Christopher Walken on Psychiatrists

An amusing quote from actor Christopher Walken, known by many for playing edgy and often somewhat strange characters. As seen in this interview:

Is there a part you’d love to play?

CW: I’d like to play a psychiatrist. I think I’d be good in that role.

I went to a psychiatrist once and he was so strange I left.

I thought, ‘I can’t take your advice, you’re crazy.’ I didn’t need a psychiatrist, but somebody had said to me, ‘You should go and talk to this person.’ So I said, OK.

It was in his own apartment and the phone rang in another room and I could see into his kitchen and there were all these dirty dishes. He was obviously grubby, and I thought, you can’t tell me about my life if you can’t wash your dishes.

Noted psychologist under investigation for voyeurism, and questions about his testimony in church child abuse cases

From this report

A noted psychologist, now under investigation for voyeurism, had such a successful practice evaluating both sexual abuse victims and priests accused of molestation that several lawyers said the allegations against him might call into question numerous cases settled on the basis of his expert opinion.

"This guy had his finger on every single Catholic church perp in the state -- if not the region," said John Manly, an attorney who has sued the Jesuit Order for ignoring deviant priests and took testimony from the therapist.

At least once, Manly said, the psychologist evaluated a priest who had sexually abused dozens of women and girls, but apparently missed the signs.

"He was integral to the church's system of putting abuser priests back into service," the lawyer said.

The therapist also worked for the Seattle Archdiocese in the 1980s and '90s, though there has been no business relationship between the two for several years.

He was arrested July 3, after a female psychologist discovered that she had been videotaped while using the restroom in his Montlake office, with a camera hidden inside an air freshener.

On the tape, police say, they saw the 36-year-old woman pulling down her skirt and soon after she left the room, they watched the therapist -- a nationally known expert in child psychology -- masturbating toward the camera, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

Because no charges have been filed, the Seattle P-I is not naming the psychologist, but detectives with the Seattle police Sexual Assault Unit are continuing their investigation.

When questioned by investigators, the 59-year-old man -- a faculty member at the University of Washington -- admitted that he had concealed two cameras "to view his employees in the nude," court records say. He insisted, however, that he had never filmed patients.

Dozens of divorcing parents hired the psychologist to weigh in as a court-appointed expert in their child-custody battles.

"If your evaluator turns out to have some kind of personal problem, does that mean his forensic judgment was impaired?" wondered attorney Ruth Edlund, who has used the man several times during the past five years.

"Who's to say?"

Almost to a person, however, those who recalled their interactions with the analyst expressed shock at the news.

"He is the sort of fellow I'd least expect to be the subject of a dragnet like this," said Joseph Greene, an electrical engineer who paid the man $14,000 to determine Greene's fitness as a parent.

"This guy's got a wall full of credentials."

Attorney Tim Kosnoff, who has long valued the psychologist's judgment as an expert in church abuse cases, was stunned.

"It's terribly ironic," he said. "Here he is evaluating victims of sexual harassment and abuse and he apparently has a problem with it himself."

So highly recommended was the expert that Ryan Greenley was willing to pay $9,500 for his opinion -- one he could present to the courts in a custody battle over his daughter.

"This is the go-to guy, kind of like the dean of parent evaluations in Seattle," Greenley recalled. "Anything he says is pretty much of rubber-stamped."

But now their final conversation rings differently.

"The last thing he told me when I left his office was 'You reap what you sow.' "

Company pleads guilty, admitting it illegally promoted drug

As reported in NewsDay

It is a powerful and fast-acting depressant, and federal health authorities classify it as a date-rape drug. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of the drug _ Xyrem, also known as gamma-hydroxybutyrate or GHB _ for only two conditions.

But a pharmaceutical company admitted in a settlement Friday that it marketed the drug to doctors for a wide range of illnesses it was not approved to treat.

Orphan Medical Inc., a subsidiary of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to a charge of felony misbranding of a pharmaceutical product. Orphan and Jazz agreed to pay $20 million in penalties.

"The illegal conduct charged today put profits ahead of public health," said FDA Special Agent-in-Charge Kim A. Rice.

In July 2002, the FDA approved the sale of Xyrem for the treatment of cataplexy, a condition in which weak or paralyzed muscles manifest themselves in a sleep disorder known as narcolepsy. It was later approved for treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness.

But Orphan admitted in its plea that it promoted the drug to physicians for off-label uses, including fatigue, insomnia, chronic pain, weight loss, depression, bipolar disorders and movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

The company also admitted that it paid a psychiatrist tens of thousands of dollars to promote the drug in speeches across the country. Prosecutors said in a release that the psychiatrist suggested that the drug was safe for children and the elderly and that its active ingredient was not really a date-rape drug _ although the Department of Health and Human Services has classified it as one.

Pharmaceuticals manufactured under strict standards can still injure or kill if used for unauthorized reasons, said Mark J. Mershon, who heads the FBI office in New York.

"Tainted, counterfeit or illicit drugs are not the only ones that pose substantial health risks for consumers," he said.

As a label on boxes of the drug warned, Xyrem can induce sleep quickly and cause serious side effects, including difficulty breathing while asleep, confusion, abnormal thinking, depression, nausea, vomiting and sleepwalking.

Improperly used, the drug can cause dependence, seizures, coma and even death, the government said.

A former Orphan sales representative, Shelley Lauterbach, filed a whistleblower lawsuit in 2005 that reported the company's behavior, according to her lawyers, the firm of Phillips & Cohen.

"I am pleased that the Justice Department pursued this case so aggressively and brought the matter to a close," Lauterbach said in a release.

Orphan will pay $12.2 million in criminal restitution to public and private health insurers, as well as a criminal fine of $5 million, and Jazz guarantees its subsidiary will pay, according to a news release. The companies will also pay $3.75 million, plus interest_ a portion of which was ordered in the criminal case _ to resolve civil charges.

"We are pleased to have resolved this matter, which arose from the actions of Orphan Medical, a company that Jazz Pharmaceuticals acquired in 2005," said Dr. Samuel Saks, Jazz Pharmaceuticals' chief executive officer. "Our strong commitment to compliance was instrumental in the speedy resolution of this matter."

He said Jazz had fully cooperated with the government throughout the probe. The company said the $20 million in civil and criminal payments will be paid over a five-year period.

Study of kids hopes to answer: What is normal?

In other words, they have been drugging and shocking and punishing and having a merry old time, and they didn't even have an idea what is Normal? As seen in this press release

This summer, brain experts funded by the National Institutes of Health are finishing the largest systematic clinical study ever of the neurobiology of youth. In a $30 million project, researchers in six cities have been combining brain scans, psychological profiles, medical exams and intelligence tests gathered from hundreds of healthy children to answer a fundamental question about brain development that nags parents and pediatric practitioners alike: What is normal?

[...]

Not only is every new brain different from any other, but the variations within each one as it adapts, swells and contracts confound analysis. "A developing brain looks weird," said pediatric neurologist Katrina Gwinn at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who directs the NIH project. "Something that might be normal in an adult might look abnormal in a child."

All of which prompts the question, did they ever know what they were doing?

But then again, psychiatrists are notorious for never looking at the brain when they diagnose the mind, even while they are busy claiming that the mind is all what the brain does.

State rips nursing home - Violations at East Peoria facility lead to a $100,000 fine

The hell of a mental health facility combined with a nursing home. An investigative report by the Chicago Tribune

A troubled East Peoria nursing home and state health officials are gearing for battle after authorities fined the home $100,000 -- one of the largest such fines ever -- for neglect and faulty care of mentally ill and elderly patients.

In a report obtained by the Tribune, state health officials detailed violations at East Peoria Gardens Healthcare Center that are unusual in scope and severity, according to state officials and watchdog groups.

After a police raid in April, the state report provides additional evidence to support claims that mentally ill patients were sometimes out of control and tormented elderly residents, a pattern that developed after the facility began accelerating the admission of younger, more volatile psychiatric patients in August.

In the 1990s, the state relaxed rules on nursing homes, allowing psychiatric and geriatric patients to live side by side. After a disturbing series of incidents involving abuse of the older patients, including dozens of injuries and deaths reported to the state, new rules were created in 2000 governing the way those two patient populations are monitored.

But among nearly 4,500 detailed investigation reports compiled each year, officials say the situation at East Peoria this spring was one of the worst they have seen.

The Illinois Department of Public Health cited the facility for poor or no staff training, ignoring numerous falls of patients, failing to check patients for criminal backgrounds and providing no appropriate service to mentally ill residents, according to the report dated June 26, which was made in response to two dozen separate complaints.

"The facility failed to provide services necessary to avoid physical harm, mental anguish or mental illness," the report reads.

A police dragnet at the home in April led to the arrests of three patients and two employees on outstanding criminal warrants.

East Peoria Gardens plans to contest the fines and charges at a state hearing, a date for which has yet to be determined.

"Not only are we now operating in compliance, we categorically deny each and every charge -- including the fine -- presented by the state," said Meyer Magence, attorney for the home. "We are going to fight every one of them."

Authorities say the facility, which has about 100 residents, has improved procedures and conditions since the April raid.

The 50-page report paints a picture of a period in which communication was poor, mental patients did not receive proper medical and psychiatric care, and elderly patients were left to deteriorate.

"The breadth of the violations is extraordinary," said Wendy Meltzer, executive director of the watchdog monitor Illinois Citizens for Better Care. "It's really unusual to see this many violations affecting so many people. It's not something you see, fortunately, often."

Among the allegations in the report:

• Staff failed to try to revive a heart patient who fell and injured his head because they believed he was a hospice patient. He died soon after.
  
  
• Staff failed to properly diagnosis and monitor a 54-year-old patient who developed gangrene in his left toe.
  
  
• A 72-year-old mentally ill resident choked and died after eating a doughnut. A speech therapist had warned against giving the man difficult to swallow food but staff said they knew of no such order.
  
  
• An 81-year-old woman at the facility fell 10 times without staff putting in place precautions and a prevention plan. She died of complications from a fall.
  
  
• The facility did not have any treatment programs in place for 11 of 51 residents identified as "seriously mentally ill." With limited proper supervision in place, the safety of elderly residents was threatened when some psychiatric patients became agitated.
  
  
• The facility added more than 40 mentally ill patients from August 2006 to January and had no effective administration or adequately trained staff in place for the change.
  
  
• Seven patients were admitted with criminal records. The facility was unable to produce records showing it had notified the state as required.
  
  
• The facility failed to do background checks on 15 of the 19 residents with criminal records.

Magence declined to respond to the charges individually but called them "inaccurate."

State officials are not the only ones threatening the nursing home.

Medicaid and Medicare withheld five days of reimbursements for 66 eligible patients who were at the home in April, according to federal and state officials. Magence said he plans to contest that action.

A relative of Betty Saal, the 81-year-old woman who died after falling, is suing the facility.

The Tazewell County coroner also said he plans to soon convene an inquest into Saal's death to decide whether to file homicide charges.

"We don't know if she was pushed or fell down," said Coroner Dennis Conover. "We do know this was a nursing home gone wrong and that neglect led to her death."

The state also cites neglect in the case of 72-year-old Donald Utech, who died in April after eating breakfast. According to a preliminary autopsy, Utech died of choking. A Peoria County coroner's inquest concluded last week that the death was accidental.

But there is still conflicting testimony in Utech's case; home staffers say no food was in the man's mouth, while paramedics said food was trapped in his airway. The coroner's finding does not address the issue of neglect, according to Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll, who has jurisdiction because Utech was taken to a hospital in her county.

Officials from the Department of Public Health have called three other deaths in the last two years suspicious, but Magence said the facility bears no responsibility in any deaths.

"Absolutely none," he said.

Last month's $100,000 citation and report mark the second time the facility has faced stiff fines and sanctions.

In 2005, the facility was fined $20,000 by the state and faced weekly monitoring after two residents died following choking incidents.

The facility is again being monitored, this time twice a week, state officials said.

"The question is why was this allowed to go on for months unchecked?" asked Steven Levin, a Chicago personal injury attorney representing Saal's relative in a civil suit.

Claim: Doctor groped woman at interview

From this UPI report

A New York job applicant claims a psychologist told her she may have to have sex with patients if she's hired for the post, it was reported Wednesday.

Ana Sola told a Manhattan Supreme courtroom that, during her "very strange" interview with Dr. William Swan in 2002, she was told she may have to gratify both men and women and "there might be oral sex involved."

Sola is suing Swan for sexual battery, alleging he groped her while demonstrating a massage on her, The New York Post said. She said he gave her $100 for participating in his massage "training session."

A tape recording played for the court by Sola's attorney had the doctor allegedly saying "I paid you the fee," when she confronted him.

Swan has denied telling Sola she would have to satiate clients and denied anything inappropriate transpired during her massage.

Psychiatrist banned from practice

As seen here

A psychiatrist from Veenendaal has been banned from practising after he sexually abused a patient.

The regional disciplinary tribunal for health care in Amsterdam has come with this decision. The man molested his patient for years while she suffered from depression and addiction to medicine, the woman's lawyer reports.

The psychiatrist also held the woman's sessions at unusually late times; her sessions were often scheduled between 10.30 pm and 2.30 am. The lawyer also says that the doctor failed to adequately update the woman's medical file and had not formulated any treatment plan.

Second wrestler’s death tied to prescribed drugs

Seen in this report

The circumstances of the deaths of wrestler Chris Benoit and his family have stirred much attention locally and nationally in past weeks. So has the funneling of prescription medication to Benoit by Carrollton physician Dr. Phil Astin.

Added to the local list was the February 2006 death of another wrestler, Tyrone resident Michael Durham.

Though ruled accidental, Durham had been turned away from a local pharmacy for trying to have too many prescriptions filled, including some written by Astin. Levels of a muscle relaxer found in Durham’s blood had the potential to be toxic.

Durham’s death occurred Feb. 15, 2006. Tyrone police responded to a call at the Senoia Road residence of a friend, fellow wrestler Eric Zinck, according to Tyrone police reports.

Officers found Durham lying in a hallway of the mobile home near the front door. A subsequent check for signs of life by Fayette EMS found none.

Durham lived in Peachtree City but had been staying at his friend’s home because he was going through a divorce, according to reports.

Also found at the scene was a prescription for 120 tablets of 350 milligrams of carisprodol, a substitute for the muscle relaxer Soma, that was filled one day before his death, according to reports filed by Det. Dean Johnson.

The pill bottle was empty, reports said. The drug had been prescribed by Astin, Tyrone Police Public Information Officer Brandon Perkins said Monday.

Another prescription drug belonging to Durham was found at the residence. The drug, 120 tablets of 2 milligrams of alprazolam, a generic form of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, had been prescribed on Jan. 3.

Officers found one pill in the bottle, reports said. That drug had been prescribed by another physician.

Commenting Monday, Perkins said Tyrone police contacted the local Eckerd pharmacy two days after Durham’s death and was told that Durham had been getting a lot of prescriptions filled and had subsequently been turned away.

Concerned, Det. Johnson turned the prescription information over to a state regulatory agency dealing with those matters but did not receive a follow-up call, Perkins said.

Ruled accidental, Durham’s death was due to coronary artery atherosclerosis, blockage of the blood vessels to the heart, and to morbid obesity, according to autopsy reports issued by Assistant Medical Examiner Keith Lehman. The autopsy also revealed severe enlargement and scarring of the heart.

Toxicology tests revealed the presence of the muscle relaxer Soma “at levels higher than expected for therapeutic dosing and in a range with potential to have been toxic,” the report said. “Examination of Mr. Durham’s medications revealed many more carisoprodol (Soma) pills missing that would have been expected if he had taken the medication as instructed.”

Toxicology reports also noted hydrocodone in Durham’s blood at a level consistent with a therapeutic level, even though he was not known to have been prescribed hydrocodone. “The hydrocodone would have contributed to the toxicity of the carisoprodol and (its breakdown product) meprobamate. The combined effects of these drugs would have likely resulted in toxicity and probably contributed to the death, although the drug toxicity would not be expected to have been fatal by itself in the absence of heart disease,” the report concluded.

The Most Prescribed Drugs in U.S. are Antidepressants

From a CNN Report. Of course in the original story CNN includes bits from psychiatrists about how all this heavy use of psychiatric drugs is a good thing. We remain skeptical.

Dr. Ronald Dworkin tells the story of a woman who didn't like the way her husband was handling the family finances. She wanted to start keeping the books herself but didn't want to insult her husband.

The doctor suggested she try an antidepressant to make herself feel better.

She got the antidepressant, and she did feel better, said Dr. Dworkin, a Maryland anesthesiologist and senior fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute, who told the story in his book "Artificial Unhappiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class." But in the meantime, Dworkin says, the woman's husband led the family into financial ruin.

"Doctors are now medicating unhappiness," said Dworkin. "Too many people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in their lives."

For Dworkin, the proof is in the statistics. According to a government study, antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. They're prescribed more than drugs to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or headaches.

In its study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at 2.4 billion drugs prescribed in visits to doctors and hospitals in 2005. Of those, 118 million were for antidepressants.

High blood pressure drugs were the next most-common with 113 million prescriptions.

The use of antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs -- those that affect brain chemistry -- has skyrocketed over the last decade.

Adult use of antidepressants almost tripled between the periods 1988-1994 and 1999-2000.

Between 1995 and 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the use of these drugs rose 48 percent, the CDC reported.

[...]

Dr. Robert Goodman, an internist in New York City, says the real force behind skyrocketing antidepressant prescription rates is pharmaceutical marketing to doctors and to consumers. "You put those two together and you get a lot of prescriptions for antidepressants," he said.

He questions whether all those prescriptions are necessary. "It's hard to believe that number of people are depressed, or that antidepressants are the answer," he said.

Goodman is the founder of a group called "No Free Lunch," a group that encourages doctors to reject gifts from pharmaceutical companies. He added that patients sometimes see ads for antidepressants on television and ask doctors for the drugs -- and that studies show these requests work.

In a study published two years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association, actors pretending to be patients went to doctors in the San Francisco area and said they were depressed.

The "patients" who asked for an antidepressant were significantly more likely to get a prescription for one than patients who didn't ask for an antidepressant.

"Patients' requests have a profound effect on physician prescribing in major depression and adjustment disorders," concluded the study's authors.

[...]

Alabama Drug deaths surge higher - deadly cocktails include psychiatric drugs

From the Birmingham News, (full story at the link)

A rising number of deaths from illegal and prescription drugs is hitting Alabama, and in some areas, including Jefferson and Shelby counties, fatalities caused by drugs are now surpassing those caused by traffic accidents.

The lethal trend was revealed in death statistics and records provided by coroners and public health officials. The data, gathered by The Birmingham News in recent weeks, provide a rare look at causes of death that often escape public view - fatal heart attacks triggered by cocaine use, acute poisonings and addiction.

Records show:

In Jefferson County, 119 deaths occurred last year in which legal and illegal drugs were largely responsible, an increase of 42 percent since 2002. Eighty people died in the county in traffic accidents during 2006.

In Shelby County, drug deaths have been increasing at an alarming rate as the population grows. The coroner's office responded to 18 overdose deaths in 2005 and 24 in 2006. This year, from Jan. 1 until May 14, the coroner responded to 18 drug deaths. Eleven traffic fatalities have been reported so far this year in Shelby County.

Statewide, drug deaths are steadily increasing. Death certificates show fatal poisonings from drugs jumped 67 percent from 2000 to 2005. Deaths from drug addiction jumped 94 percent from 2000 to 2006.

Jay Glass, chief deputy coroner in Jefferson County, said the public lacks awareness of drug deaths. These deaths don't attract the urgent media attention of crime or traffic accidents. Determining the cause of drug deaths often requires toxicology, and sometimes it takes weeks to get results. Reports aren't readily available.

"There's a lot of hidden stuff," Glass said.

[...]

Toxic cocktails:

As problematic as cocaine is, it is not the No. 1 drug found by toxicologists investigating unusual deaths. That's alcohol, said C. Andrew Robinson, toxicologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham division of clinical pathology.

But alcohol by itself typically doesn't kill people, said Robinson, who sees blood chemistry on most questionable deaths in Jefferson County.

All too often, he finds combinations of alcohol, cocaine, opiates such as Lortab and methadone, and benzodiazepines such as Valium and Xanax.

These drug mixtures, particularly opiates and benzodiazepines, often kill by shutting down a user's respiratory system.

"It's got an additive effect," Robinson said. "It's a deadly combination."

The parade of drug deaths he sees is constantly expanding in complexity, as pharmaceutical companies march out new sleeping pills and antidepressants.

A week after ads for Lunesta appeared on television, there was a lethal Lunesta overdose, Robinson said. "I think we ought to outlaw drug advertisements on television the way we outlawed cigarette advertisements."

Most people don't know they can kill themselves with antidepressants such as Lexapro, he said. "Most of them are respiratory depressants in high enough quantities. We've got an overdose death right now from one called Effexor."

He also has found that people who die of drug overdoses often "doctor shop," or have several doctors writing overlapping prescriptions.

Man gets 7-30 years for abusing baby - was on psych drugs at the time

From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

A man who claimed he was mentally ill when he abused his newborn -- breaking her leg, smashing her head into a sink and shocking her with a cattle prod -- will spend up to 30 years in prison.

Brandon Alan Austill, 21, of Somerset, was sentenced Tuesday to 7 to 30 years in prison for abuse that started when his daughter was just 4 days old.

``It is clear from the facts in this case that you systematically tortured this child over six weeks,'' Somerset County Judge John M. Cascio said.

According to authorities, Mr. Austill admitted he smashed the infant's head into a sink and table, twice used an electric prod on her when she wouldn't stop crying and bent her leg over his shoulder until he heard it snap. The abuse took place last fall.

``I'll never be able to take that back. I'll always love my daughter,'' Mr. Austill said. ``There's no way I can make an excuse for what happened.''

Mr. Austill pleaded guilty but mentally ill in May to aggravated assault, child endangerment and other offenses. He said he was taking antidepressants and anti-hallucinogens at the time.

Mr. Austill suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from abuse he suffered as a child, along with bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, psychologist Frank Schmidt testified. He will receive psychiatric care in prison.

``Certainly, this is your chance and this is probably your last chance,'' Judge Cascio said.

The child's mother has not been charged. It was not immediately known if the girl remains in foster care or has been returned to her mother.

Benoit's Doctor Questioned In Second Wrestler's Death

From this local report

Federal and county investigators are looking into the death of a second professional wrestler who was the patient of Dr. Phil Astin, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Astin is the doctor who admits prescribing steroids to wrestler Chris Benoit who authorities said killed his wife and son and then committed suicide.

Investigators said Friday that wrestler Michael Durham, also know as Johnny Grunge, was a patient of Astin's when he died in 2006.

Capt. Mike Pruitt of the Fayette County Sheriff's Office drug task force told the AJC that Dr. Astin is suspected of overprescribing drugs to Durham.

Our curiosity in this has to do with the over-prescription of psychiatric (and other) drugs by those who are not psychiatrists. Just like Anna Nicole Smith, the amount of heavy drugs prescribed to celebrities is killing them.

August hearing scheduled for former child psychiatrist

From the Daily Reveiw

The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office has spent months building its case against Dr. William Ayres, a nationally recognized child psychiatrist accused of molesting dozens of boys.

Next month, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge will decide whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put Ayres on trial.

They say that Ayres, 75, is guilty of molesting dozens of pre-adolescent boys in San Mateo County — and the abuse, they say, has spanned decades.

Since Ayres' arrest in April, the case against the now-retired doctor has grown. Initially, Ayres was charged with 14 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with three children under the age of 14. Now he faces a total of 21 counts of lewd and lascivious acts against seven children.

Ayres, a former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is expected to appear in court for his preliminary hearing at 9 a.m. Aug. 7, the date set by a judge Thursday.

Prosecutor Melissa McKowan told the judge that she estimated the hearing would last about a half-day.

During the brief court appearance, the prosecution and the defense stuck strictly to scheduled business.

The prosecution did not file any additional charges against Ayres, and the defense refrained from filing any motions.

During Ayres' last court appearance in May, defense attorney Doron Weinberg announced that he planned to file a motion invalidating the search warrant upon which the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office has built its entire case. However, Weinberg told reporters outside of court that he would wait to file such a motion until after the preliminary hearing.

Weinberg also took the opportunity to reiterate past statements attesting to the likelihood of his client's innocence. The accusations against Ayres by numerous individuals were likely the result, he said, of either "mistake, false memory or suggestion.

"Nothing that I have seen or heard so far from the witnesses changes my opinion that Dr. Ayres did not molest anyone," Weinberg said.

Prosecutor Melissa McKowan has claimed that Ayres molested at least 39 people. The case against Ayres has been built on the claims of seven men who fall within the legal statute of limitations for child molestation cases. State law requires that molestation charges be brought before the accuser turns 29 or that the alleged crime occurred after Jan. 1, 1988.

The brief court appearance Thursday was attended by a local couple whose son, they claimed, was the individual who initially filed the 2003 civil suit that alleged that Ayres had molested him.

The couple, who declined to give their names, spoke of their son's struggle with the suit — which was settled out of court and did not require Ayres to admit any guilt — and of their son's inability to participate in the current criminal case due to the fact that his alleged molestation falls outside of the statute of limitations.

They claim their son was abused by Ayres during the mid- to late 1970s.

"He was only 12, he was a little boy." his mother said outside of court Thursday, her eyes red-rimmed and teary. "We sent our kid to get help. The guy was supposedly a helper.

"You tell me what parent in their right mind would send their child to a child psychiatrist to have their genitals examined," she said, her voice quaking. "Does that make any sense? In those days, parents did not know; in those days, parents were very trusting, especially of physicians."

From the 1960s through his retirement several years ago, Ayres presided over a thriving practice. He treated scores of children and evaluated hundreds of wards of the county's juvenile court.

Ayres, who remains out of custody in lieu of $750,000 bail, could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted.

Convicted Child Molester Psychiatrist Captured, being returned to USA

As seen in this report

A convicted child molester who skipped out on his parole last year will arrive at Newark Liberty International Airport this morning under armed escort from India where he was arrested in May, a state Division of Parole spokeswoman said Saturday.

Alan Horowitz, 60, will be extradited from New Jersey under a New York arrest warrant issued after he ducked out of the U.S. after meeting with his parole officer on June 7, 2006.

"We're getting him back," said Carole Weaver, the division spokeswoman.

Horowitz was out on parole for his 1991 conviction for first-degree sodomy after he pleaded guilty to an incident involving a 9-year-old boy in Schenectady County.

Horowitz, a former adolescent psychiatrist, served more than 13 years of his 10- to 20-year sentence before he was released on parole in 2004. He was in contact with state officials, saying he was living in an apartment complex in Israel. He said he would never return to the U.S. He then fled to India where he was arrested. U.S. marshals are escorting him back from India.

Horowitz will appear in a New Jersey court the week of July 16 for an extradition hearing, Weaver said.

He'll then head to Schenectady County, where he will face charges for parole violation, Weaver said. His original sentence for the sodomy conviction runs through June 28, 2011.

Therapist abuses female patient for sex, money, and more.

As seen in The Sun Online and This is London

A Doctor was yesterday accused of taking advantage of a patient with multiple personalities — by using her different alter-egos for sex, cleaning and money.

When the woman confronted psychologist Peter Blaeker he allegedly told her: “I can’t comment. I have a duty of confidentiality with your other personalities.”

Cops said Monika Mirte, 44, was assigned to Blaeker after she was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder.

She was in control of herself much of the time, but when other personalities — with names such as Kathrin, Finja and Leonie — took over she could not recall what they did.

Ms Mirte, of Cologne, Germany, eventually went to cops after claiming her inner selves were tense and upset.

She told them Blaeker, 43, “used Kathrin for sex and Finja to do the shopping and pay for it, while Leonie gave him money for a holiday to Majorca.”

He also allegedly used another personality to do his cleaning. Detectives said he may be charged with sexual abuse and could get five years’ jail.

Psychologist Dr Christian Ludke said yesterday the case was “unique but possible”.

He added: “If you know a person has multiple personalities, you can deal with the personality you want by calling that person by name until they take control.

“You can then replace them with another personality by calling the next personality by name.”

Ms Mirte’s lawyer, Christine Andrae, said “numerous leads” indicated Blaeker “made use of my client’s weakness”.

Psychiatrist helped three depressed people commit suicide.

As seen in EuroNews

A court in Switzerland has sentenced a retired psychiatrist to three years, for helping three depressed people commit suicide.

Peter Baumann, who ran his own assisted-suicide association, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a country which has some of the most relaxed assisted-suicide laws in Europe.

Two thirds of the jail term is suspended.

The prosecution told Basel criminal court that the three people in question were not capable of making a judgement.

Authorities began investigating him after a 48-year-old mentally-ill man committed suicide in 2001.

Then, in 2002, he helped a 62-year-old woman die. The case was documented in a Swiss TV programme.

In 2003, at the scene of another suicide, police found Baumann's fingerprints on the plastic bag used to administer the lethal dose of drugs.

Psychiatrist gave out homemade drugs

From the Kathemerini English Edition

A Piraeus Prefecture inspection team uncovered yesterday a psychiatrist who passed on to his patients medicines that he produced in his own clinic, authorities said yesterday.

Officials found in the clinic in Kallipolis, Piraeus, some 30,000 pills and 100 different types of medicines used to produce his own medical cocktails.

With the help of police, prefecture officials also found a medical prescription pad that did not bear the necessary approval stamps from health authorities as well as pension fund health booklets belonging to patients.

A fine of 75,000 euros was imposed on the doctor for illegally possessing and selling drugs, officials added.

The prosecutor was also notified of the incident. However, it was not clear whether the psychiatrist had been arrested.

Doctor Evil: A study of caregiver as lifetaker

See the link for the full interview. From the Toronto Star

At least seven suspects in last week's failed bomb attacks in Britain and Scotland were members of the medical profession. They weren't the first physicians to be implicated in high-profile acts of violence – the list is as long and varied as the motives behind the aggression.

Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele carried out sadistic experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz during World War II; Britain's most prolific convicted serial killer was a GP named Harold Shipman who is believed to have murdered more than 200 people before he was sentenced to life in prison in 2000; a doctor brewed the cyanide, Valium, and grape-flavoured drink mix that 900 men, women and children drank at Jonestown, Guyana in a mass murder-suicide in 1978.

Jack the Ripper may have been a surgeon. Evil doctors abound in fiction – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde haunts us still, more than 100 years after it was published, perhaps because it taps into our secret fears. We are rarely so vulnerable as when we're sitting in a doctor's office with our bare bums slipping out of a paper dress.

So what is it then that leads members of the profession we most need to trust to kill and maim instead of heal? It's a question Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, an American psychiatrist and author of The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, has pondered for decades. A lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, Lifton has often addressed the susceptibility of physicians to engage in harmful behaviours, both historically and in recent times.

In an article called Doctors and Torture that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2004, Lifton described how and why U.S. doctors, nurses and medics became complicit in torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The Star asked him to comment on the participation of physicians in the recent British attacks.

While the discussion focuses on medical professionals in general, we are concerned about psychiatrists precisely because theyare suppose to be expert on the human mind, and you would think the profession would has less wackos in it, not more, as seen in other statistics.

Court date set for psychiatrist accused of molesting boys

From the San Mateo County Times

Dr. William Ayres, the child psychiatrist accused of molesting dozens of pre-adolescent boys in San Mateo County for decades, will return to San Mateo County Superior Court for his preliminary hearing on Aug 7.

The hearing, set today in court, will take place at 9 a.m.

Prosecutor Melissa McKowan told the judge that she estimated the hearing would last about a half-day.

Ayres has pleaded not guilty to a total of 21 counts of lewd and lascivious acts against seven children younger than 14.

Prosecutors, who have worked with police since Ayres' arrest to expand the case against the child psychiatrist, previously used court appearances to bring additional charges against the him. However, during today's brief court appearance, no further charges were filed.

Defense attorney Doron Weinberg stated at Ayres' last appearance that he plans to file a motion invalidating the search warrant upon, which the San Mateo County district attorney's office has built its entire case. Today, Weinberg told reporters outside of court that he would file the motion after the preliminary hearing.

Prosecutors claim that Ayres molested at least 39 people, but are only filing charges against the child psychiatrist based on the claims of seven men who fall within the legal stature of limitations for child molestation cases. State law requires that molestation charges be brought before the accuser turns 29 or that the alleged crime occurred after Jan. 1, 1988.

No MedGuide for Zyprexa after Eleven Years of Death and Injury

Another excellent report by Evelyn Pringle, as seen on Best Syndication

The FDA held a public hearing on June 12 and 13, 2007, to obtain feedback on the FDA's Medication Guide program. Medication Guides contain the FDA-approved patient information for a drug and are handed out by pharmacists to help prevent adverse events.

Ellen Bleecker Liversidge appeared at this hearing as a board member of the Alliance for Human Research Protection to offer feedback for the Medication Guide on Zyprexa, an atypical antipsychotic marketed by Eli Lilly. She began her talk by explaining why the testimony that she had planned to give had to be changed at the last minute.

"I sat down and read over the material provided for this hearing and was all set to speak on content as well as delivery systems," she told the FDA panel. "However, I didn't get very far because, believe it or not, there was no Zyprexa MedGuide."

Nor were there MedGuides for the other atypical antipsychotics," Ellen said, "all of which have two black box warnings."

"I went back to ask myself why there would be no FDA MedGuide in 2007 for Zyprexa, after all that has happened with this drug, and after all these years," she said, "And that's when I came up with the title of this testimony, 'Too Little, Too Late,'"

Ellen's son, Robert Liversidge III, died of profound hyperglycemia on October 5, 2002, as a result of taking Zyprexa. After finding that there was no MedGuide for Zyprexa, Ellen says she searched the FDA website to see what information was available to patients at that location and found that the black box warning about diabetes, hyperglycemia and death, that she and others had fought so hard to have added to the label 4 years ago, had been watered down. The warning was not listed in a black box, she told the panel, and it was not first on the list.

According to FDA briefing materials for the hearing, a MedGuide is required if a drug has even one of the following characteristics: (1) Patient labeling could help prevent serious adverse effects; (2) It has serious risks (relative to benefits) which patients should be made aware because the information could affect a patient's decisions to use, or continue to use, the drug; or (3) It is important to health and patient adherence to directions for use is crucial to the effectiveness of the drug.

Experts say Zyprexa qualifies for a MedGuide under all 3 categories: (1) The labeling would definitely help prevent serious adverse events; (2) Few patients would be willing to take the drug and risk developing diabetes given that numerous studies have shown Zyprexa to be no more effective than the older class of antipsychotics that do not cause diabetes; and (3) Most patients on Zyprexa would learn that the drug is not FDA approved to treat the condition they have.

In reading the list of adverse events on the FDA website, Ellen says, she found “high blood sugar and diabetes,” mentioned in the number 4 position, even though the wording in the warning in late 2003, specifically included diabetes, hyperglycemia, and death.

"Why was this wording changed?" she asked the panel. "And whose decision was it?"

The current document on the FDA website, Ellen said, is basically useless. Although it did mention that people should get frequent blood glucose monitoring, "There was no indication of how often blood glucose monitoring should take place, nor was there mention of what symptoms of diabetes should be watched for," she noted.

There is no mention that the CATIE study found Zyprexa to have the most lethal side effects out of all the new atypical antipsychotics, Ellen pointed out, or that the American Diabetes Association clearly stated that the risk is the highest with Zyprexa.

There is also no mention, Ellen said, that the use of the drug for treating mania should be brief. When Lilly obtained FDA approval for the sale of Zyprexa in the US in September 1996, the only approved indication was for the treatment of adults with schizophrenia. In 2000, the drug was approved to treat the manic phase of bipolar disorder.

Ellen's son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years before his death but had always done fine with lithium. However, in 2000, Rob had to apply for Medicaid to help pay his medical expenses and this was his downfall, she says.

During the 1990s, Lilly and the other makers of the new class of atypical antipsychotics, had been successful in corrupting the state Medicaid programs by influencing top officials in state agencies all over the country to write prescribing formularies for doctors that listed the new expensive drugs as the first line of treatment for all patients covered by Medicaid, and that is how Rob ever ended up on Zyprexa.

In 2006, Pennsylvania official Steven Fiorello, former Chief Pharmacist and Head of the state drug formulary committee, was indicted on felony and misdemeanor charges for his conflicts of interests with drug companies and was charged with other ethics violations for accepting "educational grant money" and failing to disclose the payments.

While working as a fraud investigator in the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, Bureau of Special Investigations, Allen Jones discovered the off-the-books slush fund account where atypical makers were depositing money under the guise of "educational grants," to influence state officials and policy makers involved in developing the preferred drug list in Pennsylvania. Mr Fiorello was in the position to approve drugs for patients in prisons and 9 state hospitals.

The profits from this scheme were enormous. For instance, Zyprexa was listed for schizophrenia, and Mr Jones' estimates that Pennsylvania has roughly 9,000 schizophrenic patients in state prisons and mental hospitals at any given time.

"And based on the average length of stay," he reports, "an additional 4,000 patients move through the system each year resulting in the potential recruitment of 13,000 customers, worth about $6,000 each per year."

In addition, "when patients leave state institutions with prescriptions for medication," he says, "many of them continue to be supported through Medicaid."

Another former investigator, psychiatrist Dr Stefan Kruszewski, worked in the Pennsylvania Bureau of Program Integrity in the Department of Public Welfare, and says his investigations found serious abuses and over-drugging of patients in state care. One case he reported in 2003 involved four children and one adult who died due to substandard care and the off-label prescribing of atypical antipsychotics.

"The people most vulnerable to the medicating for profit scheme in Pennsylvania," Dr Kruszewski says, "were children in state care or involved in the juvenile justice system, the disabled, and the prison population."

He calls the over-prescribing that took place polypharmacy at its worst. "Nearly all the patients," he explains, "were prescribed a combination of drugs, an antipsychotic and an antiseizure medication."

"But worst of all," he says, "the medical records showed that most of the patients who were receiving the drugs had never been psychotic and had never had a seizure."

"That fact that Medicaid patients are over-medicated to the max," says patient advocate Vince Boehm, "is not debatable."

"According to provider's reports," he reports, "even three antipsychotics, with a witches' brew of other preparations, is not unusual for patients being discharged from state hospitals."

Mr Boehm says the public system has failed these clients and "the taxpayers will be left to subsidize the cleanup of this mess for generations to come."

The ultimate goal in the drugging-for-profit scheme was to keep patients on the drugs for life. For example, Ellen testified that, although Zyprexa was approved only to treat the manic phase of bipolar disorder, which is typically brief, her son "was put on this drug for two years until he fell into a coma and died."

She pointed out that, at the time that he was prescribed Zyprexa in 2000-2002, there was no FDA warning guide so she was completely in the dark about the new drug prescribed to her Rob. Also, she told the panel that the current guide on the FDA website is almost the same as having no guide at all.

"Nothing on this document would have been helpful to me," Ellen said. There is still no description for the symptoms of hyperglycemia that might have saved her son had she known about them the week before he died," she noted.

When Rob suddenly lapsed into a coma and died, Ellen was determined to find out what happened and she subsequently learned that other countries had required warnings about the risk of hyperglycemia, diabetes and death on the label of Zyprexa since the spring of 2002, on the website of the consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen.

During her testimony, Ellen reminded the FDA panel that, back in 2001, before her son was killed, the FDA met with its equivalent agencies around the world, and they all agreed to cooperate with each other particularly on drug safety, and pointed out that this obviously did not happen with the FDA.

"In the spring of 2002," she said, "both Japan and the UK required Lilly to put a warning on Zyprexa for diabetes, hyperglycemia, and death."

"It wasn't as if the FDA didn't already know this," she testified, "because at the end of 2001, Dr. Doriswaimey and an FDA researcher reviewed Medwatch data for Zyprexa and found over two hundred cases of diabetes and 23 deaths."

As a follow-up to Ellen's testimony, a review of the FDA website on June 17, 2007, and the "Patient Information Sheet" on Zyprexa revealed only one warning about the risk of diabetes which states: "High blood sugar and diabetes. Patients with diabetes or who have a higher chance for diabetes should have their blood sugar checked often."

The lack of enforcement action against Lilly over the past 6 years by Bush appointed officials at the FDA is easily explained. Leonard Roy Frank provides a list of many of the reasons in the report titled, "Zyprexa: A Prescription for Diabetes, Disease and Early Death," published in the August 2005 edition of Street Spirit, which states:

"Eli Lilly's ties to the two Bush administrations are a matter of public record. President George H. W. Bush is a former member of Eli Lilly's board of directors. In 2000, Eli Lilly made campaign contributions of $1.6 million, 82 percent of which went to President George W. Bush and other Republicans. In 2001, President Bush appointed Mitch Daniels, a former Eli Lilly vice president, to be White House director of the Office of Management and Budget. In 2002, President Bush appointed Sidney Taurel, Eli Lilly's current chairman and CEO, to the Homeland Security Council."

When the last FDA Commissioner, Lester Crawford, had to get out of dodge and was indicted on charges of conflict of interest for secretly holding stock in companies that were regulated by the FDA, he hopped right from the court house into a job making big bucks off the pharmaceutical industry.

And the revolving door between Lilly and the Bush administration is in full swing today. In May 2007, Lilly issued a press release to proudly announce the hiring of Alex Azar II as a new senior vice president, a guy who was the Deputy Secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department until February 2007.

In the release, Lilly openly bragged about how Mr Azar supervised all operations of the HHS and specifically listed the FDA as an agency under his direction. Although the amount of his salary was not mentioned, if based on a percentage of the profits made from Zyprexa while he controlled the FDA, he should be set for life.

Critics say to look for more top regulatory officials to jump ship before the results are in from the numerous Congressional investigations into the FDA's "cozy" relationship with the pharmaceutical industry and the mishandling of drug safety issues.

At the moment, Congress is investigating Lilly for ripping off Medicaid and Medicare with the illegal marketing of Zyprexa and the criminal investigations of Lilly by US attorneys in various states are too numerous to keep track of.

As far as litigation against Lilly related to the illegal marketing of Zyprexa, so far, 10 states have filed Medicaid Fraud lawsuits, 4 class actions were filed by shareholders over a 9-day period in April, and Lilly has agreed to pay more than $1 billion in out-of-court settlements with over 28,000 private Zyprexa victims.

There are additional cases filed by insurance companies and employer unions that provide prescription drug coverage to private payers, and citizens and entities in other countries also have also filed lawsuits against Lilly.

In every case filed, the allegations include that Lilly marketed Zyprexa for unapproved uses and concealed the serious health risks associated with the drug, and most prominently, the complaints list the adverse effects of abnormal blood sugar levels, extreme weight gain and diabetes.

According to Ely Lilly's April 16, 2007 SEC Form 8-K filing for the first quarter of 2007.

Considering everything revealed about Zyprexa in the filings of all of this litigation, medical professionals and patient advocacy groups are infuriated over the fact that Lilly is still profiting from the drug. In the first quarter of 2007, sales were up 11% in the US from last year, and Zyprexa earned Lilly more than $1.1 billion, according to the company's April 16, 2007 SEC filing.

However, critics say they are even more outraged that the sales of Lilly’s top selling diabetes drug, Humalog, are up 11% over last year.

"The fact that this drug continues to be marketed," Mr Frank says, "that the media has barely covered the story, that there have been no criminal charges against the responsible parties and that there has been no outcry from the psychiatric profession or the public, have only compounded the crime."

"Lilly's introduction of Zyprexa and the FDA's complicity," he states, "have led to one of the greatest crimes in medical history in terms of the number of people harmed, the damage inflicted, and the grossness of fraud in promoting and advertising the drug."

Evelyn Pringle
evelyn-pringle@sbcglobal.net

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America)