Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida (CCHR Florida) Blog » Uncategorized

Is Child Mental Illness Worsening Or Is the Definition Expanding?

CCHR Florida — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:20:41 +0000

We would all agree that child mental health is an important issue in society. Recent trends might lead us to believe that mental illness is on the rise, and that modern “science” is now properly labeling the countless “mental disorders” that children, adults and the elderly exhibit, but were previously misunderstood. For example, children are known to have higher energy and activity levels, shorter attention spans, difficulty learning, uncontrolled emotional tantrums, fears, and shyness. In the past we just let children grow up; but now these behaviors are labeled psychiatric disorders of one kind or another, and the children drugged to “fix” them. No one knows the long-range effects of the new powerful anti-psychotic drugs not even tested on children. But Ritalin and some of the earlier drugs have proven to stunt body and skull growth – directly countering a child’s health. Nevertheless, these and the newer more powerful drugs are freely prescribed to children younger than four and through the teenage years, as being necessary for child mental health.

Schools have become clinics to the degree that many teachers no longer improve teaching methods, but instead chalk up problem behavior to “disorders”, sending students to the school nurse for a meds prescription. Is this helping children and schools? Quite the contrary: medicated children zone out, literacy levels and test scores have dropped drastically, and tragic violence has plagued schools where students are on these powerful “meds”.

One writer for a prominent mental health magazine points out that the problem is not related to mental health at all, but to an ingenious million-dollar marketing campaign by drug manufacturers. After successfully lobbying for legalized drug advertising, and by paying psychiatrists to promote and prescribe their drugs, sales are literally skyrocketing. The public mistakes marketing for science, buys what is being sold, and government hands over billions of dollars annually for psychotropic drugs prescribed to foster children, the military, the elderly, and prisoners. Interestingly enough, a major pharmaceutical company producing one of the top-selling anti-psychotic drugs, has placed research and development under their Sales and Marketing division. Accordingly, drug studies are now paid for by the pharmaceutical industry itself, which profits from bringing them to market. Science is obviously being compromised, because investigations discover skewed test results covering up harmful results, and miracles being claimed about drugs that worked no better than sugar pills. But then again what would one expect from a commercial marketing department?

Another recent marketing ploy pretending to be science is adult and child mental health screening. One aspect of this is a Mood Disorders Questionnaires used to search out those with the manic-depressive illness called “Bipolar Disorder”. The questionnaire, composed of phrases that capture a greater percentage of the population than it should, generates a large number of false “positives”. Add to that a greatly expanded definition of “bipolar”, and we have a lot of children, teens and adults needlessly prescribed drugs with dangerous, often deadly side effects.

“Bipolar Disorder” was earlier termed “manic-depressive”, meaning extremely high and low moods in a person without regard to their environment. The new “Bipolar II” category, however, has much broader boundaries, to cover a wider “spectrum” of behaviors. Now, any extreme emotions in a person can be interpreted to be a greater or lesser degree of this illness. An individual who grieves more than a few weeks after losing a loved one, whether to illness, war or divorce, would be “bipolar”. High self esteem, regardless of achievement, job promotion, a new love, or just belief in oneself, would fall into this category. Bipolar Disorder “requires” powerful anti-psychotic drugs with heavy side effects. Though children have rarely if ever been found to have the disease, these broader definitions are being applied to them, and dangerously high doses of “meds” prescribed, especially in foster and youth homes, where no caring parents can intervene. Though child mental health may be plummeting, commercial drug profits are soaring.

Thankfully, good science upon which we can depend has revealed that human beings quite normally have mood changes in response to dozens of factors in their bodies and environments. The mere fact of eating too many carbohydrates releases the major hormone insulin, too much protein raises adrenaline, another major hormone. Stimulants such as coffee or alcohol, mental stress, can also raise adrenaline, causing the “fight or flight” response – in other words anger or fear. Monthly and late-life female hormone fluctuations cause mood changes. But none of these are brain disorders; they are normal responses to life changes, whether physical, familial, financial, or otherwise. To confuse emotional response with mental illness, and treat them with drugs, does not and will not preserve adult or child mental health. It will obscure true causes by adding more to the mix.

This new practice of subduing emotional responses with powerful drugs can actually cause drug-induced mental illness. We have seen medicated children, teens and adults dramatize psychotic behavior that is just that: crazed behavior caused by drugs. Another side to the coin, neither side winning, is that subduing normal mental and emotional responses can endanger a person. The soldier at war on a battlefield, if his normal “fight or flight” response is subdued by meds, may not survive the situation. This is not to mention that war is an extreme environmental disorder, which itself should be corrected, not the soldier. Fixing the wrong thing is perhaps the crux of the problem. Children from abusive, neglectful homes respond appropriately by being upset and unhappy. They are put into foster homes, but now are without family or friend. State psychiatrists pronounce any evident upset to be a list of disorders requiring drugs, all in the name of child mental health. But investigations by media and government have recently proven them wrong — children fare much better when they are off, not on these medications. The forgotten “Say No To Drugs” motto would be wise to follow.

Labeling normal emotional responses as “disorders” opens the door to viewing our own and others’ emotional behavior as mentally ill, rather than as simply human. This in turn justifies becoming a drug-dependent society run by a medical monopoly. By accepting the diagnostic manual of mental disorders as our bible, society would necessarily become more invested in mental illness, than mental health.

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Softened Sales Pitch Doesn’t Create Good Science

CCHR Florida — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:34:19 +0000

In the Wall Street Journal’s Health Section on January 10^th, 2012, Jonathon Rockoff explores the new sales techniques employed by the top manufacturers of psychiatric medications. In the report, he identifies what one company, Eli Lilly, has done to change their Hard Sell techniques to a more Consultative Sales technique. Gone are the days of telling the physician the high points of the drug’s effects and where it can be used and for what diagnosis or disorder. The old technique of Hard Sell was all about getting the drug used, and in large quantities, even if it meant off-label applications. This is where the borders of ethics get softened and physicians were guided to believe that some drugs are safe in application to non-studied populations, such as children and the elderly, only to find it causes harm and the side effects were minimized or covered up. Pharm Reps were the “detail” oriented reps who condensed down the high points (all of which were positive toward the drug) of a particular study showing the efficacy of the new drug. Physicians are busy people, and they knew that. They also knew that the physician would not have time to read the study or studies and most didn’t have the savvy to know how to decipher the graphs or statistics and see the inherent flaws of study methods or distinguish what is a fact found in the study or a hypothesis purely extrapolated from the outcome. In Dr. Timothy Scott’s book, America Fooled, Chapter 7 – Tricks of the Trade, Dr. Scott fully exposes how the pharmaceutical industry works the studies into positives when, in fact, were negative or no better than placebo. The example he used in this chapter was GlaxoSmithKline’s cover-up of the suicide related side effects of Paxil, an antidepressant drug being studied and marketed as a choice for anxious children.

The particular sales rep Mr. Rockoff interviewed, Michaelene Greenly, demonstrates what best practices could and should be as a medical sales representative. This type of sales technique is widely used in the equipment and supply industry. Knowing that your buyer/customer is sophisticated enough to figure out the benefits of a product once the features are known allows that you are selling to an intelligent person, not someone who needs to be spoon-fed how to use a product and why it helps patients. Most of today’s sales reps are highly skilled at Consultative Selling skills and as a result, become resources for their customers. It is without a doubt the most effective sales approach today.

But changing a sales technique in the Pharma Industry does not create science when there is none. Near the end of the article, Ms. Greenly is working with psychiatrist Dr. Cottle on how best to use Zyprexa, an antipsychotic known to produce high weight gain in patients and often leads to Diabetes Type II. It says she had diagrams of the brain on her laptop and it showed how Zyprexa worked in the brain. This she could supply to the MD and he could explain this to his patient. This is where studies become blurred with opinions. Given that today there is no concrete, usable evidence that chemical imbalances cause mental illness, and that extrapolated theories dominate the social thinking about mental illness to the point of Direct to Consumer Advertising, we have a dilemma as a society and as a medical industry. No matter the sales technique, the message should be based in science and well tested studies, not on opinions. People’s lives are influenced by our actions and perpetuating falsehoods decrease the survival of all of us. Softer sales techniques do not create a good science.

By Kenneth W Thomas, RN, BS

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Hope for Children

CCHR Florida — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:03:45 +0000

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Psychiatry—Stealing Children

CCHR Florida — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:22:34 +0000

When a mother in Michigan noticed that the pills being prescribed to her daughter were making her condition worse and not better, she stopped giving her daughter the medications. That’s when the real trouble began! When Child Protective Services found out that the girl was not receiving her prescribed meds they decided the child should be taken away from her mother on the grounds of medical neglect. When the mother refused to surrender her daughter the state Child Protective Services called in the Police SWAT Team. On March 24 2011 after a 12 hour standoff between the mother/daughter and the SWAT team the daughter was taken into custody.

This is one example of how the government and psychiatrists enforce the drugging of children with harmful medications that have sometimes deadly side effects. Just recently the Government Accountability Office released a report with the astonishingly high amount of kids on psychotropic drugs in the foster care system. Forty percent of kids in foster care are reported to be taking medications, some of them taking up to 5 different meds a day and some of them are under one year of age! That’s too young to even safely take cold medication, yet they are taking mind altering psychiatric drugs.

There has been many persistent lobbying efforts funded by pharmaceutical companies that result in America’s children being medicated. The goal is to have a Universal screening program where every kid in public schools would get screened for mental illness. Most psychiatrists would label a kid with a disorder simply because they could be in a bad mood over a bad day, only slept a few hours therefore they would have trouble paying attention in class, the list goes on with apparent reasons to label kids with mental disorders.

In the near future it could go from 40 percent to 60 or 70 percent easily. There’s no telling how many children will be subjected to the adverse effects of these drugs (hallucinations, suicidal thinking, psychosis, tremors and more), if these pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists succeed with their efforts to further medicate America’s children.

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Psychiatrists giving false hope

CCHR Florida — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:15:44 +0000

“Psychiatric medications are among the most widely prescribed and biggest-selling class of drugs in the US. In 2010, Americans spent $16.1 billion on antipsychotics to treat depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, $11.6 billion on antidepressants and $7.2 billion on treatment for ADHD” this was from a Fox News report. The facts are scary, whats worse is that a large amount of those Americans are spending billions of dollars on antidepressants for children.

When a child or teen is prescribed an antidepressant they’re told it will treat their ADHD, Bipolar Disorder etcetera, and they are told that the medications will make them “normal”. Antidepressants are highly addictive and have life threatening withdrawal symptoms if someone stops taking them abruptly. This creates a problem where a child/teen is stuck on the medications thinking it’s actually helping them.

I have personally witnessed many instances where someone told me they have to take their meds everyday or their ADHD, Depression or Bipolar would get worse. That feeling of having worse Depression, ADHD or Bipolar symptoms have everything to do with the actual side effects of the medications. For example, antidepressants have the side effect of depression; antianxiety medication have side effects of anxiety. The mental health industry is a billion dollar profit industry only because the public is paying for false hope.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203503204577040431792673066.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

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Thyroid Disorder and Depression

CCHR Florida — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:54:41 +0000

A thyroid disorder can lead to depression. It is unfortunate that this side effect has been misdiagnosed by so many psychiatrists. How well do psychiatric practitioners know their medical facts? Would they recognize a thyroid disorder when one is presented? Apparently early 20^th century medical texts described depression as a major indicator of hypothyroidism. (A thyroid condition wherein this gland is not producing enough hormone) In other words, this is not a newly observed fact.

Psychiatrists have been quick to diagnose depression as a “mental disease” without a single definitive test. Yet there are medical tests for a thyroid disorder. However, what is thought of as normal thyroid level is somewhat controversial. There are those who fall within the “subclinical” definition of low thyroid and these people sometimes fall in the cracks and are lost, literally and figuratively. They may be the most susceptible to a psychiatric diagnosis of “depression.”

Experts in Israel discovered that one half of patients with non-psychotic major depression do not respond to antidepressant treatment. When T-3 (a thyroid hormone) was given to the patients, 62% of female patients responded.

WebMD points out that hormones produced by the thyroid gland can be related to depression. Some symptoms of low thyroid that are may be diagnosed as depressive symptoms are fatigue, weight changes, trouble sleeping and irritability. According to this same article, close to 20 million Americans may have a malfunctioning thyroid, and women are up to eight times more likely to have a thyroid disorder than their male counterparts.

Dr. Todd B. Nippold of the Mayo Clinic’s online website declares “Yes, thyroid disease can affect your mood — primarily causing either anxiety or depression. Generally, the more severe the thyroid disease, the more severe the mood changes. “

What does Dr. Nippold suggest for treating a thyroid disorder? In his words, “Appropriate treatment — such as medication that blocks your body’s ability to produce new thyroid hormone or replaces missing thyroid hormone — usually improves both emotional and physical symptoms caused by thyroid disease.”

Gabe Mirkin, M.D. says this about the use of T3 thyroid hormone in treating depression:

“Exciting research shows that the thyroid hormone called T3 can help treat depression (1,2,3). Psychotherapy often fails to control depression… The dominant theory today is that depression is caused by low brain levels of the neurotransmitters, serotonin and norepinephrine. The drugs such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft that treat depression are supposed to raise brain levels of these neurotransmitters. Doctors can also raise brain levels of serotonin by prescribing pills containing T3, a hormone produced by peripheral tissue from T4, which is produced by the thyroid gland.”

Thankfully, there are medical doctors who take the time to properly diagnose the physical cause of a person’s depression. And unlike a psychiatrist who can offer nothing better than dangerous, expensive anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, a good M.D. can help his or her patient properly balance their thyroid hormone levels to handle the uncomfortable side effects, which can include depression. A thyroid disorder, to be properly diagnosed and handled, should be treated by a medical (not psychiatric) doctor.

Quote from Dr. Nippold:http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/thyroid-disease/AN00986

Web MD:http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-the-thyroid-and-hormones

//thyroid.about.com/b/2011/11/23/thyroid-is-trigger-for-psychiatric-trouble-in-some.htm

Quote from Dr. Mirkin:http://www.drmirkin.com/morehealth/G171.htm

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Xanax a party drug causing Xanax Addiction and Death?

CCHR Florida — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:52:28 +0000

Xanax is commonly known as an anti depressant prescribed by psychiatrists and has many terrible side effects. Like any other drug it can cause “Xanax addiction” and has a terrible effect on ones mind and body. But Xanax being used as a party drug and mixed with alcohol? One can only imagine the damage that can do.

Most people who claim to suffer from depression will be prescribed Xanax, they’ll take a Xanax “bar” and they may think they feel more relaxed and not so stressed, but in reality Xanax is a mind altering drug that is permanently damaging to the mind and body. We all know the effects that alcohol has on one’s body and the damage it does. Taking Xanax already has high risks of seizures and death, alcohol is typically, not as severe but can lead to death when too much is consumed.

So what happens when you mix both?

Consuming too much alcohol by itself may cause a person to “black out,” or experience a period he does not recall after sobering up. When Xanax is introduced into the mix, the risk for this dangerous occurrence is greatly enhanced. Alcohol also enhances Xanax’s ability to cause confusion, greatly impair judgment and produce unusual behavior, mixing drinking with the drug is a recipe for a disastrous experience. Xanax already has terrible side effects by itself such as shortness of breath, seizures, memory problems, suicidal thoughts and more, so when mixing alcohol it greatly increases the risks of all these side effects.

Both alcohol and Xanax can produce physical and psychological dependence, and both can create withdrawal symptoms when use is abruptly discontinued. It creates a “Xanax addiction” and will make one have a craving feeling to take it more and more. When that happens if someone abruptly stops taking Xanax one will feel withdrawal symptoms such as insomnia, seizures and hallucinations.

Besides the fact that people are known to take Xanax for their depression, their is a huge amount of people taking Xanax to get “messed up” or mixing it with alcohol to increase their partying experiance. The risks of seizers, memory loss, suicidal thoughts and even death is not worth it, not to mention the permanent damage it has on your body.

Drinking alcohol with Xanax as a combination has the most severe side effect…death.

For more info visit cchrflorida.org

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Performing Artists for the upcoming CCHR Florida Concert at Capitol Theater

CCHR Florida — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:01:57 +0000

Have you seen who is performing at the CCHR Florida–Capitol Theater Concert on Oct. 29th from 7:30-9:00 PM!? These are a few of the talented artists who will be performing. We have a couple more and One Suprise Guest Star!

Nicky Baker

Check out one of Nicky’s live performances!

WDHAN

Check out this great song WDHAN played all acoustic

Neil Fox

Watch this fun music video Neil created

You dont want to miss this! If you haven’t got a ticket for this upcoming concert visit cchrforida.org or call (727) 442-8820

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TeenScreen: Benevolent or Malevolent? (Good or Bad?)

CCHR Florida — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:25:23 +0000

Mental Health Screening of School Children

The Aug. 30, 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal, “Will Students Take A Mental Health Test”, covers the seemingly benevolent issue of whether Florida and other state schools should engage in mental health screening. Schools urging teens and children as young as nine years old to answer these questionnaires is controversial. Though early detection of signs of distress seems like a good thing, a closer look reveals that TeenScreen centers are funded by private interest groups such as Eli Lilly and others in the pharmaceutical industry – companies which will greatly profit from finding more patients to put on psychiatric medications by performing mental health screening.

The steam fueling parental agreement regarding mental health screening (TeenScreen Program) is likely their worry about possible suicide or campus and school violence – both of which seem to be on the rise. But by TeenScreen’s own recent research surveys, 80 percent of child or teen suicides were by children already under treatment and taking psychiatric drugs.The side effects of these powerful drugs, especially in a child’s body, are warned to include suicide and violence. Programs such as TeenScreen which lead to more drugging may be dangerous, rather than having the benefit they claim. Statistically, only one in 10,000 children commit suicide. This is not an epidemic, like the TeenScreen program enthusiasts make it sound.

Reputable investigators and professionals such as Dr. Marcia Angell of Harvard University’s School of Medicine state that TeenScreen is another clever marketing campaign by drug companies feeding on parental fear and guilt, making them believe their child may die if they don’t hand them over to psychiatrists. The opposite may be more likely to occur. Statistics of violence and suicides in the young have risen in direct ratio, and in the same communities, to the amount of psychiatric drugs prescribed.

TeenScreen questionnaires contain kangaroo-court type questions — you’re guilty before you begin. Participation in mental health screening is urged on school children by offering free pizzas and other rewards if the form is completed. It utilizes a passive consent form: if parents do not object, the child (who may have forgotten to show it to their parents) is consented to, automatically, and the child is “screened”. Questions include: if your parents get upset with you often, if you ever get nervous when you have to speak in front of people, or whether you ever worry that others are smarter or better looking than you — questions which, if answered “yes” honestly, as nearly any normal person would, automatically place the student into a risk category. This then leads to counseling, labeling of disorders, and to visits with psychiatrists who prescribe drugs which themselves are warned, lead to suicide!

Since instituting Teen Screen in 1999, anti-depressant sales have skyrocketed. The concern that TeenScreen centers are being funded by pharmaceutical companies is fueled by the fact that some centers, including the Columbia University center, mentioned in Wall Street Journal’s article, has refused to divulge who is funding them; but admit that it includes corporations. Others admit the pharmaceutical company funding connection.

This calls for an unbiased investigation into TeenScreen centers and their true purpose. Any parent discovering their child or teen is being solicited to participate in mental health screening should be wary of the inevitable risk of trapping their child into being prescribed psychiatric drugs with dangerous side effects.

This all may be prevented. Know your rights. See our School & Children’s articles.

You may also be interested in reading What is the Goal of TeeenScreen?

Photo Credit: Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

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Psychiatric Medication Prevents Worsening Depression?

CCHR Florida — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:28:20 +0000

Psychiatric medication is being promoted by Big Pharma as THE way to handle depression, despite dangerous and even lethal side effects.

Martha Rosenberg, writing for OpEd News declares,

“A good chunk of pharma’s $4.5 billion direct-to-consumer advertising has been devoted to convincing people they don’t have problems with their job, the economy and their family, they have depression. Especially because depression can’t be diagnosed from a blood test.”

Big Pharma and the psychiatric profession have invented a scientific sounding variation of garden-variety depression . Their new mental disease “Treatment resistant depression” justifies the possible mayhem or ineffectiveness produced by their pet psychiatric medications.

Martha Rosenberg continues,

“It wasn’t that their drugs didn’t work (or you didn’t have depression in the first place), you had ‘treatment resistant depression.’ Your first expensive and dangerous drug needed to be coupled with more expensive and dangerous drugs because monotherapy, one drug alone, wasn’t doing the trick!

“Now pharma has a new whisper campaign to keep the antidepressant boat afloat. Your depression is ‘progressive.’”

Christina Villarreal, Ph.D. in writing for The Oakland Mental Health Examiner expresses strong feelings on this issue. She states,

“The problem is even worse than it sounds, because the positive studies hardly showed benefit in the first place. For example, 40 percent of people taking a placebo (sugar pill) got better, while only 60 percent taking the actual drug had improvement in their symptoms. Looking at it another way, 80 percent of people get better with just a placebo.”

Through experience, Dr. Villarreal has discovered that depression can be handled in ways that do not involve psychiatric medication. Here is one example from her practice:

“…consider the 49-year-old man with severe lifelong depression who had been on a cocktail of antidepressants and psychiatric medication for years but still lived under a dark cloud every day, without relief. We found he had severe deficiencies of vitamin B12, B6, and folate. After we gave him back those essential brain nutrients, he called me to thank me. Last year was the first year he could remember feeling happy and free of depression.”

For those who are depressed, or whose loved ones suffer from depression, there is hope. And someday the use of dangerous psychiatric medication will be a thing of the past.

References:

http://psychiatricfraud.org/colorado-news/denver-post-fails-to-address-the-role-of-psychiatric-drugs-in-suicides/

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Do-You-Have-Depression-He-by-Martha-Rosenberg-110605-409.html

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