Corporate Pushers (1972 Playboy) US Senator Mike Gravel

[Barbarannamated]

Found this article about "mind drugs" and how pharma and advertising are creating diagnoses to fit their drugs (Ritalin, antidepressant by CIBA for ED-Environmental Depression- along w Elavil and Tofranil).

Fascinating article considering it was 30 years ago.

"...the propaganda would achieve its desired result: making the psychotropics seem an extraordinary presence."

Talks about the Nelson Commission SEN. GAYLORD NELSON, WISCONSIN) againnst pharma advertising in medical journals, influencing docs, as well as TV advertising (referring to vitamins, Geritol, etc.).

And the closing remark: " Unless we recognize the interconnections between this promotion and today's drug problem, we are going to find ourselves with a crisis of unimaginable proportions by the end of the decade."

Playboy, September 1972. Not among the list of scientific sources, I realize.

Edited September 28, 2011 by Altostrata
put topic title in upper-lower case

[Altostrata]

But still, the argument against drug ads goes way back.

[cinephile]

I find it interesting people were talking about this issue 40 years ago because I think so many things in this country are simultaneously coming to a head now (economy, health care, higher ed, and the credit/loan mess in general). I always think of that theory that major social and political upheaval occurs roughly every 40 years (it happened in the 20s, it happened in the late 60s, and now it appears to be happening again, albeit gradually...so far).

 

We really have reached the end of the road with pharma influence on medicine. I mean, it's just obscene. I'm sure the pharma profits and toxic corruption makes those of the early '70s look like a square dance. It can't go on like this.

 

Or can it? Look at this new 1boringoldman post in which he does a brilliant post-mortem on the research and marketing of the new "me-too" atypical antipsychotic knock-off Latuda. It seems like nothing has changed. As the boringoldman himself says in the post, "This could go on forever."

 

And check out the slick new Latuda website here Looks like every other drug website doesn't it? But here's the best part: the brochure. You can download it as a PDF. And what did I find on page 6? "How Latuda Works" Even I was a little surprised they were STILL pimping the chemical imbalance! From the patient brochure:

 

Antipsychotics are thought to work on the

chemicals in the brain that help nerve cells

communicate with each other.

 

Chemicals in the brain that help communication

between neurons are called neurotransmitters

and are thought to play a role in schizophrenia.

Two of the important neurotransmitters in the

brain are dopamine and serotonin. One theory

for why people experience schizophrenia

symptoms is that there is too much or too

little dopamine in some areas of the brain.

 

The exact way antipsychotics work, including

LATUDA, is unknown; however, it is thought

to work by adjusting the effect of dopamine

in the brain. In addition to the thought that

LATUDA may block dopamine, LATUDA may

also affect serotonin.

Truly, I think the ONLY hope we have is generational change. People like Stephen Stahl, Koplewicz, Ron Pies, Nemeroff (!), Schatzberg, Trivedi, etc etc are beyond help. They've been corrupt for so long it's the new normal and they probably honestly think they're helping people. They lie so much they believe their lies. The only hope is that a new generation of psychiatrists replace these dinosaurs and restore just a little bit of sanity to the profession. But even then I'm skeptical, as these students have literally come of age in a corrupt medical system that starts in med-school (the biased findings and fudged data are in med school textbooks, and none of the long-term outcome studies that Whitaker quotes in ANATOMY are in ANY Textbook), and I've read their enthusiasm for iffy-at-best theories like prodromal first-break psychosis risk syndrome which could essentially enable a psychiatrist to prescribe antipsychotics based on a hunch (well, MORE of a hunch lol!). Corruption is the new normal, and it will take profoundly insightful and philosophical young doctors to change things. And I don't know about you, but "profound" and "insightful" and "philosophical" are not qualifiers I use for doctors!

[Barbarannamated]

I agree, Cine. I don't think any change is going to happen in medical schools, esp in the US. Our insurance system reinforces use of meds by not covering nutritionals, acupuncture, prevention, etc.

[westcoast]

Mike Gravel is one of my heroes. Maybe the only politician-hero.

 

I'd love to see the 1972 article but don't want to buy the mag on eBay...

Look B, he's French-Canadian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel

CC

[btdt]

We have a few. 

"At first, psychiatrists blamed TD on schizophrenia. Then, Crane figured out that people in British hospitals who had not received the new drugs did not develop high rates of tardive dyskinesia. In the 1970’s a physician in Montreal named Guy Chouinard had the audacity to propose the possibility that the same mechanism which causes the long term motor side effects of neuroleptics might also cause psychotic relapse. According to this theory, it might be possible for neuroeleptics to induce a delayed-onset psychosis which might be long-lasting. Chouinard named this condition tardive psychosis. Now, nobody will really research this. Nobody will really give this any research attention, for the very reason that tardive psychosis implies that, since the 1950s, psychiatrists have been administering drugs which promote the continuation of the very symptoms which they are supposed to treat. So, it’s been very difficult to find people who will take this concept seriously."

http://www.whale.to/drugs/Jackson.pdf

 

 

Not to get too far off topic 

1972 had an interesting cover

http://www.imagebam.com/image/31f94d167287024

[btdt]

They offer instant access to Playboy archives 

http://www.iplayboy.com/signup?nats=MTAwMzk1OS4xLjExLjExLjY2My4wLjAuMC4w&autocamp=playboycom_footer

 

but you have to be a member I am not a joiner. 

[btdt]

tid bit

Gaylord Anton Nelson (June 4, 1916 – July 3, 2005) was an American politician from Wisconsin who served as a United States Senator and governor. A Democrat, he was the founder of Earth Day, which launched a new wave of environmental activism.

 

In 1970, Nelson called for Congressional hearings on the safety of combined oral contraceptive pills, which were famously called "The Nelson Pill Hearings." As a result of the hearings, side-effect disclosure in patient inserts was required for the pill – the first such disclosure for a pharmaceutical drug.^[6]

 

^{I don't recall  seeing an insert in 77 when I had my bc tia but my memory is bad, perhaps they were not required to ad this in Canada.} 

[btdt]

"In 1970, Barbara Seaman brought the dangers of combined oral contraceptive pill use to the attention of Senator Gaylord Nelson with her book The Doctors Case Against the Pill. Nelson, who at the time was also busy organizing the first Earth Day, called Senate hearings in January 1970 to investigate the problems Seaman's book addressed -- that many women experienced severe side effects such as decreased sex drive, weight gain, heart problems, blood clots, and depression, but did not know that oral contraceptives were the cause."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Pill_Hearings

 

Do you see it?  DEPRESSION!  Are antidepressants and answer to the wide spread use of the pill?  That is a very big bit of information to miss given the number of women taking birth control pills in the western world. 

 

During the proceedings, Alice Wolfson jumped up and asked why no women were testifying. The media immediately turned its focus onto her. She demanded that women's experiences be taken into testimony. She also shouted, "Why is there no pill for men?" and "Why are 10 million women being used as guinea pigs?" ^[1] And, " Why had you assured the drug companies that they could testify? Why have you told them that they could get top priority? They're not taking the pills, we are!" When Senator Nelson stated, "We are not going to permit the, uh, proceedings to be interrupted in this way... If you ladies would, ah...sit down..." Wolfson replied, "I don't think the hearings are any more important than our lives." ^[2]

 

At the hearings, Wolfson met Barbara Seamen. During the remainder of the Nelson pill hearings, the two women organized other women to position themselves in the audience and to protest outside Congress, where they announced their concerns about the pill. They also decided to create a nationwide network to educate women about potentially harmful side effects of the pill

 

So at the end of the day it was a woman who got the first drug warning.  I still did not hear about the dangers of the pill before I took it. 

 

Barbara had an aunt die according to the doc it had something to do with a drug. 

 

Seaman was sensitized at an early age to women's health issues when her aunt Sally died of endometrial cancer in 1959, aged 49. Her aunt's oncologist attributed her death toPremarin, which her gynecologist had prescribed for the relief of menopausal symptoms.^[3]

 

 

Commercial censorship[edit]

Due to her criticism of the birth control pill and other commercially important pharmaceutical products, Seaman was fired, blacklisted, and censored on numerous occasions including dismissals from Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Omni and Hadassah magazines.^[9][10]

U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney, in the Congressional Record (October 17, 2005), stated that "In the 1980s Barbara was essentially blacklisted from magazines by pharmaceutical companies who would not advertise in publications that carried her stories. Her relentless insistence on questioning the safety and effectiveness of their products earned her their condemnation and our praise. Barbara took advantage of this forced lull by turning to biography."

During the 1980s, Seaman published Lovely Me, a biography of Jacqueline Susann, which was made into a television movie, Scandalous Me, starring Michele Lee.

[btdt]

combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a birth control method that includes a combination of an estrogen (estradiol) and a progestogen (progestin). When taken by mouth every day, these pills inhibit female fertility. They were first approved for contraceptive use in the United States in 1960, and are a very popular form of birth control. They are currently used by more than 100 million women worldwide and by almost 12 million women in the United States.^[8] Use varies widely by country,^[9] age, education, and marital status. One third of women aged 16–49 in the United Kingdom currently use either the combined pill or a progestogen-only "minipill",^[10][11] compared to only 1% of women in Japan.^[12]

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill}

 

The first published case report of a blood clot and pulmonary embolism in a woman using Enavid (Enovid 10 mg in the U.S.) at a dose of 20 mg/day did not appear until November 1961, four years after its approval, by which time it had been used by over one million women.^{[108][115][116]}

Court!!!

Although the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960, contraceptives were not available to married women in all states until Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and were not available to unmarried women in all states until Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972.^[86][90]

^{Women go to court to get access to birth control... it was not that long ago!}

^{and the fish got hit again from urine to rivers....now they have antidepressants and other psych drugs too bet it is all blamed on global warming}

This excretion is shown to play a role in causing endocrine disruption, which affects the sexual development and the reproduction, in wild fish populations in segments of streams contaminated by treated sewage effluents

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill#History}

 

So I was wondering are the rates of depression lower in Japan where the birth control use is 1%....lowest rates of depression in these countries. 

Japan fared the best, along with Australia and New Zealand

http://www.theguardian.com/society/datablog/2013/nov/08/where-world-people-most-depressed

From the same link gender and age as it relates to depression... 

The gender graph contains few surprises – women appear to suffer about twice as much as men, reflecting most major studies into the incidence of depression. But the age analysis shows the extent to which depression is becoming a young person's affliction. People aged 20 to 24 suffer most, closely followed by the generation immediately senior to them. By the time you get to 50-year-olds, where existential questions might start to press, rates dwindle. Above 60, they ease off quite sharply. There may be comfort in growing old after all.

Drops off after 60 when hormones generally drop off too interesting. 

Rainy sad day here in Canada guess this keeps me off the streets and out of the rain. 

peace

[btdt]

We have a few. 

"At first, psychiatrists blamed TD on schizophrenia. Then, Crane figured out that people in British hospitals who had not received the new drugs did not develop high rates of tardive dyskinesia. In the 1970’s a physician in Montreal named Guy Chouinard had the audacity to propose the possibility that the same mechanism which causes the long term motor side effects of neuroleptics might also cause psychotic relapse. According to this theory, it might be possible for neuroeleptics to induce a delayed-onset psychosis which might be long-lasting. Chouinard named this condition tardive psychosis. Now, nobody will really research this. Nobody will really give this any research attention, for the very reason that tardive psychosis implies that, since the 1950s, psychiatrists have been administering drugs which promote the continuation of the very symptoms which they are supposed to treat. So, it’s been very difficult to find people who will take this concept seriously."

http://www.whale.to/drugs/Jackson.pdf

 

 

Not to get too far off topic 

1972 had an interesting cover

http://www.imagebam.com/image/31f94d167287024

http://www.iusmm.ca/research/researchers/researchers/guy-chouinard.html

GUY CHOUINARD

Guy Chouinard, M.D., M. Sc. pharmacology

F.R.C.P.©, F.A.P.A.

Fernand-Seguin Research Centre 

Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital

7401 Hochelaga St.

Montreal, QC, 

Canada H1N 3M5

Phone : (514) 251-4015

Fax.: (514) 251-2617

Email : guy.chouinard@umontreal.ca

 

  Research areas Neuroscience (fundamental track)  Academic profile

Professor, Psychiatry Department, McGill University

Tenured Professor, Psychiatry Department, Université de Montréal

Director, Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Allan Memorial Institute, Psychiatry Department, McGill University

Psychiatrist and Pharmacology Clinician, Fernand-Seguin Research Center, Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital

Academic profile

MD, Université de Montréal (1968)

Psychiatry Residency, McGill University (1972)

M.Sc. in pharmacology, Université de Montréal (1974)

Research interests

His main interests are linked to the treatment of schizophrenic and bipolar psychosis. His work on these two psychiatric conditions has significantly contributed to identify, prevent and treat the extrapyramidal symptoms induced by the neuroleptics. His research has also helped to develop new therapeutic approaches. He contributed to the introduction of anticonvulsants (such as clonazepam or tryptophan) as an adjuvant treatment and to the use of prophylactric in the case of bipolar psychosis. 

 

Dr. Chouinard has also contributed to the introduction of atypical neuroleptics. His work has facilitated the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder by providing a better comprehension of the neurophysiology of these conditions.

Publications récentes

Bandelow, B., Chouinard, G., Bobes, J., Ahokas, A., Eggens, I., Liu, S., et al. (2009). Extended-release quetiapine fumarate (quetiapine XR): a once-daily monotherapy effective in generalized anxiety disorder. Data from a randomized, double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled study. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, Aug 20, Epub ahead of print.Pubmed 

Corruble, E., Chouinard, V., Letierce, A., Gorwood, P., & Chouinard, G. (2009). Is DSM-IV bereavement exclusion for major depressive episode relevant to severity and pattern of symptoms? A case-control, cross-sectional study. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 70(8), 1091-1097. –  Pubmed

Peretti, C.S., Ferreri, F., Blanchard, F., Bakchine, S., Peretti, C., Dobrescum, A., Chouinard, V.A, Chouinard, G (2008). "Normal and Pathological Aging of Attention in Presymptomatic Huntington’s, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s disease, and Non-Demented Elderly Subjects" Psychother and Psychosom 77(3): 139-146 Epub.

Chouinard, G., Chouinard, V.A. (2008)"Atypical Antipsychotics: CATIE study, Drug-Induced Movement Disorder (DIMD), DIMD Iatrogenic Psychiatric-like Symptoms, Supersensitivity/Rebound Psychosis and Withdrawal Discontinuation Syndrome" Psychother and Psychosom 77(2): 69-77.

Chouinard, G. (2006) "Inter-Relationships Between Psychiatric Symptoms and Drug-Induced Movement Disorder (DIMD): Part 2: Heinz Lehmann Award 2004". J Psychiatry Neurosci 31(3) :177-180.

Chouinard, G. (2006) "The Search for New Off Label Indications for Antidepressant, Antianxiety, Antipsychotic and Anticonvulsant Drugs: Part 1: Heinz Lehmann Award 2004". J Psychiatry Neurosci 31(3) :168-176.

Chouinard, G. (2005) "Margolese HC: Manual for the Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale (ESRS)". Schizophrenia Research 76:247-265.

Gharabawi, G.M., Bossie, C.A., Lasser, R.A., Turkoz, I., Rodriguez, S., Chouinard, G. (2005) "Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) and Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale (ESRS): Cross-Scale Comparison in Assessing Tardive Dyskinesia". Schizophrenia Research 77:119-128.

Margolese, H, Chouinard, G, Kolivakis, T, Beauclair, L, Miller, R, Annable, L. (2005) "Tardive Dyskinesia in the Era of Typical and Atypical Antipsychotics (Part 2): Incidence and Management Strategies in Patients with Schizophrenia". Can J Psychiatry 50:541-547.