Psychiatric Drug DISCUSSION

My friend in pharmaceuticals and I are carrying on the following argument based on the 8 chapter video put out by CCHR called "making a killing" [ http://www.cchr.org/#/videos/making-a-killing ]
What do you guys think about our points?

TOM WROTE:
CCHR (Citizen’s Commision on Human Rights) is a non-profit that investigates and exposes psychiatric violations of human rights. It works shoulder to shoulder with like-minded groups and individuals who share a common purpose to clean up the field of mental health. So...I understand one member has ties to scientology. And while I don’t care for that, or religion generally, I feel the content still deserves attention. Why? Well, I can certainly speak to the integrity of a few speakers within the film chapters. Mike Adams of NaturalNews: a non-profit collection of public education websites covering topics that empower individuals to make positive changes in their health, environmental sensitivity, consumer choices and informed skepticism. One of the only practical unbiased and monetarily uninfluenced (Declaration of Journalistic Independence) sources of news I know of. Rima Laibow and Ralph Fuectola of HealthFreedomUSA: the the largest, and most effective grass roots, net roots organization in the world.

The video…the following are main points made in the video up for consideration:

1. Psychiatric disorders are not actual diseases requiring medical treatment (although they may cause diseases requiring medical treatment):

There are no biological findings that really support psychiatric diagnoses being medical illnesses. The burden of biological lack of proof falls on psychiatry: there’s no blood test, no lab test, no x-ray...these are just classes of behavior that a group of psychiatrists voted as a disease. Can you imagine doctor’s having to have pow-wows to decide if a heart attack is a real disease or not? No, they don’t have to decide on that. They don’t have to vote on that. We should be asking the doctor, “where are the chemical tests for that? where is the objective test for this?” And I guarantee you’ll be told, “Um, we don’t have a chemical test for that.” There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and any psychiatrist you talk to, if you ask them this question, they’ll all admit it in private but they won’t admit it in public: it’s a scandal. It is all subjective, and there’s nothing objective about psychiatry.

2. There’s no scientific proof that psychotropic drugs resolve any mental problems.

Since there is no measurement for psychiatric diagnoses – because they’re really just subjective – there can’t be a measurement for the effects of the drug. The evidence that is falsely claimed is that the medications are highly effective and not very toxic. In fact the data in psychiatry is very clear that that’s not true. What is true is that the medications are barely if at all more effective than a placebo. They are selling drugs to people under false premises - under a disease that’s been invented. So how do you measure efficacy for a disease that doesn’t even exist.

3. Psychotropic drugs mask systems and come with severe short and long term side effects.

Whatever problem you’re being treated for - whether depression, shyness, cardiovascular disease or otherwise - medicating these symptoms is not solving the problem. The patent medication sometimes gives the appearance of having helped, because in the short term it usually doesn’t show the bad effects that are going to happen in the long term. So it’s very deceptive. The longer the patient is on the medication the worse the prognosis. None of these medications hit precise targets. You begin accumulating all kinds of collateral damage. In other words other organs of the body are actually harmed. For the first time we’re seeing kids in grade school or middle school who have type 2 diabetes and who have the beginning stages of cardiovascular diseases. You see Parkinson’s disease, comatose, dyskinesia, other movement disorders. Is it true that we’re now seeing a lot of death from psychiatric drugs? Absolutely yes.

4. Psychiatric drugs can cause dependency and addiction.

One of the hallmarks of Informer Consents with psychiatric meds is that you have to discuss the potential for addiction. The vast majority of psychiatric drugs create psychological and physical dependency. Most patients on these drugs have difficulty getting off of them. It’s rare for somebody to just be able to stop it without a problem.

5. Most mental problems are caused by an underlying physical illness.

Many physical conditions can cause mental problems or what pose as psychiatric symptoms. But the psychiatrists does not do an in depth study of what could be causing the problem. If the doctor isn’t taking the time to find the cause of the symptoms then unfortunately those symptoms may continue. And there may be a serious underlying medical disorder that’s being overlooked. The question is, “Is it better to treat depression with a drug or is it better to treat depression by trying to figure out what causes the depression?” and then working it out with the patient. Dehydration can make you exhibit symptoms of depression. Sleeplessness can make you exhibit symptoms of depression. Eating a terrible diet, hyperglycemia, being sedentary. All of these things are biological reasons for having symptoms of depression. The majority of all “mental illnesses” actually have a physical cause.

6. No matter how severe the emotional or psychological distress may be, there are many effective options that do not involve psychotropic drugs.

Sunlight, fitness, sleep, water, breathing exercises, and letting food be your medicine (whole ripe fresh fruits, veggies), and so on. Once you’ve proven that there is no problem in the body and no malfunction of the brain, you have to begin to address other levels of the self. That’s what psychiatry has completely stopped doing. There are very few conditions that cannot be treated by other methods than the use of drugs. Any forces that impinge on health that make us think that the drug approach is the only approach is undermining good patient care. And because most non drug options are rarely told to patients, true Informed Consent is almost never given.

When you get into Informed Consent it is almost a responsibility of the patient to make an inquiry about the hazards of the drug and not rely on what the psychiatrist or physician tells them. We can’t go in and abdicate our responsibility as consumers simply because somebody has an MD after there name or someone is a psychiatrist and think they know more than we do. The best way to protect yourself is to educate yourself, to ask questions - not only of your doctor but to do your own research. Don’t be ignorant. Be informed. Get information from as many places as you can. That’s how you’ll be an intelligent skeptical consumer. And that’s how you’ll protect the safety of yourself and your entire family from this industry of death known as modern psychiatry.

And as modern psychiatry has permeated our world over the last 50 years, so too, has psychotropic drugging. There is a way to expose this medical abuse: by reporting all complaints and adverse psychiatric drug reactions to your national drug regulatory agency. Medwatch is the federal reporting program in the United States. Medwatch is a volunteer reporting system. A passive reporting system where doctors, patients, health care providers, pharmacists - anybody really - can make a report saying that they think that what they experienced or what their patient experienced was an adverse drug effect. And this is what we call post-marketing surveillance. It holds accountable the side effects of long term or chronic use of these drugs. The FDA admits that probably only 1% of all the adverse drug effects are actually reported by patients or physicians.

I guess to me it’s not really a laughing matter. But I support laughing as a healthy activity over drugs so it's cool. :) But check out the rest of the chapters and follow up if you like.

ALLISON SAID:
You make it sound like psychiatric disorders are a complete fraud. It's true that the field is subjective and we don't have the ability to put numbers with disorders. However, I would argue that this doesn't mean that psychiatric disorders are fictitious. And I would bet that if you spoke to anyone who knows a person suffering from, say, schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease, they would tell you that it is not just in their head. Diseases like these keep people from being able to live normal lives. That's the point. People suffering from serious mental disorders cannot control their disorders by choosing to do so or by therapeutic lifestyle changes (which are successful methods for some medical conditions). So, medications have been seen to help these people live normally. People with debilitating depression can get up in the morning. People with schizophrenia can go to work without the fear that they may black out and do something unspeakable. People with Alzheimer's disease may have a few more weeks of mental aptitude, and of remembering who their family is. Isn't that proof enough? If you have known someone with these disorders, you would understand that they cannot simply think it away. Please don't trivialize the seriousness of these conditions.

I'd also like to point out that many drugs cause side effects. In fact, every drug (even daily vitamins and supplements) can cause side effects. This is not unique to psychotropic drugs. Also, addiction is not unique to psychotropic drugs either. Pain medications are highly addictive, but you aren't arguing that we get rid of those too...?
The philosopher in me has to point out the direct contradiction in your 5th argument. The premise of this conversation is that there is no physical connection to psychiatric disorders. You therefore cannot argue, at least not soundly, that they are caused by physical problems. Otherwise, you accept that there is physical causes for psychiatric disorders...which are measurable.
Ok, my last thought is about Medwatch. It is voluntary. And I think we should be encouraging health care professionals to report adverse drug reactions more often too. Right now, there aren't really any regulations about reporting. The system has made reporting as easy as possible. Now, it is the responsibility of physicians, pharmacists, etc. to start using it. Either that, or the FDA could regulate it, making it a mandatory process. I'm not sure what steps need to be taken, but I agree that not enough ADRs are being reported right now.
Anyway, it is an interesting case and I think we could all use a little lesson about psychiatric disorders. You could try Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach, 2008, DiPiro, et. al. Maybe it would be good to look into these disorders a bit more.

TOM SAID:
Thanks Allison. These are good points. But just so you're aware, I wasn't assuming ownership of those points, just presenting them. Even so, I think you will find many of your points align with the film. I think the types of things you describe, like a truly measurable brain disorder that slowly destroys brain cells (alzheimer's), and other salient brain disorders are the nuts and bolts psychiatry was rightfully and soundly addressing before the era of psychotropic drugs (as the video concurs). Their financially modest practices essentially reached little beyond mental institutions. Where the video takes off is in the wake of a bloated 330 billion dollar grossing industry, annually, that ensnares over 100 million people world-wide to take things like Zoloft for every emotional or spiritual problem basic to being human. Where the video takes off is when 44 psych drugs became 174, when the DSM grew from 106 pages to 866, when PDUFA was passed, and when psychiatry, the drug industry and the FDA started having undeniable financial ties and unregistered conflicts of interest, when half of US suicides were committed by people on psychotropic drugs.

Their focus doesn’t lie with the meager income of brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, strokes, comas, concussions, epilepsy, down syndrome, brain tumors, meningitis, parkinson’s, narcolepsy, tourettes, cerebral palsy, et al. The kind of things in focus are depression, anxiety, the invention of bipolar, ADD, PTSD, GAD, SAD, impulse control disorder, phase of life problem, ADHD, nausea, sexual dysfunction disorder, obsessive compulsive, itching, sexual aversion disorder, gambling, occupational problem, female sexual arousal disorder, hot flashes, learning disorder, cannabis-induced disorder, adjustment disorder, shivering, chemical dependence disorder, primary insomnia, PMDD, zoloft, xanax, ritalin, prozac (aka sarafem), paxil, zyprexa, seroquel, risperdal, lexapro, adderall, cymbalta (aka yentreve), effexor, wellbutrin (aka zyban), abilify…and generally the “ pill for every ‘ill’ ” concept.

I’m afraid the premise was not that there is no biology behind one’s psychology, but simply that the diagnoses are unscientific speculations with absolutely no tests. It’s a guessing game. Prescription is based on symptoms of things liking getting nervous speaking in front of a crowd. There’s going to be a physical connection.

Vitimins, supplements, coffee, alcohol, hydrogenated oils, or pain meds weren’t relevant to the topic, but I personally don’t advocate them, either. If I had a say, food would be people’s medicine, as it has been proven to cure things as far reaching as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, arthritis, depression and more. Even so, I honestly haven’t heard of vitamins causing 42,000 deaths each year, strokes, speech disorders, eye disorders, tremors, dizziness, sedation, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, delirium, coma, tardive dyskenesia, paranoia, heart failure, liver problems, fainting, immune system problems, neurological dysfunction, suicides, et al. Why? Because people know what a vitamin b supplement does. But psychiatrists can’t predict what will happen when a patient takes a drug because they admittedly don’t know how they actually work.

ALLISON WROTE:

I think that it is interesting to note that, besides psychotropic drugs (according to this study), medications used to treat high cholesterol also make over the GDP of half of the countries in the world. There are also increasing numbers of these medications available. This doesn't make them dangerous. The purpose of making new medications is to provide more effective treatments for conditions with, hopefully, fewer side effects. The simple fact that there are more drugs, does not mean that it is a bad thing. Rather, it means that we have more options to treat each individual patient.

The FDA does monitor these drugs. In case you weren't aware, the FDA requires that in clinical trials (before the drug makes it onto the market), psychotropic drugs are assessed for suicide risk.

Regarding the side effects of medications: the side effects caused by the first B vitamin I looked up include arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation, edema, flushing, hypotension, orthostatsis, palpitations, syncope (rare), tachycardia, chills, dizziness, headache, insomnia, migraines, nervousness, pain, acanthosis nigricans, dry skin, hyperpigmentation, maculopapular rash, pruritis, rash, urticaria, decreased glucose tolerance, gout, decreased phosphorous levels, hyperuricemia, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dyspepsia, eructation, flatulence, nausea, peptic ulcers, vomiting, decreased platelet counts, hepatic necrosis (rare), jaundice, increased transaminases, increased prothrombin time, leg cramps, myalgia, myasthenia myopathy, paresthesia, rhabdomyolysis, weakness, cystoid macular edema, toxic ambylopia, hepatotoxicity... It might be worthwhile to note that B vitamins are a common component of many foods.

In fact, most of the medications on the market today come directly from or are derived from natural products. Where do you suppose pharmaceuticals began? We haven't always had such fancy machines.

I should point out that, of the side effects you didn't know vitamins could cause, that the B vitamin mentioned earlier causes eye disorders, dizziness, heart problems, liver problems, fainting, and neurological changes. This doesn't mean that you will experience these if you eat something with vitamin B in it! The same goes for other drugs. Just because it is a possible side effect, does not mean that you will experience it. They are patient specific.

I also disagree that we don't know how these drugs work. In fact, the mechanism of action is well understood for the drugs you've listed. Which one(s) would you like to know about? Perhaps psychiatrists don't know how each one works, but I would bet most physicians and pharmacists do.

I'm just curious to know if you have ever met someone with schizophrenia, OCD, depression, or Alzheimer's disease? If you have, than I would be very surprised that you would want them to stop taking a medication that allows them to live a normal life. I am not sorry to say that I do not want my loved ones who suffer from depression to stop taking a medication that may prevent them from committing suicide.



WHAT DO YOU THINK!!!???