THE SIXTH BLOG FOR THE OUTLAW OF PSYCHIATRY NOW !

2008-01-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: sarinasvoice@aol.com
Date: Jan 8, 2008 5:21 AM
Subject: PETITION TO ABOLISH SUICIDE-CAUSING ANTI-DEPRESSANTS
To: sarinasvoice@aol.com

We only have 847 signatures and need "thousands" more.
If anyone has not signed the Petition, here is the website http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/COPESfoundation/

Please, please make sure you sign it. Then forward it to "everyone" in your address book, beg them to sign it and forward it to everyone in their address book, and so on and so on. We need to keep forwarding it and keep it circulating.

Thank you,

Camille Milke, Eternal "Mommy" of Sarina Angel
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow and Forever........
My Beautiful Baby Girl, 1/26/86 - 10/28/07, 21 years 9 months 3 days
COPES Foundation (Coalition Of Parents Enduring Suicide)
Founder and President,
Main - 505-269-2286, Fax - 505-213-999
http://www.copesfoundation.com/http://www.iloveyousarina21.last-memories.com/

2008-01-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

THE WAKE-UP CALL BY "ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION", NOW THAT THE SHRINKS AND BIG PHARMA'S CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY WOULD BE EXPOSED TO USA PUBLIC AT LARGE
by Justice lover

Vera Hassner Sharav, the leading activist behind ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION website, has been doing an excellent job in exposing the crimes of psychiatry and Big Pharma. Hers are carefully prepared reports, and solid conclusions. The following report is just one more of such reports.

However, the lingering question arising from her reports, including this latest one is this : why would she not demand the immediate outlaw of psychiatry, a legal ban which would also put an end the criminal practices of the drugs industry, which has been heavily dependent on the shrinks' prescriptions and criminal practices ?

Implied in her reluctance is the practice of those "90% honest shrinks" (like Dr. Thomas Szasz and Dr. Peter Breggin and their shrink supporters), who despite telling the truth about psychiatric crimes and deceptions, provide a negative example to the rest of the shrinks by perpetuating psychiatry, rather than demanding its immediate abolition and to ban it altogether immediately !

Psychiatry, being the dangerous and criminal quackery that it is, is not an issue of "mental health" alone. It is a human rights issue of the greatest importance, as the practices of psychiatry are obviously fascist practices ! Psychiatry cannot be reformed for the same reasons that fascism and any dangerous quackery cannot be reformed ! Psychiatry has been a danger to humanity's well being for too long !

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

On Tuesday, Jan. 8, at 9:00 PM (Eastern), 10:00 PM (Pacific), Public Broadcasting System will examine the most controversial issue in American healthcare:
why are more than 6 million American children being forced to take powerful,toxic psychiatric drugs--some starting as young as two years old?Is it good medicine? What's the evidence to support the practice?

The program promises to examine what many psychiatrists are beginning to acknowledge: American children are being subjected to an uncontrolled high risk experiment. Millions of American children are being prescribed the most toxic brain damaging drugs--with absolutely no scientific evidence of a therapeutic benefit to support the practice.

The increasing use of antipsychotic drugs for children is correlated with an inexplicable epidemic in American children being "diagnosed" as bipolar, an unprecedented diagnosis in children.

Bipolar just happens to be an FDA approved use for antipsychotic drugs.So, the marked increased rates of bipolar diagnoses in children over the last five to seven years appears to be a case of the drugs prompting the diagnosis.

Indeed, as Dr. Steven Hyman, a neuroscientist and former director of theNational Institute of Mental Health, acknowledges, those diagnoses are unsupported by scientific evidence.Psychiatry's sling-shot prescribing practices rely on an irresponsible dictum: shoot first, ask questions years after major harm has been done.

Such a cowboy mentality has led to a market-driven chemical assault on our children.Children's fears, cries, and anxieties, are being muffled with toxic drugs that undermine their mental and physical health.Psychiatrists who are financially invested in expanding the market are diverting parents' attention from the lack of science and the drugs' harmful effects.

Hopefully, viewers will wake up to the fact that America's children are the target of psychopharmacological abuse.There is no credible scientific evidence demonstrating a therapeutic benefit from antipsychotics. These drugs' most prominent effect is somnolence.How many children--like four-year old Rebecca Riley-- will be sacrificed before this lethal paradigm of "treatment" in psychiatry is halted? Is bad medicine any better just because it is promoted by influential Harvard University child psychiatrists ?

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

Here is the link to the relevant article :
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/

FRONTLINE EXAMINES WHY MORE THAN 6 MILLION AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE TAKING POWERFUL PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-01-04T14:56:00.000-08:00

MORE ON THE DANGEROUS QUACKERY THAT PSYCHIATRY IS, AND ON THE HARMFUL POISONS THE SHRINKS DISH OUT TO CHILDREN IN RETURN FOR BIG PHARMA BRIBES
by Justice Lover

Here are the details :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org <http://www.ahrp.org/> and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

A letter to the Australian / New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry shreds a
promotional editorial by influential US psychiatrists
who call for "early intervention" in "early onset bipolar disorder." The
lack of evidence in support of their position is laid bare.

"We are concerned that some of our colleagues seem so ready to diagnose BD in young people when the diagnosis is far from clear cut....We are also concerned that the 'growing evidence for early intervention in bipolar disorder' seems so unconvincing and we are concerned that the Journal allows the publication of
such an article as its editorial, without comment."

In psychiatry, clinical practice standards bear no relationship to
scientific evidence. And journals in psychiatry regularly publish biased
reports and editorials without so much as disclosing the extensive financial entanglements of authors.

To understand what prompts psychiatrists to recommend "early" pharmacologic intervention by use of toxic drugs of unproven benefit for those for whom they are prescribed, one has only to examine their financial ties to drug companies.

For example, Robert L. Findling, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics,Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; Director, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, University Hospitals of Cleveland, has extensive on-going financial ties to manufacturers of psychotropic drugs.

See: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/513204
Dr. Findling received grants for clinical research from: Abbott,
AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celltech-Medeva, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline,
Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, New River, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Shire,
Solvay, and Wyeth.

Dr. Findling has been a consultant for: Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers
Squibb, Celltech-Medeva, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli
Lilly, New River, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Sanofi-Synthelabo, Shire,
Solvay, and Wyeth.

Dr. Findling has been listed on the speakers' bureau for Shire.
http://www.softconference.com/aacap/generic.asp?ID=415

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-01-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

MORE ON THE DECEPTIONS AND CORRUPTION OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION (APA)
by Justice Lover

The following AHRP report exposes more evidence of the deceptions and corruption of the APA.
It provides more proof of the dangerous quackery called psychiatry which continues with zionist like impunity to claim that it is a "Medical Specialty", thus forcing Big Pharma's dangerous psychiatric poisons on innocent people.

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ <http://www.ahrp.org/>
and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

In a remarkably informative and perceptive article by Kent Garber in US News, "Who's Behind the Bible of Mental Illness," readers are informed about the dual significance of psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual(DSM):
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/12/20/whos-behind-the-bible-of-mental-illness.html

The DSM "is hugely influential because it determines what is and is not amental disorder" and "is responsible for much of the sales growth inprescription drugs."By increasing the number of "disorders" the DSM panelists ipso facto broadenthe population for whom psychotropic drugs are prescribed--translating intoincreased sales and profits.

The American Psychiatric Association publishes the DSM--as well as selects the panel of psychiatrists who determine which behavior is listed as amental "disorder." The APA, therefore, provides an invaluable service for industry for which the APA and its most influential members receive millionsof dollars from drug manufacturers.

The article documents APA's lame effort to thwart criticism such as it received following the report by Lisa Cosgrove and Sheldon Krimsky documenting undisclosed financial conflicts of interest by DSM-IV panelists[1] http://www.tufts.edu/~skrimsky/PDF/DSM%20COI.PDF andhttp://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/144/27/

APA's "transparency" claims notwithstanding, APA's version of financial disclosure for DSM-V panelists is riddled with "errors" of omission and waivers from disclosure. http://psych.org/news_room/press_releases/DSM-V%20Task%20Force%20Bios%20and%20Disclosures%20FINAL.pdf

The panelists and the APA fail to disclose the nature and magnitude of panelists' hidden financial ties such as remuneration paid through a drug company's PR "communication" firms: e.g. DSM-V Task Force chairman, David Kupfer, reported multiple consulting arrangements with communications companies that "sponsored pharmaceutical meetings & editorial work." His public form, however, does not reveal that income from two of these companies, Prescott Communications and Innovative Medical Education, came from work for Forrest Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer,respectively. The APA said Kupfer did not need to disclose the ties because he was not paid directly by drug companies.

Nor did DSM-V Task Force panelists disclose so-called "unrestricted" pharmaceutical company grants awarded to their university department. Such grants may involve multi-million dollars.

Disclosure--whether applied to clinical trial reports or to documents purporting to disclose psychiatrists' financial ties to pharmaceutical companies--are either complete, and therefore, informative; or they are cherry picked half-truths, and therefore, evasive, likely fraudulent.

Indeed, as US News notes, studies have repeatedly shown a connection between authors who received income from drug companies and published papers favoring the firms' products. The papers also tend to underreport negativeside effects.

We believe that partial disclosure of conflict of interest is as bad as no disclosure because the public is misled into believing they are beingleveled with. And, whether intentional or not, partial disclosure is deceptive.

See: Financial Ties between DSM-IV Panel Members and the PharmaceuticalIndustry by Lisa Cosgrove, Sheldon Krimsky, Manisha Vijayaraghavan, LisaSchneider, Psychother Psychosom 2006;75:154-160.http://www.tufts.edu/~skrimsky/PDF/DSM%20COI.PDF

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org 212-595-8974

The link to the US News article :

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/12/20/whos-behind-the-bible-of-mental-illness.html
Who's Behind the Bible of Mental Illness Critics say that touted efforts against conflicts fall short by Kent Garber
Posted December 20, 2007

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-28T18:31:00.000-08:00

MORE ON THE COMBINED BIG PHARMA-SHRINKS ASSAULT ON AMERICAN CHILDREN OR : THE HEINOUS CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, CHILDREN IN PARTICULAR, BY BIG PHARMA AND BY THE SHRINKS CONTINUE UNABATED IN THE USA AND WORLDWIDE

by Justice Lover

The very existence of Psychiatry as a "Medical Specialty" when it is obvious that it is no more than a very dangerous quackery, which has no scientific basis, is by itself an outrageous world scandal !

The fact that it has been legalised makes this scandal worse, and much more so as it has been authorised by law to impose its dangerous torture-"treatments" arbitrarily under the false psychiatric dogma-pretext of "mental illness" on innocent people.

It is a well known fact that the shrinks have been heavily bribed by Big Pharma for prescribing its psychiatric poisons to their victim-patients so as to keep Big Pharma colossal profits on the rise all the time. This is not merely intolerable corruption of horrendous proportions, it is a series of crimes against humanity for which both shrinks and Big Pharma heads must be held accountable !

Worst of all is that in recent times the victimisation by Big Pharma- shrinks of young children ,as well as elderly people in nursing homes, keeps increasing by the day, and very little is done to stop such heinous crimes against humanity !

The following AHRP report has more details of such currently perpetrated heinous crimes against humanity as follows :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

Massachusetts has embarked on a mandatory mental health screening policy targeting disadvantaged, poor children whose medical care is paid by Medicaid.The Boston Globe reports (below):

"As of Monday, annual checkups for the nearly half a million Massachusetts children on Medicaid will carry a new requirement: Doctors must offer simple questionnaires to detect warning signs of possible mental health problems,from autism in toddlers to depression in teens. The checklists vary by age but ask questions about children's behavior - whether they are spending more time alone, seeming to have less fun, having trouble sleeping..."

Indeed, the vagueness of questions used in screening tools betrays the fact that there is no scientifically valid mental screening standard--nor, for that matter, is there a scientific, measurable tool for diagnosing children's mental health. It's all subjective and given to bias--often, as has been documented, by industry-financed bias. [1]http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/psychiatrists-retained-by-drug-industry.html

The new requirement applies to the 460,000 children covered by Massachusetts Medicaid from birth to age 21.The policy institutionalizes two-tier medicine, setting disadvantaged children into a class apart. People on Medicaid have no resources for making informed choices or for obtaining second opinions--these children are trapped into a system whereby Bad Medicine is shielded from accountability.Mental screening is not in the best interest of children; it is but subterfuge for increasing psychotropic drug sales.As pointed out by Dr. John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and author of Overdosed America, "What happens is that there's a very quick translation of mental health symptoms into drug treatment."

Beyond the issue of mislabeling healthy but rambunctious children as mentally ill, the highly toxic treatments being widely prescribed are producing irreversible, measurable harm. One would have expected cautionary approach after the untimely death at age 4 of Rebecca Riley who was "diagnosed" as bipolar at the age of 2 1/2 by a Tufts trained child psychiatrist, and prescribed a toxic combination of psychotropic drugs.http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/09/bipolar-soars-as-diagnosis-for-young.html

In adults the hazardous effects of the prescribed drugs are shown to cut life span by 25 years! http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2006/apr/05_0180.htm.Even a few prominent psychiatrists now acknowledge that children are being experimented upon with psychotropic drugs:

"We are using these medications and don't know how they work, if they work,or at what cost. It amounts to a huge experiment with the lives of American kids, and what it tells us is that we've got to do something other than we're doing now." John March MD, Prof. child /Adolescent Psychiatry, Dukehttp://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/399/31/"

"We don't know the first thing about safety and efficacy of these drugs even by themselves in these young ages, let alone when they are mixed together...We have to realize that we are risking treating children who could turn into obese diabetics with involuntary movements." Neuroscientist Steven Hyman MD, Former Director, NIMH http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/06/17/backlash_on_bipolar_diagnoses_in_children

Indeed, the scope, the magnitude and the nature of irreversible physiological harm produced by antipsychotic drugs in children as they disrupt normal function of major body systems and brain function has not yet been fully documented. However, a recent report by Christoph Correll, M.D.(Hillside Hospital), and Harold Carlson, M.D. (Stony Brook), in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2006) warns clinicians:

"children and adolescents appear to be at higher risk than adults for antipsychotic induced hyperprolactinemia [abnormally high levels of prolactin in the blood], weight gain, metabolic abnormalities and elevated serum prolactin....Weight gain is a leading pathway to the metabolic syndrome and diabetes mellitus."

Shame on a society that allows its children's best interest to be undermined by industry-influenced government mental health policies.

Parents are being misled about the risks posed by psychotropic drugs by those who stand to gain from increased sale.Shame on a society that blindly follows the dictates of financially compromised medical professionals.See: New York Times report documenting the money trail between pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists whose prescribing correlated with the dollar amount received from psychotropic drug manufacturers. [1]http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/psychiatrists-retained-by-drug-industry.html

Massachusetts citizens have a right to know how much money psychiatrists and pediatricians in their state have received from Big Pharma.Most especially, citizens have a right to know how much pharmaceutical money, influential Harvard-affiliated Mass General Hospital child psychiatrists have received.The Globe Editorial (below) adds insult to injury. It was written by someone ignorant about the body of compelling evidence documenting the harm caused to children who are prescribed psychotropic drugs. [3]

The editorial makes bald unsubstantiated claims that smack of pharmaceutical industry PR copy:" Early detection of bipolar disorder, autism, or depression can lead to effective treatment that will avoid costly periods of institutionalization if the condition is left unattended." Where is the evidence for that false claim? In fact, "bipolar disorder" in children is highly controversial, its legitimacy unrecognized anywhere in the world other than in the US.

The real hook of the Massachusetts policy is to provide financial incentive to "diagnose" children: "With the diagnosis doors and services can open to you."Children--in particular those on Medicaid--are being turned into a captive consumer drug market without regard for the harmful consequences.

Stay Tuned for an AHRP 2008 initiative.In the meantime, Write a letter to the Boston Globe editor:http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/write/

References:

1. THE NEW YORK TIMES May 10, 2007 Psychiatrists, Children and DrugIndustry's Role By GARDINER HARRIS, BENEDICT CAREY and JANET ROBERTShttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/health/10psyche.html

2. THE NEW YORK TIMES June 6, 2006 Use of Antipsychotics by the Young RoseFivefold By BENEDICT CAREYhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/health/06psych.html

3. Texas: 60% of foster care children are being drugged:http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/03/chemical-sledgehammer-children-in.html http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/11/children-need-protection.htmlFlorida: St. Petersburg Times The 'atypical' dilemma Skyrocketing numbers of kids are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs. Is it safe? Nobody knows. ROBERT FARLEY, July 29, 2007http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/29/news_pf/Worldandnation/The__atypical__dilemm.shtml http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/08/skyrocketing-antipsychotic-drug-use-in.htmlNew York: DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE December 9, 2007 Potent Pills: More foster kids getting mood-altering drugs by Gary Craighttp://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071209/NEWS01/71206023/1002/NEWS

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org 212-595-8974

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

BIG PHARMA ON TRIAL NOW FOR SOME OF THEIR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. WHEN WILL THE TOP SHRINKS BE PUT ON TRIAL FOR THEIR COMPLICITY, AND FOR THEIR OWN MAJOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY ?
by Justice Lover

Although the following AHRP report concerns the testing of an antibiotic drug on African children, nevertheless the implications are the same for similar tests with psychiatric drugs on children worldwide.

Here is the report :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org <http://www.ahrp.org/> and http://ahrp.blogspot.com
<http://ahrp.blogspot.com/>

FYI

Reuters reports that the Nigerian government has ordered the arrest of three
Pfizer defendants in the Trovan antibiotic trial conducted in 1996.

Pfizer is charged with killing 11 children in that unethical, illegal drug
trial, and leaving at least 189 severely disabled--blind, deaf, paralyzed
and brain damaged.

The Nigerian government is seeking $7 billion and the Kano state government
(where the trial took place) is seeking another $2 billion.

The company has evaded judicial review for more than a decade. It is hoped
that at last the facts of that lethal trial will be aired in open
proceedings and justice will be served.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN454820.html
Nigeria court seeks 3 arrests in Pfizer drug trial
Mon 24 Dec 2007, 15:13 GMT

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian court on Monday ordered the arrests of
three of the defendants in a trial over a drug test conducted by Pfizer in
1996 which Nigerian authorities say killed 11 children and left others
disabled.

The northern state of Kano is suing Pfizer for $2 billion in damages and
pressing criminal charges over the testing of the antibiotic Trovan on
children in Kano during a meningitis epidemic that killed 12,000 children in
six months.

The federal government is suing for an additional $6.5 billion and also
pressing criminal charges.

Pfizer denies accusations that Trovan harmed children and that the company
did not obtain proper regulatory and parental approval. It says it was
meningitis that killed the children or damaged their health, while Trovan
saved lives.

The High Court in Kano on Monday held a hearing in the state's criminal case
against Pfizer.

Lawyers for Pfizer were present but Judge Shehu Atiku complained that
individual defendants should have been there too and issued arrest warrants
against three of them.

Pfizer is arguing in a separate process in a Lagos court that the defendants
were not properly served criminal summons and therefore were not technically
charged or obliged to appear in court.

The civil and criminal cases launched by the state and federal governments
since May have developed into a tangle of unresolved petitions and side
issues, dragging on from one adjournment to the next. No witness has been
heard and no substantive issue tackled.

Atiku adjourned the Kano state criminal case to January 29 to hear a motion
in which Pfizer challenges the court's jurisdiction.

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

MORE ON THE QUACKERY THAT PSYCHIATRY IS AND ON THE INVALIDITY OF ITS DOGMA
by Justice Lover

Ever since the anti-psychiatry movement among psychiatrists began some 40 years ago the dogma of psychiatry has been exposed as deception, namely, the claim that psychiatry is a "Medical Specialty" which is "treating mentally ill patients" has no scientific basis, and can be regarded as sheer speculation, at best. The psychiatric theory about "chemical imbalance" in the brains of the "mentally ill" is part of that speculation/deception, and the further psychiatric claim to "correct" that "imbalance" by prescribing Big Pharma poisons to the victim-patients, is no more than a cruel sales gimmick on behalf of Big Pharma.

The following article by AHRP sheds more light on that outrageous psyciatric deception.

Here it is :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ <http://www.ahrp.org/>
and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

"The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression" by Jonathan Leo& Jeffrey R. Lacasse is a follow up to their seminal article in PLoSMedicine (2005), in which they debunked the "chemical imbalance" theory ofdepression. The "chemical imbalance" theory in psychiatry rests on the observation that mood could be artificially manipulated with drugs - those which raised monoamine levels improved mood, while those which lowered amine levels led to depression, but it remained to be seen if naturally occurring fluctuations in neurotransmitter levels were responsible for, or caused, the ebb and flow of mood levels.

As the authors point out, in spite of the enormous amount of money and time that has been spent in the quest to confirm the chemical imbalance theory, direct proof has never materialized. Moreover, during the past several decades, a significant amount of evidence has accumulated which calls the theory's validity into question. Of particular note, in the two years since publication of their PLoSarticle, not a single scientific article challenged their conclusion. Indeed, the chairman of FDA Psychopharmacology Advisory Committee acknowledged that the "chemical imbalance" theory was but a "useful metaphor"--as opposed to a valid hypothesis.

Another credible, evidence-based assessment of the "chemical imbalance" theory is to be found on the website of The Mental Health Service at McGill University: "The term 'chemical imbalance' is thrown around a lot these days. True conditions caused by chemical imbalances are relatively rare. All thoughts, feelings and motions in the brain are mediated by the release of chemicals in brain pathways.

Every person's brain is unique, leading each of us to have different traits and abilities. Just because your brain works in a particular way does not mean that you have a chemical imbalance. A certain amount of sadness, anxiety or other emotional upset is normal, and though we may be able to block these feelings by chemicals, this would tend to dehumanize us. Even when we use medication to help an individual with overwhelming emotions, most of the time this is not to repair a 'chemical imbalance' but simply to help contain symptoms." [Link]

However, invalid thought it may be, as Drs. Leo and Lacasse point out the "chemical imbalance" theory has had extraordinary commercial value for both the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry: "With the advent of the chemical imbalance theory, the companies were no longer just providing soothing tonics, they were now providing medications to treat diseases, as exemplified by an early SSRI advertisement stating: "When serotonin is in short supply, you may suffer from depression."

The wording here is all-important. The advertisement takes a correlation between serotonin shortage and psychological stress-and even this is highly questionable and unverifiable in any individual case-and makes a leap of faith to the conclusion that depression is caused by a serotonin imbalance, not that psychological stress impacts the serotonin system. And the marketing did not stop with depression; eventually we were told that whatever our problems might be, whether anxiety, excessive shyness, depression, or the inability to pay attention, the underlying cause was a faulty transmitter level which could be rectified with a pill.

A 2005 survey from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that nearly half of all Americans will at some point develop a mental illness, presumably from a chemical imbalance, with 29% developing an anxiety disorder and 20% a mood disorder."The "chemical imbalance" theory has provided promoters of psychoactive "feel good" prescription drugs with the means for distancing their products from illicit street drugs whose chemical action is almost indistinguishable. Whereas drugs used to "take the edge off" stress are typically considered street drugs and are consumed by "users" or "addicts," substances used to rectify a "chemical imbalance" can be called medications--and these are legitimately consumed by patients.

A fly in the ointment occurred when Ricky Williams, the star running back for the Miami Dolphins who had been "diagnosed" with Social Anxiety Disorder, and for several years was paid by GlaxoSmithKline to promote Paxil for anxiety disorder, was described in 2002, by People magazine, as suffering from a "depression-like chemical imbalance that affects roughly three million Americans." Williams tested positive for marijuana on several occasions. But while his marijuana use was frowned upon, his use of Paxil was considered acceptable. One was a medication supposed to treat a chemical imbalance, while the other was a drug signaling a lack of willpower.

However, Williams' contract with Glaxo came to a sudden halt in 2004, when he stated that marijuana was ten times better than Paxil. What got him into hot water, Drs. Leo and Lacasse, note, was not so much praising the competition, but rather putting his sponsor's "medication" in the same category as an illicit drug. Williams threatened the assumption underlying the conventional unsupportable divide between legal and illegal drug use. His juxtaposition threatened the most powerful industries--including professional sports, the pharmaceutical industry, psychiatry, and the mass media.

Another fly in the ointment raising questions about the validity of the dividing line between prescribed and illicit psychoactive substances, is a recent controlled clinical trial conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins. The researchers ostensibly tested the "Mystical" effects of psilocybin, the active ingredient in mushrooms which is an illegal drug that causes hallucinations. However, two months after the trial they found that "79% of those prescribed psilocybin reported moderately or greatly increased levels of life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo. A majority said their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better." [Link]

No SSRI clinical trial had that high a rate of long-lasting improvements in mood, attitude and behavior.The authors sent inquiries to reporters who mentioned the "chemical imbalance" theory as if it had been proven, asking for citations of such proof. The responses--or lack of responses--and the biased, pro-industry reporting about mental health treatments, are no less troubling than the biased reporting in the New York Times about the events leading up to the Iraq War.

"In hindsight, as the Times editors now acknowledge (5/326/04), Judith Miller's war coverage was overly one-sided. Her fundamental flaw could be described as a lack of professional skepticism toward the Bush administration, as she willingly parroted what those pushing for war were saying, while giving little credence to the stance of the other side. Writing in the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing commented that the Times and Miller's reporting were examples of media "submissiveness."

This depiction could just as well apply to the media's reporting of mental health issues. As just one example, in some cases, the media still go to the people responsible for the original problems. For instance, several of the researchers involved with the studies of SSRIs in children are still cited in the press even though the following information has come out about their published studies: they downplayed the suicide risk; they exaggerated the benefits; and the papers published under their names were actually written by ghostwriters paid by the pharmaceutical industry.The Times editors have acknowledged both the problems with Miller's reporting and their own lack of editorial oversight of her.

It remains to be seen if members of the media will ever look inward and reflect on their role in the promotion of the chemical imbalance theory. (For those familiar with the New York Times' coverage of mental health issues over the past 10 years, it is refreshing that after a series of health reporters who essentially abdicated their role as investigative journalists, there is a newer group of Times reporters with more skeptical inclination..."

Both articles by Jonathan Leo and Jeffrey Lacasse are freely accessible.http://www.springerlink.com/content/u37j12152n826q60/fulltext.pdf andhttp://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org212-595-8974

( Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

HOW SHRINKS KILL ELDERLY VICTIM-PATIENTS BY PRESCRIBING PSYCHIATRIC POISONS FOR THEM
by Justice Lover

The following AHRP report/article has got the details :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ <http://www.ahrp.org/> and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/
<http://ahrp.blogspot.com/>

FYI

An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Company reveals that "doctors
are continuing to prescribe drugs dangerous to seniors in spite of
government warnings."

Prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics, the most toxic of all
psychoactive drugs, shot up in six Canadian provinces in the past 24 months,including in Ontario and Quebec. According to sales data provided by IMS Health, in some cases the increase rose by 40%.

Health Canada stepped up warnings pointing to antipsychotic drugs' side effects - including a 60% greater risk of death in seniors who were taking the drugs than in patients taking placebos - gleaned from 13 scientific studies. The serious risks linked to these drugs include diabetes, hyperglycemia, convulsions, stroke, heart attack and death.

Doctors were warned that elderly patients prescribed atypical antipsychotics were almost twice as likely to die from side effects such as heart failure.That does not mean that younger patients are not at increased risk of death; it only means that deaths in the elderly have been studied, and the findings published.

"The risks associated with these therapies [antipsychotic drugs] outweigh the benefit.
So you're dealing with a group of drugs where it's not really clear that
they're useful. Yet they're still being widely used."

-Paula Rochon, Toronto-based geriatrician advises doctors that
"antipsychotics should only be used in extreme cases."
"Those would be [the] sort of situations where the person may be in danger
of causing harm to himself or to other people around them and it's a very acute situation where you need to do something. But usually the situation isn't that.

Usually you have behavioural problems that are developing over time.
And antipsychotics should be one of the last things you should consider in
one of those settings."

CBC describes what happened to Norma Galloway, an 85-year-old Vancouver
native, who was misprescribed Risperdal when her son Rod requested a
medication that would ease her anxiety about a persistent urinary tract
infection.

"Neither Galloway nor her son were ever told that the drug is intended for
psychotic patients with severe dementia or schizophrenia. Following the
doctor's directions, she took one pill in the morning and one at night."
Rod Galloway noticed a change in his mother immediately.

"It was like someone that was really groggy or sedated and not really that
with it," he said. "And on the next morning we were debating should we give
her another one, and we reluctantly gave her a second Risperdal. Norma
Galloway's personality changed dramatically from cheery to sullen, her son
said. One day she suffered a seizure in her room, something that had never
occurred before, and collapsed." She was rushed to hospital but died 10 days
later of a heart attack.

Given the lethal risks for patients, a mandatory registry should be
established for patients prescribed antipsychotics--just as such a registry
was established for Clozaril, the first of the new antipsychotics. Doctors
who prescribe antipsychotics should be required to register those
patients--and should also be required to closely monitor such patients and
to report all adverse events.

AHRP believes that so long as doctors are mostly influenced by company
propaganda and their sales reps, they are disinclined to pay attention to
the fact that they are killing their patients. Euthanasia, so far as we
know, is still illegal!

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

THE USA FDA IS THE LAP DOG OF BIG PHARMA, RATHER THAN THE WATCHDOG FOR CONSUMERS
by Justice Lover

According to the Wikipedia definition, the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) role is as follows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration :

“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is responsible for the safety regulation of most types of foods, dietary supplements, drugs, vaccines, biological medical products, blood products, medical devices…”

In other words, the FDA is supposed to be the watchdog of the USA federal government for protecting the public from fraudulent drugs and other products which could damage the health of consumers.

Furthermore, the FDA Consumer magazine, in its December 1999 issue, had an article by an FDA member, under the title,How to Spot Health Fraud , which states as follows

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/699_fraud.html :

“Because of limited resources, says Joel Aronson, team leader for the nontraditional drug compliance team in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the agency's regulation of health fraud products is based on a priority system that depends on whether a fraudulent product poses a direct or indirect risk.

When the use of a fraudulent product results in injuries or adverse reactions, it's a direct risk.”

The reality, however, is exactly the opposite, namely, instead of protecting the public the FDA is acting is a rubber stamp for Big Pharma. The following report by AHRP proves the point :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ <http://www.ahrp.org/> and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

A little noticed critique in The New England Journal of Medicine by Sheila Weiss Smith, Ph.D. focuses on FDA's continued sidelining of drug safety infavor of industry's rapid approval marketing goal. Dr. Smith, a drug safety and epidemiology expert with dual positions at the University of Maryland: School of Pharmacy, and School of Medicine, notes that "the IOM implored the agency to "embrace a culture of safety" by increasing the priority accorded to the safety of patients" but sadly, "the FDA's official response falls far short of what the American public expectsand deserves. Indeed, it highlights the very reason that the agency - with which I have had some first hand experience - is in need of monumental change: its philosophy is no longer aligned with its regulatory mandate."

Dr. Smith notes that rather than "embrace a culture of safety" by ensuring that a drug's toxicity and known safety problems are considered when weighing the benefit/risk ratio, the FDA described its "fundamental dilemma" as weighing the "trade off between safety and access." This, in a nutshell is what's wrong with the culture at the FDA and why consumer safety is shown repeatedly to be trumped by fast-track approval.

Dr. Smith reminds readers that mechanisms intended to speed access to potentially lifesaving medicines were broadly interpreted by FDA officials who allowed drugs for the treatment of common chronic conditions such as diabetes (troglitazone), obesity (dexfenfluramine), and pain (rofecoxib) to be approved under expedited programs.Those lethal drugs and a dozen more were withdrawn from the market only after preventable deaths had been documented.As Dr. Smith notes: The public expects the FDA to be the final arbiter of drug safety. Accelerated development programs and expedited reviews hasten the introduction of lifesaving drugs, but they should not be an option for treatments intended for chronic conditions; these drugs should have safety standards that tolerate minimal uncertainty.

By pitting safety directly against "access and innovation," the agency betrays its mandate to ensure that U.S. drugs are both safe and effective.

We note that an entire class of drugs linked to an array of life-threatening risks--the so-called second generation anti psychotics (a.k.a. neuroleptics)were approved despite a negative risk / benefit ratio. Indeed, in premarketing trials, these drugs only demonstrated "proof in principle" of abenefit. Documented evidence--from manufacturers' internal documents and since the drugs' approval--show that these drugs have the propensity to induce diabetes, hyperglycemia, cardiovascular disease, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, not to mention psychiatric adverse effects.

An analysis by MEDCO Health Solutions, the nation's leading pharmacy benefit manager, of the use of psychotropic drugs in children is so disturbing that the company's chief medical officer, Dr. Robert Epstein, expressed concern about the "unparalleled rise in adolescent girls using prescription drugs to treat diabetes, for sleep problems, and psychological disorders." FDA approved these drugs and failed to restrict their use even though evidence demonstrates that the life-threatening risks are NOT outweighed by ANY demonstrable benefits.

These drugs are being widely used primarily as chemical restraints.

Several IOM recommendations speak to the importance of including safety experts as integral players in the drug-review process.

Yet instead of undertaking a fundamental restructuring to integrate the relevant offices--safety and evaluation--the FDA merely initiated two pilot projects that involve OSE personnel in drug reviews to determine the "logistics and value" of doing so. But something akin to a pilot had already been done.More than 10 years ago..."In my view," Dr. Smith concludes, "the FDA's response to the IOM report demonstrates a lack of understanding of the magnitude of the changes required to create a culture of safety.

Apparently, the agency's leadership has yet to recognize that the adoption of such a culture would benefit all stakeholders - industry, the community of scientists, and most important,the American public."A response by Steve Galson, MD, former director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, underscores the intractable culture that prevents FDA officials from addressing FDA's dismal safety track record over the pastdecade. Public outrage about FDA's dismal track record is what prompted the agency to contract the IOM investigation. But top brass at the FDA are disinclined to restructure the drug review process so as to ensure that safety is a priority.See: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/24/2520

Regardless of the rhetoric, nothing that the agency has done so far will prevent future regulatory safety failures. And those failures will likely to be repeated, resulting in additional preventable deaths of thousands of citizens.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

MORE DESPICABLE ATTACKS BY USA SHRINKS ON YOUNG CHILDREN TO PROMOTE THE PROFITS OF BIG PHARMA BY TERRORISING THE CHILDREN'S PARENTS
by Justice Lover

The following article/report by AHRP reveals the fear and terror tactics used by USA shrinks to make parents buy Big Pharma psychiatric poisons for their young children, thereby increase Big Pharma's colossal profits (and bribes for the shrinks).

Here it is :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

An offensive fear mongering advertising campaign by New York University Child Study Center portrays children as hostages to "untreated psychiatric disorders," including autism, Asperger Syndrome, bulimia, depression, ADHD,and obsessive-compulsive disorder. http://www.courttv.com/news/ramsey/docs/gifs/ransom1.gif

The ad campaign uses "ransom" notes designed to look like actual ransom notes, as an attention grabber--a hard sell technique in an effort to increase donations and expand the patient roster for the Child Study Center.This is a throw back to snake-oil marketing techniques.The ransom notes include warnings to parents such as: "Do nothing and see what happens," "it's only going to get worse," "Ignore this and your kid will pay."

The campaign's offensive, threatening rhetoric was sanitized in the New York Times coverage, but not in the more accurate report in The New York Daily News (below).Each "ransom" note carries the tag line, "Don't let a psychiatric disorder take your child."

"We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning.Autism."

"We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay.ADHD."

"We have your son. We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation. It's up to you now.Asperger's Syndrome."

"We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It's only going to get worse.Bulimia."

"We have taken your son. We have imprisoned him in a maze of darkness with no hope of ever getting out. Do nothing and see what happens.Depression."

"We have your daughter. We are making her wash her hands until they are raw,everyday. This is only the beginning.OCD".

The ads are being tested in New York City using billboards, kiosks and magazines. Plans call for massive expansion nationwide.It is difficult to imagine how parents will be helped by callously framing children's disabilities in a gangster context.NYU Child Study Center has garnered a roster of high visibility"celebrities" in the media, politics, and corporate merchants. [list below]Not highlighted are the Child Study Center's major sources of support from pharmaceutical companies.The Dec. 2007 Annual Gala Award Dinner raised $9 million. It was hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton(D-NY). http://www.med.nyu.edu/communications/news/pr_254.html and http://www.convergemag.com/story.php?catid=8&storyid=106309

However, families are not amused by the image of "conditions" as kidnappers,abductors, criminals. They are troubled by the offensive insinuation that their children are possessed. Fourteen disability groups throughout North America have signed a letter calling on the N.Y.U. Child Study Center to withdraw its offensive advertising campaign. The letter, written by ASAN President Ari Ne'eman, signed by 705 people tells the NYU Child Study Center: "By choosing to portray people on the autism spectrum as well as those living with OCD, ADHD and other disabilities as kidnapped or possessed children, you have inadvertently reinforced many of the worst stereotypes that have prevented children and adults with disabilities from gaining inclusion, equality and full access to the services and supports they require." http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?ransom

Families are also offended by the implication that they are complacent when the real challenge is finding (and paying for) non-pharmacological interventions. The NYU Child Center website lists only drugs under "Disorders and Treatments." http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/guide_psychiatric_medications_children_adolescents

NYU's shameless ad campaign is but the latest evidence of how children's vulnerability being exploited by an unscrupulous cadre of child psychiatrists who flaunt fundamental professional ethical principles to increase the number of children prescribed psychotropic drugs.

The threats of dire consequences from no treatment apply far more to children who are exposed to the toxic effects of those psychotropic drugs listed on the NYU Child Center website. Self-advocacy network--advocates not funded by pharmaceutical companies--are denouncing the NYU campaign: http://www.stigmanet.org/ ; http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/; http://www.autismvox.com/;http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/

The NYU Child Study Center's director, child psychiatrist, Dr. Harold Kopewicz, is a publicity seeker registered with Grabow Biz, which offers his services as follows: "Booking Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz for Corporate Events,Business Meetings and Special Events...How to book Dr. Harold S. Koplewiczfor your next Christmas Party Event...Planning your next Convention with Dr.Harold S. Koplewicz as your special guest Plan a Wedding, Birthday or Anniversary....http://www.grabow.biz/contact-us.html

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharavmailto:Sharavveracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2007/12/14/2007-12-14_psych_groups_fury_over_ransom_ads-1.html

New York DAILY NEWS Psych groups' fury over 'ransom' ads BY CHRISTINA BOYLE December 15, 2007The words are scrawled in thick black ink and spell out a parent's worst nightmare: "WE HAVE YOUR SON."Others are typed or cut from the pages of a magazine but all contain the same harrowing message: "This is only the beginning . . . Ignore this and your kid will pay."These "ransom notes" are being plastered all over town as part of a new ad campaign about the dangers of psychiatric disorders like autism,attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and Asperger's syndrome. They are causing outrage among many of the groups they are designed to represent -prompting parents and disability advocates to demand they be taken down.

"I was offended. It's not a helpful way to think about a disorder," said Kristina Chew, who has a 10-year-old son with autism. "It makes you feel like there's some sort of criminal element to the disorder.""The child has not been 'taken,' they just need a little extra help," said Melissa Ramirez, 26, who has a cousin with autism. "It's basically showing[parents] they have no control over their child. It's inappropriate."The ad campaign is being rolled out over the next four months by the NYU Child Study Center, which says the posters are designed to highlight the plight of children who suffer from undiagnosed or untreated psychiatric problems."

I understand some people's feelings are hurt. For that, I apologize. It was never our intention to offend or insult anyone," said Dr.Harold Koplewicz,founder and director of the Child Study Center, who says he has also received e-mails praising the campaign."It's harsh and edgy and shocking but I don't think it's nearly as shocking as the diseases themselves, and the lack of treatment," he said. "It's time for psychotic disorders to be equal to physical disorders."More than 200 ads will appear on construction sites and kiosks across the city. Eleven billboards will display the shocking messages and a handful of newspapers, magazines and Web sites will print the ads, designed for free by the BBDO agency.

Disability advocates including Not Dead Yet and the Autism Acceptance Project have united in protest."There needs to be recognition that not all attention is good attention,"said Ari Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network who suffers from Asperger's syndrome."The message that this campaign is sending, specifically that children with disabilities are shells, that somehow we have had our true selves stolen away or kidnapped ... is one that has a lot of terrible consequences."cboyle@nydailynews.com

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C.section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

This material is distributed without profit. ASAN - Autism Self Advocacy Network Dec. 11, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Sheryl Bass Phone: 720-488-1116 E-mail: Sheryl@thesolutionpr.com

DISABILITY ADVOCATES: "WE ARE NOT FOR RANSOM" National Disability Groups Seek End to N.Y.U. Child Study Center's Ad Campaign (New York) - The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) pulled together disability rights advocates to speak with one voice today in protest of an N.Y.U. Child Study Center advertising campaign.

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-12T12:33:00.001-08:00

USA VETERANS USED AS LABORATORY ANIMALS BY BIG PHARMA, THE SENIOR PARTNERS OF PSYCHIATRY by Justice Lover

Here is proof of some more crimes against humanity by Big Pharma :

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

"The Albany Times Union reports (below) that U.S. District Court Senior Judge Thomas McAvoy issued an oral decision siding with the government to dismiss the case brought by the widows of 5 veterans who died after being used illegally without informed consent in corrupt drug experiments at Stratton VA Medical Center.

This case is particularly egregious.

The lawsuits against the VA stemmed from a criminal investigation that found dozens of veterans had been subjected to fraud and deception
after their medical records were altered to enroll them in drug studies at
Stratton. The government admitted wrongdoing in only one veteran's
death because it could be proven in that case that the patient died as a
result of receiving experimental drugs, according to court records.

Indeed, the judge himself stated: "Sometimes a court has to render a
decision it would not like to render."

The hospital's former cancer research director, Dr. James A. Holland,
pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in connection with the scandal.

Holland is scheduled to be sentenced next month for his guilty plea to a
misdemeanor count of not keeping proper medical records.
And, a former Stratton research coordinator, Paul H. Kornak, is serving a
71-month prison term in Ohio for negligent homicide and other felony
charges.

Despite the proven facts of gross negligence by the VA where criminal
experiments were allowed to be conducted, the widows of the veterans who were used as guinea pigs are being denied a paltry settlement. The
government simply does not want to pay them.

Even our courts, we fear, reflect the prevailing law of the jungle--there is
no justice for the weak.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=646167
Albany Times Union

Widows' VA suit thrown out

Federal judge: No evidence terminally ill veterans suffered from fraudulent
drug studies at Stratton

By BRENDAN J. LYONS, Senior writer
December 11, 2007

ALBANY -- A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed against the
Department of Veterans Affairs by the widows of five veterans who
died after being enrolled in corrupt drug experiments at Stratton VA Medical
Center.

In dismissing the case at the request of federal attorneys, U.S. District
Court Senior Judge Thomas J. McAvoy cited the fact there is no proof
the veterans, all of whom were terminally ill cancer patients, had died
prematurely or endured added pain and suffering as a result of being
fraudulently enrolled in studies designed to test drugs for marketability.

"Sometimes a court has to render a decision it would not like to render,"
McAvoy said.

He commented from the bench that what went on at Stratton hospital was
"egregious conduct" but he is bound to follow "existing law" which
sets no basis for the plaintiffs' families to recover damages in the case.

Alan Milstein, a Philadelphia-area lawyer hired by the widows, argued in
court that the widows deserve compensation because their husbands
suffered in ways that cannot be measured from forged medical records or the
opinions of expert physicians.

Milstein also compared the criminal research violations that went on at
Stratton to thousands of cases in which body parts have been stolen
from corpses as part of an underground network that traffics human remains
for research. In those cases, Milstein said, the victims did not
physically suffer but they and their families endured a form of "dignitary
harm," which New York courts do not recognize.

The lawsuits against the VA stemmed from a criminal investigation that found
dozens of veterans had been subjected to fraud and deception
after their medical records were altered to enroll them in drug studies at
Stratton. The government admitted wrongdoing in only one veteran's
death because it could be proven in that case that the patient died as a
result of receiving experimental drugs, according to court records.

The case involved the death of James J. DiGeorgio, a 71-year-old Air Force
veteran from Rensselaer County who died at Stratton in June 2001.

Last December, the government paid $500,000 to settle a lawsuit by
DiGeorgio's widow.

That settlement left five other widows who pursued a class-action lawsuit,
but Monday's ruling effectively ended their case unless they file an
appeal.

"When you use individuals, humans, as guinea pigs, you do them harm,"
Milstein told McAvoy. "What happened at the Stratton VA is a black
mark in the history of human subject research. They and their families
deserve to be compensated."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Goodwin, who argued the government's motion,
declined comment as she left court.

Two people, including the hospital's former cancer research director, Dr.
James A. Holland, pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in
connection with the scandal. Holland is scheduled to be sentenced next month
for his guilty plea to a misdemeanor count of not keeping proper
medical records.

A former Stratton research coordinator, Paul H. Kornak, is serving a
71-month prison term in Ohio for negligent homicide and other felony
charges.

"A great wrong was committed here," Milstein said in court. "The question
for this court is whether the law will recognize it. ...They committed
every kind of research ethics violation imaginable."

The government argued that while the veterans were fraudulently enrolled in
drug studies, some of them may have benefitted from the
treatments and may have lived months longer than expected. The government's
attorneys also said there is no proof the men wouldn't have
died if they received standard chemotherapy treatments rather than
experimental regimens.

Jayne Steubing, whose husband, Carl, died at Stratton VA after being given a
breast cancer drug to treat esophageal cancer, was the only widow
in court for Monday's hearing. Steubing and her stepson, Kurt, issued the
following statement to the Times Union late Monday:

"We are disappointed in the judicial process and in the judgment itself, as
neither brought closure for the families in this case. The fact that the
judge himself admitted how painful it was for him to render this decision
made it all the more difficult to accept."

Carl Steubing's medical records were altered without his knowledge to
qualify him for a drug experiment run by Kornak and Holland,
according to court records.

Both Kornak and Holland were fired from Stratton in late 2002, almost a year
after the first instance of fraud was discovered by a monitor for a
Texas drug company funding one of the studies. Holland blamed Kornak for the
scandal, while Kornak has said he was only following orders
and that hospital officials knew what was taking place.

Investigators discovered that Kornak, who did not finish medical school, had
been posing as a medical doctor when it was widely suspected by
hospital staffers -- and reported to Holland -- that Kornak was not a
physician.

Holland, who has admitted allowing unqualified workers to handle his medical
duties, alleged Kornak sought to earn extra overtime pay by
enrolling as many patients as possible in the research studies.
Kornak and at least one other research coordinator gave sworn depositions earlier this year in which they said Holland had pressured them to enroll patients in drug studies because their salaries and job security was at stake.

Steubing was a World War II veteran who enlisted in the Army in 1942 and
served for three years, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was
awarded the Bronze Star for bravery after leading his platoon to safety when
their commanding officer was shot and a Purple Heart for injuries
sustained in combat.

Human research studies at dozens of Veterans Affairs hospitals underwent a
review as a result of the scandal at Stratton. National hiring
reforms also were put in place at VA hospitals after it was uncovered that a
VA oncologist had hired Kornak despite the fact he had a criminal
record for trying to illegally obtain a medical license.

The widows have 30 days to decide whether to appeal McAvoy's decision. "It's
certainly something we're going to think strongly about,"
Milstein said outside court."

Brendan J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at
blyons@timesunion.com.

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2007-12-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

PSYCHIATRISTS EXPOSE THE CORRUPTION OF THE

AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION (APA)
by Justice Lover

The following article was downloaded today from The Carlat Psychiatry Blog (a blog by a shrink, Daniel Carlat, M.D.). The article quotes an excerpt from a letter to Carlat by a colleague, exposing the corruption of the APA. However, what it reveals is only a small part of the tip of the psychiatric corruption iceberg which is only part of the crimes against humanity by psychiatry iceberg which is still submerged in the ocean of capitalism.

Dr. Carlat is still silent about those crimes against humanity perpetrated by psychiatry and by the vast majority of its shrink practitioners. Thus, he does not oppose psychiatric coercion which legalises arbitrary detention ("hospitalisation") of victim-patients, and their forced electric shocks torture,
forced neuroleptics torture, "psycho-surgery" torture etc. Psychiatric coercion has got the full force of the law behind it, and its all under the pretext of psychiatric "treatment", of course, which is by itself one of the biggest scandals in humanity's history, and second only to zionism in its lies ,deceptions and false propaganda.

Here is the article :

http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/
2007/12/from-embarassment-to-
scandal-lilly-apa.html

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

From Embarrassment to Scandal: Lilly + APA + The Psychiatrist's Program + Lots and Lots of Money

What began as an embarrassment of Eli Lilly, PV Updates, and PRMS is gradually becoming a full-fledged scandal. The Indianapolis Star picked up the story last weekend (read it here), and psychiatrist David Port, M.D. wrote me a letter alerting me to an expanding crisis of trust in psychiatry. Here is an excerpt:

"Whatever Lilly's justification for sponsoring a course ostensibly to help the psychiatrist to better deal with professional liability risks, I am outraged that PRMS has accepted money from Lilly and has chosen to offer its authority and reputation toward this Lilly effort. PRMS is the American Psychiatric Association-endorsed entity which directs APA members to a selected malpractice insurance agency. PRMS is thus the agency many or most of us psychiatrists turn to for guidance and direction as to liability exposure and malpractice coverage. For PRMS to work for Eli Lilly is a glaring conflict of interest between their psychiatrist clients and a pharmaceutical corporation whose interests do not necessarily coincide with those of the psychiatrists with whom they have a professional relationship. This is analogous to the same law firm representing two individuals opposing one another in a law suit; in that situation we assume that there cannot be fair representation of either client, and we may imagine that the client with an attorney who has more clout in the law firm may well prevail in the action. How can we trust PRMS, or the APA for that matter, to provide us with the best liability support? David Port, M.D."

Yes, it's true. PRMS runs The Psychiatrist's Program, a malpractice carrier that is officially endorsed by the APA.

I know, it can get very confusing. Let's follow the money. Eli Lilly gives the APA at least $1.3 million in 2007 (so far) for industry-supported symposia and fellowships. Lilly then gives PRMS a bunch of money (Lilly refused to tell John Russell at the Indy Star how much) to produce a web-based slide show teaching psychiatrists how to prescribe potentially toxic medications like Zyprexa without being sued. The APA officially endorses PRMS' psychiatry malpractice insurance for its members. Does APA receive any type of kickback for this endorsement? I assume that would be illegal, but who knows?

Look, I get as annoyed by conspiracy theorists as the next guy. But the web of money and influence here is so murky and repugnant that it leaves me wondering what's going on. I officially invite both the APA and PRMS to respond. And I'd love another diplomatic letter from Eli Lilly!

(Emphasis added by Justice Lover)