain, diabetes and pancreatitis.

Even as AstraZeneca vowed to defend the suits on their merits and not capitulate like Lilly with its $1.48 billion settlement with 32 states over similar drug Zyprexa this year, more bad ink spilled.

Documents surfaced in December that showed AstraZeneca knew as far back as 2000 about Seroquel's dangerous side effects at a pretrial hearing in a Tampa, Florida federal court for an upcoming Seroquel trial.

There was "reasonable evidence to suggest Seroquel therapy can cause" diabetes and related conditions wrote Wayne Geller, AstraZeneca's Global Safety Officer after analyzing available studies and internal trials says Bloomberg news.

Created in 1988 and approved for schizophrenia in 1997, Seroquel had an "efficient" journey from R&D to sales.

But in 2005 an article in the New England Journal of Medicine found Seroquel and other atypical antipsychotics except one had no advantage over the older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. Including the reduction in rigidity and tremors which was sold as their advantage over the old drugs!

The same year, an article in the British Medical Journal found Seroquel and a similar atypical antipsychotic were ineffective in reducing agitation among Alzheimer's patients and actually made cognitive functioning worse.

And in AstraZeneca's own clinical trials, 2.4 percent of people who began treatment with normal blood sugar became technically diabetic after 52 weeks on Seroquel plaintiff lawyer Paul Pennock testified at the Tampa pretrial hearing-- almost a 70 percent increase over those not taking the drug.

Nor can AstraZeneca claim it has marketed Seroquel legally and for approved uses only.

On Thursday, January 3, 2008, an AstraZeneca sales rep "made an unsolicited sales call to a physician at his office" and "stated that Seroquel was approved for treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)," charges a letter sent to James L. Gaskil, Pharm.D., Director of AstraZeneca's Promotional Regulatory Affairs from FDA Regulatory Review Officer Amy Toscano, Pharm.D. in December.

When the physician asked for written information, the rep sent a mailing with "information about Seroquel and Seroquel XR's use for MDD, and included summaries of eight clinical trials with referenced citations. This mailing was not the result of an unsolicited request by the physician, but rather was prompted by the sales representative's statements," charges the FDA.

AstraZeneca reps were even coached to sell product using the A.A. Milne figures Tigger--bipolar!--and Eeyore--depressed!-- reports the pharma site Pharmalot.

The characterizations could come in handy.

In December AstraZeneca sought approval from the FDA for Nexium for the "overlooked GERD population" of "patients ages 0 to 1 year old."

"While some reflux and regurgitation are normal in infants and may not require medical treatment," says Marta Illueca, MD, AstraZeneca's Nexium Brand Medical Director, "Close medical supervision is key in the appropriate diagnosis and choice of treatment for these infants."

They may have bipolar disorder too.

Welcome to Chemical Imbalance.org

As posted as an introduction on Chemical Imbalance.org

This website provides scholarly information on mental health topics of interest to helping professionals, as well as to the general public. We focus primarily on two controversial areas in the field of mental health. First, we examine the popular notion that depression and anxiety are caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters which is corrected by antidepressant medication. Second, we discuss the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on psychiatric research. We also cover related topics, such as consumer advertising of psychiatric medications, clinical trial research, and media coverage of these issues.

The information on this site is for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. If you take psychiatric medications, please be aware that stopping them suddenly can be dangerous. Please consult with your prescribing physician regarding all treatment decisions.

We welcome them to the discussion.

The suicide rate now is roughly where it was in 1965 despite 20 years of sticking Americans on anti-depressants

Furious season has a quick summary of a long article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine on Suicide. One tidbit of note:

I also admire his pointing out that the suicide rate now is roughly where it was in 1965 despite 20 years of sticking Americans on anti-depressants and the like, and that once some would-be jumpers are stopped, they never again try to kill themselves.

.Here's the quote from the NY times:

Then there is the most disheartening aspect of the riddle. The National Institute of Mental Health says that 90 percent of all suicide “completers” display some form of diagnosable mental disorder. But if so, why have advances in the treatment of mental illness had so little effect? In the past 40 years, whole new generations of antidepressant drugs have been developed; crisis hotline centers have been established in most every American city; and yet today the nation’s suicide rate (11 victims per 100,000 inhabitants) is almost precisely what it was in 1965.

Would it be too much to say that maybe they are not diagnosing the correct problem? That changing and rotating the tires will not fix a blown engine?

How Prozac sent the 'science of depression' in the wrong direction

An Article by Jonah Lehrer, as seen in the Boston Globe (Highlights given below)

Note: Of course, maybe the drugs aren't the cure in the first place, because the actual problem is not being addressed at all.

Given the numerous side effects of drugs like prozac, maybe the best therapy would be a national health and exercise program. Not that anyone would actually want to get this into law.

UpDate: Psych Central has also picked up on this

Although researchers have known for years this not to be the case, some drug companies continue to repeat this simplistic and misleading claim in their marketing and advertising materials. Why the FTC or some other federal agency doesn’t crack down on this intentional misleading information is beyond me.

Here are some original snippets from the original article as seen in the Globe:

---

Prozac is one of the most successful drugs of all time. Since its introduction as an antidepressant more than 20 years ago, Prozac has been prescribed to more than 54 million people around the world,

[...]

For decades, researchers struggled to identify the underlying cause of depression, and patients were forced to endure a series of ineffective treatments. But then came Prozac. Like many other antidepressants, Prozac increases the brain's supply of serotonin, a neurotransmitter. The drug's effectiveness inspired an elegant theory, known as the chemical hypothesis: Sadness is simply a lack of chemical happiness. The little blue pills cheer us up because they give the brain what it has been missing.

There's only one problem with this theory of depression: it's almost certainly wrong, or at the very least woefully incomplete. Experiments have since shown that lowering people's serotonin levels does not make them depressed, nor does it does not make them depressed, nor does it worsen their symptoms if they are already depressed.

In recent years, scientists have developed a novel theory of what falters in the depressed brain. Instead of seeing the disease as the result of a chemical imbalance, these researchers argue that the brain's cells are shrinking and dying. This theory has gained momentum in the past few months, with the publication of several high profile scientific papers.

[...]

These discoveries are causing scientists to fundamentally re-imagine depression. While the mental illness is often defined in terms of its emotional symptoms - this led a generation of researchers to search for the chemicals, like serotonin, that might trigger such distorted moods - researchers are now focusing on more systematic changes in the depressed brain.

[...]

The progress exemplifies an important feature of modern medicine, which is the transition from a symptom-based understanding of a disease - depression is an illness of unrelenting sadness - to a more detailed biological understanding, in which the disease is categorized and treated based on its specific anatomical underpinnings.

In the 19th century, the "fever" was a common medical illness. Of course, doctors now realize that a fever is merely a common symptom of many different diseases, from the flu to leukemia.

Likewise, when Richard Nixon declared a "War on Cancer" in 1971, scientists largely defined cancer in terms of its most tangible characteristic: uncontrolled growth leading to a tumor. As a result, every cancer was treated with the same blunt tools. Over time, of course, scientists have discovered that cancer is not a single disease with a single biological cause. Breast cancer, for instance, can be triggered by a wide variety of genes and environmental risk factors. Because doctors can look beyond the superficial similarities of the symptoms - all tumors are not created equal - they are able to tailor their treatments to the specific disease.

Neuroscience is only beginning to catch up. Thanks to a variety of new experimental tools, such as brain scanners and DNA microarrays, researchers are now refining their understanding of mental illness. In many instances, this means recategorizing disorders, so that patients are no longer diagnosed solely in terms of their most obvious symptoms.

"We used to think there was only one kind of anemia," says Arturas Petronis, a scientist at the University of Toronto who investigates the underlying causes of schizophrenia. "But now we know there are at least 15 different kinds. We'll likely learn the same thing about many mental illnesses."

[...]

It is jarring to think of depression in terms of atrophied brain cells, rather than an altered emotional state. It is called "depression," after all. Yet these scientists argue that the name conceals the fundamental nature of the illness, in which the building blocks of the brain - neurons - start to crumble. This leads, over time, to the shrinking of certain brain structures, like the hippocampus, which the brain needs to function normally.

In fact, many scientists are now paying increased attention to the frequently neglected symptoms of people suffering from depression, which include problems with learning and memory and sensory deficits for smell and taste.

Other researchers are studying the ways in which depression interferes with basic bodily processes, such as sleeping, sex drive, and weight control. Like the paralyzing sadness, which remains the most obvious manifestation of the mental illness, these symptoms are also byproducts of a brain that's literally withering away.

"Depression is caused by problems with the most fundamental thing the brain does, which is process information," says Eero Castren, a neuroscientist at the University of Helsinki. "It's much more than just an inability to experience pleasure."

This new scientific understanding of depression also offers a new way to think about the role of drugs in recovery. While antidepressants help brain cells recover their vigor and form new connections, Castren says that patients must still work to cement these connections in place, perhaps with therapy. He compares antidepressants with anabolic steroids, which increase muscle mass only when subjects also go to the gym.

"If you just sit on your couch, then steroids aren't going to be very effective," he says. "Antidepressants are the same way: if you want the drug to work for you, then you have to work for the drug."

Psychologists Suffer Head-in-the-Sand Disorder: A Critical Review of Electrosensitivity Research

As seen in the American Chronicle

Psychology and psychiatry are significantly inventive professions in which every human behavior outside expectation is compartmentalized and labeled as abnormal. Compartmentalizing the behavior of others helps clinicians to think they understand behavior that is perceived as unusual or is beyond their own realm of understanding.

For example, a psychologist in New York may observe a trembling man in the park "obsessively" moving from tree to tree and breaking a single flower off of each tree. The psychologist is likely to consider this behavior abnormal. Depending on other factors, a diagnosis such as obsessive compulsive disorder, delusions, psychosis, or something much less specific like generalized anxiety disorder maybe be suspect.

However, if the psychologist were to simply ask the man what he was doing, it may turn out that the man is visiting from Hawaii, suffers from Parkinson´s, and is in New York for his daughters graduation from college. The flowers are for his wife to make their daughter a traditional Hawaiian lei. It is their family custom to select the single best flower from each of dozens of trees to create a perfect lei. The man´s behavior was very normal and quite acceptable in his culture, yet the psychologist´s perception of the man was of someone who is mentally ill simply because the behavior was unfamiliar to him.

This phenomenon is due in large part to the intimidation people feel when faced with someone who looks different, thinks originally, or has unfamiliar or opposing beliefs. Fear is a factor in the face of these uncertainties and someone who acts outside expectations presents a frightening situation for many people, including psychologists. This leads to trying to define the behavior without a full understanding of what the behavior really is.

It is this fear that has lead to the pathologizing of nearly every normal human behavior from grief (depression) to discussing an illness (obsession) to fearing loss of income due to a recession (anxiety) to an asthmatic walking around someone wearing a strong perfume that is triggering an attack (antisocial personality disorder).

Pathologizing people who are dissimilar as mentally ill gives the impression that only those who chose conformity are normal, while at the same time oppressing those who think freely. The majority of so-called mental illnesses in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (DSM) are merely figments of clinicians´ vivid imaginations. Labeling choices and behaviors as disorders only brings solace to the clinician frightened by unfamiliar behavior. Choice and behavior are relative to the differences in human beings, their individual and inherent nature, and their personalities.

Behaviors are the result of normal processes. Once considered a mental illness, asthma is an example of a physical disorder that results in certain behaviors that are unexpected by others who do not have asthma. An asthmatic may practice avoidance of fragrances and cigarette smoke which trigger respiratory inflammation. Homosexuality, a mere choice of sexual partners, was also once listed in the DSM as a mental illness.

However, labeling behavior in one of the classifications in the DSM is currently required for insurance billing purposes. Statistics are created from this data. Drugs companies, who often fund clinician´s conferences and provide gifts and promotional freebies, then vie to create drugs to treat these fictitious abnormalities. Hence, financial motives drive the modern profession. Labeling and compartmentalizing scrutinized behavior is, in most cases, merely compartmentalizing normal human behavior, which does, after all, increase business.

There is no confirmation that psychological conditions exist. They are diagnosed based on mere subjective reporting by the patient and subjective observation by the clinician. There are no scientific, clinical tests to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that an abnormality really does exist. The DSM is then a sham and the unsuspecting public is the victim.

The proposal that psychology be considered a science is attributable to Wilhelm Wundt. The profession now turns out many peer-reviewed scientific studies which are leading, but inconclusive. Further, these studies make inaccurate suppositions that fail on their face to take into account all the potential cause and effect scenarios, often placing the cart before the horse.


An example is a study that explores the correlations between stress and cancer and then concludes that stress causes cancer simply because patients with cancer frequently report feeling stressed. It is the professional norm to assume that stress causes cancer, yet cancer is a very stressful disease to have and may indeed be the sole cause of the stress. Chemotherapy is physically stressful and the uncertainly of impending death and/or imminent financial ruin is stressful. Inability to work, lack of family support, worry over the welfare of children, and many other factors are capable of increasing stress post-diagnoses. Yet the profession makes the automatic assumption that stress may cause cancer and fails to so much as even examine the fact that cancer may cause stress. Cancer patients are then advised by journal reading clinicians to avoid stress and relax to improve their condition.

Further thoughtful exploration reveals that stress is a normal human process. Test subjects placed in sensory deprivation chambers where they floated calmly and peacefully for long periods of time have developed psychoses from lack of stress. Everyone has stress, both good stressors (eustress) and bad stressors (distress). Yet everyone with stress does not develop cancer, which is a red flag of contradictory thinking.

The latest example of the profession placing the cart before the horse with leading, but inconclusive, findings was committed by the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy at the University of Regensburg, Germany by Landgrebe and colleagues. In their study "Neuronal correlates of symptom formation in functional somatic syndromes", Landgrebe believes that there is increasing evidence for the contribution of emotional and cognitive functions to symptom formation in functional somatic syndromes and symptom manifestation in electrosensitivity and multiple chemical sensitivity.

Functional somatic syndrome is characterized by a constellation of symptoms and suffering that cannot be conclusively traced to a demonstrable abnormality as a result of science repositioning leisurely and having yet to detect a biochemical etiology.

Landgrebe believes sham mobile phone radiation would induce unpleasant "perceptions", as opposed to real physical stimulus, in electrosensitive (ES) patients. The tests subjects were exposed to sham mobile phone radiation and heat, which produced unpleasantness that Landgrebe blames as the trigger which generates functional somatic syndromes. We are lead to believe that this "sham" exposure made the electrosensitive subjects "think" they were being exposed and therefore having a reaction.

The picture is very different when employing free critical thinking. When we ask what generated the "heat" in these so-called "sham" exposures to mobile phone radiation, we find the heat was likely generated by something electric with an electromagnetic frequency (EMF) that would trigger a reaction in an ES individual, suggesting the exposure was far from a "sham" and therefore, the symptoms far from perceived.

Regrettably, research like this does not actually endeavor to understand how such exposures may "cause" an emotional effect. Instead it is automatically assumed that emotions cause the effects without coming full circle to explore the other possibility. This results in frequent unnecessary, and financially lucrative, drugging of patients. Staunchly standing behind their convictions in the name profits and kickbacks, the evidence that these mind numbing drugs don´t work to improve the subjects ES symptoms is disregarded.

Significantly inventive professions, psychology and psychiatry fail to make the grade once again. The victims of electrosensitivity, multiple chemical sensitivity and other ailments that they label as so-called "functional somatic syndromes" are left with unproven and pathetically hopeless ideas which do nothing to alleviate their suffering. The diagnosis given to the profession is "head-in-the-sand" disorder, which seems to be correlated with their research. Therefore, being a psychiatric researcher causes one to develop head-in-the-sand disorder.

Reference

Landgrebe M, Barta W, Rosengarth K, Frick U, Hauser S, Langguth B, Rutschmann R, Greenlee MW, Hajak G, Eichhammer P. Neuronal correlates of symptom formation in functional somatic syndromes: A fMRI study. Neuroimage. 2008 Apr 20. [Epub ahead of print]

Solid evidence that artificial food additives can cause ADHD-like symptoms

As reported in the medical journal the Lancet; here's the abstract:

Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial

Donna McCann PhD a, Angelina Barrett BSc a, Alison Cooper MSc a, Debbie Crumpler BSc a, Lindy Dalen PhD a, Kate Grimshaw MSc b, Elizabeth Kitchin BSc a, Kris Lok MSc a, Lucy Porteous BSc a, Emily Prince MSc a, Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke PhD a, Prof John O Warner MD c and Prof Jim Stevenson PhD email address a Corresponding Author Information
Summary
Background

We undertook a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to test whether intake of artificial food colour and additives (AFCA) affected childhood behaviour.

Methods

153 3-year-old and 144 8/9-year-old children were included in the study. The challenge drink contained sodium benzoate and one of two AFCA mixes (A or B) or a placebo mix. The main outcome measure was a global hyperactivity aggregate (GHA), based on aggregated z-scores of observed behaviours and ratings by teachers and parents, plus, for 8/9-year-old children, a computerised test of attention. This clinical trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials (registration number ISRCTN74481308). Analysis was per protocol.

Findings

16 3-year-old children and 14 8/9-year-old children did not complete the study, for reasons unrelated to childhood behaviour. Mix A had a significantly adverse effect compared with placebo in GHA for all 3-year-old children (effect size 0·20 [95% CI 0·01–0·39], p=0·044) but not mix B versus placebo. This result persisted when analysis was restricted to 3-year-old children who consumed more than 85% of juice and had no missing data (0·32 [0·05–0·60], p=0·02). 8/9-year-old children showed a significantly adverse effect when given mix A (0·12 [0·02–0·23], p=0·023) or mix B (0·17 [0·07–0·28], p=0·001) when analysis was restricted to those children consuming at least 85% of drinks with no missing data.

Interpretation

Artificial colours or a sodium benzoate preservative (or both) in the diet result in increased hyperactivity in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the general population.

Affiliations

a. School of Psychology, Department of Child Health, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
b. School of Medicine, Department of Child Health, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
c. Department of Paediatrics, Imperial College, London, UK

First-ever government review shows fluoride may be toxic to the thyroid gland causing fatigue, weight gain, fuzzy thinking, depression, body pain, etc

Of course, our interest is in the psychiatric malfunctions, and the misdiagnosis of these conditions as actual psychiatric ailments.

As seen in this press release

There is clear evidence that small amounts of fluoride, at or near levels added to U.S. water supplies, present potential risks to the thyroid gland, according to the National Research Council's (NRC) first-ever published review of the fluoride/thyroid literature.(A)

Fluoride, in the form of silicofluorides, injected into 2/3 of U.S. public water supplies, ostensibly to reduce tooth decay, was never safety-tested.(B)

"Many Americans are exposed to fluoride in the ranges associated with thyroid effects, especially for people with iodine deficiency," says Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, co-author of the government-sponsored NRC report. "The recent decline in iodine intake in the U.S could contribute to increased toxicity of fluoride for some individuals," says Thiessen.

"A low level of thyroid hormone can increase the risk of cardiac disease, high cholesterol, depression and, in pregnant woman, decreased intelligence of offspring," said Thiessen.(C)

Common thyroid symptoms include fatigue, weight gain, constipation, fuzzy thinking, low blood pressure, fluid retention, depression, body pain, slow reflexes, and more. It's estimated that 59 million
Americans have thyroid conditions.(D)

Robert Carton, PhD, an environmental scientist who worked for over 30 years for the U.S. government including managing risk assessments on high priority toxic chemicals, says "fluoride has detrimental effects on the thyroid gland of healthy males at 3.5 mg a day. With iodine deficiency, the effect level drops to 0.7 milligrams/day for an average male."(E) (1.0 mg/L fluoride is in most water supplies)

Among many others, the NRC Report cites human studies which show

- fluoride concentrations in thyroids exceeding that found in other soft tissues except kidney

- an association between endemic goiter and fluoride exposure or enamel fluorosis in human populations

- fluoride adversely affects thyroid and parathyroid hormones, which affect bone health

"If you have a thyroid problem, avoiding fluoride may be a good preventive health measure for you," writes Drs' Richard and Karilee Shames in "Thyroid Power."(F).

Over, 1,700 Physicians, Dentists, Scientists, Academics and Environmentalists urge Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation is ineffective and has serious health risks. (www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html)

Please sign the petition and Congressional letter to support these professionals

www.FluorideAction.Net

References:

(A) "Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards," Committee on Fluoride in Drinking Water, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Division on Earth and Life Studies, National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. March 2006 Chapter 8 www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11571

"Thyroid Function: Fluoride exposure in humans is associated with elevated TSH concentrations, increased goiter prevalence, and altered T4 and T3 concentrations." (Page 262)

"(The thyroid effects are associated with average fluoride intakes that) will be reached by persons with average exposures at fluoride concentrations of 1-4 mg/L in drinking water, especially the children." (Page 260)

(B) Sodium Hexafluorosilicate and Fluorosilicic Acid Review of Toxicological Literature, October 2001
ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExSumPDF/Fluorosili ..

(C) Chemical & Engineering News, "Fluoride Risks Are Still A Challenge," by Bette Hileman, September 4, 2006,
pubs.acs.org/cen/government/84/8436gov1.html

(D) Mary Shomon, About.com Thyroid editor, Patient Advocate -- Author of "The Thyroid Diet" and "Living Well With Hypothyroidism"
thyroid.about.com/

(E) Fluoride, "Review of the 2006 National Research Council Report: Fluoride in Drinking Water," July-September 2006, by Robert J. Carton
www.fluorideresearch.org/393/files/FJ2006_v39_n3_p163-172.pdf

(F) Thyroid Power and Feeling Fat Fuzzy or Frazzeled"by Richard Shames MD & Karilee Shames RN, PhD
www.thyroidpower.com
www.feelingfff.com/


Fluoride/Thyroid Health Effects
www.fluoridealert.org/health/thyroid/

Sources of Fluoride
www.fluoridealert.org/f-sources.htm

Sulfuryl Fluoride Pesticide Residues Allowed on Foods
www.fluoridealert.org/pesticides/sulfuryl.f.all.food.html

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Fluoride Database of Selected Beverages and Foods
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/Fluoride/Fluoride.html

---

Kontaktinformation:

New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc

PO Box 263
Old Bethpage, NY 11804

Kontakt-Person:

Phone:
E-mail: e-mail

Web: http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof

---

Autor:

Nys Cof
e-mail
Web: http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof
Telefon: 5165551212

The Loose Screw Awards -- psychology's top 10 misguided ideas.

As seen in Psychology Today.

The mental health fields have, now and then, spawned and nurtured some completely crazy ideas. Physicians in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, inflicted strange and extremely cruel treatments on their mentally ill patients based on equally bizarre theories of human nature. To try to shock schizophrenics into "regaining consciousness of the true self," for example, doctors bled them until they fainted, or blindfolded them and allowed them to fall through a trapdoor into cold water -- the so-called "Bath of Surprise." It's unlikely that such techniques had any therapeutic value.

Our own era has also produced theories and techniques of dubious worth. In the 1990s, for example, practitioners by the thousands began "facilitating communication" with nonverbal children by strategically guiding their clients' hands over keyboards. Some of these children appeared to claim that they had been sexually abused, and one even wrote a novel this way. A barrage of research soon demonstrated that the technique was nonsense; all of the ideas came from the facilitators, not the children. Unfortunately, no matter how persuasive the evidence, people often cling to bad ideas, including facilitated communication.

Here are 10 faulty concepts from the mental health professions that have yet to disappear. Sometimes their effects have been benign; other times, put into practice, such ideas have harmed many people.

We are providing a quick summation, for the full details, see the full article at the link.

Psychology's top 10 misguided ideas.


1. Projective Tests - Things like the Rorschach test, and Skinner's muffled audio tests with similar results.
2. Recovered Memories - which lead to the recall of hundreds of memories of satanic child sex abuse and other monstrosities which simply did not occur.
3. Correctional Boot Camps for the misbehaving teen
4. The Cult of Self-Esteem - rewards without accomplishment.
5. Codependency, Enabling and Tough Love
6. Mozart Babies - music education for the very young does not make them geniuses.
7. Stages of Dying never was scientifically tested, and many people are unique, any how
8. Rebirthing Therapy which led to the deaths of a few innocents.
9. Adolescent Angst - the trauma of growing up
10. Catharsis - rebirthing therapy for all the other traumas of your life, stirring up much, accomplishing nothing.

As with every thing, there is probably a kernel of truth that inspired each of these, but the kernel was so buried by the time they got rolling, nothing good came out of these efforts.

The Loss of Sadness: How psychiatry transformed a normal emotion into an "illness"

A snippet from this recent report in NewsWeek.

It's hard to say exactly when ordinary Americans, no less than psychiatrists, began insisting that sadness is pathological. But by the end of the millennium that attitude was well entrenched. In 1999, Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" was revived on Broadway 50 years after its premiere. A reporter asked two psychiatrists to read the script. Their diagnosis: Willy Loman was suffering from clinical depression, a pathological condition that could and should be treated with drugs. Miller was appalled. "Loman is not a depressive," he told The New York Times. "He is weighed down by life. There are social reasons for why he is where he is." What society once viewed as an appropriate reaction to failed hopes and dashed dreams, it now regards as a psychiatric illness.

That may be the most damaging legacy of the happiness industry: the message that all sadness is a disease. As NYU's Wakefield and Allan Horwitz of Rutgers University point out in "The Loss of Sadness," this message has its roots in the bible of mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Its definition of a "major depressive episode" is remarkably broad. You must experience five not-uncommon symptoms, such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating and feeling sad or empty, for two weeks; the symptoms must cause distress or impairment, and they cannot be due to the death of a loved one. Anyone meeting these criteria is supposed to be treated.

Yet by these criteria, any number of reactions to devastating events qualify as pathological. Such as? For three weeks a woman feels sad and empty, unable to generate any interest in her job or usual activities, after her lover of five years breaks off their relationship; she has little appetite, lies awake at night and cannot concentrate during the day. Or a man's only daughter is suffering from a potentially fatal blood disorder; for weeks he is consumed by despair, cannot sleep or concentrate, feels tired and uninterested in his usual activities.

Horwitz and Wakefield do not contend that the spurned lover or the tormented father should be left to suffer. Both deserve, and would likely benefit from, empathic counseling. But their symptoms "are neither abnormal nor inappropriate in light of their" situations, the authors write. The DSM definition of depression "mistakenly encompasses some normal emotional reactions," due to its failure to take into account the context or trigger for sadness.

That has consequences. When someone is appropriately sad, friends and colleagues offer support and sympathy. But by labeling appropriate sadness pathological, "we have attached a stigma to being sad," says Wakefield, "with the result that depression tends to elicit hostility and rejection" with an undercurrent of " 'Get over it; take a pill.' The normal range of human emotion is not being tolerated." And insisting that sadness requires treatment may interfere with the natural healing process. "We don't know how drugs react with normal sadness and its functions, such as reconstituting your life out of the pain," says Wakefield.

Even the psychiatrist who oversaw the current DSM expresses doubts about the medicalizing of sadness. "To be human means to naturally react with feelings of sadness to negative events in one's life," writes Robert Spitzer of the New York State Psychiatric Institute in a foreword to "The Loss of Sadness." That would be unremarkable if it didn't run completely counter to the message of the happiness brigades. It would be foolish to underestimate the power and tenacity of the happiness cheerleaders. But maybe, just maybe, the single-minded pursuit of happiness as an end in itself, rather than as a consequence of a meaningful life, has finally run its course.

New South Wales acts over alleged fake 'psychiatrist' Vitomir Zepenic

Report from the Daily Telegraph

He was deregistered as a trainee psychiatrist at a major Queensland hospital after his qualifications were found to be bogus.

Now Burwood psychologist Vitomir Zepenic is being prosecuted in NSW - for again allegedly pretending to be a psychiatrist.

Burwood Local Court was told yesterday that the Zepenic - who has never been registered as a medical practitioner in NSW - had been pretending he had medical qualifications.

Zepenic, 54, from the former Yugoslavia, allegedly signed six medico-legal reports to insurance company Allianz with the initials MBBS after his name - indicating he had a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery.

While Zepenic claimed he had done a medical degree in Sarajevo, the court was presented a document from the University of Belgrade saying he had only completed a philosophy degree, had a masters in science degree in psychotherapy and was a doctor of philosophy.

To become a psychiatrist in Australia, one must have an undergraduate medical degree and complete several years of postgraduate medical training.

He also allegedly told a fellow psychologist that he had a masters degree in psychiatry, and accepted anti-depressant drug samples from a representative of a major pharmaceutical company, who thought he was a registered doctor.

However, the court was told it was medically qualified psychiatrists - and not psychologists - that were allowed to prescribe medication.

Zepinic is being prosecuted by the Medical Board of NSW for eight alleged breaches of the Medical Practitioners Act between 2005 and 2007 for allegedly falsely holding himself out to be a doctor.

The court was also told he was deregistered as a psychiatrist at Queensland's Toowoomba Hospital in 2002 following accusations he gave "materially false or misleading representations or declarations" to authorities.

Pfizer representative Suzanne Lombardo said she met Zepinic in 2005 and subsequently visited his Burwood clinic, where he had diplomas and certificates on his walls.

She said he accepted samples of two anti-depressants.

Zepenic yesterday insisted he had adequate medical qualifications and training but admitted he had never been registered as a doctor in NSW.

Asked to explain why he put the initials MBBS after his name, he said the initials represented his "academic titles".

"It is doctor of medicine, master of medicine and doctorate in medicine," he said.

The case was adjourned until April 14.

The Lobotomist on PBS

American Experience presents The Lobotomist, the gripping and tragic story of an ambitious doctor, the desperate families who sought his help, and the medical establishment that embraced him. From award-winning producers Barak Goodman and John Maggio (The Boy in the Bubble, The Fight), this one-hour film features interviews with Dr. Freeman's former patients and their families, his students, and medical historians, and offers an unprecedented look at one of the darkest chapters in psychiatric history.

Despite mixed results, by the early 1940s, some fifty state asylums were performing lobotomies on their patients. The procedure was hailed as a miracle cure, Freeman himself a visionary who brought hope to the most desolate human beings.

Yet only a decade later, the story would come full-circle again. Freeman would be decried as a moral monster, the lobotomy as one of the most barbaric mistakes ever perpetrated by mainstream medicine. Through interviews with medical historians, psychiatrists who worked with Freeman, and the desperate families who sought his help, this American Experience episode tells a gripping tale of medical intervention gone awry.

• Summary Description of the Program
  
  
• Program Transcipt here

Be sure to check your local listings

The tragic psychiatric misdiagnosis of Sopis Mirza led to her death

Someone sent in this link to another tragic case where a valid medical condition was misdiagnosed, and the woman involved was committed to a psychiatric hospital for treatment of her non-existent mental disease. Unfortunately, the woman died a few short days after returning home of the very real disease she had contracted.

The woman's name is Sophia Mirza, and her full story can be read online here The medical condition is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, and you can read more about this condition here.

The World Health Organisation has classified Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as a neurological illness, as defined by ICD-10-G93.3, separate from the psychological illnesses classified under ICD-10-F48

ME/CFS - Doctors disbelief kills young woman



ME/CFS - A Hidden National Scandal Exposed

Psychiatrist sets man free days before he tortures, rapes, and kills his daughter

We presuppose that there is a public safety function for detaining people who are disturbed. We also have noted many times that ineffective and/or harmful treatments, especially due to the marketing of modern snake oil, contributes to the problem. We now have a report where we are moved to ask again, do these folks even know what they are doing? A report from the Courier Mail in Australia

A man was cleared by a psychiatrist to leave a Brisbane hospital's mental health unit just nine days before he allegedly raped and murdered his 10-year-old daughter.

But Queensland Health did not report the man – who had spent two weeks as an involuntary patient in the hospital's mental health unit – to the Department of Child Safety. This was despite him having sole custody of his four children aged between six and 10.

The family was known to Child Safety after complaints in previous years from neighbours as well as by a teenage child in the family.

The man, 39, sat expressionless in the dock of the Brisbane Magistrate's Court yesterday when he appeared on charges of rape, murder and indecent treatment.

It is believed the Bardon man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – lost his job as a funeral director several weeks ago and had since been unemployed.

The gruesome rape and murder – during which the girl was bound and her head roughly shaved – allegedly took place in a bedroom of the family's rented holiday home on Bribie Island on New Year's Eve.

Defence lawyer Neil Lawler told the court his client had been subject to an involuntary treatment order but did not currently need to be transferred to a mental health facility.

The Courier-Mail has learned the man was admitted to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital as an involuntary patient on December 8 after police picked him up at Brookside Shopping Centre during a "manic" episode. He had tried to charge $17,000 on a credit card with a much lower limit, and had to be subdued by capsicum spray after becoming aggressive.

An officer was injured during the incident, receiving bruising to his back and to his neck.

Until this incident, the man had been unknown to mental-health authorities.

A psychiatrist at RBWH assessed the man as fit for discharge on December 22.

His family had reported him as being "back to normal" during two days' leave as part of his treatment and he had returned to the hospital for further observation before being released.

The release of all patients subject to involuntary treatment orders is assessed by the Mental Health Review Tribunal. It was unclear last night whether the man's case had come before the tribunal.

He had previously suffered throat cancer, a condition which – in some cases – can be linked to manic episodes.

The man was released on medication, including an anti-psychotic drug known as Risperidone, but it was unknown whether he continued to take the drug after discharge.

Child Safety last night insisted it was unaware of the man's mental health problems. But doctors said they were under no obligation and had no reason to report the man to Child Safety authorities.

A Child Safety spokesperson said the family was known to authorities as a result of "low-level concerns which did not meet the threshold for an official notification".

It is understood that two of the complaints about the father came from an older child in the family.

The Courier-Mail was told that a small group of neighbours had met two years ago to discuss concerns about the level of verbal abuse that the children allegedly suffered from their father.

A neighbour said Child Safety was contacted and departmental officers had visited the house. The department last night did not answer questions put to it about the neighbours' alleged concerns.

The department's handling of the case will be reviewed and an independent child death review will be conducted.

The review will then be scrutinised by the Child Death Case Review Committee, chaired by the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Elizabeth Fraser.

But acting Opposition Leader Mark McArdle said: "I'm not satisfied with an internal investigation.

"There is now an overwhelming case for a full investigation into the department and for any inquiry to be held."

Outside the court yesterday, Mr Lawler said the man had been assessed by a mental-health worker after the murder but further investigation would be needed into his mental state.

Magistrate Chris Callaghan adjourned the case for another mention on March 10 when the accused man will not have to appear.

He was remanded in custody and must apply to the Supreme Court if he wants bail.

The man will be housed at the Arthur Gorrie Remand and Reception Centre in the meantime, where he will be psychiatrically assessed and treated.

"It's a near certainty that (this case) will proceed to the Mental Health Court and that it will take some significant time for that to be arranged," Mr Lawler said.

It is understood the man was divorced from the dead girl's mother – who still lives in Brisbane – and that he has cared for their children for several years.

The mother is believed to have a serious criminal history.

The three surviving children – boys aged seven and nine and a girl aged six – are in the care of their grandparents.

Child victim 'sweet and lovely'

A 10-year-old girl allegedly murdered by her father was "a sweet and lovely child" and a "peacemaker", according to her school deputy principal.

"She was really loved by all the teachers and students," the teacher said. "She was a real peacemaker on the playground. If anyone was having problems she would run to us because she didn't like any disruption.

"She loved coming to school and was always punctual, always happy to be there. She will be very sadly missed."

The girl, who cannot be identified in Queensland, was yesterday mourned by neighbours in the inner-city suburb of Bardon.

One neighbour said she had often seen the children playing together at the front of the house they had lived in for three years, and described her as "full of life".

"She was a happy little thing always jumping and skipping – she was just lovely," the neighbour said.

"The children were beautiful young children, they always played happily together and they were a lovely lot of kids.

"It came as a big blow to all of us – we never thought it would come to anything like this."

A mother at the primary school the girl attended said she was a kind child whose face would always light up when she was spoken to.

Another neighbour said that she and two other people from the street had become concerned about the children and contacted the Department of Child Safety.

"The kids were little when they first came here, but we didn't get to know them," she said. "We did finally between us notify Family Services because we were concerned."

An Education Queensland spokesman said their thoughts were with the family.