New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
This song is from my album "Songs from the Locked Ward," written and recorded in the summer of 2009.
I wrote it as a testament to the horrors people suffer at the hands of psychiatry---the lack of empathy, the forced medication, the involuntary hospitalizations, the pseudoscience of psychiatric studies, the lies about genetic causes of mental problems, the corrupt ties of researchers to Big Pharma, the shallow and emotionally blind therapists, the denial of trauma, and the denial of full recovery, to name a few .
As a therapist, I've heard these stories---in painful detail---from my patients all too many times.
A few notes: I mention E. Fuller Torrey, the author of "Surviving Schizophrenia," in this song. I find his biological and forced treatment point of view repugnant. He's on Youtube, so you can see him for yourself.
I also mention Peter Breggin. He's a radical psychiatrist and heroic critic of psychiatry. He's also on Youtube---and I've put up some video interviews of him as well.
It was just at the end of October that the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study which found that children taking the latest generation of antipsychotic drugs gain significant amounts of weight -- as much as 18.7 pounds on average in just 11 weeks. Young people taking Eli Lilly's (LLY) Zyprexa gained the most compared to those on other antipsychotics. Researchers recommended that doctors prescribing those drugs keep close tabs on their young patients' weights.
Gwen Olsen spent more than a decade as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry, working for health care giants such as Johnson Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. A well-known media resource, she has been in numerous print, radio, and television media reports, and testified before Congress and the FDA. A 2007 Human Rights Award winner, she currently devotes her time to writing, national speaking engagements, and mental health activism and is the author of the new book, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher.
According to documents released Friday, FDA staff members say that the agency needs to conduct more of an in-depth investigation into the metabolic side effects for children using Seroquel, Zyprexa and other newer atypical antipsychotics, which could lead to weight gain, diabetes and other serious health problems.
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration medical reviewers said that Friday the agency should conduct an additional review of antipsychotic drugs to check the impact of weight gain in children, which is a common side-effect of the drugs.
The father of a Harvard College sophomore who killed himself in 2007 sued the school’s president and fellows for wrongful death, alleging the institution’s health service prescribed drugs known to increase suicide risk.
There are many ways to die from legal psychiatric drugs: through overdose, through illness occasioned by the devastating effects of the drug upon the body’s organs, through suicide and loss of impulse control (many psychiatric medications list such among their many adverse reactions) or simply through accidents that result from loss of judgment and reaction time on the part of persons driving vehicles or handling machinery whilst “high” on such medications.
Despite recent warnings about the dangers of using certain drugs during pregnancy, many expectant moms continue to take medications that cause birth defects.
In California, children as young as 14 years old can legally use marijuana. The state allows doctors to recommend medical marijuana to their patients, including those under the age of 18. Although there is no hard data on how many minors have been given the drug, anecdotal evidence reported in The New York Times suggests it does occur.
FEDERAL Health Minister Nicola Roxon's advisers were warned in August last year that drug company payments to a world-renowned US expert on ADHD could have tainted proposed new Australian guidelines for the drug.
However, it was only last month that the National Health and Medical Research Council ordered a rethink of the guidelines - on how ADHD should be treated - because of concerns the doctor's research had been compromised by the drug company funding.
I am going to give you a prescription for sleeping pills,” the doctor said, signing the blue chit. He tore it off the pad and handed it to me. “Don’t worry, they will really help.” I fit the stereotype of the exhausted mother, yes, but the prescription — for Circadin tablets, to be taken every night — wasn’t for me. It was for my two-year-old, who at that moment was playing with a box of toys on the floor of the doctor’s office. “I would also like to suggest that he has a closely monitored three-week trial on Ritalin, or a drug like Ritalin,” the doctor — a neuropsychiatrist — continued. “Are you sure?” I asked. “He’s only 2.”
Thousands of U.S. children undergo these therapies and many more at the urging of physicians who say they can successfully treat, or "recover," children with autism, a disorder most physicians and scientists say they cannot yet explain or cure.
But after reviewing thousands of pages of court documents and scientific studies and interviewing top researchers in the field, the Tribune found that many of these treatments amount to uncontrolled experiments on vulnerable children.
The erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil, commonly known as Viagra, boosts the heart’s pumping ability in children and young adults who’ve had the Fontan operation to correct single-ventricle heart defects, researchers report.
The percentage of Americans disabled by mental illness has increased fivefold since 1955, when Thorazine - remembered today as psychiatry's first "wonder" drug - was introduced into the market.
Baby Z had a one in a million chance of developing a rare metabolic disorder called molybdenum cofactor deficiency and zero chance of avoiding the inevitable death sentence that comes with it.
Unfortunately it is becoming more and more common to hear reports of how the pharmaceutical industry is manipulating scientific findings and in turn readily handing out prescriptions to children, often unnecessarily. The factor that seems to be driving this trend is very simply the almighty dollar. Keep reading to find out who is responsible for this recent trend, and why your doctor may be getting your child hooked on unnecessary drugs.
Too many times, our systems of authority lose sight of the reason(s) for their establishment.
That's not to say that we, the people, are absolved of any responsibility where that is concerned; for we are supposed to maintain vigilant eyes over our systems and offices. The people, of any state or nation, should always be the firm voices of governance for their elected officials and public servants.
On November 3rd, 2009 Frontline aired a program on the subject of a dramatic increase in the number of children being diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders.
How do you deal with a school, an elementary school, that tells a parent, "We want your child out. We would rather see your child fail than the whole class fail." We have a lot of difficult children at QUEST, but this little girl is not one of them. Pretty quiet, always needing hugs and prone to simple tears. But compared to the bedlam in the rest of the room, she is almost a model child. And, this is a biggie, she has a mom who cares, who goes to meet with teachers and sends her child for psychological intervention.
The chances of premature child delivery is more among pregnant women with a history of depression and use of psychiatric medication, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of Washington, University of Michigan and Michigan State University found that a combination of medication use and depression, either before or during pregnancy, was strongly linked to delivery before 35 weeks’ gestation.
Young children and adolescents who take the newest generation of antipsychotic medications risk rapid weight gain and metabolic changes that could lead to diabetes, hypertension and other illnesses, according the biggest study yet of first-time users of the drugs.
It has been a particularly bad month for the pharmaceutical industrial complex in its ongoing litigations in American courts. Among the main pharmaceutical headlines, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked to amyltrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease; following a $1.4 billion fine in promoting one of its blockbuster drugs Zyprexa off-label, deceptive correspondence was uncovered by Eli Lilly gaming the system again by promoting another one of its drugs, Cymbalta, off-label for fibromyalgia; AstraZeneca was fined $160 million for scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined $215 million for ripping off Alabama; Glaxo lost a Pennsylvania trial for failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects; and Pfizer scored a record-breaking fine of $2.3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years: Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica. These kinds of charges, among the many others, have become a habit for drug makers for the past dozen years.
The demand for children’s liquid Tamiflu is skyrocketing as more kids get sick with both seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus. That’s created shortages and has forced Omaha pharmacies to make their own version of the drug.
Drugs given to prevent seizures in epileptic children may contribute to the development of schizophrenia later in life, according to researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center.
To read the story, go to http://tinyurl.com/msvvgm January Schofield has schizophrenia. Potent psychiatric drugs in doses that would stagger most adults seem to skip off her. She is among the rarest of the rare: a child seemingly born mentally ill.
Documentary by Michael Mierendorf 1993. As a psychology student, I strongly recommend this film! I learnt so much from it. This film is really hard to find today. I am uploading it just for education and archive proposes. Please support the film maker. Buy his latest works, and do not duplicate this film.
This is a video featuring documentary film maker, Michael Moore discussing this nations Drugging of Our Children and exactly how that ties in with what really happened at the Columbine High School massacre.
New practices after the death of a 7-year-old foster child who took psychiatric medications have slowed the flow of the drugs to children in state care, local health-care providers say. Whether those changes are for the better is a contentious question.
nstein, Newton, Edison, Beethoven, Caruso, and Churchill were all ADHD candidates. What would the world be like without them? Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and he didn’t read until he was seven. The instructors described him as mentally slow, unsociable and a dreamer. He was later expelled from school.
Alarmed lawmakers said Wednesday they plan to push through legislation next year to try to prevent overuse of mind-altering drugs by foster children after the apparent suicide of a 7-year-old boy last April.
The Swine Flu is an orchestrated attempt to spread fear and chaos into the population and to try to get people vaccinated, which everyone should know contains mercury that damages your nervous system. Mercury, of course, is one of the most toxic substances you can put in a human body. It is a heavy metal known to contribute to neurological disorders, including autism, dementia, and even Alzheimer's disease. Mercury also tends to build up in tissues in the human body and is not easily removed, so even small exposures to mercury can accumulate over time and end up compromising the health of the person involved. Baxter, the makers of the flu vaccines was caught putting live bird flu in the vaccines and making people get more sick and ill with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO). DO NOT TAKE THE VACCINE! Unless of course you want to have the possibility of dying and destroying your immune system and have all sorts of side effects and you are determined for your own personal destruction - then by all means get it. If you are an intelligent person and not a sheep who cannot critically think for yourself - research further and you will come to the conclusion that this vaccine is a big scam and should not enter one single human body.
Could your children be getting sick from the medications doctors are prescribing them? An 11-year national study conducted by Children’s Hospital Boston, published this month in Pediatrics, shows that side effects or accidental overdoses of medications are more common than you might think. These adverse drug reactions are causing more than half a million doctor’s visits per year, especially in children age 4 and younger.
A recent story in U.S. News and World Report states, "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as it is known, is hugely influential because it determines what is and is not a mental disorder. In turn, it is responsible for much of the sales growth in prescription drugs." In a recent article in Psychiatric Times Dr. Allen Frances discusses his concerns about the way the next version of the DSM is being formulated and the possibility that formerly normal human behaviors will be become "medicalized".
More than half a million kids a year are treated for medication side effects in American outpatient clinics and emergency rooms, according to new data.
A voluntary recall of several varieties of children’s and infants’ Tylenol has been announced by the drug’s manufacturer, McNeil Consumer Healthcare. Specific lots and flavors of 21 Tylenol products are being recalled, including Children’s Tylenol® Suspension 4 oz. Strawberry, Children’s Tylenol® Pediatric Suspension 1 oz. Cherry, and Infants’ Tylenol® Suspension Drops ½ oz. Grape.
A psychiatrist contemplating the prescription of psychotropic medications to a kid should open communications to the child's pediatrician. He should ensure that the child and her family grasp the objectives, side effects and benefits of the proposed medication, and agree it's needed. The psychiatrist should have a detailed plan to monitor the effects of the medication and change or discontinue the drug if it's not getting the job done or has untoward side effects.
In a previous post I made here, I was shocked that kids are being used to push drugs in these commercials. I did contact the company and have received a response. Although I still disagree with their stance and use of children in pushing their drugs, here is their response in full and unedited:
Gardasil, already a $1-billion vaccine marketed worldwide to young women, was endorsed Wednesday for use in young men, too, reports CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook.
Stimulant drugs like Ritalin that are used to treat ADHD don't improve children's symptoms long term, according to new research published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
In the largest study of its kind, pediatric researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have received a federal contract for a project to determine the most beneficial method of using antibiotics to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) in children.
Who should we as a society be watching out for more than kids with disabilities who are in foster care? They are kids. They are disabled. They don’t have their parents to advocate for them. They are our responsibility once they enter into the foster care system.
Imagine if your child was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADHD) and was started on a course of stimulant psychiatric medications (like Ritalin), a standard treatment used for ADHD.
In a five-year study published in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers conclude that 15 per cent of infants and preschoolers have symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Indiscriminate use of antiviral medications to prevent and treat influenza could ease the way for drug-resistant strains of the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, to emerge, public health officials warn -- making the fight against a pandemic that much harder.
Children in state care have lost everything: their families, their security and their identity, so it’s natural for them to be sad, depressed and angry against their circumstances.
Any parent can attest that the “Terrible 2’s” are a moody, temperamental time in the life of a toddler. Many kids are irritable and seem to throw temper tantrums for no reason, and some engage in more destructive behaviors like biting, hitting, and kicking themselves or others. Unfortunately, for some children, this phase lasts well beyond their third birthday. Are these kids just demonstrating the outward signs of emotional immaturity, or are they suffering from clinical depression? A new study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and published in Archives of General Psychiatry suggests it may be the latter.
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) is a non-profit, tax exempt 501(c)(3) public interest law firm whose mission is to mount a strategic legal campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock in the United States akin to what Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP mounted in the 40's and 50's on behalf of African American civil rights. The public mental health system is creating a huge class of chronic mental patients through forcing them to take ineffective, yet extremely harmful drugs.
The head of Florida’s child welfare agency vowed to carry out and put dollars behind recommendations in a recent report that shows officials have often ignored years-old guidelines on medicating children in state care.
Calls to poison control centers about teens abusing attention-deficit drugs soared 76 percent over eight years, sobering evidence about the dangerous consequences of prescription misuse, a study shows. ---- Calls to poison control centers for U.S. teenagers who have overdosed on attention deficit drugs rose 76 percent over eight years, researchers reported on Monday.
Get ready for generation Z (Z for zombie). The brains of a generation of children are now being fried by fraudulent brain drugs. Antidepressants are now the number one prescription in America – and our children are the target market.
Most parents install child safety locks on their cleaning closets to keep kids out of the Clorox, but many leave the medicine cabinets unprotected. A new study from the Center for Disease Control shows that children are twice as likely to visit the emergency room for overdosing on medicine than on other household products.
On one of his last days of summer vacation, Hunter Sears would have preferred to still be in bed at 10 a.m., or maybe just settling in for a few good hours of television.
So why, exactly, was the 13-year-old Anne Arundel County boy sitting in his Annapolis pediatrician's office yesterday, his orange T-shirt rolled up to his shoulder as a nurse first took blood from his arm and then gave him a shot he didn't need to get?
Try to access the Web site of the Archives of General Psychiatry, and you may have to abide an ad for the antidepressant Pristiq before you can enter. (JAMA and its Archives Journals “do not endorse the advertised product,” you’ll be assured.)
Because H1N1 flu is a novel virus, parents are concerned as 12,000 children in Oklahoma are going to be tested with vaccinations for H1N1 to see whether there are any serious side effects. Some parents are complaining the only benefit is going to be for the vaccine manufacturers. Other parents say numerous children will die, not from the new vaccine, but from the novel virus that combines avian, swine, and human viruses.
A study issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday of this week confirms that people under age 25 who take antidepressants are at a greater risk of suicidal thoughts and tendencies than older adults taking the same medication. The antidepressant drugs specifically addressed were those generally referred to as SSRIs and SNRI's which include medications such as Prozac, Paxil, Effexor and Zoloft. This study was not a shocking result, but did confirm the validity of the "black box" warning the FDA required on these types of drugs addressing the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and tendencies in individuals below the age of 25 taking this kind of medication.
Admitting for the first time what critics have claimed for years, state child-welfare authorities say caregivers for children in state custody frequently use powerful mind-altering drugs to manage unruly kids, rather than treat their anger and sadness.
CHAOS IN the Wexford pharmacy service is due to end today (Wednesday) as local chemists begin filling medical card prescriptions again in the interest of patient safety.
People under age 25 who take antidepressants have a higher risk of suicide, but adults older than that do not, an analysis by U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers released on Tuesday showed.
This week, it was with no small measure of satisfaction that I watched Andy Burnham, our implausibly youthful Health Secretary, squirm on the GMTV sofa.
For decades, Ritalin and similar stimulants have reigned over other treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD or ADD. The meds are seemingly tried and true, with numerous studies backing their effectiveness. However, the latest results from the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD, the largest investigation of the benefits of medication against behavioral therapy, found that stimulants' effects wane over time. In addition, the study found that more than 60 percent of the children on stimulants stopped taking the medication within eight years. What's more, the medications used in the study might have stunted participants' growth, researchers concluded.
Light Sciences Oncology, Inc. (LSO) today announced the treatment of the first patient in an investigator-sponsored Phase 1 pediatric study of its novel light-activated drug Aptocine(TM) (talaporfin sodium) in neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF-1). Investigators at the Neurofibromatosis/Neuro-Oncology Clinic of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) treated a pediatric patient with NF-1 and plexiform neurofibromas (PN) using Aptocine, which is also in late-stage development for solid tumors. The Neurofibromatosis/Neuro-Oncology Clinic is a program providing care and treatment for children with brain tumors and children with NF-1 and severe and/or life-threatening tumors. Michael Fisher, M.D., at CHOP's Division of Oncology, is the principal investigator of the study.
I stopped vaccinating my son because I believe he had a severe rash due to a vaccine. I have done some further research and I am strongly opposed to any more vaccinations, even for any child I may have in the future. I am concerned for the possibility of child protective services coming to my door and trying to take my son. Do they have the power to take my children and force vaccination? Furthermore, the last pediatrician I went to refused to treat my son because I did not want to continue vaccinating. Can a practitioner force vaccination on my family or report me to child protective services for declining vaccines?
Doctors should stop giving Tamiflu to children as a routine treatment for swine flu, researchers concluded after finding the drug can cause more harm than good.
Children in five English cities could be among the first to be vaccinated against swine flu if a trial to test its effectiveness in children goes ahead.
Children in five English cities could be among the first to be vaccinated against swine flu if a trial to test its effectiveness in children goes ahead.
An experimental drug developed by scientists in China appears to be effective in killing roundworms, a parasite that lurks in the intestines and which affects nearly two billion people in tropical countries.
Brushing off concerns about the use of anti-virals for treating children, experts dealing with A(H1N1) influenza here have stressed their safety.
Tamiflu and Relenza are the recommended drugs for treating swine flu. The swine flu virus has been found to be resistant to other anti-viral drugs and hence these drugs are commonly used. However, recently, concerns have been raised over their safety for children.
A Leawood psychiatrist accused of prescribing medication to patients he has never examined and having inappropriate contact with some of his patients could lose his license after a hearing on Tuesday afternoon.
Get ready for generation Z (Z for zombie). The brains of a generation of children are now being fried by fraudulent brain drugs. Antidepressants are now the number one prescription in America – and our children are the target market.
Prescription drug advertising has never had it easy, but lately the $4.3 billion ad sector has come under attack from lawmakers who are trying to get the ads off the airwaves.
But look for a pharma affiliation for the author of the article "Preschool Depression," Joan L. Luby, MD in the August issue and you'll be told no "financial disclosure" was reported. Not that "Dr. Luby has received grant/research support from Janssen, has given occasional talks sponsored by AstraZeneca, and has served as a consultant for Shire Pharmaceutical," as a 2006 article in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says.
New evidence has shown children's lives are being put at risk by a surge in the use of controversial tranquillising drugs which are being prescribed to control their behaviour, the Guardian has learned.
