The Mental Health Industry is Making You Crazy.

[CanSocDem]

http://www.alternet.org/story/153634/7_reasons_america%27s_mental_health_industry_is_a_threat_to_our_sanity?page=entire

7 Reasons Americas Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity


Drug industry corruption, scientifically unreliable diagnoses and pseudoscientific research have compromised the values of the psychiatric profession.


When Rebecca Riley was 28 months old, based primarily on the complaints of her mother that she was “hyper” and had difficulty sleeping, psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji, at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Kifuji prescribed clonidine, a hypertensive drug with significant sedating properties, a drug Kifuji also prescribed to Rebecca’s older sister and brother. The goal of the Riley parents—obvious to many in their community and later to juries—was to attain psychiatric diagnoses for their children that would qualify them for disability payments and to sedate their children making them easy to manage.

.................................................................................................

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy concluded that Rebecca died from intoxication of clonidine, Depakote and two over-the-counter cold and cough medicines that led to heart failure, lungs filled with bloody fluid, coma, and then death. Rebecca’s abusive parents went to prison for the over-drugging that led to their daughter’s death.

Kifuji’s fate? The psychiatric establishment rallied around Kifuji, enabling her to return to Tufts Medical Center practicing child psychiatry without any restrictions, penalties or supervision.

[MineralMan]

1. There are a number of logical errors in that article.

Combined with very few actual facts, the combination is a hit piece that misses its mark. Today's psychiatry and medications have normalized life for a vast number of people with psychiatric disorders. This kind of broad attack on the entire system is badly misplaced.

[CanSocDem]

3. I'd be happy to see...

...your list of "logical errors". And it's hardly a 'hit piece' in this age of institutional review. That is, many basic assumptions that have sustained generations of compliant consumers are today, coming up for review.

Essential to this article is the suggestion that a "normalized" life is a marketing tool for behaviour modifying drugs that are often not effective and more often ill-prescribed.

"When we hear the words disorder, disease or illness, we think of an individual in need of treatment, not of a troubled society in need of transformation. Mental illness expansionism diverts us from examining a dehumanizing society.

In addition to pathologizing normal behavior, the mental health profession also diverts us from examining a society that creates the ingredients—helplessness, hopelessness, passivity, boredom, fear, and isolation—that cause emotional difficulties. We are diverted from the reality that many emotional problems are natural human reactions to loss in our society of autonomy and community. Thus, the mental health profession not only has financial value for drug companies but it has political value for those at the top of societal hierarchies who want to retain the status quo."

Retaining the status quo is counter-productive in your quest for a public health system.



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[Celebration]

6. for a public health system to work

we definitely need to look at WHY we spend more money than any other country on health care and get the same or poorer results. Insanely expensive drugs that are marketed extensively, all too often to the detriment of the patient, is not a bad place to start.

Particularly disturbing is that the pharmaceutical companies would want every child screened for mental issues. Huh! More pill pushing.............

[sivansanabliss]

9. Well, I doubt anyone would advocate for eliminating meds for everyone

But there is way too much prescribing for every little angst in a person's life.

[Celebration]

2. Did the parents give the medication in the prescribed dosage?

Don't get me wrong, in no circumstances would I support the use of medications like this in a three year old, nor the diagnoses given. It is a travesty! And the way doctors protect their own as long as they are supporting the pharmaceutical industry is ridiculous. But before we pass judgment about the death of the child, I think we need to know more about the case.

Although I feel that these drugs are way overprescribed and used irresponsibly, they also should be available for the people that need them. I don't really like the tone of this article because the practices of psychiatry can be questioned in a way that less alienates a reader with critical thinking skills. In the past some responsible newspapers such as the NY Times have done some responsible journalism on the issues involved.

Still, I would love to really have more journalism talk about the overuse and overcharging of drugs, etc. And this case sounds like it would be a good jumping off point.

I honestly think most doctors are a little hoodwinked by big Pharma, and don't even know how to separate the economic interests from the medical interests. I doubt if many of them consciously and purposely say to themselves "How much more money can I make for Big Pharma today?" But they have been subjected to a conditioning process that has slowly sucked them in. This is an enormous problem! I don't see a clear way forward. And it seems pretty ridiculous to spend enormous amounts of money on drugs that only through huge trials are barely able to show statistically significant results over the placebo effect.

Honestly, the parents in this case sound like complete nut cases. Keep in mind that it is Big Pharma that writes the legislation on disabilities, etc. I am disgusted beyond belief. It is one thing for a responsible adult to make a decision to take all this stuff, and quite another for parents and a doctor (and I blame BOTH) to overdose a kid. I still think the parents might not have been giving the medicine according to the prescription. At least I hope so. Because for the doctor not to be censured in a case like this otherwise seems particularly heinous.

[CanSocDem]

4. From the article...

When Rebecca Riley was 28 months old, based primarily on the complaints of her mother that she was “hyper” and had difficulty sleeping, psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji, at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Kifuji prescribed clonidine, a hypertensive drug with significant sedating properties, a drug Kifuji also prescribed to Rebecca’s older sister and brother. The goal of the Riley parents—obvious to many in their community and later to juries—was to attain psychiatric diagnoses for their children that would qualify them for disability payments and to sedate their children making them easy to manage.

[Celebration]

5. I know!

So did the juries convict them of murder or manslaughter?

I don't know--maybe they saved up the medicine and gave it to them all at once?

I am not sure you can necessarily blame the doctor for that part in it.

There are probably more pertinent cases that can be used to go ballistic on our medical system--cases that don't involve jury trials against the parents.

[Odin2005]

7. One unethical doctor does not equal "The Mental Health Industry".

[CanSocDem]

8. You're quite right.

Of course the article wasn't about naming scapegoats. I, personally, used that segment of the article just to get your attention. The article, should you choose to read it is about the general nature of the pharmaceutical industry and modern medicine. I cut and pasted the section headlines to give you a better idea of what this OP is about. This is from the last section that may be most important:

"When we hear the words disorder, disease or illness, we think of an individual in need of treatment, not of a troubled society in need of transformation. Mental illness expansionism diverts us from examining a dehumanizing society."



1. Corruption by Big Pharma

2. Invalid Illnesses and Disorders

3. Scientifically Unreliable Diagnoses

4. Biochemical Imbalance Mumbo Jumbo

5. Pseudoscientific Drug Effectiveness Research

6. Psychotropic Drug Hypocrisy

7. Diversion from Societal, Cultural and Political Sources of Misery