Questionable Psych 'TeenScreen' Program

TeenScreen — Psychs and drug companies look for new customers: school kids

TeenScreen tries to hide the facts: Since this web page has gone on-line TeenScreen and other related web sites have been quietly deleting certain objectionable web pages and information that proved their drug company connections and funding. PsychSearch.net was forewarned that they might do this, therefore all web references were saved in advance and are provided here for your uncensored viewing.

TeenScreen is a so-called "diagnostic psychiatric service" aka a "suicide survey" done on children who are then referred to psychiatric treatment. The evidence suggests that the objective of the psychiatrists who designed TeenScreen is to place children so selected on psychotropic medication.

Note: the suicide survey previously was posted at

www.pathnow.org/pdfs/TeenScreenpermit0901.pdf

but we noticed on January 24, 2005 that TeenScreen and company did their disappearing act again on the survey. Luckily the survey had already been saved for you to review.

"It's just a way to put more people on prescription drugs," said Marcia Angell, a medical ethics lecturer at Harvard Medical School and author of "The Truth About Drug Companies." She said such programs will boost the sale of antidepressants like Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac even after the FDA in September ordered a "black box" label warning that the pills might spur suicidal thoughts or actions in minors. (The New York Post, December 5, 2004)

Psych Search

PsychSearch.net provides journalists, law enforcement, insurance investigators and citizens ready access to governmental reports on mental health practitioners across the state of Florida.

Did you know it was against the law for a psychotherapist to have sexual relations with his or her patient? It only makes sense that a patient should expect to feel safe in the office of his or her counselor, however, hundreds of people are abused every year by the psychotherapists they appeal to for help. According to Florida State Law this is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Many times these criminal acts go unreported — something we hope to correct.

This and other fraudulent and criminal actions have been committed against the citizens of Florida by psychotherapists for years — and now is the time to speak out to end these administrative and criminal transgressions.

Definition of a "psych" or psychotherapist:

For the purposes of this website a "psych" is defined as a Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Mental Health Counselor, Marriage & Family Therapist, Psychiatric Nurse or Clinical Social Worker. A "psych" is also defined as an unlicensed person who attempts to "practice" in any of the above "professions."

Survey Finds 80 Pct of U.S. Doctors Witness Mistakes

One can only imagine what happens in the field of mental health. As Reported in Rueters UK. Also as reported in this weblog, since Rueters stories tend to be on the internet for only a month.

Eighty percent of U.S. doctors and half of nurses surveyed said they had seen colleagues make mistakes, but only 10 percent ever spoke up, according to a study released on Wednesday. These mistakes are undoubtedly contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands of people who die from medical errors in the United States each year, the researchers and experts on nursing said.

Nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers need to be less shy about speaking up about mistakes, incompetent colleagues and other problems that can hurt patients, the report said. Healthcare workers who do speak up are not only able to nip the problem in the bud, but are also happier in their own work, said Joseph Grenny, president of consulting group VitalSmarts, which conducted the survey.

Grenny's team surveyed 1,700 nurses, doctors, hospital administrators and other experts for the study.

"Fifty percent of nurses said they have colleagues who appear incompetent," Grenny told a meeting of clinical care nurses. Eighty-four percent of physicians and 62 percent of nurses and other clinical care providers have seen co-workers taking shortcuts that could be dangerous to patients," he added.

The survey found that 88 percent of doctors and 48 percent of nurses and other workers felt they worked with colleagues who showed poor clinical judgment.

A 1999 study by the nonpartisan Institute of Medicine found that up to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors in hospitals. Last July, Lakewood, Colorado-based HealthGrades Inc. said the true number was closer to 195,000 people a year.

The errors include giving patients the wrong drug or the wrong dose, surgical errors and spreading germs through unhygienic practices.

"People frequently see these problems but too often they fail to talk about them," Grenny said.

Why not? Because people fear confrontation, lack time or feel it is not their job, Grenny said. Even doctors were afraid to question nurses they saw making errors, he said. His survey found the 10 percent of workers who did speak up felt good about it.

"When they effectively confront a situation, it makes a difference," he said. "These people are also more satisfied with their workplace."

Connie Barden, who helped author standards for the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, said nurses cannot be afraid to point out mistakes. "Nurses must be as proficient at handling personal communication as they are in clinical skills," she told the meeting.

Psychiatric unit boss concealed criminal conviction

A Senior Queensland [Australia] health official has been asked to show cause why he should not be disciplined after it was revealed he had been convicted of the indecent assault of a work colleague two years ago in Victoria.

Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital executive manager of mental health services Bill Pepplinkhouse plead guilty in March 2002 to a charge of indecent assault following an incident in May 2001 in which he squeezed a female colleague's breasts during a work function. At the time Mr Pepplinkhouse was the manager of the Grampians Psychiatric Services, a division of the Ballarat Health Services in Victoria – a position he had held for five years.

The documents relating to Mr Pepplinkhouse's conviction surfaced yesterday following recent stories by The Courier-Mail about the administration of the PA Hospital's mental health services.

Documents provided to The Courier-Mail show that shortly before his conviction, Mr Pepplinkhouse had resigned his job and moved to Queensland "to get on with his life".

In sentencing Mr Pepplinkhouse for the charge of indecent assault, Magistrate Tim McDonald said it was unacceptable for a person in a position of authority to engage in an action that broke the trust that should exist between a manager and an employee.

Queensland Health senior executive director (health services) John Scott said last night Mr Pepplinkhouse has been asked to show cause as to why disciplinary action should not be taken. "The Queensland Health Code of Conduct requires all employees to declare if they have been charged with an indictable offence or convicted of a criminal offence," Dr Scott said. "This was not done."

Liberal health spokesman Bruce Flegg said a simple reference check with Mr Pepplinkhouse's former employer would have brought the matters to light. Dr Flegg said even though the matters may not have been finalised before the courts, the matters would have been well known and Mr Pepplinkhouse's former employers would have had a responsibility to reveal the information.

"This is a senior appointment in the vulnerable area of mental health," Dr Flegg said. "Queensland Health have been delinquent in their reference-checking and assessment. The judge's remarks in this case were particularly scathing around holding a position in the mental health area."

We don't live under NORMAL CONDITIONS

A documentary film about depression and suicide

There is a tendency afoot today to blame the epidemic sweep of clinical depression in the US on bad genes or screwy brain chemistry. But what if the causes of depression, suicide, or other mental illnesses, do not emanate from biology?

This artful documentary film brings six people together for three days of emotional, and at times heated, discussion about the sources of their despair.

Intermixed are hard-to-find facts which challenge the psychiatric industry's claims that depression is a biological disorder. Fundamentally about empowerment and the resilience of the human spirit, this surprisingly inspirational new movie will change the way you think about "normal."

The following informational text slates that are presented in the film are listed here with their sources:

Title	Source
In the U.S., 30,000 people kill themselves each year, one every 17 minutes.	National Center on Health Statistics
One million adolescents attempt suicide each year	Centers for Disease Control
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among youth ages 15-24.	National Mental Health Association
As many as one-third of teenage suicides are gay/lesbian youth.	Department of Health & Human Services
Identical quadruplets develop schizophrenia. A renowned geneticist proclaims them proof of a biological cause, discounting the girls environment which included a father who banged their heads together to stop them from crying, abused them sexually and mutilated their genitals with acid.	Toxic Psychiatry, Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
In 1952 the American Psychiatric Association published the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual listing 60 types of mental disease. By the 1990s the 4th revision of the DSM listed 374 ways to be mentally ill.	DSMs
In 1967 several prominent psychiatrists wrote in a prominent medical journal that brain dysfunction was a cause of urban violence.	JAMA
In the 1970's government agencies funded psychiatrists who advocated psychiatric brain surgery for rioters and their leaders.	War Against Children, Peter R. Breggin
In the 1990's, the U.S. government conducted research on inner-city youth believed to be genetically pre-disposed to violence. The goal: to identify them at an early age and use drug treatment before they become criminals.	In Genes we Trust, Barry Mehler
While 75 percent of all attempted suicides are women, 80 percent of all completed suicides are men.	National Center for Health Statistics
In 1997 Prozac became the No. 2 overall selling drug in the U.S. bringing Eli Lilly 1 billion, 492 million dollars in revenue	The Plymouth as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lilly and other drug companies fund research at institutes where their products are tested and provide speaking fees, consulting deals and free travel to the psychiatrists in charge of the studies.	New York Post, 1998
Biopsychiatrists have long touted brain scan evidence as proof that schizophrenia is a biological disorder. Researchers recently discovered that the brain abnormalities are found only in neuroleptic-treated patients and are in all likelihood medication-induced.	American Journal of Psychiatry December, 1998
Estimates suggest that 5 million children take Ritalin for ADD, a "disease" that has never been proven to exist.	There Is No Disease Fred Baughman, Jr. M.D.
Since 1980 the number of private, for-profit psychiatric hospitals has more than tripled. Over 300,000 children and adolescents are placed in these hospitals each year. In Kentucky in 1990, 80% of the kids in one hospital were there with a diagnosis of "conduct disorder."	Bedlam, Joe Sharkey

Finally free

A story seen in the South East Missourian (shortened from the original)

Rodney Yoder is a "psychiatric prisoner" no longer. After nearly 15 years of fighting for his freedom by raging against what he calls "forced psychiatry," Yoder was released on bond last week from the Randolph County Jail in Chester, Ill. And it looks like, barring violent relapses, his freedom is final.

Yoder gained national media attention three years ago when he argued in court that psychiatry was a myth in an attempt to get his release from a mental institution for the criminally insane, where he had been involuntarily held 12 years.

"They almost got away with it," Yoder said. "I was facing extinction in there. When I arrived in Chester 14 years ago, they told me I wasn't getting out of there alive." Yoder, 46, spent last week doing more mundane things like getting a haircut, learning to use a cell phone, eating at restaurants and studying for his driver's license. On Saturday, he looked at used minivans in St. Louis. Yoder, who is staying with a friend in Glen Carbon, Ill., has also been bombarded with television and print media requests. A film crew working on a documentary about his plight also has been following him around. "It's kind of overwhelming," Yoder said. "I've hardly had a second free."

[While in prison] Yoder learned about the anti-psychiatry movement, shaping an opinion based on countless hours reading books by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Otto Kernberg in the facility's library. While he thought these writers had something to say about the human condition, he thought it wasn't right to forcefully incarcerate someone based on something as hard to prove as mental illness. "They even said that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane to stand trial," Yoder said. "It's nonsense, arbitrary nonsense. They can use that label -- mental illness -- any way it suits them."

Then, in 2002, Yoder got national attention, including a Time magazine article, an ABC News report and several stories on National Public Radio, when he argued that he should be released from Chester because there was no such thing as mental illness. Gaining support from the likes of Patch Adams -- the medical doctor and health-care activist who had a movie made about him starring Robin Williams -- and Church of Scientology followers, Yoder turned his commitment hearing that year into a proceeding that some said put psychiatry on trial. But again a jury agreed that Yoder should not be released. All the while, Yoder refused psychiatric treatment.

Then in 2003, state mental health officials decided to release Yoder. They said he now had bipolar disorder, but that that wasn't enough to hold him. "They said I went from mad to moody," Yoder quipped. Randolph County State's Attorney Michael Burke reacted by charging Yoder with attempted murder and aggravated battery for an alleged attack on a fellow inmate at Chester. Yoder said a conviction could have meant a prison term of 30 years. Yoder spent the last 19 months in the Randolph County Jail, seemingly unable to get beyond the borders of Chester. While incarcerated, he said, he wrote 1,000 letters urging business owners and residents to not vote for Burke in the recent election. Burke lost.

Then newly elected State's Attorney Randy Rodewald told a Chester judge on Tuesday that he doubted he could successfully prosecute Yoder and didn't fight bail. Phone calls to Rodewald were not returned Friday. Circuit Judge Dennis Doyle set bail at $10,000, and Susan Kniffel, a friend of Yoder's from Glen Carbon, posted the required $1,000 to secure his release. Yoder believes Rodewald will drop the charges against him. There is another hearing later this month.

For some, Yoder's story is about problems with psychiatry. Dr. Thomas Szasz is one of the most controversial figures in psychiatry today. He has been a psychiatry professor at the State University of New York in Syracuse for nearly 46 years and has become one of Yoder's biggest defenders. Szasz's most famous book is called "The Myth of Mental Illness." "This is not just about Rodney," Szasz said. "There are hundreds of thousands of more like him. But I'm happy he's free. Just like I'd be happy if someone escaped Auschwitz."

Yoder only wants to look ahead. He admitted he plans to sue the government for $100 million. He does want to write a book and continue to tell his story. He says he'll keep talking as long as people are being labeled "mentally ill" and being held against their will in psychiatric hospitals. He says he has no intention of hurting anyone. Friday afternoon, Yoder was in good spirits after taking his driver's test. "Aced it," he said matter-of-factly.

He found a 1991 Plymouth minivan on Saturday and haggled with the dealer to knock $200 off the price so it wouldn't exceed his limit of $2,000. Today, he hopes to drop Kniffel at the airport, meet with some more press types and then take a road trip. He got wind that the judge would modify his bond so he can go to Florida, where another friend has promised to put him up. Under his current bond, he's not allowed to leave Illinois. "Everything's perfect," he said. "Finally."

Holding people indefinitely causes mental health problems

Detainees held under current UK anti-terrorism laws have serious mental health problems that should be considered in the development of new legislation, warned a recent statement from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

The college—the professional and educational body for psychiatrists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland—issued the statement after the House of Lords ruled on 16 December 2004 that the current legislation under which detainees are held (the 2001 Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act) was unlawful because indefinite detention without trial was incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998.

After reviewing psychiatrists’ reports on the detainees currently held under the 2001 anti-terrorism act, the college suggested that there was evidence that detainees, as a group, had serious mental health problems. The particular circumstances of their detention were considered to contribute significantly to their mental health problems. The statement warned: "Despite limitations to available evidence, our best estimate is that indeterminate detention, lack of normal due legal process, and the resultant sense of powerlessness, is likely to cause significant deterioration to detainees’ mental health."

The college considered that these aspects of detainees’ circumstances, rather than the lack of access to mental health services, were responsible for their mental health problems. It was satisfied that the access detainees had to mental health services in prison was similar to that of other prisoners.

Psychiatric treatment, however sophisticated it may be, cannot neutralise the deleterious impact on mental health of the particular nature of this group’s detention, the statement suggested. "We are therefore particularly concerned that the home secretary should not suggest that provision of psychiatric treatment from high quality mental health services can in itself prevent a decline in detainees’ mental health that may come about as a result of their detention," the college said.

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, a human rights organisation that helps survivors of torture and organised violence, supported the call for any changes to legislation to take account of the impact on detainees’ mental health. Dr Charlotte Chapman, health and human rights adviser with the foundation, said: "We have long been concerned about the damaging mental health consequences of indefinite detention without trial.

"The nature of detention under the post-9/11 Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 is particularly likely to cause long term psychological problems. Detention without proper trial can increase feelings of injustice, frustration, and despair, which will all lead to deteriorating mental health."

In the expectation that the UK government will soon review anti-terrorism legislation, the Royal College of Psychiatrists said: "We consider that the impact on mental health is an important factor that should be taken into account when reviewing present legislation or contemplating future such legislation."

Dr Chapman suggested: "All prisoners held under anti-terrorism legislation should either be released or brought to trial." She argued that any suggestion that detaining people without trial might be for the greater good of society—in this case, reducing the risk of terrorism—had been shown in the past to be ineffective. "Reducing civil liberty and justice for individuals does not secure safety for society," she concluded.

The Statement by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in respect of the psychiatric problems of detainees held under the 2001 Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act can be found at www.rcpsych.ac.uk/press/preleases/pr/pr_633.htm

Thomas Szasz, Professor of psychiatry emeritus, State University of New York, Syracuse, New York [Retired] commented on this in the British Medical Journal:

The Royal College of Psychiatrists's declaration that indefinite detention is not good for the mental health of terrorists is to be applauded. Shouldn't the College entertain the possibility that detention is also not good for the mental health of mental patients, even if their detention is called "hospitalization"?

But this would be too much common sense, I suppose...

Psychiatric Lies Factor in Andrea Gates Case

An appeals court in Texas has overturned Andrea Yates' capital murder conviction for drowning her children. The Texas First Court of Appeals in Houston ordered a new trial in the drownings of her children. Yates had been serving a life sentence on convictions in the 2001 drownings of three of her five children. She was not tried for the deaths of the other two children. A three-judge panel found that the Harris County jury may have been prejudiced by the false testimony of a prosecution expert.

Yates' lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz lied when he said he consulted on an episode of the TV show "Law & Order" involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children. After jurors found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed.

As reported in many places

British therapist in Connecticutt court confesses to patient sex.

A British hypnotist charged with having sex with several patients and secretly videotaping the encounters has reached a plea deal that will send him to prison for 90 days.

Michael Johnstone, 64, pleaded no contest yesterday to reckless endangerment and breach of peace charges in Milford Superior Court in Connecticut. Johnstone, who will be sentenced on February 28, declined comment as he left court with his wife. He faces being deported back to Britain.

Authorities say Johnson confessed to having sex with half a dozen patients and secretly videotaped trysts in his offices. The victims were in their 40s and 50s and had sought treatment for anxiety.

"He was using his position to exploit these women who were coming to him for some real problems," prosecutor Kevin Lawlor said.

Mr Lawlor said the victims were "not 100 per cent satisfied" with the plea deal, but he said the agreement ensures Johnstone will not victimise more women because he is now banned from working as a hypnotist.

"I think it was also important for him to serve some jail time," he said. Hugh Keefe, Johnstone’s lawyer, said the charges are misdemeanours and that he does not have to register as a sex offender.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey Blasts FDA role on Prozac Documents

As reported on the Record Online

Revelations about high rates of suicide and violence connected with the anti-depressant Prozac highlight serious problems with U.S. drug development, Rep. Maurice Hinchey said yesterday.

Hinchey is reviewing documents that apparently were not given to federal researchers during the approval process for Prozac conducted by the federal Food and Drug Administration. The drug is produced by the Eli Lilly and Co.

"The documents seem to show that clearly there was an awareness of the risks associated with the use of the drug and that that information was available to Lilly and perhaps to the FDA 16 years ago," Hinchey said.

The documents surfaced first in the Jan. 1 issue of the British Medical Journal. The documents suggested Eli Lilly officials were aware of the problems and tried to minimize their potential impact, the article said.

Eli Lilly spokesmen could not be reached for comment yesterday but issued a statement to the British journal: "The safety and efficacy of Prozac is well studied, well documented, and well established."

More than 50 million people have been prescribed the drug worldwide, the company said. Hinchey questioned whether the company had withheld the damaging information from the FDA and the public as Prozac was being approved.

The British journal said it would turn the documents over to the FDA for its review. A spokesperson for the federal agency said yesterday that it had not yet received the documents.

The new documents about what Lilly and the FDA might have known come at a time when the drug approval process, which the FDA oversees, is under fire. The drug Vioxx was pulled from the market recently when high rates of heart problems were connected with it, for example. Some anti-depressants like Prozac were only recently connected to high rates of suicide as well.

Hinchey, who is on the House Appropriations Committee, blasted the FDA. "This case demonstrates the need for Congress to mandate the complete disclosure of all clinical studies for FDA-approved drugs so that patients and their doctors, not the drug companies, decide whether the benefits of taking a certain medicine outweigh the risks," he told the medical journal. This is not the first time the Saugerties Democrat has taken on the FDA.

Last year, Hinchey attacked Daniel Troy, the chief counsel for the agency. Troy was a former law clerk of failed candidate for U.S. Supreme Court Robert Bork. He represented pharmaceutical and tobacco industries in legal battles with the FDA, but that was before he took over as its chief lawyer.

Hinchey accused Troy of favoring drug company interests over that of the public, even going so far as seeking out legal cases and coordinating how the federal agency could best help the companies. Troy denied any bias but resigned his post in November. Hinchey said he was sure the pressure he applied to Troy played a role in the resignation.

But Troy's resignation will not end the agency's problems. The media focus is intensifying, and he plans to request an internal investigation of what the FDA knew about the Prozac data, Hinchey said.

"We have been led to believe we have the most complete safety procedure of any country in the world," he said. "But we may have to confront some illusions and myths here about the efficacy of our processes. We have to change them so they are the best and safest in the world."

The controversial documents can be found online here in PDF format

Therapist pleads guilty to being the rapist

A former therapist for children who suffered sexual abuse or had behavioral problems has plead guilty to molesting 10 of them.

Douglas Kennedy, 41, of Peru in Clinton County, faces up to seven years in prison under the plea deal. The victims, both boys and girls, currently range in age from 8 to 15, District Attorney Richard Cantwell said. Kennedy worked for Behavioral Health Services in Plattsburgh from 1995 until he resigned in June 2004 after two victims came forward.

The 11-count indictment included charges of criminal sexual acts, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child. When Cantwell asked Kennedy to elaborate in court, he described some of the incidents as "horseplay." Kennedy admitted performing oral sex on a boy more than once during therapy sessions between January 2002 and June 2004.

Another incident involved a 10-year-old girl who said Kennedy restrained her with toy handcuffs and left her in her underwear, Cantwell said. Other children said they viewed pornography during sessions. Authorities said they contacted 170 former clients during the investigation. "It was very troubling to meet the children and see how fragile they are and to see what happened to them on their road to recovery," Cantwell said. "Many of them were helpless victims."

Kennedy is free on $2,500 bail and was scheduled for sentencing March 8. His attorney did not immediately return calls for comment.

See this more detailed report in the Press Republican

Some of the children are now back in counseling trying to cope with their original sexual abuse or behavioral problems along with this additional trauma. Temporary orders of protection were granted for each of the victims. He will voluntarily surrender his license and will never again work as a therapist. Calls to Kennedy's lawyer, Stephen Johnston, were not returned Tuesday.

Company Eli Lily knew of Prozac's risks in 1980's

As reported in the British Medical Journal

The US Food and Drug Administration has agreed to review confidential drug company documents that went missing during a controversial product liability suit more than 10 years ago. The documents appear to suggest a link between the drug fluoxetine (Prozac), made by Eli Lilly, and suicide attempts and violence.

The missing documents, which were sent to the BMJ by an anonymous source last month, include reviews and memos indicating that Eli Lilly officials were aware in the 1980s that fluoxetine had troubling side effects and sought to minimise their likely negative effect on prescribing.

The documents received by the BMJ reportedly went missing during the 1994 Wesbecker case that grew out of a lawsuit filed on behalf of victims of a work-place shooting in 1989. Joseph Wesbecker, armed with an AK-47, shot eight people dead and wounded another 12. He then shot and killed himself. Mr Wesbecker, who had a long history of depression, had been placed on fluoxetine one month before the shootings.

One of the internal company documents, a report of 8 November 1988, entitled "Activation and Sedation in Fluoxetine Clinical Trials," found that in clinical trials "38% of fluoxetine-treated patients reported new activation but 19% of placebo-treated patients also reported new activation yielding a difference of 19% attributable to fluoxetine."

The FDA recently issued a warning that antidepressants can cause a cluster of "activating" or stimulating symptoms such as agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, and aggressiveness. Dr Joseph Glenmullen, a Harvard psychiatrist and author of The Antidepressant Solution, published by Free Press, said it should come as little surprise that fluoxetine might cause serious behavioural disturbances, as it is similar to cocaine in its effects on serotonin.

The full report is freely available at the link.

As reported in the news elswhere:

The documents reportedly went missing in 1994, when relatives of victims of a workplace shooting in Kentucky sued Eli Lilly. Gunman Joseph Wesbecker, who killed eight people and himself in 1989, had been prescribed Prozac a month before the shootings.

The lawsuit alleged the company knew for years that an increase in violence can be one of the side-effects of Prozac.

Eli Lilly won the case, but later said it had settled with plaintiffs during the trial.

The journal said the documents, dated November 1998, reported that fluoxetine or Prozac had caused behavioural disturbances in clinical trials.

Dr. Richard Kalpit, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviewer who approved Prozac, said he was not given the company's data. "If this report was done by Lilly or for Lilly, it was their responsibility to report it to us and to publish it," he said in a statement from the journal. The journal has turned the documents over to the FDA, which is reviewing them.

In the last six months, regulators in Canada and the U.S. have warned that antidepressants like Prozac, so-called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRI antidepressants, can stimulate side-effects such as agitation, panic attacks, insomnia and aggressiveness.

Mandatory mental health screening program would dose pregnant women with prescription drugs that cause birth defects

As reported here on News Watch:

Bureaucrats in Chicago are currently discussing a proposal to require the mental health screening of all pregnant women and children up to the age of 18 years old. The purported mission of the program is to protect the health of the public by diagnosing mental disorders before they become full blown problems -- but in reality, as we've seen from similar programs in the past, the real mission is to diagnose people with fictitious brain diseases and behavioral disorders, then dose them with highly toxic prescription drugs that not only generate profits for pharmaceutical companies, but also for the psychiatrists who prescribe them.

What's especially frightening about this program is that it may include the dosing of pregnant women with prescription drugs that we now know increase the risk of birth defects. We also know from clinical trials and experiments involving mice that children who grow up on antidepressant drugs have a much higher risk of being depressed as adults whether or not they continue taking those drugs.

In other words, it's not enough that as a nation we misdiagnose childhood hyperactivity caused by sugar consumption as being a brain chemistry imbalance and then dose all those children with Ritalin, it seems that we also want to start dosing pregnant women as well. Who's next? Are we going to dose all men under the age of 30? Are we going to require the mental health screening of all elderly people, and start dosing everyone over the age of 65 with brain altering drugs too?

There seems to be no limit to how far the highly corrupt psychiatry community and prescription drug companies will carry this to exert control over the population and generate obscene profits. And the truth is that anyone can be diagnosed with a mental disorder given sufficient creativity on the part of the psychiatrists. If a person is too creative and excited, they have Attention Deficit Disorder.

If they're not creative enough, they have a reading disorder. And if they get nervous while being observed by the psychiatrist, they obviously have a social anxiety disorder. See? It doesn't take much to invent behavioral disorders and then come up with fraudulently marketed drugs that claim to mask symptoms of those disorders.

Welcome to Insane USA, where the mission of the pharmaceutical industry
seems to be: let's put as many people as possible on as many brain altering drugs as possible. And, if you've noticed, the whole idea of diagnosing disease has shifted over the last ten years from diseases that had measurable symptoms (such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure or cancer tumors) to diseases that are largely subjective and have no objective definition.

There is no definition of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that can be confirmed by a lab test. It is a completely fictitious disease that has literally no
verifiable biochemistry or physiology. It's simply a matter of one psychiatrist walking in, pointing at a child and saying "Oh, he has a disorder -- let's put him on drugs!" And ignorant parents tend to go right along with it because they haven't done the math on drugs, and they're not aware of the dangerous side effects of these toxic prescriptions.

What we really need in this country are laws that ban dosing children with Mind-altering drugs. If anything, our children need to be set free from the chemical prisons erected by psychiatrists, over-zealous school administrators and, of course, pharmaceutical companies.

Overview:

Mandatory mental health screening program would dose pregnant women with prescription drugs that cause birth defects

Source: http://www.newstarget.com/002566.html

Calvin and Hobbes and Ritalin

If you know the wonderful and original cartoon series, this is a very sad cartoon.

Someone took the time to re-write the cartoon to show what it would be like if Calvin was put on ritalin.

Calvin is a wonderful child whose imagination takes him on the wildest and funniest adventures. Hobbes is his pet Tiger (in reality a stuffed toy)



You can see some of the original series online at

http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/

An Early History of African American Mental Health

As seen on this excellent webpage:

Benjamin Rush, MD, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dean of the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania and the "Father of American Psychiatry, "described Negroes as suffering from an affliction called Negritude, which was thought to be a mild form of leprosy. The only cure for the disorder was to become white. It is unclear as to how many cases of Negritude were successfully treated.

The irony of Dr. Rush's medical observations was that he was a leading mental health reformer and co-founder of the first anti-slavery society in America. Dr. Rush's portrait still adorns the official seal of the American Psychiatric Association. However, Dr Rush's observation-"The Africans become insane, we are told, in some instances, soon after they enter upon the toils of perpetual slavery in the West Indies"-is not often cited in discussions of mental illness and African-Americans, how-ever valuable it might be in understanding the traumatic impact of enslavement and oppression on Africans and their descendants.

In 1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a prominent Louisiana physician and one of the leading authorities in his time on the medical care of Negroes, identified two mental disorders peculiar to slaves. Drapetomia, or the disease causing Negroes to run away, was noted as a condition, "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers. " Dr. Cartwright observed, "The cause in most cases, that induces the Negro to run 4 away from service, is such a disease of the mind as in any other species of alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. "

Cartwright was so helpful as to identify preventive measures for dealing with potential cases of drapetomania. Slaves showing incipient drapetomania, reflected in sulky and dissatisfied behavior should be whipped-strictly as a therapeutic early intervention. Planter and overseers were encouraged to utilize whipping as the primary intervention once the disease had progressed to the stage of actually running away. Overall, Cartwright suggested that Negroes should be kept in a submissive state and treated like children, with "care, kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away."

Dr. Cartwright also diagnosed Dysaethesia Aethiopica, or "hebetude of the mind and obtuse sensibility of the body-a disease peculiar to Negroes called by overseers-Rascality. " Dysethesia Aethiopica differed from other species of mental disease since physical signs and lesions accompanied it. The ever-resourceful Dr. Cartwright determined that whipping could also cure this disorder. Of course, one wonders if the whipping were not the cause of the "lesions" that confirmed the diagnosis.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Cartwright was a leading thinker in the pro-slavery movement. Dr. Cartwright, in his article "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, " chided his anti-slavery colleagues by noting "The northern physicians and people have noticed the symptoms, but not the disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute the symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind without considering that those who have never been in slavery, or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the latest from the slave-holding south the least. The disease is the natural offspring of Negro liberty-the liberty to be idle, to wallow in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks. "

Drapetomania and Dysethesia Aethiopica could be relegated to obscurity along with the spinning chair and other ridiculous assumptions about mental illness and its treatment if African-Americans were not constantly assaulted by updated efforts to put social and economic issues into a medical framework that emphasizes our " pathology. "

In the late 1960s, Vernon Mark, William Sweet and Frank Ervin suggested that urban violence, which most African-Americans perceived as a reaction to oppression, poverty and state-sponsored economic and physical violence against us, was actually due to "brain dysfunction, " and recommended the use of psychosurgery to prevent outbreaks of violence. Clearly, the spirit of Dr. Cartwright was alive, well and receiving federal research grants.

Drs. Alvin Poussaint and Peter Breggin were two outspoken opponents of the updated "Drapetomania" theory, along with hundreds of psychiatric survivors who took to the streets to protest psychosurgery abuses. The issue of brain dysfunction as a cause of poor social conditions in African-American and Latino communities continues to crop up in the federally funded Violence Initiatives of the 1990s and current calls for psychiatric screening for all children entering juvenile justice facilities. Exposing scientific racism is essential to protecting us from further psychiatric abuses and facilitating resolution of social, political and economic problems without blaming the victims of oppression.

Norwegian Psych Hospital Sends Dangerous Patient Home to Calm Down.

As seen in this report

Staff at Ullevål University Hospital [in Norway] were so frightened by a psychotic patient's aggressive behavior that they released him in the hopes that some time at home would calm him. [Ullevål University Hospital has also came under fire after releasing a man in August who went amok on an Oslo tram and stabbed several passengers, one to death.]

A representative for Oslo police said that they were to be informed if the patient was released but instead Ullevål issued a missing person notice after he failed to return. He was assessed as dangerously psychotic by a police physician in October and committed to Ullevål on the 18th of that month.

The Department of Health has an ongoing investigation into Ullevål's routines.

The 6 Myths Of Creativity

You would think that Psychiatry and Psychology would have unlocked the key to Human Creativity long ago. But it is not so. A recent study by a business researcher at the Havard Business School has results that debunk six commonly held beliefs about creativity. Being business people, it seems they actually wanted something that worked, vs the usual tripe they get.

The following snippets are from a summary was spotted in the magazine Fast Company.

Myth 1. Creativity Comes From Creative Types

Myth 2. Money Is a Creativity Motivator

Myth 3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity

Myth 4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs

Myth 5. Competition Beats Collaboration

Myth 6. Streamlining an Organization enhances Creativity

There's this widespread notion that fear and sadness somehow spur creativity. There's even some psychological literature suggesting that the incidence of depression is higher in creative writers and artists -- the de-pressed geniuses who are incredibly original in their thinking. But it isn't so. Not for the vast majority of people.

Simply put, creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety. People are happiest when they come up with a creative idea, but they're more likely to have a breakthrough if they were happy the day before.

People were the least creative when they were fighting the clock. When people were working under great pressure, their creativity went down not only on that day but the next two days as well. Time pressure stifles creativity because people can't deeply engage with the problem. Creativity requires an incubation period; people need time to soak in a problem and let the ideas bubble up.

It's probably only the public-relations departments that believe downsizing and restructuring actually foster creativity. Of course, the opposite is true: Creativity suffers greatly during a downsizing. Anticipation of the downsizing was even worse than the downsizing itself -- people's fear of the unknown led them to basically disengage from the work.

Anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing some degree of creative work. Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells. Intrinsic motivation -- people who are turned on by their work often work creatively -- is especially critical.

An interview with the original researcher can been seen here

Iowa Pyschiatrist fined for Dirty Money.

An Iowa psychiatrist has to pay a $250 fine -- after he was accused of smearing feces on bills used to pay a $5 parking ticket.

Psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Preston McPike was charged with harassment of a public official. He pleaded not guilty, but was fined $250. Police said McPike claimed the money fell into a toilet.

According to authorities, the money was in an envelope labeled, "Foreign brown substance on bills." Lab test showed the stains were from excrement smeared on the bills. Prosecutors had pushed for the maximum of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine, saying the crime was disgusting. McPike's lawyer said his client made a serious error in judgment and his psychiatric practice has suffered because of it.

As reported here. Obviously a parogon of virtue and a model for his community. How did he ever think this was alright? Is the man crazy?

Funny thing, there was a survey on the page where they asked the following question

If this man were your psychiatrist, would you stop going to him?

Results so far are 89% said yes. 11% said no. I'm worried about those 11%.

See also this other story.

Primetime Live Investigates Side Effects Of AntiDepressants in Children and Others

Tune in tonight, as Primetime Live airs its investigation into withheld information on antidepressants causing suicide in children and adolscents.

As their blurb says:

An investigation reveals evidence that drug makers suppressed information about how antidepressants can affect children.

Check your local listings and be sure to tune in to ABC.

When: Thursday, December 9, 2004. 10:00pm
(but check your local listings first)

Update:

Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, appeared on "Primetime Live" tonight to discuss the often-unrecognized side effects of antidepressant drugs.

Studies of the antidepressants known as SSRIs have established an increased risk in suicidal thoughts and behaviors for children and adolescents, and withdrawal symptoms that include dizziness, nausea, insomnia and nightmares.

If you have questions for Glenmullen, author of "The Antidepressant Solution: A Step-by-Step Guide to Safely Overcoming Antidepressant Withdrawal, Dependence, and Addiction,'" send them in on this page at Prime Time Live. Check back on Wednesday, Dec. 15, for his responses. Glenmullen also consults for lawyers suing antidepressant manufacturers.

For more information, go to his Web site at: www.antidepressantsolution.org

The book The Antidepressant Solution includes a chapter on how changing the dose of antidpressants up or down may make patients suicidal.

The odds are very good that you are on drugs.

As By SF Gate Columnist Mark Morford

Right now. This minute. As I type this and as you read this and as false Texas dictators rise and sad empires crumble and as this mad bewildered world spins in its frantically careening orbit, there's a nearly 50/50 chance that some sort of devious synthetic chemical manufactured by some massive and largely heartless corporation is coursing through your bloodstream and humping your brain stem and molesting your karma and kicking the crap out of your libido and chattering the teeth of your very bones.

Maybe it's regulating your blood pressure. Maybe it's keeping your cholesterol in check. Maybe it's helping you sleep. Maybe it's helping you wake the hell up. Maybe it's opening your bronchial tubes. Maybe it's brightening your terminally bleak outlook.

Maybe it's adjusting your hormone levels or controlling your urge to weep every minute or relaxing the blood vessels in your penis or cranking the serotonin to your brain or pumping carefully measured slugs of alprazolam or fluoxetine or sertraline or atorvastatin or esomeprazole or buspirone or venlafaxine or any number of substances with Latin-rooted jawbreaker names through your flesh in a bizarre dance of miraculous vaguely disturbing death-defying scientific wonder.

Forty-four percent of all Americans. That's the latest number. Almost half us are popping at least one prescription drug and fully one in six are popping three or more, and the numbers are only increasing and this of course doesn't count alcohol or cigarettes or bad porn and it doesn't count the mad megadoses of jingoistic flag-waving God-slappin' fear -- which is, as evidenced by the last election, a stupendously popular FDA-approved drug in its own right. But that's another column.

Have a teenager? She's probably on drugs, too. One in four of all teens are, according to new research. And we ain't talking pot or ecstasy or meth or fine cocaine or Bud Light or any of those oh-my-God-not-my-baby devil drugs that are so demonized by the government, but that by and large are no more (and are often far less) toxic and addictive and caustic than any of your average 8-buck-a-pop silver-bullet chemical bombs shot forth from the likes of Eli Lilly and Glaxo and Pfizer, et al. Ahh, irony. It's the American way.

All of which means one of two things: either it's the goddamn finest time in history to be an American, living as we are in the age of incredible technology and miracle medicines and longer life expectancies and $5 coffee drinks and a happy synthetic chemical to match any sort of ache or pain or lump or rash or spiritual crisis you might be facing.

Or it's the absolute worst, what with so many of us heavily drugged and over half of us massively obese and IQs dropping like stones and our overall quality of life deteriorating right under our noses and shockingly huge numbers of us actually finding Shania Twain somehow interesting. Which perspective is right for you? Ask your doctor.

It's become so you can't crack a joke about Prozac or Xanax at a party without at least three or four faces suddenly going still and unsmiling and you're like, whoops, as you suddenly realize that you can, as you walk the streets of this fine and heavily narcotized nation, imagine at least one very expensive drug pumping through the time-ravaged body of nearly every other person you pass. It's a bit like knowing their secret fetish or favoritest dream or on which nether part they want to get a tattoo. Except totally different.

Shadow Psychiatry News Website

The Shadow Psychology News Network is a consortium of concerned citizens, technical and marketing advertisers supporting an initiative to reform Psychology research and education policies and procedures.

A very impressive site. While I do not agree with everything they have, they are a very good resource.

ADVENTURES WITH AN ICE PICK: a short history of lobotomy

As seen in this webpage

AMERICA, 1847: a highly competent and, by all accounts, pleasant manual laborer of Irish extraction named Phineas Gage is involved in rock blasting operations in mountainous terrain. In the course of one sadly uncontrolled explosion, an iron bar is picked up by the force of the blast and driven clean through the front part of his head. Phineas is sent flying, but, to everybody's surprise, he survives the removal of the protruding bar. As he recovers, however, it is observed that his personality has dramatically changed, though his memory and intelligence remain apparently unaffected. In 1868, a physician named Harlow from Boston writes about him: "His equilibrium, or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires." The now extremely rude Phineas Gage is an object of immense medical interest, for it seems clear, from his somewhat crude experience of psychosurgery, that one can alter the social behavior of the human animal by physically interfering with the frontal lobes of the brain.

Note that His behavior only got worse. Not better.

Then we have this:

As early as 1951, even the Soviet Union, where psychiatric abuse was rife, had stopped performing the lobotomy on ideological grounds: it produced unresponsive people who were fixed and unchangeable.

Lobotomy was finally seen for what it was: not a cure, but a way of managing patients. It was just another form of restraint, a mental strait jacket nailed permanently over the brain. It did not create new people; it subtracted from the old ones. It was an act of defeat, of frustration.

The Director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Nolan Lewis, asked: "Is quieting a patient a cure? Perhaps all it accomplishes is to make things more convenient for those who have to nurse them ... the patients become rather childlike ... they are as dull as blazes. It disturbs me to see the number of zombies that these operations turn out ... it should be stopped."

A worth while read

Prozac makes children suicidal, says new study of antidepressants

As Reported on News Target

A drug that is supposed to the one safe medication to give depressed children may be actually making children suicidal, according to new research. It was found that children had a 50% higher occurrence of suicidal thoughts while taking Prozac, as opposed to a placebo.

This is definite cause for concern given the number of children currently taking the supposedly safe Prozac. More tests must be conducted immediately to decipher if this is truly a risk that parents need to be concerned with. A push for relabeling of Prozac is underway so that parents are aware of this potentially dangerous side effect.

News summary:

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-09-13-prozac_x.htm

• Prozac, the only antidepressant certified as safe for children, may make kids more suicidal, according to evidence out Monday.


• A large new study added to previous research on Prozac shows that kids taking the drug have about a 50% higher risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts than those getting placebos, says Robert Temple, director of the Office of Drug Evaluation at the Food and Drug Administration.


• Temple spoke at the first day of hearings on potential label changes for antidepressants taken by more than a million children and teenagers.


• The discussion continues today, and an advisory committee could end the day by asking for tougher warning labels on all antidepressants taken by kids.


• Following a February hearing, the FDA in March asked drug companies to relabel 10 antidepressants, warning that young patients should be watched for worsening depression and anxiety.


• Critics at the time derided that move as "too little, too late," considering that, in December, British drug regulators had advised doctors to prescribe only Prozac for depressed kids.


• The increased risk for suicidal behavior is small: About two to three kids in a group of 100 become more suicidal because they're on antidepressants, says Tarek Hammad, medical reviewer for the FDA.


• Dozens of parents testified at the hearing that antidepressants had caused their children to kill themselves --- or others.


• Their claims were "passionate and plausible," says psychiatrist Wayne Goodman, chairman of the FDA advisory panel.

A Study in Research and Treatment Ethics

As someone commented on this story:

Free health care! Who doesn't get excited over that prospect? So, how does the state take care of the people in its system?

These mentally ill folks were shot full of LSD and forced to undergo electroshock for hours on end. For over ten years.

But hey, at least it was free!

All this in comment to this paper:

Ewen Cameron and The Allan Memorial Psychiatric Institute: A Study in Research and Treatment Ethics

Here are some highlights, just in case this paper dis-appears off the Internet:

Dr. Ewen Cameron was a very well known psychiatrist who worked for 21 years at the Allan Memorial Psychiatric Institute in Montreal, Quebec. He was highly esteemed among his colleagues and his peers; Gillmor (1987) suggests that Cameron was, when he died in 1967, "one of the most respected psychiatrists in the world" (p.1). At different times, he was head of the Quebec, Canadian, and American Psychiatric Associations, and he was a co-founder and the first president of the World Psychiatric Association (Gillmor, 1987).

[...]

Cameron [...] admits to using stimulant drugs and LSD - without the patients’ consent - to disorganize the patient [...] Cameron’s use of electroconvulsive therapy would likely be judged barbaric by the standards of today. [...]

The term "brainwashing" caught the eye of members of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). [...] The CIA wanted to study brainwashing. Rather than directly fund research, the CIA funded cover organizations who would not be scrutinized as the CIA would be (Collins, 1988). One of these cover organizations was the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE); this group funded Cameron’s research into psychic driving from 1957 to 1960 (Collins, 1988).

Fifteen years later, a group of nine former patients at the Allan Memorial brought suit against the CIA for funding research that led to harm of the patients at the Allan (Collins, 1988). Their lawyer, American civil rights lobbyist Joseph Rauh, wanted to settle out of court because of the advanced age and declining health of his clients (Collins, 1988). However, the CIA was willing to neither settle nor negotiate. Rauh subsequently filed a formal complaint, requesting one million dollars per plaintiff. He then tried to get the Canadian government to support the plaintiffs in their suit against the CIA, [but] to no avail. During the filing of depositions, "CIA and U.S. Justice Department lawyers . . . were . . . stopping testimony where they could on the grounds that it might be damaging to national security" (Collins, 1988, p. 220-21). The Canadian government still would not help, passively saying they "couldn’t release any American-originated documents without the approval of its correspondent" (Collins, 1988, p. 221). The CIA offered a "nuisance settlement" of $25,000 per plaintiff, which was summarily refused. Finally, in 1988, the case went to trial. The lawsuit, however, was fruitless; the CIA never paid any money to any of the plaintiffs, nor did they issue an apology.

The events at the Allan Memorial Psychiatric Institute in the 1950s and 1960s set psychology back to its dark ages

This in a paper that in fact is trying rehabilitate the reputation of this man. The author does not seem to appreciate the full horror and madness of the events in question

Support better for treating depressed Seniors than drugs.

As reported online in the Senior Journal, depressed people 75 or older are just as likely to improve after an 8-week course with an inactive, placebo drug as with an antidepressant, new research indicates. The study shows that after a short course of the antidepressant medication citalopram (Celexa), around one-third of elderly people with depression went into remission -- the same improvement rate seen in people taking a placebo drug.

All of the participants in the study were treated to some kind of "active intervention". For instance, even placebo-takers received a free medical workup, an MRI, weekly visits with health professionals, and free rides to and from their appointments, among other amenities.

Researchers seem reluctant to assign the cause of the improvement to increased activity and extra attention, even though the drugs tested showed no significant effect or improvement.

Florida debates prosecuting psych misconduct cases

The state of Florida is looking into several psychiatrist misconduct cases, years after the doctors were disciplined by the state but never referred for criminal prosecution. Under Florida law, state boards or departments are required to report cases of criminal misconduct to prosecutors. In at least two of the cases in question, the psychiatrists' practices were restricted by the state, but prosecution was not considered.

A unit in the Department of Health is trying to determine whether any other cases before 2002 were not properly forwarded to prosecutors, said Amy Jones, director of the Medical Quality Assurance Division of the state Health Department. Two cases involve psychiatrists in northeastern Florida who were sanctioned by the state with fines and practice restrictions after they had sex with patients. But Jacksonville-based State Attorney Harry Shorstein said he would be unlikely to prosecute those cases because the activities were consensual.

"Just doing something that's prohibited by the profession is better dealt with by the profession. Administrative action is more appropriate, and it was taken in these cases," he told The Florida Times-Union, in Jacksonville.

Research has turned up about 75 cases statewide that were not properly considered for prosecution, but the state has only forwarded about six to prosecutors.

Psychiatrist uses excrement-smeared cash to pay fine

BURLINGTON, Iowa - A psychiatrist made a stink over paying a parking ticket, using dirty money to cover the fine. Police say psychiastrist Ronald Preston McPike has been charged with harassment of a public official for smearing excrement on dollar bills used to pay the ticket.

McPike, 52, pleaded not guilty to the charge, a misdemeanor, and was released on $125 bond pending a Dec. 8 court appearance. He was arrested Sept. 30 at his office in Burlington.

Officers received an envelope in July labeled "Foreign brown substance on bills." The envelope contained several dollar bills and a parking ticket made out to a vehicle registered to McPike, police said.Tests indicated the brown substance was fecal matter and indicated the stain patterns resulted from feces being smeared on the bills.

"All personnel that dealt with the bills were offended by what the defendant did," an affidavit said. McPike told police the money fell into a toilet and was retrieved to pay the ticket, police said. If convicted, McPike could face up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.

Sydney psychiatrist guilty of murdering health chief

A former Sydney psychiatrist has been found guilty of murdering South Australia's mental health chief. Jean Eric Gassy, 48, was found guilty by a South Australian Supreme Court jury.

He was found to have murdered Dr Margaret Tobin, SA's Human Services Department's director of mental health services, by shooting her in the back at her Adelaide city office block on October 14, 2002. Gassy, from Oyster Bay in Sydney's south, had plead not guilty to the charge.

During the two-month trial, the prosecution alleged Gassy gunned down Dr Tobin because he harboured resentment towards her over the role she played in having him deregistered as a psychiatrist in 1997. But Gassy told the trial Dr Tobin was a closet lesbian and her real killer was a member of the lesbian underground.

The Decline of the Psych Personality Test

As seen in the Boston Globe

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI, is taken by as many as 15 million people a year and used to screen applicants for jobs from police officer to nuclear technician to priest. Eighty-nine companies in the Fortune 100 use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to determine how and with whom their employees work best. The Rorschach test, the granddaddy of them all, is used diagnostically by eight out of 10 psychologists and routinely submitted as evidence in child custody cases, criminal sentencing, and emotional damage lawsuits. Online dating sites even use personality tests to help match prospective couples.

Clearly, there's something about the elusive notion of personality, and the possibility of capturing it, that draws us to these tests. But an increasingly vocal group of critics is fighting this testing tsunami, arguing that many of the tests themselves have not been tested and that their unscientific conclusions may do far more harm than good. Last year, in "What's Wrong with the Rorschach? Science Confronts the Controversial Inkblot Test" (California), four psychologists dismissed the Rorschach test as having no more validity than "tea-leaf reading and tarot cards." In "The Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves" (Free Press), due out later this month, Annie Murphy Paul, a former senior editor of Psychology Today, charges that personality tests "are often invalid, unreliable, and unfair" and that their prevalence has grave consequences, not least the distortion of the very idea of human nature to fit their arbitrary dictates.

Part of a much larger article, reviewing the situation for each of the major tests. Bottom line: bad science used far more often and in situations that even the original authors did not envision, nevermind intend

Illegal Psych Scam closed down in Mexico

As seen in various reports from Yahoo news and elsewhere

Authorities closed three rehabilitation centers in northern Mexico this week and deported hundreds of U.S. teenagers sent there for treatment of drug, alcohol or behavior problems, immigration officials said on Saturday.

Authorities shut the three centers in the Baja California towns of Ensenada and Rosarito (after a surprise raid on the psych facilities) on Friday and began deporting 590 youths, many of whom were in Mexico illegally. A man who answered the phone at one of the centers identified by the immigration officials, the House of Hope Academy in the Pacific coastal town of Ensenada, refused to comment. The other two centers could not be immediately identified and contacted for comment.

Mexico investigated the centers after complaints of maltreatment, and found the youths had entered Mexico as tourists, not residents of treatment programs, the National Immigration Institute said. Immigration officials also said at least one of the centers was run by an American who had also entered on a tourist visa and had no legal right to run a business in Mexico.

"Seventy-five percent of the undocumented Americans have left the country. The rest will stay in the care of the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana until their parents are contacted," said Raul Zarate, spokesman for the immigration institute. The youths were residents at the centers, which treat behavioral problems, drug and alcohol abuse, the Mexican authorities said.

The immigration institute said in a statement the centers had been closed by the state health ministry after patients complained of physical and psychological abuses.

Strong warnings expected on antidepressants for kids

As reported in USA Today

Scientific advisers to the Food and Drug Administration next week are expected to recommend tougher warning labels or other restrictions on antidepressants linked to suicidal behavior in children.

More than 1 million U.S. children take the pills. A re-analysis of studies, released last month, confirmed that those on antidepressants may be nearly twice as likely to become suicidal as kids given sugar pills, and some drugs appear to raise the risk much more than others.

There were no suicides in the 4,250 children studied, but experts think a "wait and see" approach isn't likely.

"They're going to have to do something," says Graham Emslie, child and adolescent psychiatrist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "The horror stories have been just too horrible, and their advisory committee is going to be influenced." [...]

After March, there was a sharp drop in pediatric users of antidepressants, according to an analysis for USA TODAY by Medco, a large pharmaceutical benefit management firm. Records show a 10% decline in patients under 18 taking the drugs in the three months after the March warnings, says spokeswoman Jennifer Leone.

Psych drug companies are expected to do something to stem the tide of falling profits.

Negatives Results to get much more exposure

Editors at 11 international science journals have imposed a new policy that will result in the public release of negative medical research that pharmaceutical companies often prefer to hide.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors will require, as a condition for publication, that researchers register their studies in a public repository before undertaking clinical trials on volunteers.

"Honest reporting begins with revealing the existence of all clinical studies, even those that reflect unfavourably on a research sponsor's product," the committee wrote in an editorial to appear simultaneously in its member journals. "Unfortunately, selective reporting of trials does occur, and it distorts the body of evidence available for clinical decision-making."

The committee includes editors from the US-based New England Journal of Medicine, the Medical Journal of Australia and Britain's The Lancet, among others.

The policy was prompted by the tendency among pharmaceutical companies to hide negative research. A recent example was a non-published study on anti-depressants that could aggravate suicidal tendencies among adolescents.

The policy applies to clinical trials starting after July 1, 2005. Current trials have until September 13, 2005 to do so, according to the editorial published in the September 16 edition of the New Journal of Medicine.

Anti-Depressant Defense for Murder

The case of a Chester County (South Carolina) teenager accused of killing his grandparents is gaining national attention, including a front page story Monday in The New York Times. The Times ran a lengthy story detailing the case of Christopher Pittman, who police say shot and killed his grandparents in 2001 at age 12. The story looks at the alleged link between the boy's behavior and an antidepressant he was taking at the time of the killings.

The newspaper cited Pittman's case because it will be among the first to be tried amid a debate over the safety of antidepressant use among children. Pittman is charged with killing his grandparents, Joe Frank Pittman and Joy Roberts Pittman, in November 2001. Each had been shot in the head while sleeping in their rural Chester County home, and their house was then set on fire. Pittman is being tried as an adult and could face up to life in prison if convicted.

Ocala Star Banner
Washington Times Report
New York Time via the International Herald Tribune

Psych Doctor Richard Boylan and your Space Alien Child

Dr. Richard Boylan is a former California psychologist who had his state psychology license revoked over allegations of improper sexual interaction with female patients in his hot tub (hydro 'therapy'?). He still uses the title doctor, even though he might not be legally licensed for mental therapy anymore.

He may have had gotten into trouble back on the old Art Bell late night radio show. He rode the American Indian 'Star People' mythos for several years and claims to know of secret government/UFO testing spots in Nevada desert. He has engaged in countless character assassinations against UFO researchers who disagree with him. Boylan has conveniently claimed to have been gifted with a brand new and, no surprise, anonymous 'inside source', and to have been the confidant of the late 'government MJ-12 insider' Michael Wolf (also not trusted in some quarters.)

He is now planning to hold a summer camp for "star kids" - children who are alleged to have been genetically-altered by aliens (aka: money-in-my-pocket).

Parents everywhere should beware...

Bell's successor George Noory might not have done his homework, as he is being featured on an upcoming show.

SEE: Full Transcript of California Board of Psychology revoking Boylan's license to practice in Nov 1996

Caution Urged on Antidepressants and Children

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that it had revisited data regarding antidepressants and suicidal thinking and behavior in children, and said the data may have enough merit to warrant new labels. Specifically, an analysis by senior FDA epidemiologist Dr. Andrew Mosholder found that, overall, children using antidepressants were 1.8 times as likely to have suicidal tendencies as depressed children taking placebos.

This is just the latest chapter in a controversy dating back to last year, when British health officials declared that all antidepressants except Prozac should not be used in children and adolescents.

Regardless, earlier this year two expert advisory committees to the FDA recommended that labeling be changed to reflect the need to monitor all patients more closely. The agency then asked manufacturers to change the labels of 10 drugs.

'Psychiatric services failed me'

Many people who have used mental health services have been unhappy with the care they received, a British Healthcare commission survey has revealed.

This BBC Article details what it is like to be incarcerated in a modern psychiatric warehouse. To sum it up, there is no respect,and no results, or so it seems.

American Psychiatry and the Old Soviet Model of the Mind

As reported at Tech Central Station [by Irwin Savodnik]

The old Soviet psychiatry subscribed to a harsh biological determinism. The psychiatric physician was an absolute authority while the patient's words mattered little more than raindrops at sea. That the patient might have something to add to the doctor's assessment of him made little sense since the origin of his difficulties was thought to be a disordered biology that had to be set right. The idea of a person was quaint but irrelevant.

Part of Soviet psychiatry involved the well-known use of psychiatry as an instrument for political ends. Indeed, there were few other ends in the system. The brothers Zhores and Roy Medvedev offer a shocking, though typical, picture of what things were like in the Stalinist era. In the Soviet scheme of things, political dissent was interpreted as a psychiatric disorder, a difficulty in reality testing, which justified confinement in a mental hospital. Such niceties as due process, length of stay and an appeals process meant nothing. In a state where individual freedom was a bourgeois myth, there was no need to respect basic human rights.

Today in Russia, there are patient protections against involuntary psychiatric hospitalization similar to those in the United States. While some may argue that unwilling confinement is always wrong, such hard-core legislation recognizes the freedom of the individual, which represents a radical change from the pre-Gorbachev era. [...] The great irony is that American psychiatry is moving in exactly the opposite direction. In the past 30 years, the overriding ideology of American psychiatry has shifted to a biological model. Psychopharmacology has become its therapeutic backbone.

The problem, however, is that this model doesn't tolerate free agency. It views psychiatric problems -- moral problems, really -- as medical ones, just as Soviet psychiatry did. It has become more prominent in the courts as the hefty influence of medical diagnoses has replaced the literary-like "assessments" of psychoanalysts. Always, the emphasis is on relieving the individual of moral responsibility. Interpersonal problems, family conflicts, sexual malaise, even shyness, have become medical problems.

So, as the Soviet system came undone and its psychiatrists freed themselves from the confines of a strangulating ideology, American psychiatrists have embraced uncritically the same narrow vision. But as the Soviet example demonstrates with distressing clarity, a conception of people as little more than biochemical bundles fails to address those aspects of ourselves that make us human -- the moral and esthetic dimensions of our lives about which chemical equations have little to say.

[Edited from a longer article]

Health Canada advises of potential adverse effects of SSRIs and other anti-depressants on newborns

Women who take some anti-depressant drugs during late pregnancy may be putting their babies at risk, Health Canada is warning. The department issued an advisory Monday about the following SSRI anti-depressants: bupropion (used for depression or for smoking cessation), citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, mirtazapine, paroxetine, sertraline and venlafaxine.

International and Canadian reports reveal that some newborns whose mothers took medications containing Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors or other newer anti-depressants during late pregnancy developed complications at birth requiring prolonged hospitalization, breathing support and tube feeding.

Reported symptoms include feeding and/or breathing difficulties, seizures, muscle rigidity, jitters and constant crying. In most cases, the anti-depressant was taken during the last three months of pregnancy. The symptoms could indicate a direct adverse effect on the baby, or possibly a discontinuation syndrome caused by sudden withdrawal from the drug.

Health Canada said it issued the advisory to increase awareness so symptoms can be recognized and addressed quickly. The agency is working with drug manufacturers to update labelling with new warnings. To report an adverse reaction, consumers and health professionals may call 1-866-234-2345 or fax 1-866-678-6789.

Psych Boondoggle Looms Large in Illinois

It looks like the psychs are looking for a bunch of government handouts in the form of mandatory screening for all children through age 18. See these related columns and letters:

"Children's Mental Health task force hearings continue through Friday," July 21, 2004
"Eroding parental rights in IL - 2 lettters," July 21, 2004
"GUEST OPINION: Maybe legislators should be mentally evaluated, too," July 23, 2004
"Mental health screening - six letters," July 23, 2004
"Leader readers express outrage with mental health screening plan for expectant mothers and children 18 yrs and younger," July 26, 2004
"GUEST OPINION: Universal mental health screenings: a call to rally," July 27, 2004
"GUEST OPINION: Universal mental health screening would be a waste of resources," July 28, 2004
"Some doctors weigh in on mental health screening," July 30, 2004
"Leader readers continue to respond to mental health screening - 17 letters," August 3, 2004
"GUEST OPINION: Illinois Legislators are nuts," August 3, 2004
"Ten more letters in opposition to mental health screening" August 4, 2004

Thanks to Jim S. for the heads up and links - If it were not for government funding, could the psychs survive on their own?

Prozac in Britain's Drinking Water

Environmentalists are deeply alarmed: Prozac, the anti-depression drug, is being taken in such large quantities that it can now be found in Britain's drinking water. Environmentalists are calling for an urgent investigation into the revelations, describing the build-up of the antidepressant as 'hidden mass medication'.

The Environment Agency has revealed that Prozac is building up both in river systems and groundwater used for drinking supplies. The government's chief environment watchdog recently held a series of meetings with the pharmaceutical industry to discuss any repercussions for human health or the ecosystem. The discovery raises fresh fears that GPs are overprescribing Prozac, Britain's antidepressant of choice. In the decade up to 2001, overall prescriptions of antidepressants rose from nine million to 24 million a year.
<>A recent report by the Environment Agency concluded Prozac could be potentially toxic in the water table and said the drug was a 'potential concern'. However, the precise quantity of Prozac in the nation's water supplies remains unknown. The government's Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) said Prozac was likely to be found in a considerably 'watered down' form that was unlikely to pose a health risk.

Dr Andy Croxford, the Environment's Agency's policy manager for pesticides, told The Observer: 'We need to determine the effects of this low-level, almost continuous discharge.' Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat's environment spokesman, said the revelations exposed a failing by the government on an important public health issue. He added that the public should be told if they were inadvertently taking drugs like Prozac. 'This looks like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public,' Baker said. 'It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water.'

Experts say that Prozac finds its way into rivers and water systems from treated sewage water. Some believe the drugs could affect their reproductive ability. European studies have also expressed disquiet over the impact of pharmaceuticals building up in the environment, warning that an effect on wildlife and human health 'cannot be excluded'.

'It is extremely unlikely that there is a risk, as such drugs are excreted in very low concentrations,' a DWI spokesman said. 'Advanced treatment processes installed for pesticide removal are effective in removing drug residues,' he added.

Disgraced Paediatrician faces ‘child experiments’ rap

 Here we have a case from the BBC involving a paediatrition

Leading paediatrician Professor David Southall was been found guilty of serious professional misconduct after accusing solicitor Sally Clark's husband of murdering their children. [...] During the GMC hearing, Richard Tyson, counsel for Mr Clark said Professor Southall was an arrogant, dogmatic and "very dangerous doctor" who did not deserve his place in the medical profession.

Murder by Psychiatry?

An article by Arianna Huffington, worth reading again

After Littleton: Antidepressants In The Bloodstream.
Filed May 6, 1999 by ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
(Los Angeles Times)

In the aftermath of the Littleton massacre, President Clinton has already proposed new laws to restrict the marketing of guns to children, and on Monday (May 10) he will host a conference to examine the entertainment industry's marketing of violence to children. But no one is planning a conference or introducing laws to deal with a third problem -- the marketing of mood-altering prescription drugs to children.

Despite disturbing evidence of drug-induced manic reactions, the number of antidepressant prescriptions for children continues to soar, reaching 1,664,000 in 1998. And buried in the Littleton coverage was the announcement this week that traces of Luvox, a sibling of Prozac, were found in Eric Harris' bloodstream. The presence of Luvox, the coroner said, ``does not change the cause and manner of death.'' Yes, but did it change the cause and manner of Eric's life?

Luvox was approved by the FDA in 1997 for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive dis- orders (OCD) in children, but not for the treatment of depression. Indeed, no antidepress -ant -- Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil or Luvox -- has been approved for pediatric use. Solvay, Luvox' manufacturer, declares it ``safe and effective.'' Yet the Physicians' Desk Reference reports that during controlled clinical trials manic reactions developed in 4 percent of children on Luvox. Another clinical trial found that Prozac caused mania in 6 percent of the children studied.

Mania is defined as ``a form of psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur ... and overproduction of ideas.'' There were plenty of delusional statements on Harris' Web site. ``My belief,'' he wrote, ``is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law. If you don't like it, you die.'' This should have troubled any doctor who was following Harris after he was put on Luvox. Or was Harris one of the tens of thousands of children cavalierly put on antidepressants without either a proper psychiatric evaluation or ongoing monitoring of side effects? The news that Harris had been on Luvox came on the heels of the revelation last summer that Kip Kinkel, the Oregon school shooter, had been on Prozac. These antidepressants clearly did not exorcise the teenagers' demons. The question we should be urgently asking is: did they embolden them?

At a congressional hearing on media violence this week, we were reminded that 95 percent of children are never involved in a violent crime. Most children whose parents own guns do not steal them; most children who watch ``Natural Born Killers'' do not go on shooting rampages; and most children on antidepressants do not kill their schoolmates. But while there is saturation coverage about the dangers of guns and media violence, there is no debate about the dangers of antidepressants on our most vulnerable children's growing brains.

Dr. Leon Eisenberg of the Harvard Medical School described the Prozac/Luvox family of antidepressants as ``potent medications that change nerve transmission.'' ``What happens,'' he asks, ``after two to three years of that?'' But even mildly skeptical voices from within the medical community are routinely ignored as if they were attacks on scientific progress itself.

We are in desperate need of more information -- not just more clinical studies but more data released to the public about the medical histories of children charged with acts of violence. For starters, in the same way that kids are examined for the presence of illegal drugs and alcohol in their bloodstream, they should be routinely examined for mood-altering legal drugs. ``I have testified as a medical expert,'' Dr. Peter Breggin, author of ``Talking Back to Prozac,'' told me, ``in three teenage cases of murder in which antidepressants were implicated in playing a role. In one case where a 16-year-old committed murder and tried to set off multiple bombs at the same time, the comparisons with Littleton are obvious and ominous.''

The response from drug manufacturers echoes that of gun manufacturers: ``Prozac and Luvox don't kill people, people kill people.'' And like gun manufacturers, drug manufacturers are facing growing legal challenges. Littleton was followed by other shootings and bomb threats that closed schools and evacuated students across the country. Were any of the adolescents involved on antidepressants, and was that information made available to the authorities? Did, for example, the probation officer who wrote a glowing report on Harris after his arrest for breaking into a van know if he had been diagnosed with OCD before he was put on Luvox? And wouldn't it have been useful for him then and for us now to know what he was obsessive and compulsive about?

Following the news about Harris being on Luvox, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who sits on the Government Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the FDA calling for ``comprehensive clinical trials by the pharmaceutical companies'' to establish ``the behavioral effects of antidepressants on our youth.'' How much Luvox and Prozac have to be found in the bloodstreams of our child-killers before the FDA takes action -- and the rest of us take notice?

Police are Taking too long to Investigate Criminal Complaints Against Shrink

New Zealand police are taking too long to investigate criminal complaints against psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks, say supporters of patients behind the claims. The Weekend Herald revealed that the Government had paid a further $4.2 million in compensation to former psychiatric patients at Lake Alice Hospital, in addition to the $6.5 million paid to 95 others in 2001. More than 30 former Lake Alice patients are still waiting after two years for police to decide whether to prosecute former staff, including Dr Leeks.

Three years ago, the Government began compensating and apologising to numerous former patients of Lake Alice Hospital's child and adolescent unit who claimed they were tortured and sexually abused. The unit closed in 1978. The scale of their mistreatment at the hospital near Wanganui was unveiled in a report for the Government by retired High Court judge Sir Rodney Gallen.

The document revealed allegations of electric-shock therapy being used to punish children, youngsters being locked away with insane adult patients, sexual abuse and painful injections of paraldehyde, a sedative-hypnotic drug.

"I am satisfied that in the main the allegations which have been made are true and reveal an appalling situation," Sir Rodney wrote. More than 30 complaints have subsequently been sent to police by Christchurch lawyer Grant Cameron and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Ex-psychiatry prof guilty in slaying

A former college psychiatry professor has been found guilty in the shooting death of the Portsmouth's development director.

John M. Adams, 60, of Barboursville, W.Va., was sentenced to serve at least 26 years in prison after being convicted Tuesday of murder with a firearm specification, aggravated burglary and kidnapping in the slaying of Bobby Burns on July 2, 2003. Adams' lawyer, Jim Banks of Columbus, said he plans to appeal.

During the trial, witnesses testified that Adams entered Burns' home and shot him as Burns' wife watched. Adams told police he had learned from a law firm that Burns and his wife, Michele Burns, had filed a malpractice complaint over his treatment of Michele. Adams was an associate professor of psychiatry at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. His contract with the university expired in June 2003, school officials have said.