☼ nz11 climbs onboard

[nz11]

 Found it Fresh ...thanks

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMhsPnoIdy4      

 

Gotzcshe 3:16... 'permanent brain damage ..you dont disturb the brain without a cost'

 

oh boy !

[alex]

"long lasting brain damage, or PERHAPS, permanent brain damage...."

We've heard that before;what about the hundreds, or thousands of people that healed after a long time??

We are here to support people, not to scare them.Please....

[nz11]

Good point, sorry Alex...dont shoot the messenger!

Gotzche's words not mine.

[nz11]

Maudsley debate video is in:

http://cepuk.org/2015/05/14/video-maudsley-debate-psychiatric-drug-harm/

 

Gotzche 18.43    'we need a firm plan for tapering off as quickly as possible'. 

This could have been clarified a little.

 

18.51 ..'very few doctors know how to wdl patients from psychiatric drugs'

 

28.16 'psychiatry is full of people like prof Young who have swelled there pocketsand made their careers through the corrupting nfluence of pharma...it would be interesting to see if prof young has a conflict of interest tonight' Well said!

[alex]

Good point, sorry Alex...dont shoot the messenger!

Gotzche's words not mine.

It's ok.

 

Desipte the fear and doubt that this conditons brings;if I ask you to tell me if you feel that you are healing,what would you annswer?

[nz11]

At 30 mins the negative side bring in a prozac addict to speak ..i just hate it when they do that.......perhaps a person who has no idea about appropriate tapering; is it ethical to do that .

[LoveandLight]

Yola lucire sent me this vid to show my parents..I've been in terrible distress the last thing I would want them to think is this might be forever..which I don't believe it will not this kind of distress! But I don't think I'll show them.

[nz11]

Loveandlight yes they still may not get it even if they watch it.

For a non drugged brain to concieve of this is next to impossible. imo 

 

I find the vids difficult to watch ...one can only take so much humiliation in one go.

Although this morning i did watch the Mausdley debate at 4 am in its entirety. 

 

I assume you are talking about this one by Yola , i managed to watch this recently.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEoSs6Yo0DA

[nz11]

Just been reading a new book had trouble putting it down:

 

Psychiatry under the influence. Institutional corruption, social injury, and prescriptions for reform. By Robert Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove. 2015

 

I have learned a lot reading this and wanted to share some of it. It has been a wonderful history lesson, an eye opener to how psychiatry has got to the place it is in today.

 

 I hope I haven’t broken any copyright law as I may have gone over a chapter. Hopefully a mod may put me right if i have.

Mind you I have purchased the book. Anyway this stuff is well worth knowing. Prepare to be humilated. Apolofies in advance for any spelling errors..

 

 

SSRIs for whatever ails you…….pg 96-101

 

When Pfizer and SmithKline Beecham brought Zoloft and Paxil to market in the early 1990s, Eli Lilly’s Prozac was solidly entrenched as the drug of choice for depression. These two manufacturers needed to find new patient groups to target, and both companies identified a group of anxiety disorders, which had been described as discrete conditions for the first time on the DSM-III, as ripe with possibility.

 

Psychoanalysts had long understood anxiety neurosis to be a psychological problem that could best be treated through a talking cure. However for Spitzer and his colleagues it was not a diagnosis that fit the disease model they were trying to develop for DSM-III (1980). In addition, neurosis was a Freudian term, which was the very diagnostic approach that Spitzer was eager to retire. New diagnostic categories needed to be created that had greater specificity than anxiety neurosis and the DSM-III task force did so by isolating symptoms that were regularly experienced by anxious people, and turning those symptoms into discrete disorders. In DSM-III patients could now be diagnosed with agoraphobia, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and general anxiety disorder, with each diagnosis said to be distinct from the other.

 

Let’s backtrack to pg 88-89 for a moment.

 

Robert Spitzer and his task force put together DSM-III, in doing so they increased the number of diagnoses to 265, 83 more than had been in DSM-II. This increase in diagnostic categories had the consequence of expanding the boundaries of what was to be considered a mental illness. At first glance it might seem that the APA having adopted a disease model in 1980, would have found it difficult to expand diagnostic criteria in this way. In DSM-III the disorders were presented as discrete illnesses. Since the diagnosis was based on whether a designated number of symptoms were present, the manual appeared to draw a clear line between illness and no illness. A diagnosis of major depression required the presence of five of nine symptoms said to be characteristic of the disorder; a person with only four of the nine was determined to not suffer from it. However, even as the authors of the DSM drew this sharp line between disease and no disease, they nevertheless subsequently noted, in a section on the “limitations of the categorical approach” in DSM-IV, that there was no assumption that each category of mental disorder is a completely discrete entity with absolute boundaries dividing it from other mental disorders or from no mental disorder.” This was a diagnostic approach that allowed psychiatry to have its cake and eat it too: the disorders could be conceptualised as specific illnesses, which would be understood as “diseases” of the brain, even as its “no absolute boundary” conception allowed for the expansion of diagnostic boundaries ever outward, into the sphere of normal behaviours and normal emotional difficulties. The diagnoses were wrapped in the cloak of medical diseases, even as the “limitations of the categorical approach” statement in DSM-IV told of boundary lines being arbitrarily drawn.

 

Many of the authors of the DSM manuals, as they drew up these diagnostic boundaries, had financial ties to industry, serving on advisory boards and as consultants to the pharmaceutical companies that made the products that would be sold to these diagnostic groups. At least 56% of the DSM-IV panel members had a financial tie to a drug company, and this conflict of interest was particularly pronounced on panels for psychiatric conditions where medication was recommended as a first-line therapy.

 

100% of the DSM-IV panels for “mood disorders” and for “schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders” had a conflict. 81% of the “anxiety disorders” panel did, and 62% of the panel for “disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood or adolescence.” DSM-IV was published in 1994, and based on its diagnostic criteria, researchers subsequently determined that 26.2% of American adults suffered from “a diagnosable mental illness in a given year.”

This percentage, when applied to the 2010 US consensus, translated to 62 million adults. As for youth, DSM-IV needed 86 pages to describe the many disorders that could afflict children and teenagers, and based on the criteria set out there, the centres for disease control and prevention concluded that 13% of youth 8 to 15 years old experience a bout of mental illness each year. If that percentage is applied to all youth 6 to 17 years old, that translates to about 7 million children and teenagers, creating a total of 69 million Americans who suffered from a diagnosable “mental illness” in 2010. This number could be understood as the potential market for psychiatric services based on the diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV. Add in the fact that physicians may “overdiagnose” certain common conditions, and it is clear that the APA’s diagnostic manual with its fungible boundaries, serves both industry and guild interests well. {I had to look up the meaning of fungible = substitutable, exchangeable} . 

 

Its worth at this stage backtracking to pg 20-24  this backstory is well worth becoming aware of and important to put this ugly mess in context and inform one on the time line of  what has occurred.

 

You see DSM-I (1950) and DSM-II (1968) were shaped by Freudian ideas. Freudian theory posited an etiology for mental disorders – that they arose from unconscious conflicts in the mind and a failure to adapt to stressful environments – these theories couldn’t be empirically tested. Freud described psychotic disorders with unknown somatic causes as “reactions.” Freudian conceptions of psychiatric distress, including its concept of ‘neurosis’, provided psychiatry with a rationale for treating people with everyday problems, which, in fact, often did arise to such stressors as failing marriages, family conflicts, job difficulties, and other such difficulties in life. These patients – the walking wounded – were treated with psychotherapy. My understanding of this is that mental and emotional difficulties were seen as psychological and not biological.

 

 In 1918 the American medico psychological Association, in collaboration with the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, issued the fields first standardized psychiatric nosology {=a list of diseases..i had to look that word up!}, a Statistical Manual for the Use of Institutions for the Insane. The manual divided mental disorders and 22 principal groups. 20 were disorders that were presumed to have a biological cause (syphilis, alcoholism, Huntington’s chorea, cerebral arterioclerosis, etc) and the remaining two groups were for disorders without a presumed biological cause: one for psychotic patients and the other for disturbed patients without psychosis.

 

For the next two decades, this manual, with its categorisation of institutionalised patients, provided psychiatry with an adequate nosology. Psychiatry was a disciplined firmly rooted in the asylum, such that by the beginning of World War II, more than two thirds of the APA’s 2,300 members still worked in mental hospitals. However during the war, psychiatrists and other physicians assigned to neuropsychiatric units treated soldiers traumatised by battle. In that setting, the physicians discovered that psychotherapy plus rest often worked miracles; 60% of soldiers identified as “neuropsychiatric casualties” returned to duty within five days.

 

The war physicians saw that people could descend into a highly disturbed state and quickly become well again, which was an experience that psychiatrists working on asylums did not frequently have. “Our experiences with therapy and war neurosis have left us with an optimistic attitude” Roy Grinker wrote. “The lessons we have learned in the combat zone can well be applied in rehabilitation at home.” This wartime experience led many psychiatrists to reconsider the nature of mental disorders. Clearly, environmental stresses and other psychological challenges could trigger symptoms of mental illness. This was a conception that fit with Freudian conceptions of mental disorders, which were being popularized after the war.

 

 

 With many in the profession now adopting Freudian beliefs and focused on treating a broader group of patients, the field clearly needed a new diagnostic text…. hence DSM-I. With the publication of DSM-I the APA had moved away from a medical orientation, particularly when it came to diagnosing patients living in the community. Anxiety, depression, and even psychosis were not to be seen as symptoms of the disease, but rather emotional distress that arose from internal psychological conflicts and the particulars of a person’s life story. There was no longer a clear line that divided the mentally well from the mentally ill, and, if anything, it seemed that unresolved psychological conflicts probably plagued most people, at least to some degree. Psychiatry now had a diagnostic test that enabled it to move out of the asylum and provide care for a larger segment of the American population. The couch employed as part of Freudian talking cure, was the new symbol of psychiatry’s workplace, as opposed to the asylum.

 

Many of the psychoanalysts who came to dominate American psychiatry in the 1950s did not see diagnosis as particularly important. Etiology of all non-organic mental disorders was presumed to be the same – a psychological failure to adapt to one’s environment –and psychotherapy was a treatment that was supposed to help remedy that failure. As such, there was no need to put “so much emphasis on different kinds of clinical pictures of illness” psychiatrist William Menninger wrote. Not everyone agreed with Menninger.

 

In DSM-III (1980) the APA moved away from psychoanalytic explanations for mental disorders and adopted what is considered to be a more scientific way to think about psychiatric difficulties. The disorders were to be diagnosed based on characteristic “symptoms” a model that other medical specialties, when faced with illnesses of unknown causes, had long used. The public was encouraged to think of mental disorders as “diseases,” and very soon, with this concept in mind and the arrival of new psychiatric medications on the market, the use of these drugs soared. In the United States spending on psychiatric drugs increased from around $800 million in 1985 to more than 40 billion in 2011, evidence of how the diagnosis of mental disorders and the prescribing of psychiatric medications have dramatically expanded since the publication of DSM-III.

 

As the APA remade its diagnostic manual DSM-III there was a massive financial incentive lurking in the background. Adopting a disease model would lead to a focus on treatments that are allayed symptoms, and it would only be psychiatrists, thanks to their prescribing powers, that could provide patients with access to psychiatric drugs. Psychiatry might concede talk therapy to its competitors, but it would have this corner of the therapeutic marketplace to itself.

 

A 1975 survey found that there were very few psychiatrists who didn’t prescribe drugs, and that “psychiatrists almost routinely prescribed drugs for patients who were treated by other mental health professionals not licensed to administer drugs.” Psychiatry was following a financial path to this role in the therapy marketplace, and adopting a medical model that focused on the “symptoms of a disease” would obviously enhance the value of psychiatrists prescribing powers.

 

Lets now consider how this came about, Whittaker tells us on pg 20-23

 

Ever since DSM-II had been published in 1968 the APA had a bureaucratic reason to at least slightly amend it. The United States was a member of the world health organisation, which required that the APA’s classification of mental disorders be compatible with the taxonomy set forth in the WHO’s International classification of diseases (ICD). DSM-II with its Freudian description was incongruent with the ICD, which assumed that all psychotic disorders had a biological cause even if the cause was unknown. At the conception of DSM-III the APA trustee saw that creating a new diagnostic manual could serve a guild interest putting forth a new image for psychiatry emphasising that psychiatrists were doctors and that they treated real “diseases.” This theme was sounded again and again as the DSM-III task force laboured for six years to produce the new manual. Voices being Spitzer, Samuel Guze, APA medical director Melvin Sabshin, and others.

 

Robert Spitzer was named to head the task force. The APA trustees expected that he would take the profession vision in a new direction.

Although Spitzer had trained as a psychoanalyst, he had never really embraced Freudian ideas and criticised DSM-I and DSM-II. As Spitzer set up his task force, he picked others who shared his belief that Freudian ideas needed to be abandoned.

 

More than half of the task force members had a current or past affiliation with Washington University in Saint Louis a group who had embraced his neo-Kraepelin ideas (i.e. that serious mental disorders were discrete illnesses, most psychiatrists at this time were schooled in psychoanalysis or psychodynamic therapy this however was a contrarian approach deriding Freudian concepts as ‘unscientific’ and lacking in empirical support and arguing that DSM-I because of its reliability problem, had hinderd research into the etiology of psychiatric disorders and how they might be better treated.)

 

Guze proposed that the DSM-III diagnoses be informed by research, and if such data weren’t available, that the group avoid creating a diagnosis. However, his proposal was rejected. “I couldn’t get that group to vote in favour of my suggestions,” he recalled. “The response that I was given was that they said we have enough trouble getting the legitimacy of psychiatric problems accepted by our colleagues, insurance companies, and other agencies. If we do what you are proposing, which makes sense to us scientifically, we think that not only will we weaken what we are trying to do but we will have given the insurance companies an excuse not to pay us.”

 

 

Guild interests, it seemed, would have to trump scientific concerns.

The task force may have wanted DSM-III categories to be based on empirical data, but the science to provide such data hadn’t yet been done. “There was very little systematic research” to draw on, said task force member Theodore Millon. “And much of the research that existed was really a hodgepodge, scattered, inconsistent, and ambiguous.”

 

The committee’s initial caution soon gave way to a policy of “syndromal inclusiveness” with the thought that DSM-III would provide a diagnosis for all of the patients that psychiatrists now saw.

 

Towards the end of the process, many with a Freudian perspective began to voice objections to the new manual, and that battle further affected the drawing up of diagnostic criteria. “The entire process,” Spitzer later confessed, “seemed more appropriate to the encounter of political rivals than to the orderly pursuit of scientific knowledge.” Spitzer and his collaborators conducted a phase II trial of the redrawn categories, but this study was not particularly scientific in its methodology. Decker concluded perhaps reliability would be better with DSM-III than with DSM-II and perhaps not. There was a lack of convincing evidence on the matter after carefully assessing the methodology of the substandard field trials.

 

While there had been a clear scientific impulse behind the APA’s remaking of its diagnostic manual, that impulse did not translate into a rigourous scientific process for creating diagnostic categories. On the other hand, the making of this new 494 page manual, which was published in 1980 and listed 265 disorders, did serve the APA’s Guild interests in a brilliant way.

 

By adopting a disease model and asserting that psychiatric disorders were discrete illnesses, the APA had addressed both anti-psychiatry critics and its image problem. The DSM-III with its listing of 265 separate disorders turned the Freudian ‘walking wounded’ into patients with illnesses, with symptoms needed to be treated. That was a model that would support the regular use of psychiatric drugs, which only physicians could prescribe. Note: If the DSM-III task force had followed Guze’s lead then the manual would have drawn an illness boundary that incorporated a much smaller number of people, and the insurance companies would have reimbursed only for the treatment of that small group of patients.

 

By insisting that all disorders from the DSM-III were illnesses, the APA could now expect that insurance companies would pay for the treatment of nearly everyone who came to a psychiatrist’s office, regardless of the person’s problem.

 

The APA, with its new diagnostic manual, had helped insurance companies differentiate “between those who have medical disorders and those who simply have a problem” by asserting, in essence, that those who had a problem – e.g. “discontented” – were “ill.”

 

Other new financial opportunities that arise from the publication of DSM-III were easy to see. The APA, with its insistence that the 265 disorders were diseases, had asserted a new authority over research into those ailments. If psychiatric problems were psychological in nature then psychologists and other non-physicians could easily compete with psychiatrists for grants from the National Institute of mental health to study such difficulties. But if such problems were discrete diseases, then research would focus on identifying the underlying pathologies and on developing treatments for the symptoms of these diseases, which is research that physicians could be expected to lead. Finally, the new manual provided pharmaceutical companies with the opportunity to develop new drug treatments, and that, in turn, could be expected to benefit the psychiatric profession.

 

The 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendments to the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics Act required that pharmaceutical companies prove that the new drugs were effective for specific disorders. Whereas no drug company could market a drug for “neurosis”, which was seen as a psychological problem, it could market a drug for panic disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder, or any of the other 263 disorders listed in DSM-III, now that they had been conceptualised as discrete illnesses. Academic psychiatrists could be involved in conducting the trials of the new drugs, and once they came to market, the field would have new products that could be expected to bring new patients to their offices.

 

Let us now return to pgs 96- 101.(The humilation from here takes on a snowball effect)

 

As Pfizer and SmithKline Beecham sought to sell the SSRIs for these disorders, they recruited academic psychiatrists who had helped formulate the diagnostic criteria for the new disorders to be the “thought leaders”. These psychiatrists were then involved in every step of the process for developing the drugs: they served on advisory boards that designed the clinical trials; they often conducted the trials; they authored reports on the trials; they spoke in industry funded symposiums at the APA’s annual meetings; they served as the experts for media stories about the newly recognised illnesses; and they served on speakers bureaus. The industry’s utilisation of academic psychiatrists for selling the disease and the drug can be clearly seen in internal SmithKline documents (which were made public during subsequent legal proceedings), and through review of the published articles by SmithKline’s thought leaders.

 

In November 1993 – a year after the FDA approved Paxil for depression – SmithKline convened a meeting of its advisory board in Palm Beach, Florida. The planning document for the meeting identified 10 advisory board members (out of 20), three of whom were currently serving on the DSM-IV task force: James Ballinger, David Dunner, and Robert Hirschfield. The board members were flown first class to Palm Beach, where they stayed at the Ritz Carlton hotel, and each was paid $2500-$5000 for attending the weekend meeting. The advisory board was chaired by Charles Nemeroff, head of the psychiatry department at Emory University. According to the planning document, the advisory board at the Palm Beach meeting was expected to provide “helpful ideas and advice on issues faced by the Paxil marketing team.” Over the course of the two days, the advisory board would discuss the ‘strengths’ and ‘deficits’ of the competitors SSRIs and discuss how to educate primary care physicians so they would prescribe Paxil (instead of Prozac or Zoloft). They would also talk about ways to “generate information for use in promotion” of Paxil and identify “four or five patients subtypes for treatment with Paxil.” This last workshop which was focused on expanding paxil’s market  was led by Ballenger, chairman of the psychiatry department at Medical University of South Carolina. At the end of the meeting, the advisory board would make recommendations for “future studies” that were necessary to support this expanded use of Paxil.

 

For SmithKline, Ballinger was a good choice to lead a discussion on future studies related to anxiety disorders. He had helped lead Upjohn through trials of alprazolam for panic disorder in the early 1980s, and he had served on the DSM-III and DSM-IV work panels for anxiety disorders. In the wake of the Palm Beach meeting, Ballinger became the head of the paroxetine panic disorder study group for SmithKline Beecham, and in 1996, this group provided the study data that led the FDA to approve Paxil for this disorder. In a 10 week trial involving 278 patients with panic disorder, paroxetine proved “superior to placebo across the majority of outcome measures.” Ballinger and his co-authors concluded that “these data support the use of paroxetine  for the short-term treatment of panic disorder and its long-term management.”

One anxiety disorder down; three more to go.

 

Next up on SmithKline’s agenda was social anxiety disorder (SAD).

This was a disorder described as relatively rare in DSM-III, but that began to change in 1985, when Columbia University psychiatrists Michael Leibowitz and Jack Gorman published a paper on social phobia, calling it a “neglected anxiety disorder.” Two years later, Leibowitz served on a DSM-IIIR work panel that markedly loosened the criteria for diagnosing this disorder. People no longer had to have a “compelling desire to avoid” certain social situations, such as giving a public speech; instead, the diagnosis now only required that the situation caused “marked distress.” Partly as a result of this expanded definition, social anxiety disorder soon turned into one of the most prevalent mental disorders in the United States behind only major depression and alcohol dependence with an annual prevalence of 8%. SmithKline hired Leibowitz, who had been on the DSM-IV task force as a consultant. Leibowitz then helped lead a trial of paroxetine for SAD, reporting that in an 11 week study, the drug treatment produced “substantial and clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms and disability.” Then came the selling of the disease. In 1998, SmithKline paid for a symposium on anxiety disorders at the APA’s annual meeting, where Leibowitz told the audience that “if left untreated, social anxiety disorder is often a chronic disease and usually does not resolve spontaneously.” SSRIs, Leibowitz concluded, should be considered a first-line therapy for SAD. FDA approved Paxil for SAD in 1999.

 

 

As SmithKline develop Paxil as a treatment for PTSD, it turned to Jonathan Davidson, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University, to serve as a primary thought leader. Davidson, like Ballenger, had been one of the six members of the DSM-IV work panel for anxiety disorders. Like many of his colleagues, Davidson served as an advisor, consultant and speaker to a number of pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer and Glaxo SmithKline (SmithKline Beecham Murray with Glaxo Wellcome in 2000). In his presentations at industry funded symposiums and in his articles on PTSD, Davison explained how PTSD was a “major health concern” with a “lifetime prevalence” of around 9%. PTSD he wrote was “poorly recognized” even though it should be “viewed as among the most serious of all psychiatric disorders.” Efficacy of several SSRIs had been demonstrated in clinical trials, he said, concluding in a 2003 paper that “paroxetine is especially well studied in this regard, with demonstrated efficacy in men and women, in both short-term and long-term studies, and in combat veterans and civilians.”

 The FDA approved Paxil as a treatment for PTSD in 2001.

 

Glaxo SmithKline relied on both Ballinger and Davison as it marketed Paxil as a treatment for anxiety disorder (GAD). In DSM-IIIR, GAD was said to be “not common”, but by the year 2000 Ballinger and Davidson were promoting a new understanding….. SSRIs and other antidepressants which had proven to be effective in clinical studies, should be the first line therapy for GAD. The group’s consensus statement, with Ballinger listed as first author and Davidson the second author, appeared in the Journal of clinical psychiatry in 2001, the same year that the FDA approved Paxil as a treatment for GAD.

 

From the initial advisory board meeting in 1993, it had taken SmithKline eight years to get Paxil approved for the four anxiety disorders.

Note: Ballinger, Dunner, Hirschfield, Leibowitz, Davidson had all been on a specific  DSM-IV workgroup, they had all been at SmithKline’s advisory board meeting in 1993, they had all authored an article for  efficacy or safety of Paxil for a  specific disorder and they had all been  a consultant or adviser to Glaxo SmithKline or on speakers bureaus.

 

Note: three of the four – PTSD, social phobia, and general anxiety disorder – had been seen as uncommon or even rare when they were first identified as discrete illnesses in DSM -III but now was seen as common disabling illnesses that often required lifelong treatment. The anxious person who had once turned to a psychiatrist or councelor for talk therapy was now someone with a medical problem that could be successfully treated with an SSRI. That was the story newly told by psychiatry’s thought leaders who were experts in anxiety disorders, and after SmithKline obtained approval for the four diagnoses, the next phase in its marketing plan kicked into action: the flooding of medical journals with ghostwritten papers, and the hiring of academic and community psychiatrists to serve on its speakers bureau.

 

In the UK, SmithKline hired a firm called The Medicine Group to ghostwrite papers. In a fax to SmithKline dated January 21, 1999, The Medicine Group detailed its plan to write five “pharmacy review” articles. One of the suggested articles was “Pharmacoeconomics of depression and anxiety disorders”, which identified Jonathan Davidson as one of the proposed authors. For an article titled “Paroxetine – efficacy across the spectrum, the firm identified Columbia University psychiatrists Jack Gorman as a proposed author. The Medicine Group was eager to put pen to paper: “Is it possible for us to make a start on any of these articles?” it asked. A year later, the British firm provided SmithKline with an update on its “Paxil publication plan”, the report detailing the progress of the many articles moving through this ghostwriting process. The report noted whether SmithKline had approved the manuscript, and for manuscripts that had passed that hurdle, it named the psychiatrist that had agreed to serve as authors, and how it was now incorporating all the comments to manuscript. The article on “Paroxetine – efficacy across the spectrum”, had been written but The Medicine Group was still awaiting manuscript approval from SmithKline and as such the company had yet to sign up a psychiatrist to serve as the author for the article.

 

In the United States, SmithKline hired Scientific Therapeutics Information (STI) to ghostwrite articles. One of STI’s projects was to write the articles that appeared in a 2003 supplement of the Psychopharmacology bulletin which was titled “Advancing the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders: the first 10 years experience with paroxetine”. STI when it sent medical school psychiatrist Kimberly Yonkers a first draft of the article she was authoring, helpfully noted that STI’s cover page on the manuscript was “to be removed before submission” by Yonkers to the journal. The supplement featured 16 papers on the merits of paroxetine, with Davidson, Sheehan, Nemeroff and other SmithKline thought leaders among the authors. Nemeroff who had chaired the company’s advisory board authored the introduction to the supplement and in it he acknowledged that STI had assisted in preparing the manuscripts.

 

When SmithKline merged with Glaxo Wellcome in 2000, the new company – Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) – created a speakers bureau called PsychNet. This program, noted the company manual,  recruited key influential psychiatrists and primary care physicians in each region of the country, with the purpose of developing them “into knowledgeable and engaging speakers on Paxil and its effective treatment on mood and anxiety disorders”.

 

At weekend training sessions, they were trained on “a total of five (PowerPoint) presentations,” one of which was titled “contemporary issues and anxiety spectrum disorders.” This presentation, a PsychNet document noted, “reviews the prevalence of anxiety spectrum disorders, current treatment options, and the efficacy of Paxil to treat anxiety” the slides told of how 25% of all American adults suffered from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.

 

The PsychNet faculty was composed of 65 physicians (mostly psychiatrists), each of whom was expected to give 4 to 15 talks per year. Each speaker was paid $1,000 to come to the training weekend, and $2,500 for every community talk. The faculty included a number of well-known academic psychiatrists, including Sheehan (who helped join the faculty, and served on the psych net scientific advisory board), John Zajecka, Michael Hirsch, and Paul Keck. The speakers had to sign a confidentiality agreement, which precluded them from disclosing “information about the PsychNet program, including compensation and content of materials.” The honorarium paid to these “key opinion leaders,” noted one GSK document, “is based on the speaker delivering a promotional Paxil presentation.”

 

 

GSK’s star speaker was Charles Nemeroff. Even though he was chair of the psychiatry department and Emory University, he still managed to give more than 50 talks in 2000. GSK paid him $2,500 and up per talk, and at least $5,000 for attending Paxil advisory board meetings. From 2000 to 2004, GSK paid him $849,413 for his services.

 

All of this proved quite profitable for GSK. In 2002, Paxil became the bestselling antidepressant in the world. It was now touted as an anti-anxiolytic drug, and as can be seen in this review, it was the APA and academic psychiatry that enabled this commercial success.

 

Prior to DSM-III, anxiety was seen as arising from psychological stresses and those struggling with anxiety often sought out talk therapy. If they took a drug, a benzodiazepine was the minor tranquilizer of choice. But then the APA reconceptualised anxiety as a set of discrete illnesses in 1980, and over the next two decades, American psychiatry converted anxious feelings and behaviours into medical diseases, which was understood to be quite prevalent and best treated with an SSRI.

 

The question of whether this commercial process provided the public with a medical benefit, with the SSRIs and effective treatment for the various anxiety conditions, is difficult to assess. Many psychiatrists believe that SSRIs are effective as anxiolytic’s.

 

However, as this market was built, there was an absence of independent, non-commercial research conducted to study the effectiveness of SSRIs for the various anxiety problems. Academic researchers who led the trials and spoke about the validity of the disorders were paid to be the company’s thought leaders, and the medical literature was contaminated by ghostwritten papers, which universally concluded that SSRIs were safe and effective. Unfortunately, that doesn’t provide a scientific record of efficacy.

 

I will now jump to chapter 9 A Society Harmed. Pg 156.

 

The idea that patients, when confronted with a medical problem, should give “informed consent” to any proposed treatment is grounded in the concept of personal autonomy, a cherished principle in the United States. The individual has the right to self-determination, and thus the doctor’s duty is to provide information that will enable the patient to make an informed choice.

 

Whittaker mentions an interesting 1972 landmark court case Canterbury v Spence.

 

 It sets forth the legal obligation imposed on physicians. “The patient’s right of self decision shapes the boundaries of the duty to reveal”, the court ruled. “That right can be effectively exercised only if the patient possesses enough information to enable an intelligent choice.”

 

This case also set forth a standard for assessing whether this legal obligation had been met: “what would a reasonable patient want to know with respect to the proposed therapy and the dangers that may be inherently or potentially involved?”

 

A risk is considered material when a reasonable person, in what the physician knows or should know to be the patient’s position, would be likely to attach significance to the risk or cluster of risks in deciding whether or not to forgo the proposed therapy.

 

While it may be the individual physician who is supposed to obtain the “informed consent” of the patient, this legal standard clearly imposes an ethical duty – by proxy – on the medical specialty that provides individual physicians with the information that is supposed to be disclosed. The medical specialty must provide physicians with the best possible accounting of the risks and benefits of any proposed therapy, and, in its communications to the public, do the same. If the medical specialty doesn’t do this, then the individual physician will not be capable of providing the patient with sufficient information “to enable an intelligent choice.”

 

The diagnosis of the disease is obviously a first step in obtaining informed consent. What is the illness, or physical problem, that needs to be treated? If the symptoms do not lead to an easy diagnosis, that is understandable – the absence of knowledge helps inform the patient’s decision making. If there is no known pathology causing the symptoms, that is fine too. Again, the absence of knowledge is important to the patient’s consideration of therapeutic options. But if a patient is misled, and told he or she has a known pathology, when there isnt a scientific reason to think that is so, then clearly the patient cannot then give “informed consent” to any subsequent treatment.

 

Yet, that is precisely what has happened in psychiatry for decades. The APA and the larger institution of psychiatry, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry, publicly promoted the “understanding” that psychiatric disorders were caused by chemical imbalance in the brain, and that psychiatric drugs help fix that imbalance, like 'insulin for diabetes'. American society as a whole came to understand that was true, and, as millions of Americans can attest, that was the message told by [footnote: some] psychiatrists to individual patients.

 

Canterbury v Spence and other court cases provide a foil for assessing the depth of that ethical failure. As might be expected when people who have been told they suffer from a chemical imbalance subsequently discover that isnt so they may feel quite betrayed.

 

The psychiatric literature is flawed in numerous ways. Academic psychiatrists regularly lent their names to ghostwritten papers. Trial data may have been “mined” in order to report a positive finding for a drug that failed to show efficacy on a primary outcome measure.

 

Conclusions announced in abstracts may be discordant with the data in the body of the article. Reviews of data submitted to the FDA reveal a different profile of risks and benefits for a particular drug than is found in the published articles. Poor outcomes for medicated patients in long-term studies have not been communicated to the public. And so on.

 

All of this produces a medical literature that exaggerates the benefits of psychiatric medications and underestimates the risk, which makes it impossible for psychiatrists and other physicians to provide their patients with sufficient information to “make an intelligent choice.” The published “evidence base” is tainted, and thus all of society ends up somewhat in the dark.

 

The APA’s guidelines often reflect an industry bias. For example recommendations promote antidepressants as a first-line treatment for mild-to-moderate depression, despite the fact that a critical analysis of the literature reveals that they do not provide a favorable risk-benefit ratio for this group of patients.

 

Add all this up, and it is fair to say that few of the millions of Americans who now take a psychiatric drug on a daily basis made an “informed choice” to do so.

 

Whittaker then goes on to describe the rising burden of mental illness.

 

The APA in conjunction with the pharmaceutical industry has succeeded in exporting its DSM disease model to developed countries around the world. If this model of care is effective and helpful, then at least some of these countries should be seeing a moderation of disability rates. But if this is a model that increases the burden of mental illness in a society, then other countries should also be seeing rising disability rates due to psychiatric disorders. The latter is true. Here are just a few examples.

1. In Australia there with 57,008 adults on government disability due to mental illness in 1990. That number rose to 241,335 and 2011 a fourfold increase.
2. In New Zealand there would 21,972 adults, ages 18 to 64, on disability due to psychiatric conditions in 1998. 13 years later that number had more than doubled, to 50,979.
3. In Iceland, with its stable population, the number of new cases of disability due to a psychiatric problem increased from 84 per 100,000 adults in 1992 to 217  per 100,000 adults in 2007.
4. In Denmark, there were 3550 new disability awards due to psychiatric disorders in 1999; 11 years later, this number had jumped to 8812
5. In Sweden, about 25% of all new disability claims in 1999 were due to psychiatric disorders; by 2011, this percentage has risen to nearly 60%.
6. Finally, in Germany, the number of adults going on government disability because of a psychiatric disorder rose from 39,037 in 2000 to 70,946 in 2010.

 

It is easy to identify a possible iatrogenic mechanism at work in this rise in disability rates.

 

The DSM, with its expansive criteria for diagnosing a psychiatric disorder, deems a large percentage of the population as mentally ill. This leads to the diagnosis of a great many people with difficulties – mild-to-moderate depression, anxiety etc – that, in the absence of drug treatment, could be expected to pass with time.

 

But according to the DSM model, people diagnosed with a psychiatric illness suffer from a brain disease, which may require lifelong treatment.

 

………………………………………………………//……………………………………

I highly rec this book. I feel extremely informed after reading this and yes as always damn humiliated, outraged and disgusted.

Its time to go for a walk.

Nz11

[nz11]

This statement in Whittakers book caught my eye.

 

Conclusions announced in abstracts may be discordant with the data in the body of the article.

 

Why?  Because when i saw the doctor about a sore hand from overuse of keyboard i was given venlafaxine and assured it would heal my hand.

Yes of course i asked the questions one would is it addictive? ...answer No. Is it safe are there side effects.?..answer no.

I was then given an abstract to persuade me to take this drug.

Of course at the time i was completely  ignorant and just trusted....oh how foolish was i. Anyway i am now looking at this with a new lens.

Here is the abstract i was given. (I have typed it out).

 

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

Ann Pharmacother 2003 Nov 37 (11): 1561-5

Venlafaxine treatment of fibromyalgia

 

Sayar K, Aksu G, Ak I, Tosun M

Karadeniz Technical University School of Medicine, Farabi Hospital, Trabzon, Turkey

 

Abstract

Background: Although the pathophysiology of fibromyalgia is unknown, central monoaminergic transmission may play a role. Antidepressants have proved to be successful in alleviating symptoms of fibromyalgia. Medications that act on multiple neurotransmitters may be more effective in symptom management.

 

Objective: To assess the efficacy of venlafaxine, a potent inhibitor of both norepinephrine and serotonin reuptake, in the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia.

 

Methods: 15 patients with fibromyalgia were assessed prior to and after treatment with fixed dose venlafaxine 75mg/d. Before initiation of pharmacotherapy, patients were interviewed with the structured clinical interview for Axis I disorders in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4^th edition. The study lasted for 12 weeks, and patients were evaluated in weeks 6 and 12. The primary outcome measures were the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) total score and pain score. The anxiety and depression levels of the patients were measured with the Beck depression, the Beck anxiety, the Hamilton anxiety, and the Hamilton depression scales.

 

Results: There was a significant improvement in the mean intensity of pain (F = 14.3; p = 0.0001) and in the disability caused by fibromyalgia (F= 42.7; P=0.0001) from baseline to week 12 of treatment. The depression and anxiety scores also decrease significantly from baseline to week 12. The improvement in the FIQ scores did not correlate with the decrease of scores in both patient – and physician – rated depression and anxiety inventories. Change in pain scores also was not correlated with the change in depression and anxiety scores.

 

Conclusions: Venlafaxine was quite promising in alleviating the pain and disability associated with fibromyalgia. This effect seems to be independent of its anxiolytic and antidepressant properties. Blockade of both norepinephrine and serotonin reuptake might be more effective than blockade of either neurotransmitter alone in the treatment of fibromyalgia.

 

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

 

When i asked the Health and Disability Commissioner in my complaint to send me a copy of the full peer reviewed article not just the abstract,

They reply "we refuse your request because the info doesnt exist or cannot be found."  !!

 

Note: No mention of arms length list of side effects, need to taper, nature of the drug is not spelled out, addictiveness not mentioned, drug induced suicidality not mentioned. No mention of off-label use.

I didnt have fibromyalgia i had a repetitive strain injury.

 

On the table next me i have the venlafaxine PIL (patient information leaflet) it is 47 pages. The front page has a big black box warning about suicide actually im too scared to read beyond page 1.

 

As Whitaker clearly points out uninformed consent is being obtained and it .....was obtained from me. I had no idea of the extent of this poison.

Question: This abstract comes from ...of all places...Turkey.??? Was it ghostwritten erroneous,highly exaggerated and pharma sponsored ?

How could i be given this in 2001 when the abstract says 2003? Spooky !

 

What the doctor should have said was go home and dont use the computer for a few weeks. And all would have been fine. Instead i got a poison which i later CT off and then presented tearful saying something is wrong with me i dont know what and the rest is history.

 

Whats the bet ...Conclusions announced in abstracts [like this one] may be discordant with the data in the body of the article.

[LoveandLight]

Someone who was given this drug for originally physical issues is in a good position to alert others regarding the dangers of these drugs. People with 'depression' are more likely not to be believed. People around me say 'are you sure it's not your original condition'. As I have been in and out of withdrawal for 7 years and was originally treated for..anxiety, I think, I still doubt that maybe this is indeed my natural state.

[LoveandLight]

Your story really has shocked me.

[Fresh]

I wouldn't get too hung up on phrases like "permanent brain damage".   Come on , you didn't think we'd recover completely

unscathed did you?

Brain changes , even permanent ones , are not the same as profound retardation.  We all have strengths and and now need to

work out how best to use them.   It doesn't matter that we're different to how we might have been.

[Pugknows]

NZ11, all this permanent brain damage stuff can't be making this journey any easier for you. Come on. Let yourself have hope.

 

I'm gonna give you some of my hope to lighten your load. Love, Pug.

[nz11]

Thanks for the encouragement and  popping by my thread  Fresh and pug.

 

Please note PG used the P word not me.

[nz11]

Thanks for your comments L&L.

I am very sure that is not your natural state. I think in wdl one must push the delete button on all previous conditions. imo

[nz11]

Just found a great thread on this site .its 'Guides to tapering '.i want to put it here.. its about tapering. I have printed a copy for myself.

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/2930-guides-to-tapering-off-psychiatric-medications/

 

I note in the discussion Dr Ann Blake Tracey was mentioned but people said they didnt know her taper schedule.

In my little reading of this person i was impressed with what i read. 

 

It is mentioned In this link near the bottom

http://hugequestions.com/Eric/Columbine/Columbine-Bollyn.html

 

In this report it is noted :

Ann Blake Tracey in a 2006 report to the AFP said that the taper period should be half the time on the drug. She has spent 16 years of researching and testifying about these anti-depressant medications.

........................................................................../...........

 

Tracy told AFP that anti-depressants are extremely addictive and that extreme care must be taken when a user begins to wean him or herself off of the medication.  The dosage has to be reduced carefully and gradually and.........

the weaning period should be about half the time the person has been on the medication.  Any abrupt changes in dosage can cause suicidal and homicidal reactions, Tracy said.

"Two years ago," she said, "the FDA issued warnings that abruptly changing the dose of the anti-depressant, whether going up or down in dose, can produce hostility, psychosis and/or suicide.

............................................................................/.........................................

What does this look like in terms of percentages for tapering.

ok i was bored so i crunched some numbers using the general term for a geometric progression and solving for the multiplying ratio.

 

Ann Blake Tracey would therefore go with this:

(Years on the drug (n) ; taper period in months nx12/2 ; % taper required to reduce from 20 mg to 1mg in (nx12)/2 months dropping monthly)

Producing this:

(1,6,45%), (2,12,24%), (3, 18,16%), (4, 24, 12%), (5, 30, 10%), (6, 36, 8%), (7, 42, 7%), (8, 48, 6%), (9, 54, 5.5%), (10, 60, 4.9%), (11, 66, 4.5%), (12, 72, 4%), (13, 78, 3.8%) ......etc

 

You know what i reckon ...i reckon this is uncannily accurate!

Yes yes i know its all about going slow and listening to your body and there is no formula ....but i think back in 2006 or whenever Ann Blake Tracey was onto it.

 

On a prior place mapleleafgirl was the poster girl for tapering ...she was on for 8 yrs and her overall average taper was 6.1% and took her 4 years. She was able to hold down a job and have a life.    Ann Blake Tracey would say someone on for 8 yrs should taper over 4 years and to do that you have to taper at 6%....

(ok if one starts at more than 20mg then yeah the % would go up a bit across the board)

 

This week i tracked down and listened to her 'Help i cant get off my antidepressants ' CD a guide to helping people get of ad's.

It was very interesting yet despite that she said two sentences in 1hour and 19 minutes on tapering.

In the last 5 secs she said 'its very important to come off your drugs slowly' Well how long is a piece of string? And at about 30 mins she mentioned the above statement ie tapering should be half the length of time on the drug. In fact on the CD she said between a third to  a half the time on the drug.

Well ill run with her more conservative statement to the AFP above. ..being  a half.

 

I might make a note in my next posts regarding some of her interesting comments from the CD.

 

I think its really sad that this woman has been trying to raise the alarm for many years decades even and the pharma conveyor belt of poisons has not been slowed in any way.

[LoveandLight]

Very good. Funny, I'm just looking at her site just now. It's a buggar though when your wrecked already before withdrawal.

 

How are you nz11?

[nz11]

Hi L&L

Hey what daya know ..great minds think alike surf the internet alike!!

I am doing ok.

Hey hope your morning cortisol horrors are receding ...i experienced that too it was really traumatizing ...in time it receded though.

I'm so sorry you had to updose like that L&L.

[LoveandLight]

I'm glad your doing ok.

[nz11]

Been listening to the CD by Dr Ann Blake Tracey (abt) titled Help i cant get off my antidepressant and i want to post some stuff from it.

[Dr Ann Blake Tracy has a doctorate degree in both psychology and health sciences. Antidepressants have been her area of expertise for over 10 (that was probably 10 yrs ago perhaps making it possibly 20 now as at 2015) years and has been called to testify as an expert witness for cases involving these drugs. She is the author of the book ‘Prozac Panacea or Pandora’ and heads the international coalition for drug awareness.]

 

 

abt refers to a Dr Candace Pert. (1946 -2013)

I googled the name and abt has provided a link

http://www.drugawareness.org/sad-news-of-the-passing-of-our-board-member-dr-candace-pert/

 

An exert from this link is as follows:

............................................................................../..........................

Without the work of Dr. Pert in discovering the opiate binding process the Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors would never have been born. With that in mind read what she had to say about them….

 

Candace’s Infamous Statement & Profound Warning on Antidepressants

 

Far too few who take antidepressants are aware of Candace and her work although they should be fully aware. In TIME Magazine, in October 1997 Dr. Candace Pert made one of the boldest and most significant statement on SSRI antidepressants ever made:

 

“I am alarmed at the monster that Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon Snyder and I created when we discovered the simple binding assay for drug receptors 25 years ago. Prozac and other antidepressant serotonin-receptor-active compounds may also cause cardiovascular problems in some susceptible people after long-term use, which has become common practice despite the lack of safety studies.

 

“The public is being misinformed about the precision of these selective serotonin-uptake inhibitors when the medical profession oversimplifies their action in the brain and ignores the body as if it exists merely to carry the head around! In short, these molecules of emotion regulate every aspect of our physiology. A new paradigm has evolved, with implications that life-style changes such as diet and exercise can offer profound, safe and natural mood elevation.”

 

I was shocked beyond belief, and still am, that anyone would ever consider taking an antidepressant after reading that statement by Dr. Pert! I was convinced this would be the final nail in the coffin for antidepressants – the end of our Serotonin Nightmare. But I would quickly find that I would be the only one to ever quote Candace’s statement after that. The only places anyone could find it was the original TIME article or my book or our website while that information alone could have saved untold numbers of lives.

 

Our Friendship and Her Participation on ICFDA Board

 

After reading her statement in TIME I called Candace and we became instant friends talking for long periods of time. I sent her a copy of my book and we began to work together. After reading my book and learning of my work she gave me my greatest compliment ever calling me a “heroine” and my work “of great importance.”

 

Candace saw firsthand the damage antidepressants produce with the long suffering of her own sister and then the subsequent loss of her sister’s life not long after we met … all due to the ravages of the antidepressant Welbutrin.

 

.......................................................................................................//.................................

 

And here is another link to Candace Pert

http://www.playfulmonk.net/candice-pert-alarmed-about-prozac-and-she-developed-it

 

...................................................................................................//.....................................

abt notes in her CD:

 

 There have been many who have regretted developing the medications they developed their apologies have come long after the drugs have been removed from the market. Never has a developer come out as strongly as Dr Candace Pert has while the medications are even still on the market. Considering that about one in every seven Americans is on these antidepressant drugs it is tragic that this information from Dr Pert has not made headline news.

[nz11]

Here is another interesting piece from abt,

.............................................................../......................................

Keep in mind also that the accumulation of these drugs in the brain tissue produces a delayed withdrawal effect and many long-term side-effects puzzling to most patients as well as their doctors.

 

Dr Craig Carson put out a study as early as 1993 showing that the level of Prozac accumulates in the brain tissue. He found the same with Paxil and others. 

 

Dr Carson found that Prozac accumulates in brain tissue at a rate 100 times greater than what is in the blood.

He believes that this high rate of accumulation in the brain tissue is why once a patient has an adverse reaction it will continue for some time after discontinuation of the medication.

 

Dr Carson talks of one person on the drug for one year then off for two years before she died. When he tested the brain tissue at death he said that even he was surprised to find that the level of the drug was higher than he would have expected with looking at his own study results.

So when you look at an accumulation rate that high within the brain, he said that the patients who began to experience side-effects should expect to continue to have them for quite some time even after coming off the drug.

 

............................................................................................./...............................................

According to abt

The key to avoiding the most serious withdrawal effects is proven to be the time element. The biggest mistake patients and doctors make in withdrawing from these drugs is coming down too quickly. This throws the patient into a spin that is most difficult to come out of and causing one to think that they need to be medicated again. Thus producing a vicious cycle starting back on the medication in order to stop the withdrawal.

 

Patients must withdraw very very very slowly while rebuilding nutrients to produce the energy they need to handle the withdrawal. This is literally the key to avoid ending up in a psych ward as you withdraw from these drugs.

 

 If you slowly and gradually come off the medications the body and brain will have a chance to adjust to the lower and lower levels of the chemical. You must remember that the brain has had to adjust over time to the chemicals being there and once the brain has changed its chemical make up to adjust for the drug being there stopping cold turkey is like pulling the carpet right out from under yourself like coming  off a very steep mountainside in one single step that is why it is called crashing. You don’t want to do that.

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

[Fresh]

So , according to Dr Tracy , I should do my taper over about 14 years?   Yegads!!

[nz11]

Yes 14 yrs of tapering that sounds extreme doesnt it. Thats what one might call an extreme definition of 'slowly'!

Perhaps abt may not be aware of people on these drugs for 28 yrs!

 

Note : abt does say in the cd tapering often needs to be  'between one third and one half the time on the drug'.

Then later she says "if one has been on these drugs for 2 years or more then a year to come off seems to be about what is needed. "

  Its almost as if she is surprised someone has to take more than a year to come off.

[AliG]

 This is very discouraging. 

[nz11]

Here is a testimony abt shared,

...............................................................................//

Let me read you a letter from a patient that I have received,” I have now got down to 5 mg of Prozac a day, I am so excited I have been at that level for over a week now. I have had much fewer problems cutting back a little bit at a time this time. The first two days after cutting back require much sleep and some chamomile tea for the jitters. I try to cut back on Thursday and Friday so that I have the weekend to rest and let my body rebuild itself. This way I have not had to miss work and the short-term memory loss problems are very mild. When that seems to block my thinking I just sleep for a few hours and it goes away. I have found that severe stress over a period of 3 to 6 hours can cause the same sensation is cutting back does. But sleep takes care of it each time. By stress I mean that while at work if I focus really  hard on something I have to analyse and try to come up with a solution by the end of the day I have some difficulties thinking and remembering. It is like the thought is there one minute and then it is gone the next. And I have decided I’m going to come off the last 5 mg even more slowly than I have the original 20.

 

This has been a real learning situation but I feel better and calmer than I have since beginning this medication I’m finally getting back to me even my temper is better again and I can feel with my heart instead of my head. So now when I get angry or happy or sad I don’t just feel it in my head but with my heart also I feel the emotions are returning.

I have even almost quit using foul language because my anger is not explosive anymore. I used to never use foul language before taking these medications.                                                          [Oh boy can i sure relate to this one!]

 

Anyway I thought I would just touch base with you and let you know what’s going on with me and let you know that your efforts have not been in vain and they have helped at least one person and by the way my sister is also learning how to get off these medications as well.”

................................................................................................//.............................

Alig perhaps there is some encouragement here.

[AliG]

  Sorry N.Z.  I just found it very confronting.   That's ok.   Just wanting to say "Hi". I haven't read your thread, and I will. I wish you continued recovery.   There is some "encouragement"  there.   Best wishes.   Ali.

[compsports]

As an FYI, I was psych meds for 11 years and took nearly 4 years to taper off of 4 meds, one which was added near the end of the time I was on the meds.   On one of the meds, Wellbutrin, I tapered pretty quickly without any problem.

 

However, I do wonder even though I tapered the other meds slowly, even at times resorting to 5% of current dose, if maybe I should have tapered more slowly due to the sleep problems I had afterwards for several months.   Hard to say but I definitely would have been willing to take  more time to taper if the sleep issues could have been avoided.

 

Thanks for sharing the the information nz11 about ABT.

 

CS

[AliG]

  Hi N.Z. , I was on "psych meds" for over 20 yrs, and C/T "ed , all over the place.  Wishing you , continued recovery,. You will be fine.

[brassmonkey]

Hey NZ11--  I have got to say you are doing some AMAZING research with digging this stuff up, well done and keep up the good work.

[nz11]

thanks Brassmonkey you are a real encourager. Hey wasnt that a real eye opener reading about the history of the DSM !! Oh my goodness!.....in summary...'Guys we need to do whatever needs to be done in order to get insurance companies to pay us.....ok lets label every single person who comes in to see us as having a disease....Great ! '

 

AliG dont worry i find it very discouraging too ..actually i dispair sometimes and cannot forgive myself for allowing this to happen to me. Thanks for the kind words.

Wishing you healing.

 

CS thanks for popping in to my intro yeah i have terrible insomnia too. I am hoping real hard that in time this will heal. Its been going on for over a year and a half now though. People think it is strange when they get an email from me and check the time ...4am ! I need to be patient and wait until 7am i guessbefore i press send.

Hey abt has a lot of suggestions on helping sleep. I'll post them in the next day or two. When i have typed them up.

Wishing you healing as well CS.

 

Fresh - i crunched some abt numbers for you at one third (9yrs taper ) use 2.8% or one half (14 years taper) use 1.8%. (calculated though from a start point of 20mg...if 45mg start then (2.25%; 3.5%) assuming monthly drops tapering % of previous dose.

[nz11]

                                                                                  abt continued ......

[some interesting stuff here. ]

 

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

Some of the things that we have found that really help in the withdrawal, that patients have continually reported that are very helpful to them are these:

1. A good vitamin  and mineral supplement… Food form is always preferred because they are much easier to digest and assimilate.  Because of negative reports coming from patients it would be better to find a multi-vitamin without vitamin K. Canadian       versions of multi-vitaminsgenerally do not have vitamin K in them.
2. Antioxidants are very helpful Grape seed extract is very helpful other antioxidants which are very helpful are [don’t know these words ..something co-q10?oginko?] They work better if you use them while you come down off the drug. If you do wait until you’re off the drug to try them you can get adverse reactions unless you begin with very very small amounts and work up on the dosage. It may be that they are producing a cleansing effect that is too strong to handle after the withdrawal.
3. Flax seed oil is another nutrient that helps the brain to rebuild. A BT attended the convention at the National Institute of health in September 1998. The entire convention was on flaxseed oil or Omega 3 oils such as fish oils. There were doctors from around the world reporting their success at helping patients who are schizophrenic manic severely depressed had ADHD and ADD. These disorders were tremendously helped by using flaxseed oil or Omega 3 oils. Generally they use about 1 tablespoon a day. You can use plain flax seed if you can find the flax by getting a coffee grinder blend them up into a powder, make some oatmeal and then sprinkle the powder over the oatmeal. Or you can make a blended drink and throw the powder in the blended drink. If you need a sweetener you some drops of pure maple syrup. Pure maple syrup is about the best sweetener there is. Also great for sweetening because it helps the pancreas to rebuild is Stevia and there are excellent forms of liquid Stevia.
4. Eating a small handful of almonds 6 -12 almonds is an excellent and simple way of keeping the blood sugar level normal. If you are really having problems with blood sugar levels you can do 6 -12 almonds every 1- 2 hours and find that it will balance that sugar level.
5. Noni is very helpful. This is a fruit juice that is made from the noni fruit. It has a digestive enzyme in it that is the active ingredient. Noni has been used in the Hawaiian Islands for years for all types of ailments. Noni juice will help you get rid of the dissociative state that comes from these drugs. The almost like being in a dream state that you feel in withdrawal. It will help to prevent mania. I have been amazed at what I’ve seen noni do with those who have gone manic because of these drugs.
6. Cranial massage is another thing that is very helpful and it will release a lot of pressure if there is any swelling in the head. Adema is a common problem with these drugs. I suspect the brain swells also. Cranial massage has been reported by patients to be very beneficial at getting rid of the panic or anxiety that comes from the adrenaline rushes in the withdrawal. Some of those adrenaline rushes have been reported to have gone on for four hours straight. Once the adrenaline is triggered you can’t seem to slow it down. But keeping the blood sugar level normal is critical in preventing those adrenaline rushes. Now remember that the spine is an extension of the brain. All the nerves are housed in the spine and its very important to ensure there are no kinks there. With the high serotonin constricting the muscles the back can be pulled out of place easily causing the vertebrae to pinch nerves. Keeping that flow going through the spine, that energy flow is very helpful to brain function. This is likely why there are so many studies out there now that chiropractic care is very beneficial in drug withdrawal.
7. Acupuncture has been known for decades to be beneficial in withdrawal from any drug. Patients are having incredible success with that as well.
8. Negative ions help to lower the serotonin levels. Dr Solomon did much research on negative ions learning that they can reduce the high levels of serotonin. Just from running a shower you can produce negative ions. There are also negative ion machines that you might want to check into. Dr Solomon found that even though serotonin levels are high in people who sleep poorly having a negative iron machine in the room would cause these people to sleep better. Many patients are given CPAP machines because they have an inability to sleep well. So many develop sleep apnea after being on these drugs, so a CPAP machine is also something that might be helpful.
9. Increasing oxygen is very healing. There are many oxygen bars that are opening up throughout the country just like a juice bar where you can actually go in and get a hit of oxygen. For a long time pilots and emergency officials have known that if they have consumed alcohol which you are not supposed to be doing before work, that they need to sober up in order to get to work, breathing and oxygen will get rid of the effects of the alcohol. So it would seem logical to me that oxygen would be very very helpful in getting rid of the foggy feeling in the brain after these drugs. Hyperbaric oxygen treatments have been reported to cut withdrawal time and adverse withdrawal effects drastically. If you have a hyperbaric oxygen treatment centre anywhere near you use them.
10. Chamomile tea is highly recommended for restoring sleep patterns. [wow, Never drunk tea or coffee before, for i never wanted to compromise my health but i think i might go and buy some and become a tea drinker after reading this. ]
11. A homeopathic formula called ‘calms’. It is very helpful in getting through the withdrawal.
12. Dr John Christopher the Herbalist has a product called ‘pre-track’, and another product called ‘pro track’ which they recommend using after the drugs. And a product called ‘panc- tea’ which is very good at rebuilding the pancreas. Another product called a vital herbs is excellent at rebuilding the nutrients in the body.
13. Another herbal combination for calming is ‘Hops- valerian -skullcap’. Patients report that using valerian alone can cause a stimulating effect. So the combination of these three herbs seem to work much much better and have a calming effect.
14. Young living Essential oils. Aromatherapy. The fastest way to reach the brain is through the nasal passage that passage goes directly into the brain tissue. So when someone uses inhalants which are very dangerous and damaging to brain tissue it is because of the direct contact that it does have to brain tissue going through the nasal passage. The aromatherapy oils have the same access to the brain and yet they are very beneficial as they nourish the brain tissue. Bird Mart is one of the oils that has been known for centuries there has been known to be very helpful with mania and depression. Lavender is very well known to help and stress. Valour is another one which helps you to have strength and courage. These essential oils can also be used on the spinal cord and  can go into the system very quickly . In fact when the oils are applied to the bottom of the feet we know that within 3 to 4 seconds they have found those oils in the saliva of the body. So they are very rapidly absorbed in the body begins to use them immediately. You will find that they are very soothing and very healing. There is new and exciting information coming out about these oils a recent study out of England reported that Sage was very beneficial for restoring memory. The patients rub the oil into their scalp. We also learned recently that the oils are being studied at Brigham Young University and classes are even being taught on these essential oils. A recent case report covered the case of a woman who suffered brain damage from her use of Zoloft she also suffered major depression which was the reason for the prescribing of the drug. The side-effects according to her were beyond belief. She was suffering from short-term memory loss as well as the brain damage, interestingly they found that there was small vessel breakage in the brain that controls short-term memory. She was able to reverse that damage and within several months using two of the young living combinations known as ‘clarity’ and ‘joy’. She also recommends the combination of oils known as brainpower. Dr Gary Young who heads ‘young living’ has done much to educate America about the therapeutic use of these oils. He suffered many health problems from a terrible accident that put them in a wheelchair. Because many alternative treatments he has been out of that wheelchair for years and is in excellent health. Dr Young also has a book that he has written called a ‘PDR for your essential oils’. Which lists many diseases and which oils to use for those and how to use each oil for each disorder. The text lists the following oils for being very good for the brain; frankincense, lavender, sandalwood, forgiveness and release. Frankincense should be made mandatorily for use after using these drugs due to the high risk of cancer. We now know that the possibility of breast cancer is 700% greater after Paxil use. And I expect similar results to come in with the other SSRIs. Frankincense is most incredible in fighting cancer. I think it should be used under the arms like deodorant would be as a preventative against breast cancer. It must be diluted with another carrier oil like almond or apricot or one of the massage based oils from young living. Last summer my daughter advised me that she had developed lumps under her arms, as a cancer survivor myself I knew all too well that we could possibly be dealing with cancer in advanced stages. I told her to immediately stop using the deodorant and antiperspirant with aluminum in them that I had warned her to never use. Then I gave her a mix of coldpressed apricot oil with frankincense oil mixed in at about 40 drops to 4 ounces. She was instructed to use this under her arms as often as she would think of it during the day. We saw improvement rapidly and within a month all signs of any lumps were completely gone. Frankincense is miraculous in all its properties and helpful for so many different ailments. A woman who I have worked with for over four years now had severe reactions to Prozac. She called last week to scream those oils really worked. I said yes I know that’s why I told you to try them four years ago. The ‘clarity’ and ‘brainpower’ have worked better than anything else I actually got up in the middle of my favourite TV program and did some house cleaning for the first time in years after using them. I have had to have a maid come in and do that for me since my reaction to Prozac many years ago. This is a miracle I just had to tell you. Another mother recently reported that her son who had had terrible reactions to the drugs became a new person using Valor’ on his neck. Another young living product is Stephen Seagal’s power meal. It is excellent at balancing blood sugar.

 

Two very big no-nos are: 1. St John’s wort and 2. 5 HTP.

St John’s Wort is not to be used in conjunction with medications because of its effect at increasing serotonin. It can even produce serotonin syndrome when used in conjunction with antidepressants.Another thing that does increase serotonin and is very popular as a sleep aid and should be avoided, is melatonin. Another thing that should be avoided are any glandular products, these are sometimes passed off by chiropractors as natural aids but can produce a steroid effect and can cause very serious reactions after using these drugs.

 

Avoid stimulants including caffeine and nicotine. Because it is going to be very difficult for you to handle any kind of stimulant effect after being on these drugs. Both the caffeine and nicotine will keep you from being able to metabolize the high levels of serotonin that you have built up on the antidepressants. They will also trigger stress responses and that is the last thing that you need in withdrawal. So avoid them if possible or wean off them after your withdrawal from the antidepressants, so that you do not suffer increased numbers of negative side effects and after-effects.

 

Also keep in mind that many of these after-effects such as high cholesterol, allergies they all come from the weakened immune system. Fibromyalgia symptoms MS symptoms, the digestive problems all of these come from the drugs. Try to avoid any other medications for these symptoms which are actually side-effects so that they do not interfere with your withdrawal.

 

Remember that metabolism takes more energy than running a marathon. Meats take 24 hours to digest, grains takes 6 to 12 hours, fruits and veggies only take 30 minutes to an hour to digest, so to get more nutrition and consume energy use lots of fruits and veggies to rebuild. Because they are easier to digest than anything else you have all that extra energy that you would have used for metabolizing foods that you can use to help your body to heal. Juicing is a very good way to get well but work at it gradually. As you begin to use more and more fruits and veggies start with cooked foods and slowly go to more and more raw because the raw has the enzymes to help make them easier to digest.

[Wonder how much an oxygen chamber session costs ...sounds like it could be helpful...noni juice i'll have to ask at the shops about that one. nz11]

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Interlude

Diary of the  Demonically Sadistic Monsters

(DSM diary for short).

It was 1969 and grey clouds were approaching in the offices of the American psychiatry Association. Psychologists were getting research grants and psychiatrists who had studied a lot longer were getting the picture. Things had to change. Spitzer was employed to lead a new project group and bring about a new image and keep the profession alive for fellow colleagues were dropping out like flies in an aerosol advert.

 

.....

Spitzer: So Guz are you telling me that if we are transparent honest scientific and carry on like we always have in the past with our talk therapy or psychoanalysis  well the term does sound more arr medical doesn’t it.....then insurance companies won’t pay us for consultations anymore?

Guze : Yep, that’s what I’m saying Spitz.

Spitzer: Holy cow  ...we cant have that,....then what are we to do? How on earth are we to pay for our annual world cruises and holiday homes by the beach!.Im enjoying having flying lessons too now that  I’m down to a 3 day week.....

Guze: This might sound a stupid idea but ...

Spitzer: You never have stupid ideas Guz... tell us what’s on ya mind.

Guz: Well, we could say everyone who sees us has a disease ....like er um ar.....you know similar to errr malaria or leprosy and stuff like that...

 

Spitz:  Guz  i think you may be onto something there.....do you think it will meet the insurance payout requirements?  ....arrr i mean do you think it will meet ICD classifications? Sorry for that Freudian slip.

 

Guz: But you hate Freud!

Spitz: Na not really …just said that so they would give me this job…

 

Later……

 

Guz: hey Spitz just got off the phone to Aetna…and yep they said they reimburse for consultations with someone who has a disease… “No problem,” they said.

Spitz: Right let’s do it!!

Guz: Do what?

Spitz: Start thinking up some new words of course ‘neurosis’ isn’t worth a cent anymore!

Guz: I’m not altogether convinced this is ethical… do you think this is ethical?

Spitz: (stoney silence) Guz can you remind me please why I picked you to be on my team?

Guz: Well, we did go through med-school together, and I was on the same anti-Freud debating team as you in 1^st year, then there was the fact I was your lab research partner in our practicum 6^th yr class and wrote the essay that got us an A+, and don’t forget we both won pharma scholarships to study at med-school and got all our fees paid.  And then there was the time…

 Spitz: Okay okay, enough enough. Look, are you with us or against us?

Guz: I’m with you… I suppose.

Spitz: Good, then let’s get the team together for an all -day buffet breakfast at the Sheraton next week.

Guz: Why?

Spitz: Because we have a lifestyle to maintain that’s why, we need to brainstorm some new ‘diseases’ ! ‘Neurosis’ ain’t gonna put bread and butter on the table no more!

Guz: Spitz do you think one day I’ll be able to have a fishing boat like yours?

Spitz: Guz, me ol mate me ol buddy....if this baby ends up where I think it’ll end up we’ll all have a fleet of fishing boats……

 

To be continued……….at the Sheraton next week! Same thread , same intro.

[LoveandLight]

Where did you find the health stuff?

 

Noni juice..interesting..could use something for the disassociation.

[LoveandLight]

Yrs ago I was really interested in detox and stopped using products with chemicals..would only buy shampoo, toothpaste from health food shop. I'm drawn to doing all this again but due to lack of funds, I will be searching the kitchen cupboards to make toiletries from..

 

I was watching an advert for mouthwash to prevent bleeding gums..the mouthwash is made by GSK..you can bet I'll never buy it. One thing I'm sure to avoid is fluoride toothpaste..deodorant with aluminium is next. Totally forgot how bad 'normal' deodorant can be.

[nz11]

Where did you find the health stuff?

 

 

Its from abt's cd.

If you want the cd you can download it here.

http://grizzom.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/help-i-cant-get-off-my-antidepressant.html

[nz11]

More interesting abt NOT to be confused with cbt in any way!

 

 

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The one thing these drugs do and illegal drugs do it also is to slowly deplete the body of the vitamins and minerals and nutrients that you need to function- your energy supply and as you go into a deeper and deeper level of malnutrition your ability to cope and your ability to deal with life physically and mentally will be severely impaired.

 

These serotonergic medications have a very strong impact upon the body’s ability to metabolise foods and nutrients. That is why so many of the symptoms and side effects of these antidepressants are related to the digestive system. 90% of serotonin in the body comes from the intestines. When you understand that you begin to see why there are intestinal problems with these drugs.

 

As you look at the body’s ability to metabolise nutrients to provide the fuel you need to cope with everything in life, you understand how important it is to work hard at rebuilding the nutritional level that has been depleted by the drugs.

 

In  abt’s book she mentions  Dr Francis Pottinger. He is well known for his research on Cats and nutrition. One of his experiments  gave a startling discovery;  that once a female cat is subjected to an deficit diet for a period of 12 -18 months her reproductive efficiency is reduced so that she is never again able to give birth to normal kittens. Even after 3-4 years of eating an optimum diet her kittens will show signs of deficiency in skeletal and dental development. Now if 12 -18 months of malnutrition can do that to an individual then this is frightening to understand what we’re doing to ourselves when we destroy our nutritional level. His research was monumental. In this study he did go on to find out that when that cat’s kittens were maintained on an optimum diet gradual reversal and regeneration began to take place. abt believes that this regeneration is something that will happen to the mother cat as it did to the kittens. Through rebuilding the level of nutrition Dr Pert believes this also. The body will work at rebuilding itself once you just give it the building blocks. Your body actually builds over 300 million new cells every day. Give it those building blocks and it will work at repairing any damage, building very healthy cells with good nutrition. It may take time but I believe it can be done, if we really work at it. 

 

Let’s consider the different things that we can do to work on rebuilding the body and the brain. Keep in mind that we know that one single 30 mg dose of Prozac to someone who has never taken it before and never takes it again. Just one single 30 mg dose will double the body’s level of cortisol. Cortisol is the hormone that designates when a body is in stress. When an individual is depressed the cortisol level goes up, a doubling of the cortisol level with one dose of Prozac is a shockingly powerful negative affect on the entire system of the body.

 

I’m convinced that this huge increase in cortisol comes from the stress neuro hormone that Dr Sorman spoke of, serotonin. So when we look at a stress response of the doubling of cortisol I would expect to see with the new research higher levels of cortisol produced by these new antidepressants as well some of which we know have an even stronger in effect on the reuptake of serotonin. With this in mind we see clearly that the body suffers extreme stress as a result of these serotonergic antidepressants.

 

In fact most people after being on these drugs show all the signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Stress is very detrimental to the body and to the brain as is cortisol. This can weaken the immune system, your energy supply is depleted, you lose your ability to cope, the excess adrenaline flow lowers the level of consciousness, mania depression seizures and cancer can all be induced by a series of constant stresses even mild stresses that are continuous. So every time a chemical induces such a strong stress response we are being profoundly affected by each pill. In the stresses accumulating throughout the body and the brain. In our day and age avoiding stress is almost impossible. We are surrounded by stress in our lives everywhere we look. But we stumble across enough stress in life without looking for a and asking for more and taking drugs that can cause this type of cortisol release.

 

So let’s look at things we can do to lower this drug induced stress response. There are many common sense solutions. We need to spend less time trying to keep up with the Joneses and more time with our loved ones who give us comfort and joy. Perhaps a career change may help to alleviate stress. There are many ways to support a family we don’t have to do the jobs we’re doing. We can try other things. We can try other things one of the effects of the drug or make you think you have no are other alternative that is not true. You have many options available to you. Nature is incredibly soothing and healing. Try gardening, a trip to the mountains, lying on the grass all walking through the grass can give you energy, listening to running water is so soothing, and the negative ions that come from the running water are very healing. Petting a dog or a cat has been demonstrated to be very healing. Any pet can help you to get rid of much stress in your life. Playing soft classical music especially baroque music will help the brain function at a better and higher rate. Playing soft classical music throughout the night to calm the nervous or fussy baby who refuses sleep will give you and the baby a chance to catch up on much needed sleep. Learn to take naps and also learn to go to bed early. We know that going to bed earlier can read someone of depression quickly.

 

Going to bed early resets someone’s internal timeclock and gets rid of symptoms of depression. We know that going to bed early for a week will knock depression for six months at a time. Learn how to release traumas from the past, so that you will have the tools to deal with similar traumas without overreacting.

 

Cut stimulants and chemical stresses out of your daily diet. That means things like NutraSweet which increases serotonin, anything that increases serotonin all of these things should be avoided. This means stimulants of any kind. We know that Jell-O ice cream sugar and refined carbohydrates, all of these types of things can have a strong effect on the serotonin levels.

 

We have a new report out of the University of Florida on dairy products. For those unable to metabolise milk proteins, something that appears to be the result of antidepressant use, the milk proteins build up in the brain and turn to a [case of; this word was hard to hear on audio] morphine. Morphine is a powerful serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Keep in mind that serotonin is high in schizophrenia and autism mania all of these types of disorders. Dr Cade’s study out of the University of Florida does support this research because he found that when he took patients that were schizophrenic and artistic off dairy products 80% of these patients had all symptoms disappear. Now that it is incredible to know that diet can cause that big a difference  in someone’s life. These are the most serious mental disorders we face in our society today.

 

There are many natural remedies we can use rather than popping a pill. We need to learn more about these natural remedies especially once reaching a point after using these drugs where you are literally very chemically sensitive. Most patients who have been on these serotonergic medications for an amount of time have become very sensitive to other medications, any type of chemical, forcing them to seek out natural remedies and educate themselves more about these natural alternatives. Learn more about your own strengths so that you can use those strengths to help you in overcoming the difficulties in life. Get wisdom and knowledge in many areas in life so that you will feel more capable of handling a large variety of situations. Do not be self-centred learn to care for others. If you have problems caring for others it might do you a lot of good to do some genealogy. Why genealogy because once you begin doing it you will find how closely related everyone of us is. It makes us easier to love people when you realise how closely related you are to them.

 

Now one more thing to avoid is meat or at least ease much smaller amounts. There is a stimulant effect that comes from eating meat. You need to distance yourself from anything that triggers a stress response. When an animal faces death the death process itself will trigger an adrenaline rush. This is the flight or fight hormone release. It is natural for the entire system to be completely saturated with adrenaline in order for that animal to attempt to save its life. So as the tissues of the meat are saturated with adrenaline which is chemically identical to speed or amphetamine, it will produce stress in your system at the very least try to avoid meat in the withdrawal process that it will make that process much easier for you, remember these drugs are highly protein bound. So as you avoid these more complex proteins they will have less to hold onto and your body will be able to flush them.                                  [Thats an interesting one!]

 

Now eat good nutritious foods to overcome the drug induced malnourishment. So many of the side-effects and withdrawal are caused by the malnourishment. Organic or as natural as you can get are the easiest for the body to absorb and use. And they contain higher levels of nutrients.

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