America’s mental illness epidemic: It turns out that the drugs are the problem

[ensho]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6267.shtml


Tens of millions of innocent, unsuspecting Americans, who are mired deeply in the mental “health” system, have actually been made crazy by the use of or the withdrawal from commonly-prescribed, brain-altering, brain-disabling, indeed brain-damaging psychiatric drugs that have been, for many decades, cavalierly handed out like candy -- often in untested and therefore unapproved combinations of drugs -- to trusting and unaware patients by equally unaware but well-intentioned physicians who have been under the mesmerizing influence of slick and obscenely profitable psychopharmaceutical drug companies, a.k.a. BigPharma.

That is the conclusion of two books by investigative journalist and health science writer Robert Whitaker. His first book, entitled Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill noted that there has been a 600 percent increase (since Thorazine was introduced in the US in the mid-1950s) in the total and permanent disabilities of millions of psychiatric drug-takers.

-snip-

In Whitaker’s second book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, he goes much further in advancing this sobering reality. He documents the history of the powerful forces behind the relatively new field of psychopharmacology and its major shaper and beneficiary, BigPharma. Psychiatric drugs, whose developers, marketers and salespersons are all in the employ of the giant drug companies, are far more dangerous than the drug and psychiatric industries are willing to admit: These drugs, it turns our, are fully capable of disabling -- often permanently -- body, brain and spirit.

More evidence to support Whitaker’s well-documented claims are laid out in two important new books written by psychiatrist and scholar Grace Jackson. Jackson did a beautiful job of researching and documenting, from the voluminous basic neuroscience research (which is uniformly ignored by the clinical sciences) the unintended and often disastrous consequences of the chronic ingestion of any of the five major classes of psychiatric drugs. Her second and most powerful book: Drug-Induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that any of the five classes of drugs that are commonly used in psychiatric patients (antidepressants, antipsychotics, psychostimulants, tranquilizers and anti-seizure/”mood-stabilizer” drugs) have shown microscopic, macroscopic, biochemical, clinical and/or radiological evidence of brain shrinkage and other signs of brain damage, which can result in clinically-diagnosable, permanent dementia, premature death and a variety of other related brain disorders that can mimic mental illnesses. Jackson’s first book, Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent was an equally sobering book warning about the many hidden dangers of psychiatric drugs.

-snip-

America has a mental ill health epidemic on its hands that is grossly misunderstood because it is worsening, not by the supposed disease progression, but because of the neurotoxic, non-curative drugs that are somehow regarded as first-line “treatment.”

For more information of these extremely serious topics check out these websites: www.mindfreedom.org, www.breggin.com, www.icspp.org, www.cchr.org, www.drugawareness.org, www.psychrights.org, www.benzo.org.uk, www.quitpaxil, org, www.wildscolts.com, www.endofshock.com, www.mercola.com and www.madinamerica.com and follow the links.
------------------------------


this is so important! please keep kicked so many can see it.

[ixion]

1. actually, ignorance and laziness are the problem

drugs are a side-effect, in my opinion.

[pitohui]

3. ignorance can be fixed by awareness, one hopes

i know 2 folks personally mis-dx as having major clinical depression, one of them had colon cancer and by the time they woke up and realized that he wasn't just having mid life depression or some such, it was too late, he died

the second had cardio vascular disease and almost died, but survived, after bypass surgery -- this second person knew perfectly well that she wasn't depressed, you don't suddenly up and get depressed in your 60s if you're old, if you've never had mental health issues before, she took the magic pills for two weeks and then threw them away, fortunately before she became addicted, a few weeks later she had the heart attack and that's when the docs woke up and realized she was tired -- NOT depressed but actually what she reported, extremely TIRED -- because of all the blockages in her arteries!

i won't speak to younger folk but in my humble view ANY doctor who dx's clinical depression in somebody because they're in mid-life (50s or 60s) and the DOCTOR has a neg. view of middle-age and THINKS they should be depressed...that doc is mal practicing...that doc needs to explain to me FIRST how he eliminated really common diseases of middle age like cardio-vascular disease, the common cancers etc.

don't just hand out a pill because "oh they're getting old, they must be depressed!!!"

[AngryAmish]

2. Seems Dr.Szasz still has followers

[HuckleB]

43. +1

It appears that this guy hangs with Mercola.

I know it's shocking...

[Fumesucker]

4. America has a mental health epidemic because...

A big portion of our culture is basically insane.

I noted the recent thread about how getting a dedicated Fox News watcher away from that cesspit for a week greatly improved his state of mind.

[CrispyQ]

6. My state of mind is greatly improved when I take time away from DU!

There is an element of truth to that old saying, "Ignorance is bliss."

I like this one too:

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

[Fumesucker]

16. If ignorance is indeed bliss then why aren't more Americans happy?

;)

And I heartily agree with Krishnamurti..

[Cetacea]

30. Poll found that Republicans score higher on the happiness scale

There ya go!

[Fumesucker]

31. Yeah, but do you ever actually *listen* to Republicans?

If that's "happiness" I'll take misery, thank you very much.

They are some of the angriest people you'll ever have the displeasure of hearing.

[Cetacea]

35. I try not to any more.. I need to protect my remaining sanity

My first thought when that poll was published was that "ignoranceis bliss". But yeah, I don't think they are either in bliss or happy. Hate and anger never equal happiness.

[Cetacea]

29. +2

[Cetacea]

28. +1

[county worker]

5. I am a person who takes psychiatric drugs on a daily basis.

I have a normal life with them and would not be able to live like most people if I did not take them.

It is my opinion that there is some truth to what the OP says but it is not the case 100% of the time and I doubt it is the case the majority of the time.

It is also my opinion that the OP does a great disservice to people who could be helped and who will not seek treatment because of what they hear here and other places.

I think that those of you who reply to this OP having no real experience but only anecdotal evidence and your opinion backed up by the anti psychiatric drug paradigm that you see the world through are not helping anyone by posting about something you know nothing about.

[Orsino]

7. Yeah. WTF is up with drugs being called "the" problem?

I'm aware that mis-prescribed meds and their interactions sometimes/often cause worse troubles, but the article's title is misleading.

[cliffordu]

12. Yep. Just about perfect.

Good response.

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. There is a place for psychiatric drugs, but IMO the problem stems

from the common western medicine practice of treating symptoms instead of diseases. Most times, any mental illness is a symptom of something else that is profoundly wrong, whether it is environmental contaminants, other physical disease or whatever.

I am currently depressed. I'm not sure of the cause, but I think that chronic back pain has a lot to do with it, with the back pain preventing me from getting the exercise I need to trigger natural anti=depressant brain chemistry. I don't take medications for it - I did at one time, but they literally made me nuts in that I didn't know WHY I was thinking what I was thinking. I would be feeling 'normal' and out of the blue get suicidal ideation and not know it was wrong because I didn't remember I was depressed. Without medication I may be depressed, but I'm in control and I can remind myself that I'm depressed.

Incidentally, when I was first diagnosed with depression the psychiatrist gave me meds for two symptoms - Xanax for the depression and sleeping pills for the insomnia.
WTF? Somebody is depressed with suicidal ideation and you give him a bottle of sleeping pills?

[county worker]

22. Here is my experience. I was clinically depressed. It came on when I was unemployed in the early

90's and could not find work. I could not sleep, I had no appetite, I could not feel happiness, I was constantly depressed. I was told by my in-laws to snap out of it, that I knew what I needed to do. I felt that they were telling my wife to leave me. I was suicidal. We were about to be foreclosed on. I felt that some time soon I would be homeless and alone on the street. We spent Christmas Eve that year walking down the street looking into windows of other houses to see how they were spending Christmas. We had no money and no prospects. We went home and cried ourselves to sleep.

I finally went to a safe house so as not to kill myself. There they said they could help me with drugs. I was so anti drug that I said no thanks. I got some work the next two years doing manual labor and remained depressed. Life was hell. Depression is contagious. It effects everyone you come in contact with. I finally decided to try professional help because I had some insurance from the work I was doing. It was a long hard struggle but I am doing OK now yet I still have depression. I take meds and because of them I lead a pretty normal productive life. Without them I doubt I would be alive today.

Here is what went on with me. I was constantly trying to prove to everyone that I could make it. I did that by having a wife and house and car etc. Financial problems scare the hell out of me. When I had no job and was losing everything I had I went into the depression.

Mental illness is not a symptom it is a result of something else. I was also drug and alcohol addicted some few years before and am a Vietnam veteran. I struggled with PTS and other problems because of the war.

In my brain I do not have the chemistry that you should have. Meds help with that. I will never be "normal" meaning the chemistry will never be what it should. I can stop taking meds if I want but that would mean living with depression and the person I am without meds is a person who is self destructive.


So when I hear that meds cause mental disease I have to give my two cents.

[MorningGlow]

53. +1 million

"the problem stems from the common western medicine practice of treating symptoms instead of diseases."

COULD NOT AGREE MORE, RNCDUer. :applause:

I recently posted about how my brother had severe IBS. His body wasn't absorbing nutrients from his food, so he was malnourished and developed a tremor in his hands. Test for Parkinson's was negative. His doctor prescribed medication to quell the tremor but did not try to find out the underlying cause. I consider that extremely negligent on the doctor's part, although I have heard from medical professionals how rushed they feel, without enough time to really study each patient's case (I blame the HMOs). Once my brother was treated with probiotics (by another doctor), his IBS disappeared, and so did his tremor. Fancy that.

I hear what you're saying about your depression caused by back pain. I was the same way, when my thyroid condition was undiagnosed. I was in pain, I didn't feel like myself, I was generally unwell. I was in my early 30s but felt three times as old. I could barely walk, I could barely think, I could barely function. So I made the deadly mistake of crying in front of my doctor--because I HURT and FELT BAD. Then this woman, who steadfastly refused to prescribe me even the lowest dose of thyroid medication, handily whipped out her scrip pad to write me up one for antidepressants. :eyes:

Now, of course there are some people who have a chemical imbalance, and antidepressants are necessary to keep their body chemistry on an even keel. Antidepressants do indeed have their place, and for people with chemical imbalances, they are a lifesaver. One of my best friends is bipolar, and when she acts either too "up" or too "down", we are able to joke about her being "off her meds"--but at those times she does indeed need the dose "tweaked".

[HuckleB]

54. Thanks for pushing the BS cliches of the CAM scam artists.

[EFerrari]

8. Thid doctor sounds unhinged. Did you read the claims he's making here?

[foxfeet]

9. Tom Cruise, is that you?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. There's no such thing as mental illness, just weak moral character.

:crazy:

[SpiralHawk]

11. ..and, of course, HFCS-induced blithery mutant rave rant iNsaNiteeeee

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vo1jxEMxBxk/SgyV40hoJ0I/AAAAAAAAB_o/Gw7fvBjoUHU/s400/Human+Rejection+-+Decrepit+To+Insanity.jpg

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. You're really into this quack movement, aren't you? Is there any junk science you won't believe?

Did you notice any of the other bullshit on the OP's link? Like how they're all upset that people in Africa are getting vaccinated?

[SpiralHawk]

15. Please take your meds, hi-P

Wait, wait. Got that wrong. Please don't take your meds.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Please take yours.

You need them more than I do.

[Cetacea]

34. Junk science

ECT (shock therapy) is "safe and effective". "We don't know how it works." LOL Science at it's best...

[Orrex]

52. I suspect that your notion of ECT is informed by Hollywood portrayals

Probably One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and/or A Beautiful Mind.

[Brickbat]

14. While the medication may be misused, this kind of crap quackery helps no one. I say this as someone

who was helped by medication, and am grateful it worked. It worked perfectly.

[Bluerthanblue]

23. +1

:hi:

[Brickbat]

24. Honestly, this shit drives me up the nearest wall.

I did try other things before I went on medication. I exercised, I ate right, I meditated, I engaged in hobbies and surrounded myself with love and low stress. It got me in better shape, with a happy stomach, a calm mind, fulfilled and loved and relaxed -- and still depressed. I will never forget the day I realized I had a problem, just as I will never forget the day I started feeling better because of the medication I was on. I could have functioned without the meds, I suppose, but if I get this annoyed at quackery I can only imagine how people who can't manage without medication feel when they read this. What an insult.

:hi: backatcha. Not ranting at you, just in general. :)

[suston96]

18. For this age group, by all means take your meds.....

If they don't "work" then have your provider follow that up.

Meanwhile, for this age group, (40-45+)have your prostate exam (for guys, of course) and colon exam. Those should be as often as is recommended for your age group.

Being told that your tests indicate good health is one of the best therapies for depression. At least they are for me.

[TZ]

19. Ah yet another clueless person CITING A SNAKE OIL SALESMAN

Dr. Mercola is constantly trying to sell his alternative therapies and make money off his stuff. He's been in trouble with the FDA CONTSTANTLY over the shit he sells.
Now, are anti-depreseeants overproscribed- yes. HAVE THEY SAVED MANY LIVES HELL YES INCLUDING MY OWN.
people like you are FAR MORE DANGEROUS to the mentally ill than any drug invented. YOU scare people into not taking their meds. Do you know who many people get VIOLENT when they don't have their meds? To themselves and others.
My uncle would not be alive today because of his manic-depression if not for his meds.
Unrecced for willfull ignorance and DANGEROUS misinformation/

[Cetacea]

33. Misinformation works both ways

I support medication therapy, however, "discontinuation syndrome", otherwise known as WITHDRAWAL, is hardly ever presented by prescriber's or by the manufacturers. I have read accounts by heroin users that withdrawing from such drugs as Effexor was worse than withdrawing from heroin, and the withdrawal symptoms lasting for months.
Another problem is that almost all of them are extremely powerful mind-altering drugs and doctors do not have the time or inclination to check in on how a patient is doing in between monthly visits.

Another problem is something like sixty percent of APs are ineffective yet many are told to hang in there and continue taking something that is either not working or making the person feel worse. That being said, when a proper medication does work it can be a life changer/life saver.


Congrats on your own success with meds. :)

[superduperfarleft]

37. +1.

I was lucky enough to see Mercola's name attached to that screed, and didn't have to waste my time reading it.

[HuckleB]

44. +1 !!!!!!

[RobinA]

21. I Read The First

Whitaker book and found he has a bit :eyes: of an ax to grind. Document this, Whitaker: Come to the psychiatric hospital I work in and see people on their meds and then off their meds. Then tell me they don't work. No one says they don't have side effects, some times bad side effects. So does chemotherapy. One can always chose to be locked in a mental hospital or jail for life, some do by not taking meds, or dead of cancer because they can't tolerate chemo and all it entails. I've also observed the "no meds" psychiatric movement where people try to, with a lot of support from friends and family, coping skills training, and above average insight try to go medless. They always come and talk when they are doing well and medless seems possible. Ask about them five years later. Sadly, all too many have invoked the ultimate "coping skill." Is dead better than diabetic from psych. meds? Unfortunately, we can't ask them.

[TK421]

25. Hmmm...years ago I was prescribed Xanax and became hooked on the things

used to take them with my older brother ( who had a stronger prescription ) I haven't craved them since...I just remember waking up really dazed. That whole thing was my choice

I don't do anything like this anymore

[uncommon]

26. My boyfriend was really unstable while he was on psych meds - stopped taking them and a few months

later he is a new man. The medicine that was supposed to cure his problems was destroying him.

[mike r]

27. Drug pushers are laughing all the way to the bank

[bobbolink]

32. Exactly! While many will continue to demonize those who see the other side of this "epidemic", it

amazing that "liberals" who are schooled in "following the money" cannot and refuse to GET IT.

This has been a collaboration between a failing profession (psychiatry) and a greedy industry (Pharmcos) from the beginning.

I have posted this many times, and it would be nice if a few remembered it... A shrink I knew a long time ago, when we were talking about the overuse and misuse of these drugs, told me that he could pinpoint the day and time when this decision was made. It was the annual Psychiatry convention, and their topic was the business they were losing to psychologists and social workers. That was when the decision was made to focus on drugs, because they and only they could prescribe them.

And, of course, for those who follow what the Pharmcos have done and the power they wield in this country already know, that industry was only too happy to join in catapulting the propaganda.

[WingDinger]

39. Almost killed dozens with my bare hands, in a Baja Fresh.

Depressed over a hit and run leaving me unable to work, or function, in severe pain, and needing an operation, I took some paxil. I was about to do thirty or so souls, when I determined that would be bad. Technically, not morally. Most gun spraying mass murderers, are under the influence of psych drugs. SSRI's to be exact. It took me two solid weeks, meditating at the beach all day, to recover. It felt like I would not. EVER.

These drugs, are the result of the industry determining that therapy is too exp. Shut up and take a pill, is the result. This pill wont do it? Try another. Cant feel anything? Isnt that preferrable? It has even led to prescribing for normal life, like PMS. Or natural setbacks. Or greaving. They were not tested properly before they were foisted upon us. WEre I not a christian, I feel I would have done thirty people in. Very little stood in the way.

[Codeine]

46. I'm sure you have a link

backing up your claim that "Most gun spraying mass murderers, are under the influence of psych drugs. SSRI's to be exact." right?

[Codeine]

56. Nope, no link.

As I suspected.

[Codeine]

36. Those horrible "Big Pharma" drugs saved my life.

Woowoo bullshit with a bunch of looney links. Par for the fucking course.

[superduperfarleft]

38. Another post I agree with wholeheartedly.

The woo-woos can stick to their crystals and trepanation or leeches or whatever BS they're peddling, I'll stick to medication. You know, the thing that actually works.

[WingDinger]

40. I lived it. Glad they work for you.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

45. +1 - same here

Effexor saved my life, my marriage, my family, my career, and my finances.

They just MUST be evil if they're sold by a large corporation. :sarcasm:

[mmonk]

41. The withdrawal can present problems. But without some medications,

life can be much worse. My family is going through a crisis right now (due to not taking meds). In fact, I may have to take leave of here for awhile until the situation is worked out.

[laughingliberal]

42. There is truth on both sides of this issue. Many people have been helped by medication. However,

I think there is a tendency in some quarters to rely too heavily on medications and ignore other support that is needed. A lot of this is driven by the quest for profit and a lot of it is driven by insurance companies who find ever very expensive psychiatric medications far cheaper than paying for extended therapy which many need. I have been on medication, at times, and it did help. But, in my case, it would have been useless without therapy.

[Codeine]

47. Pharmacological event. nt

[porkrind]

48. Sure there are some abuses, but they also help some people

Our medical science regarding the understanding and treatment of mental illness is lacking, but people are still suffering right now. What are the options? Not take anything and wait until something better is invented? Mental illness has always been with us. It didn't just appear when "big pharma" started putting prozac commercials on TV. Before pills were available, people used to just suffer or drink themselves to death trying to escape their demons.

From the article you posted:

The truth is that the people diagnosed as “mentally ill” for life are often simply those unfortunates who find themselves in acute or chronic states of crisis or “overwhelm” due to any number of preventable, curable and treatable (without the use of drugs) bad luck accidents such as poverty, abuse, violence, torture, homelessness, discrimination, underemployment, brain malnutrition, addictions/withdrawal, brain damage from electroshock “therapy” and/or exposure to neurotoxic chemicals in their food, air, water or prescription bottles.

I think this may be going too far. Not all of these drugs should be classed together. Of course we shouldn't ignore the tragic cases and abuses, we should learn from them. We should also be realistic and see that some people have greatly benefited by drugs.

[trotsky]

49. Using mercola.com as a reference...

automatically invalidates anything else that was said.

[JoeyT]

50. That benzo.org.uk website is awesome.

It's like they fed Leonard Horowitz all the methamphetamine he could swallow and paid the Timecube guy to record his tweak frenzy and put it on a website.

Those people don't need those drugs! They were just imagining those seizures!

[Odin2005]

51. Mercola? EPIC FAIL!

[uppityperson]

55. Some drugs have nasty withdrawal symptoms, OP link is crap. Luv these 2 sentences....

"The victims of hopelessness-generating situations like simple bad luck, bad circumstances, bad company, bad choices, bad government, big business, and a competitive society that generates a few winners but mostly losers."

Seems they missed something, like a verb.

"The truth is that most, if not all, of BigPharma’s psychotropic drugs are lethal at some dosage level (the LD50, the lethal dose that kills 50 percent of lab animals, is calculated before efficacy testing is done), and therefore the drugs must be regarded as dangerous."

The truth is most, if not all, molecules are lethal at some dosage level (the H2O and O2, the elements necessary for life) and I'd hope the lethal dose is calculated before testing efficacy testing for humans is done.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

57. Wasn't there something called the crazymakers a book? Movie??

[AmandaMae]

58. Drugs are overprescribed by some doctors, but many people go untreated,

who could be helped by drugs as well. We need to fix our general approach to mental illness. Stop coming up with new "illnesses" like orthorexia, the "disorder" that people who follow a healthy diet are now labelled with, but work to educate more people on depression and make sure everyone has access to treatment who needs it.