Depression Medications - DC SSRI Protest..What's Everybody Mad About?

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DC SSRI Protest..What's Everybody Mad About?

Jake

2005-08-14, 8:52 am

August 24 DC Protest Against the FDA- What's Everybody Mad About?

Approving and marketing lethal drugs, while concealing the results of
studies that reveal deadly side affects, should be a jailable offense.

by Evelyn Pringle

http://www.opednews.com

This conduct is not due to mistakes, it is representative of by now an
all too familiar pattern of criminal behavior by top officials within
the nation's top regulatory agencies and the pharmaceutical industry.

This year Eli Lilly, was made to pay nearly $700 million to settle
charges that it did not warn consumers that the drug, Zyprexa, could
cause diabetes, which resulted in grave injuries and death to 100s of
people, but nobody was charged with a crime.

Ellen Liversidge will be at the DC rally. She lost her son due to
Lilly's crimes and she's none to happy about the fact that as part of
the settlement, the plaintiff's attorneys agreed not let the public
know about the extent of Lilly's wrongdoing.

In February, 2004, people may have become a bit angry when they read
in the San Francisco Chronicle that top FDA officials had ordered one
of its own researchers, who reviewed more than 20 trials, involving
4000 children, not to disclose his findings that confirmed that SSRIs
increased the risk of suicide in kids.

Another protest supporter, Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the
Alliance for Human Research Protection, explains how a Harvard review
of children's charts, found that within 3 months of treatment on an
SSRI antidepressants, 22% of the children suffered drug-induced
adverse psychiatric effects, and overall, 74% suffered adverse events
during the course of treatment.

"The FDA has known for years," she said, "but failed to reveal that
antidepressants consistently fail to demonstrate a benefit in
children. At least 12 of 15 trials failed."

The FDA has also known that SSRIs increase the risk of suicide and
hostility in children. As far back as 1996, an FDA review showed a
"7-fold greater incidence of suicidality in children treated with
Zoloft than adults," Vera reports. She has accused the FDA of "foot
dragging, equivocating, and tinkering with definitions while children
are dying."

Dr Donald Marks, MD, Ph D is a prescribing physician, a father, and a
former associate director and director for clinical research for two
multinational pharmaceutical companies. He says, "SSRI manufacturing
and sales is serious business with tens of millions of patients in the
U.S. and a market in the tens of billions of dollars."

He contends, "that any attempt to decrease sales by increasing
warnings will be met with severe organized resistance."

According to Dr Marks, "SSRI manufacturers, such as Glaxo and Pfizer,
have conducted clinical trials in depressed children, many of which
show no efficacy against placebo."

"The seriousness and severe adverse event effects of SSRI drugs make
their use hardly justified in the majority of cases," he added.

"My own prescribing experience with SSRI drugs," Dr Marks said, "has
revealed significant agitation and aggression, akathisia, activation
of mania and hypomania, increased depression, serious dependency and
withdrawal difficulties, suicidal ideation, and toxic interactions
with other drugs."

The symptoms of SSRI toxicity can also be mistaken for the progression
of the underlying mental state, "leading to use of more of the same
and other offending SSRI drugs rather than to withdrawal of the
causative SSRI agent," he warns.

While discussing the dangers of SSRIs, Rosie Carr Meysenburg, produced
3 handouts. The first was a personal letter from Dr Peter S Jensen,
who at the time, was the head of Child & Adolescent Disorders Research
Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, which said that
research indicates that antidepressants for adolescents are not very
effective.

The second document was a personal letter from Dr Larry S Goldman,
Director the American Medical Association, in which he wrote that
physicians have known for many years the dangers of giving any
antidepressants to patients with certain disorders and there is a
substantial risk of precipitating mania or psychosis.

The third was an article from the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
researched at Yale university which stated that 11% of all psychiatric
hospital admissions were from antidepressant-induced mania and
psychosis. It also noted another area of research showing that Prozac
and other SSRIs can simulate the effects of LSD.

"In other words," Rosie said, "this is saying for some people, taking
an SSRI is the same as taking LSD."

According to Rosie, "About two million people enter a psychiatric
hospital every year, 11% then is over 200,000 people a year who have
an antidepressant-induced psychosis and who are hospitalized," she
reported.

"Not all are hospitalized," Rosie warns, "Some of them have either
committed suicide, a homicide, or a murder/suicide."

The truth is, nothing phases the greedy band of thugs involved in
pushing these lethal drugs for profit. Only when they see CEOs and
government officials being marched off to prison, right along side of
other murderers, will they knock it off.

Why are other protesters angry at the FDA and Big Pharma?

Allen Routhier is the main organizer of the event, let's look at his
reason.

In June 2002, Allen's wife, Diane, was suffering from abdominal pains,
nausea, indigestion, migraines, and backaches, and consulted her
physician. Even though she had no history of depression, the doctor
attributed her problems to stress and depression.

The question remains why, when according to all accounts, Diane was
known to be a fun-loving, lively, upbeat person.

Without advising her of any side effects, her doctor sent her off with
sample blister packs of Bupropion, a drug manufactured by
GlaxoSmithKline, also known as Wellbutrin. The packs contained no
labels, no warnings, and no indication of any adverse effects or
reactions that she may be experience while taking the drug.

Almost immediately after taking one pill, Diane became violently ill,
with diarrhea, nausea, shakes, and a fever. She also felt irritable,
agitated, anxious, dizzy and nervous.

On Friday, June 20, 2003, Diane felt terrible and called in sick to
work, which was highly unusual. On June 23 and 24, she was again
bedridden and suffered from insomnia, nausea, headaches, toothaches,
dizziness, and among other things, diarrhea.

At approximately noon on June 25, her sister, Lynn, called and Diane
cried and said she did not feel well. At some point that afternoon,
Diane took a gun, went to a corner of the basement, laid in a fetal
position, put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

During the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered Diane had
gallstones, a condition not diagnosed by her doctor, but which fit
perfectly with the symptoms she complained of.

Allen was left to explain a mother's death to their 2 young sons.

Jo Ann Kelly has been interested in raising awareness of the dangers
of SSRIs ever since her son, David, died of a self inflicted gun shot
wound after he was put on Lexapro for an anxiety diagnosis.

Several days before his death Jo Ann noticed increased agitation and a
dryness of skin. She feared he was not metabolizing the drug and
scheduled a doctor's appointment which ended up being two days too
late.

Another mother, Lisa Van Syckel, described how her daughter, Michelle,
was given Paxil for a diagnosis of depression and anorexia nervosa
when she actually had Lyme Disease.

While on the drug, her mother watched as Michelle self-mutilated,
became psychotic, violent, and attempted suicide twice.

When she quit taking the drug she suffered severe withdrawal and was
constantly ill with flu-like symptoms, vomited blood, and had rectal
bleeding. On top of all that, her friends at school called her
"Psycho."

Lisa maintains she was not able to make an informed consent decision
on behalf of Michelle because the drug maker withheld information on
Paxil's adverse effects.

Another father, Tom Woodward, described how his oldest child, Julie,
hung herself while on Zoloft, when she had no history of self-harm and
there was no depression or suicide in their family history.

The doctors said Zoloft was safe. "The possibility of violence,
self-harm, or suicidal acts was never raised. The two and a half pages
we received with the Zoloft never mentioned self-harm or suicide," Tom
said.

Julie had been excited about college and had scored high on her SATs a
few weeks before her death. However, "instead of picking out colleges
with our daughter, my wife and I had to pick out a cemetery plot for
her," Tom said, "instead of looking forward to visiting Julie at
school, we now visit her grave."

He is very angry. "It is clear that the FDA is a political entity and
its leadership has protected the economic interests of the drug
industry," he said, "Under the Bush administration, the FDA has placed
the interests of the drug industry over protecting the American
public."

He points out the fact that 86% of the millions of dollars in campaign
contributions by drug companies went to the Bush administration and
Republican candidates. He wants to know, "what did Pfizer, Eli Lilly,
and GlaxoSmithKline Beecham buy?"

According to Tom, top officials in leadership positions have strong
ties to the industry. For instance, "FDA's chief counsel Daniel Troy
has spent his career defending the drug industry," he said, "If a
study does not favor a drug, the public never hears about it."

Mark Miller and his wife Cheryl lost their 13-year-old son, Matt,
after a psychiatrist gave him Zoloft. They were told that Matt had a
chemical imbalance that could be helped by a new, wonderful drug
called Zoloft. "It was safe, effective, only two minor side effects
were cautioned with us - insomnia, indigestion," they said.

While on the drug, Matt became agitated, could not sleep, eat or sit
still. The night before they were to leave on a family vacation, Matt
hung himself from a bedroom closet hook, barely higher than he was
tall.

"To commit this unthinkable act," Tom said, "something he had never
attempted before, never threatened to, never talked about, he was able
to pull his legs up off the floor and hold himself that way until he
lost consciousness."

Mark and Cheryle have since learned that Matt's doctor has been "a
well-paid spokesman for Pfizer," maker of Zoloft.

Young Corey Baadsgaard was diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder,
and was prescribed Paxil by his family doctor.

After a couple months, he started taking larger doses because it was
not working. A few months later, the doctor prescribed a medication
called Effexor, and abruptly discontinued Paxil. Corey was supposed to
gradually increase the dose of Effexor to 300 milligrams over 3 weeks.

The day he took the 300 milligram dose, Corey didn't feel well so he
stayed home from school and went back to sleep. That evening he woke
up in a juvenile detention center.

Unaware of what he had done, Corey said, "I asked one of the members
of the juvenile detention center, and I found out that I had taken my
high-powered rifle that I use for hunting to my third period class,
took 23 of my classmates hostage and teacher hostage."

Corey spent 14 months in jail, "not really knowing why I had been
there, not really remembering anything that I had done," he said.

"These drugs are hell," his father Jay said, "look at what they have
done to my son."

Joyce Storey's son, Brian, was 17 years old when the family doctor
diagnosed him with depression and gave him 14 Zoloft pills. He never
warned about side effects and "even said if a person is drinking or
doing drugs, that Zoloft works well with them," Joyce said.

Five days later, Brian killed a woman. After his arrest, authorities
found no illegal drugs in his system, only Zoloft.

The psychiatrist that examined Brian after the event was Dr James
Merkangis, a faculty member at Yale University. At the trial, he said
Brian had a manic reaction to Zoloft and testified that Brian told him
it was like being in a dream.

"The news media called my son the All-American boy, and he was," Joyce
says. He is now serving life without parole.

Six months after Brian's arrest, another boy at his school, Jeff
Franklin, took an ax to both of his parents and three of his brothers
and sisters while on Prozac. Both of his parents died and Jeff is now
serving two life sentences.

"This is not a coincidence," Joyce warns, "there is a common
denominator, teenager, severely depressed, on an SSRI antidepressant."

"There are 13 million people on these drugs, 6 to 8 million are
children," she said. "The question is why are we handing these drugs
out like candy, and the answer is $17 billion a year business." Joyce
noted, "It is always about money."

Jame Tierney was 14 years old when he was prescribed Effexor for
migraine headaches. After about a year, the drug lost its
effectiveness and his doctor doubled the dose.

"For the next 9 months," Jame recalled, "my life as I had known it was
gone. I thought daily about suicide and hurting myself. I felt void of
normal emotions. I was so belligerent, agitated, and filled with hate
- hate for my family, my friends, and most of all myself. Rage
consumed me. I felt trapped," he said.

Jame did things totally out of character. "I had little control and
little inhibition," he said, "It was as if I was watching a movie and
some villain was destroying all the relationships around me."

He spent most his time alone or else fighting with his parents. "They
would ask what was wrong and what had happened to me," Jame said, and
"I could not answer them because I did not know or understand myself.
I was terrified."

He thanks God that his parents continued to search for answers. It was
the Effexor. It was not prescribed for depression and he had no
history of depression prior to taking the drug.

To counter the potential withdrawal effects, Jame was given Prozac,
and the same personality and behavior problems were evident. The drug
affected him the same way.

"I had never had these feelings before I took Effexor," Jame said, "I
have never had these feelings since I stopped taking the Effexor and
Prozac."

The way Jame sees it, "Effexor took three years from me and I will
never get them back."

Donna Taylor's son, Mark, was shot between 7 to 13 times, at Columbine
high school and nearly died.

Columbine shooter, Eric Harris, was on an SSRI at the time of the
rampage, just like the majority of other kids who have been involved
in senseless killings in recent years.

Mark Taylor points out that prior to the drastic increase in use of
psychiatric on kids, "this has never happened in the history of
America."

Shannon Baker does not complain about her daughter's side effects,
adverse reactions, or withdrawal symptoms, because her daughter is no
longer alive.

Sharon wants to be "the voice of all the other children who's voices
have been silenced by these drugs," she said. She wants a ban on the
use of SSRIs with children. "There needs to be no more senseless and
needless deaths because of these drugs," she said.

Dawn Rider, president of ASPIRE, gave this warning, "We have been
educated to believe that mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders
are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. The fact is that this
is only theory, and this theory is pushed on us as if it were the
absolute truth."

Many people who believe this theory have become guinea pigs, "I know
this from personal experience," Dawn said, "I trusted our family
doctor when he explained that depression is caused by a chemical
imbalance. We trusted him when he determined that Paxil was right for
my husband, and Prozac for my son."

Dawn's 14-year-old son is now dead, and when they "discovered the
problems with these drugs, we decided it would be better for my
husband to suffer through depression than end up dead like our son,"
she said, "and we found out that he could not get off of Paxil."

Her husband went through a year of hell before he was able to withdraw
from the drug, and in the process, Dawn said, "it destroyed our
marriage of over 20 years.

Sara Bostock's daughter, Cecily, had only been taking Paxil for two
weeks when she died, during which time her condition had greatly
worsened.

By the day of her death, Cecily was pale, unable to sleep, almost
unable to converse, and was in a frightened, agitated state, jumping
at the slightest noise.

"That night she got up and without turning on any lights, went into
our kitchen only feet from where I was half asleep," Sara said, "She
stabbed herself twice in the chest with a large chef's knife. The only
noise was a slight yelp and a thump when she fell on the floor."

This was a young woman who had everything to live for. She had just
completed applications for grad school and had received a large pay
increase the month before. She had a boyfriend who loved her, scores
of wonderful friends and had never been suicidal.

Her autopsy revealed a high blood level of Paxil, which reflects poor
metabolization, a feature common in many SSRI suicide cases. "I
believe this induced an intensely dissociative state, perhaps even
sleepwalking," Sara said.

"From accounts of people under the influence of these drugs," she
explained, "I believe SSRIs can alter consciousness in some mysterious
and frightening way that is not normally seen even in mental illness.
I am certain this is what happened to my daughter."

"Untold thousands have died because of the drug companies and the
FDA's failure to heed the evidence over the past years," Sara has
discovered.

Cynthia Brockman's described the Zoloft-induced reactions that her
son, Chris, had experienced which ultimately resulted in a woman's
death and a life sentence in prison for her son. She urges a ban on
all SSRI use in children.

Chris described "uncontrollable fits of anger, pitches and voices
setting him off, not wanting to be touched, feeling horrible all over
his body, not being in reality." His reactions stopped, once he was
off all SSRIs for about a year, but restarted when he was put on
Zoloft again.

"Prison doctors ignored warnings, forced him to take harmful drugs,
drugging him into hallucinating, irrational, suicidal state," Cynthia
said.

She finally met with the Texas House Committee on Corrections who
ordered prison doctors to correct the crisis caused by the drugs which
had triggered severe suicidal and homicidal symptoms for about 2 years
while doctors kept starting and stopping her son's medications.

"Medical experts said Chris would not have been suicidal or homicidal
had he not been reacting to SSRI drugs," Cynthia said.

Todd and Eileen Shivak's son Michael was 11 when he was given Paxil
for depression. They thank God he is alive after he tried to slash his
wrists in a classroom at school.

"We thought we were doing the right thing," his parents explain, "the
doctors convinced us that taking these drugs was the only thing that
we could do for Michael."

"How could all the doctors not recognize what was happening?" Todd
asks, "Michael saw three different social workers, two different
psychiatrists, and went through at least four
different emergency room psychological evaluations in two different
hospitals."

"It is impossible to describe the pain and utter helplessness we all
felt watching Michael suffer, watch him cry, take up weapons against
us, and beg us to let him die," Todd said.

"Our daughter, Catherine, was 5 years old at the time," he noted, "She
witnessed firsthand some of the most terrifying sights that I have
ever had to deal with."

"Our family is finally getting back to the loving family we once were,
but the fear of what happened still haunts us," he added.

Pepper Draper, a Director of the International Coalition for Drug
Awareness, reports that her child was put on Ritalin, and says, "we
bought into the whole serotonin theory, so we were naturally raising
that serotonin, which unfortunately started causing him to become
severely depressed and suicidal."

Fortunately, "we were able to finally understand the truth about
serotonin, that raising serotonin and stopping the metabolism of it
has caused suicide and aggression, and that is well documented," she
said.

Pepper believes that "if we will teach them the right ways to take
care of their bodies and cut out the things that are addictive, like
these medications are, that we can help our youth learn to deal with
what is going on in their lives."

Leah Harris tells how much he suffered while taking Prozac, Paxil, and
Zoloft from age 12 to 18. "I went from being a shy and mildly
depressed, but never suicidal kid, to being overcome with thoughts of
hurting and killing myself while on the SSRI drugs, thoughts which I
acted on," he said.

Since quitting SSRIs over a decade ago, he has never again
self-mutilated or had suicidal
thoughts. "The suicidality simply vanished," he said, and "this is
clear proof that the drugs must have played a role, and I am one of
the lucky ones, I have survived to tell the tale."

Leah believes that "Medical professionals and the public must be
informed of the very serious risks that are associated with SSRIs." He
noted that warnings may negatively affect sales and not please the
industry, but said, "the FDA was created as an independent regulatory
agency to serve the interests of the American public, not Big Pharma."

Grieving mother, Lorraine Slater says, "informed parental consent is
only possible as long as full disclosure is made by the pharmaceutical
companies, the FDA, and the medical community."

Her 14-year-old daughter is dead. "Dominique's life was taken from her
as a result of drug-induced psychosis and suicidal ideations, not to
mention the probability of experiencing akathisia, extreme agitation,"
her mother said.

She is having a very difficult time with acceptance. "How can you
imagine I feel as Dominique's mother knowing now that I was slowly
poisoning my daughter every day as I was dispensing her antidepressant
medication including Celexa and which she made her first suicide
attempt after being on it for almost one month, and effects of the
last medication she was on when she did commit suicide?" she asked.

She explains, "Dominique's mind and behavior were slowly being altered
to the point that she became very agitated, irrational, ultimately
suicidal, because none of the so-called medical professionals
acknowledged the drug's role in her irrational and suicidal behavior
or properly withdrew her from their suicidal effects."

"How can teenagers be allowed to be given antidepressants that were
never approved for
adolescent consumption, only for adults?" Larraine wants to know, "How
come the medical profession doesn't fully disclose the possible
harmful and fatal effects of medication as well as watch carefully for
diverse effects on its adolescent population?"

Terri Williams' son, Jacob, was an exceptional athlete who
participated in football on both the varsity and junior varsity
football teams in school. In September 2000 Jacob lost interest in
school activities except for his interest in football, but there was a
conflict with his grades and his attendance.

As a result of the issue, his parents attended a school conference in
October 2000 at which the school administrator suggested that Jacob
may be depressed and that they should seek medical help.

Terri contacted Jacob's pediatrician and made an appointment for that
afternoon. The doctor prescribed Prozac, and subsequently increased
the dosage three weeks later.

Shortly after starting Prozac, "Jacob began to complain of having
strange dreams,
which he had said were bad," Terri said, "Shortly after the dosage was
increased, I began to notice an aggressive behavior, which had not
been there before. Jacob also became destructive and destroyed some of
his favorite things," she noted.

His friends later told Terri that they had noticed the same behavioral
change, that he had become short tempered and showed a verbal
aggression that had not been present before.

When questioned by Terri, Jacob stated "I don't know what is making me
do this." Terri wrote it off as adolescent behavior and did not pursue
the matter further.

On December 5th 2000, she discovered Jacob's body hanging from the
rafter in their attic where he had hung himself with his own belt. He
had left a letter on the ladder leading up to our attic thanking his
parents for giving him 14 years of a happy life.

"Had I know that this was a potential side effect, suicide," Terri
said, "I would have never allowed my son to take the drug Prozac."

And the fact is, the FDA could have warned Terri about the drug,
because by 1998, Prozac alone had already accumulated over 40,000
adverse reaction reports, including more than 2,100 deaths, under the
FDA's adverse reaction reporting system, more than any other drug in
history.

Glenn McIntosh introduces his 12-year-old daughter, Caitlin, with a
photo because it is all he has left. Caitlin committed suicide, 8
weeks after being prescribed Paxil and Zoloft.

She was a straight "A" student, a talented musician, artist, and poet,
who loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian.

With the onset of puberty, this bright, sensitive girl who had once
loved going to school, started having trouble coping, as many kids do.
She was also having problems sleeping due to a mild seizure disorder,
her father said, "We wanted to help, of course, so we took her to our
family physician, who prescribed her Paxil."

Caitlin didn't do well on Paxil, so the doctor took her off it. A week
later they saw a psychiatrist and he put her on Zoloft. "She then
started having strong suicidal ideations, along with severe agitation
known as akathisia and hallucinations, and she was put in the
adolescent ward of a mental hospital to "balance her meds," Glenn
said.

There things got worse as she was put on other psychotropic drugs to
treat the symptoms that Glenn now knows were caused by the SSRIs.

"Let me be very clear about something," he said, "the dramatic and
severe symptoms that led to my daughter's suicide manifested only
after she started taking antidepressant drugs."

The downward spiral continued until Caitlin hung herself with her
shoelaces in the school bathroom. "We were told that antidepressants
like Paxil and Zoloft were wonder drugs, that they were safe and
effective for children. We were lied to," Glenn said.

"The pharmaceutical companies have known for years that these drugs
could cause suicide in some patients. Why didn't we?" he wants to
know.

Delnora Duprey is a grandmother who described how it had been over two
years since she had seen her grandson Chris play ball, ride a bike,
talk on the phone, or run in to say, "Hey, grandma, what's for
dinner?"

Chris is a tall, thin boy, quiet and well liked and respectful to
everyone, "who loved his family dearly, and had hopes and dreams for a
future," Delnora said.

The family's nightmare began when Chris was diagnosed with depression,
and "placed on medication that was never tested on children and never
meant for their use," she said. He was first put on Paxil, but was
switched to Zoloft a short time later.

The doctor increased the dosage to 200 milligrams and within 48 hours,
Chris had shot and killed his other grandparents while they slept and
burned their house down.

Today Christopher is sitting in prison facing incarceration for life,
"a child that does not even know what has happened to him," his
grandma said.

According to Delnora, he was a sweet boy who never hurt himself or
anyone else before.

Many readers might want to advise these people to go to government
officials with these horror stories, the people who can punish drug
companies for hiding adverse reactions and not warning people about
the dangers associated with drugs.

The problem is they already have. The tragic stories above were
relayed to officials during the February 2, 2004, FDA hearing.

Its now 18 months later, and needless to say, nobody has been
punished.

Evelyn Pringle
epringle05@yahoo.com

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an
investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government)

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3 comment

--

"It would be difficult to engage in a form of medical experimentation more potentially hazardous
than child psychopharmacology. With increasing frequency, researchers have demonstrated how and
why the psychiatric drugs are powerful neuroendocrine disruptors which exert negative effects
upon cognition, growth, metabolism, and reproductive functioning."

Dr Grace Jackson

Stephanie

2005-08-14, 11:53 am

Question authority.

Donald

2005-08-16, 8:54 am

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 22:15:35 -0700, Jake
<invalid@invalid.com> wrote:

>August 24 DC Protest Against the FDA- What's Everybody Mad About?
>
>Approving and marketing lethal drugs, while concealing the results of
>studies that reveal deadly side affects, should be a jailable offense.

>by Evelyn Pringle

oooo General Comments about the article in general:

At the end of this article it indicates that:
"Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and
an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption
in government."

Would note that when it comes to blame for what I consider
to be distorted information relative to psychotropic drugs,
, I think the government is at least part of the blame
But there are lots more things to blame in addition to the
government, and lots of the same things happen whether the
government is dominated by Republicans or Democrats.

Right now the Republicans have all of the chairmanships of
both houses in congress and the presidency. And that is
where most of the campaign money goes. But I do not know
whether things would get better relative to overuse of
psychotropic drugs regardless of who is in office. Special
interests are going to have more control than one might
think they should have whether it is drugs or anything else.

I seem to blame a much larger segment than just the FDA
and the drug companies. And also believe much more lacking
when it comes to the way the drugs are over pushed than just
the suicide situation.

ooooo Some Specific sub points.

It is good to see at least something about those in the
referenced article.

Such as :

a . How some times the toxicity of the drugs are mistaken
as an assumption that the underlying illness is progressing.
Doctors sometimes will ignore pleas that the drugs are
causing this or that problem, based on part that they think
it is the illness progressing.

b . For some people taking SSRIs it is like taking LSD. I
think for some people it can be like taking all kinds of
harmful things - not just LSD.

c. Relative to the comment the author made about those
put into psychiatric hospitals due to effects of the drugs
I would add that in addition to the known people, there are
also those who the doctors would not admit were in the
psychiatric hospital because of the drugs either they
themselves gave them, or colleagues gave them..

d. The author seems to blame largely the FDA and Big
Pharma. I would extend that blame to more than just that.
As far as the FDA goes, it is the top people who block the
information. And it is the top people who are directly
appointed by the President and have direct contact with
Congress. So if one wants to blame the FDA, one needs to
blame the elected officials who like to try keep the drug
companies happy. The Congress often acts like they are
going to investigate this or that, but seldom really come up
with much in the way of change. If it is not to the liking
of the drug companies (or HMOs either). Republican or
Democrat. As far as blaming the drug companies go, they
should be blamed. But much more than that. The doctors, the
schools the doctors go to, the journals they read, and all
the others who help in the process of suppressing the real
information about the drugs.

e. f. and g. She mentions in one paragraph how someone
was given the drugs without even having depression etc. How
the free drug samples do not have warnings and in addition
how the doctor doesn't explain the adverse effects. And g
how the doctors just changed drugs when problems come up.
This is something that I too have notices. But it does
not seem to be on the radar even of those who would like to
see better drug information distributed to those who are
asked by the doctors to take the drugs. Or to those who
ask the doctors for the drugs after seeing the
advertisements.

In addition to a lack of information provided to people,
some of them get sandbagged into taking the drugs who do
not even have depression or any other item that might truly
justify the drug anything that moves concept of the doctors.
And then have the drugs expanded upon into cocktails rather
than consider getting rid of the drugs when problems
appear..

h. There is mention about how if a study does not favor
the drugs the public never hears about it. Not only the
public, but the doctors might not hear of it either. The
public loses out both ways. They do not have the information
needed to make informed decisions, and the doctors on whom
they have always depended upon and trusted do not have the
information to sensibly handle the drugs either..

i. The pushing of drugs on someone that doesn't even have
depression is mentioned again in another paragraph later on
which mentions Zoloft. That paragraph contains another
item of concern which is the chemical imbalance idea. That
might be fine for those who might really have a chemical
imbalance or who might react favorably to the drugs. But it
provides just one more excuse - bit of ammunition to those
who try to insist people take drugs even if they don't want
them or even if they appear to be making things much worse.
That paragraph also mentions how the drugs are hell. That
also applies to those who got stuck with the drugs because
the doctor wanted to drug them. Who might not even have
depression.

j. There are discussion about the kids throughout the
article. . Always sad how many kids are having psychotropic
drugs these days . And even sadder when taking into
account the new ideas that can be blamed on the current
administration as to testing the kids and others etc..
And where testing everyone is likely to result in even
more drugging that is not justifiable if common sense were
utilized. I would add that it is not only the kids who
might be better off without them, but older people too.

Glad that those specific points came out. To me they are
applicable well beyond what it is that she is discussing.

Until or if the Doctors themselves learn how to think for
themselves and learn how to listen to their patients more
than the drug companies, there are going to be problems
with the over pushing of psychotropic drugs on at least
some people . And some of those people would be much
better off with no doctor, than with the psychotropic
drug pushing doctors that seem to emerge as a product of
today's medical schools and of today's information system.
An information system that is slanted towards minimizing the
knowledge of adverse effects, and maximizing whatever
benefits come from them.

This is a very long article. So I tried cutting out some of
the article . But even the remains very large Please
see the original article for the full context of the
original article.

The article is by Evelyn Pringle as previously mentioned.

http://www.opednews.com

>This conduct is not due to mistakes, it is representative of by now an
>all too familiar pattern of criminal behavior by top officials within
>the nation's top regulatory agencies and the pharmaceutical industry.
>
>This year Eli Lilly, was made to pay nearly $700 million to settle
>charges that it did not warn consumers that the drug, Zyprexa, could
>cause diabetes, which resulted in grave injuries and death to 100s of
>people, but nobody was charged with a crime.
>

The author of the article does not mention the efforts to
get everybody with depression taking Zyprexa . The so called
low dose amount. Would note that even a low dose like 2.5
mg is not something that should be as routine as it was just
a few years ago. I have never seen a direct linkage of
that process of pushing the Zyprexa on everyone when their
Prozac patent was up. They did get as far as getting it
approved for acute bi polar. And they were working on drugs
which combined the anti psychotic and the anti depressant
in one drug. (A choice of several drugs with different
dosages). Have not seem much about that lately. Hope that
might mean that idea is not being pushed as much.

>Ellen Liversidge will be at the DC rally. She lost her son due to
>Lilly's crimes and she's none to happy about the fact that as part of
>the settlement, the plaintiff's attorneys agreed not let the public
>know about the extent of Lilly's wrongdoing.
>
>In February, 2004, people may have become a bit angry when they read
>in the San Francisco Chronicle that top FDA officials had ordered one
>of its own researchers, who reviewed more than 20 trials, involving
>4000 children, not to disclose his findings that confirmed that SSRIs
>increased the risk of suicide in kids.

That was a bad moment and came from the top. Could easily be
considered as part of the usual FDA favor the drug company
tactics when they can. But it is not just the FDA.

Both the executive and congressional branches of gov't get
campaign money from the drug companies. So this is not
likely to change much no matter how much congress flaps
about it. Maybe in the most absurd situations they do
something about things. But the favoring of drug companies
not only by the FDA but by the elected congress officials
who appoint and review the people in the top jobs such as
both FDA and Health and Human Services etc. could be blamed
too.

Just consider how hard so many people do what they can to
try to make sure drug prices as high as they can be. Such
as the Medicare bill which Congress designed to try to
keep prices as high as possible etc. Some flap about that
but do not think much will come of the flaps. They even
move the top FDA people to top Health and Human services
jobs. Keep the drug companies happy it sure seems like..

Cutting out some stuff to try to reduce this very long
post.

>The symptoms of SSRI toxicity can also be mistaken for the progression
>of the underlying mental state, "leading to use of more of the same
>and other offending SSRI drugs rather than to withdrawal of the
>causative SSRI agent," he warns.

One of the excuses doctors use who continue to try to get
their patients to take drugs even when the patients
themselves feel the drugs are the problem is that it is
supposedly not the drugs, but a progression of the illness
itself. Might very well be so in a number of situations.
But there are times when people know they felt much better
before being drugged than afterwards. And it is a shame
that the doctor's answer to those pleas is to try to
continue with either a different psychotropic drug, a change
of dose, additional drugs, or simple refusal to believe the
patient. And it is a shame that even the patient's support
people can be brainwashed by the doctors to believe them
rather than the patients. Sometimes the doctors even
refuse to be live the symptoms by statements such as how
they are imagined. Or at least statements that the drugs
could not cause the problems etc. Have not seen too much
of the so called imaginary symptom excuse lately, but the
belief by some doctors that the drugs do not do harm still
seems to be around .

cutting out some more stuff

>The third was an article from the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
>researched at Yale university which stated that 11% of all psychiatric
>hospital admissions were from antidepressant-induced mania and
>psychosis. It also noted another area of research showing that Prozac
>and other SSRIs can simulate the effects of LSD.
>
>"In other words," Rosie said, "this is saying for some people, taking
>an SSRI is the same as taking LSD."

But for some people taking SSRIs can be the equivalent of
taking all sorts of bad things other than just LSD. All
people effected adversely by the drugs do not get manic, or
have the better known symptoms. But rather more rare
symptoms. Even if a drug induced symptom might be
relatively rare, some people are going to get them. And it
is sad when a patient gets a symptom only to have it
shrugged off as something that supposedly isn't happening.

>According to Rosie, "About two million people enter a psychiatric
>hospital every year, 11% then is over 200,000 people a year who have
>an antidepressant-induced psychosis and who are hospitalized," she
>reported.
>
>"Not all are hospitalized," Rosie warns, "Some of them have either
>committed suicide, a homicide, or a murder/suicide."

In addition to the 200,000 people should that be the number
, there are people who are pushed into a psychiatric
hospital because of the drugs the doctors gave them.
But without even the slightest recognition that it was the
drugs that made them sick or even could have made them sick.
In that case it could be expected that the number would be
higher than the 200,000 number .

>The truth is, nothing phases the greedy band of thugs involved in
>pushing these lethal drugs for profit. Only when they see CEOs and
>government officials being marched off to prison, right along side of
>other murderers, will they knock it off.

Do not see much hope for that. Because it would not be
just the government officials and CEOs. It would need to be
the heads of Medical schools, the doctors, the medical
journals, the news media, and many but not all of the
mental health professionals who have bought into the drug
idea . That the way to do things is to drug the living
daylights out of anyone they think is not absolutely normal
in every mental aspect. And then drug them even more if or
when they get even sicker.

Possibly the only real hope is that after the patents run
out they will come up with something else for their profits.
And hopefully the something else might not cause as much
trouble to people as the present treatments by the doctors.

Although I see little hope for the entire system to be
fixed, , some of the efforts by people have already made at
least a dent. For example the ads on TV now seem to have
much more adverse effects right in the ads. And I do not
see the ads showing all the happiness people are supposed
get from the psychotropic drugs whether they have an illness
or not. . And it was not too long ago that withdrawal
problems beyond just a couple of days was being routinely
denied as impossible by at least some doctors. Now at least
that is better known by both the doctors and the public.
Also we have seen some of the medical journals trying to
do something about the conflict of interest in the articles
that they were publishing. Plus at least some requests by
the AMA about unpublished unfavorable studies. Etc.

But even with all that, the iceberg below the tip of the
iceberg is so big that all that just makes a dent in it.

>Why are other protesters angry at the FDA and Big Pharma?

They are part of the blame of course for those who have had
problems with the drugs. But to me the real problem is the
doctors. Many of whom appear to be incapable of sorting out
the truth about the drugs in relation to adverse effects.
Even when their own patients try the best they can to tell
them. It is the patient must not have insight mentality
anytime anyone is critical about their favorite psychiatric
drugs. If one wants to blame the FDA and Big Pharma for
anything when it comes to potential misinformation (or lack
of information) about the drugs, I would think the list
could be expanded quite a bit.

Such as the system of campaign contributions where the top
levels of elected government are elected in part due to the
contributions of the drug companies, the HMOs etc. They in
turn appoint the top people to places like the FDA. And they
in turn seldom seem to fully investigate things that might
be unfavorable to their campaign contributors such as the
drug companies etc.

And if the doctors appear to be hopelessly able to cope with
situations where people are being harmed by their drugs, one
might ask how come the medical universities do not train
doctors who can think for themselves.

>Allen Routhier is the main organizer of the event, let's look at his
>reason.
>
>In June 2002, Allen's wife, Diane, was suffering from abdominal pains,
>nausea, indigestion, migraines, and backaches, and consulted her
>physician. Even though she had no history of depression, the doctor
>attributed her problems to stress and depression.
>
>The question remains why, when according to all accounts, Diane was
>known to be a fun-loving, lively, upbeat person.
>
>Without advising her of any side effects, her doctor sent her off with
>sample blister packs of Bupropion, a drug manufactured by
>GlaxoSmithKline, also known as Wellbutrin. The packs contained no
>labels, no warnings, and no indication of any adverse effects or
>reactions that she may be experience while taking the drug.
>
>Almost immediately after taking one pill, Diane became violently ill,
>with diarrhea, nausea, shakes, and a fever. She also felt irritable,
>agitated, anxious, dizzy and nervous.
>
>On Friday, June 20, 2003, Diane felt terrible and called in sick to
>work, which was highly unusual. On June 23 and 24, she was again
>bedridden and suffered from insomnia, nausea, headaches, toothaches,
>dizziness, and among other things, diarrhea.
>
>At approximately noon on June 25, her sister, Lynn, called and Diane
>cried and said she did not feel well. At some point that afternoon,
>Diane took a gun, went to a corner of the basement, laid in a fetal
>position, put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
>
>During the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered Diane had
>gallstones, a condition not diagnosed by her doctor, but which fit
>perfectly with the symptoms she complained of.
>
>Allen was left to explain a mother's death to their 2 young sons.

The above, and some of the paragraphs later on which might
be cut out for brevity include example of doctors giving
people psychotropic drugs when they don't even have anything
that would justify that In this case the person had
something other than depression. In other situations the
person can have something like even a mild anxiety, or
shyness, or even something situational.

Also it is not good that people are given the free drugs
with no mention of adverse effects on the free drug package
on by the doctor. And no chance to even see a pharmacist
for the standard consultation since one doesn't buy the free
drugs.

The exact same thing occurs with other free drugs the
doctors give people when they don't even have depression to
begin with. For example the Zoloft package had 21 pills
on a card. Maybe still does. One a day for three weeks.
Not only was there no warnings, indications of side adverse
effects or reactions, there wasn't even any instructions as
to how many to take etc.

cut out some more stuff.

>Julie had been excited about college and had scored high on her SATs a
>few weeks before her death. However, "instead of picking out colleges
>with our daughter, my wife and I had to pick out a cemetery plot for
>her," Tom said, "instead of looking forward to visiting Julie at
>school, we now visit her grave."
>
>He is very angry. "It is clear that the FDA is a political entity and
>its leadership has protected the economic interests of the drug
>industry," he said, "Under the Bush administration, the FDA has placed
>the interests of the drug industry over protecting the American
>public."
>
>He points out the fact that 86% of the millions of dollars in campaign
>contributions by drug companies went to the Bush administration and
>Republican candidates. He wants to know, "what did Pfizer, Eli Lilly,
>and GlaxoSmithKline Beecham buy?"
>
>According to Tom, top officials in leadership positions have strong
>ties to the industry. For instance, "FDA's chief counsel Daniel Troy
>has spent his career defending the drug industry," he said, "If a
>study does not favor a drug, the public never hears about it."

Seems to me the government (U.S. ) protects the drug
industry no matter who is in the presidency or who is in
congress. Most likely at least in part via campaign
contributions etc. And more the contributions are likely to
go to the party which controls all of the Congressional
committees etc. That is something that does not seem to
be changeable. No matter how much campaign finance reform
is advocated or even passed, the end result still seems to
be the same thing. The drug industry gets to do things that
do not appear too sensible. But that does not apply just
to the drug industry of course.

>Mark Miller and his wife Cheryl lost their 13-year-old son, Matt,
>after a psychiatrist gave him Zoloft. They were told that Matt had a
>chemical imbalance that could be helped by a new, wonderful drug
>called Zoloft. "It was safe, effective, only two minor side effects
>were cautioned with us - insomnia, indigestion," they said.

>While on the drug, Matt became agitated, could not sleep, eat or sit
>still. The night before they were to leave on a family vacation, Matt
>hung himself from a bedroom closet hook, barely higher than he was
>tall.

The chemical imbalance thing which ends up being an excuse
to drug people. Some might be better off with the drugs.
There might even be a chemical imbalance sometimes. But the
phrase is used as a licence by those who push the drugs
including not only doctors but other mental health
professionals to make people believer they have to take
drugs. And to make the support people of the patient think
the patient needs to take the drugs no matter what they
appear to be doing to those who have the adverse reactions.
So the patient is sort of stuck with the drug bombardment
from all sides.

Another example of doctors giving people Zoloft and other
psychotropic drugs, without mention of any potential
adverse effect. And nothing whatsoever on the
manufacturer's package either. Simply a national "drug
trap", plain and simple. Whether intended on unintended.

cut out some more

>Young Corey Baadsgaard was diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder,
>and was prescribed Paxil by his family doctor.
>
>After a couple months, he started taking larger doses because it was
>not working. A few months later, the doctor prescribed a medication
>called Effexor, and abruptly discontinued Paxil. Corey was supposed to
>gradually increase the dose of Effexor to 300 milligrams over 3 weeks.
>
>The day he took the 300 milligram dose, Corey didn't feel well so he
>stayed home from school and went back to sleep. That evening he woke
>up in a juvenile detention center.
>
>Unaware of what he had done, Corey said, "I asked one of the members
>of the juvenile detention center, and I found out that I had taken my
>high-powered rifle that I use for hunting to my third period class,
>took 23 of my classmates hostage and teacher hostage."
>
>Corey spent 14 months in jail, "not really knowing why I had been
>there, not really remembering anything that I had done," he said.
>
>"These drugs are hell," his father Jay said, "look at what they have
>done to my son."

Getting Paxil for social anxiety. And then getting a change
in dose or a change of drugs if it does not work too well.

The change in dose might even be a "decrease" to start with.
But sooner or later the dose is up or /and the drugs are
changed to another SXXX. Or even supplemented with non
SXXX drugs such as the anti psychotics.

The ending does not even have to be as extreme as mentioned
in many of the examples in the article. Sometimes people
are even helped by the drugs. Even for anxiety. But other
times when the doctors push the drugs all sort of problems
appear and people get stuck due to a trust they had in the
medical profession before getting involved in the mental
drug type of thing. Until they finally begin to figure out
that the doctors not only do not know everything, but
much of what the appear to know is not true for those
particular people who adversely react to the drugs.

cutting some more stuff out

>Jame Tierney was 14 years old when he was prescribed Effexor for
>migraine headaches. After about a year, the drug lost its
>effectiveness and his doctor doubled the dose.
>
>"For the next 9 months," Jame recalled, "my life as I had known it was
>gone. I thought daily about suicide and hurting myself. I felt void of
>normal emotions. I was so belligerent, agitated, and filled with hate
>- hate for my family, my friends, and most of all myself. Rage
>consumed me. I felt trapped," he said.
>
>Jame did things totally out of character. "I had little control and
>little inhibition," he said, "It was as if I was watching a movie and
>some villain was destroying all the relationships around me."
>
>He spent most his time alone or else fighting with his parents. "They
>would ask what was wrong and what had happened to me," Jame said, and
>"I could not answer them because I did not know or understand myself.
>I was terrified."
>
>He thanks God that his parents continued to search for answers. It was
>the Effexor. It was not prescribed for depression and he had no
>history of depression prior to taking the drug.
>
>To counter the potential withdrawal effects, Jame was given Prozac,
>and the same personality and behavior problems were evident. The drug
>affected him the same way.
>
>"I had never had these feelings before I took Effexor," Jame said, "I
>have never had these feelings since I stopped taking the Effexor and
>Prozac."
>
>The way Jame sees it, "Effexor took three years from me and I will
>never get them back."

Here is one more example of someone who suffered due to
having the drugs pushed on them and where it is not clear
that it was a good idea to start the psychotropic drugging
in the first place. . It is also an example where
someone ( a parent) actually helped the person by realizing
that it was the drug that caused the new problems. But
then look at what happened. Out of the frying pan into
the fire. Another drug provided instead of considering not
taking those things. It seems so rare that once people
start the drugging anyone helps them consider getting off
the drugs instead of just helping try more and more drugs..

cut some more
>
>Shannon Baker does not complain about her daughter's side effects,
>adverse reactions, or withdrawal symptoms, because her daughter is no
>longer alive.
>
>Sharon wants to be "the voice of all the other children who's voices
>have been silenced by these drugs," she said. She wants a ban on the
>use of SSRIs with children. "There needs to be no more senseless and
>needless deaths because of these drugs," she said.
>
>Dawn Rider, president of ASPIRE, gave this warning, "We have been
>educated to believe that mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders
>are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. The fact is that this
>is only theory, and this theory is pushed on us as if it were the
>absolute truth."
>
>Many people who believe this theory have become guinea pigs, "I know
>this from personal experience," Dawn said, "I trusted our family
>doctor when he explained that depression is caused by a chemical
>imbalance. We trusted him when he determined that Paxil was right for
>my husband, and Prozac for my son."

It is normal for people to trust doctors. That is why it can
take quite a while before people realize what might have
been unthinkable for most of their lives. That the doctor
does not always know what they are doing when it comes to
mental things. Or that the chemical imbalance thing can
just be another excuse to keep drugging them. Even if there
might or might not be an imbalance, it should not be used as
an excuse to brainwash people into letting themselves or
their loved ones get the living daylights drugged out of
them.

>Dawn's 14-year-old son is now dead, and when they "discovered the
>problems with these drugs, we decided it would be better for my
>husband to suffer through depression than end up dead like our son,"
>she said, "and we found out that he could not get off of Paxil."
>
>Her husband went through a year of hell before he was able to withdraw
>from the drug, and in the process, Dawn said, "it destroyed our
>marriage of over 20 years.

And yet so many doctors refused to believe that there even
was such a thing as withdrawal. They were led to believe,
and then they keep repeating the drug is supposedly out of
the system in two days or so. And therefore it is
supposedly impossible to have the symptoms relate to the
drugs. Knowledge about this by the doctors has improved
quite a bit over the last few years. But it was only a
short while ago that few even knew there was such as thing.

cut some more

>Todd and Eileen Shivak's son Michael was 11 when he was given Paxil
>for depression. They thank God he is alive after he tried to slash his
>wrists in a classroom at school.
>
>"We thought we were doing the right thing," his parents explain, "the
>doctors convinced us that taking these drugs was the only thing that
>we could do for Michael."
>
>"How could all the doctors not recognize what was happening?" Todd
>asks, "Michael saw three different social workers, two different
>psychiatrists, and went through at least four
>different emergency room psychological evaluations in two different
>hospitals."

Getting some one to realize the drugs are a problem can be
difficult. It can take more than just several doctors, a
slew of social workers , a slew of therapists and maybe
even a slew of hospitals to finally find someone who
understands that psychotropic drugs are not the answer to
everything for everybody

Those who get drugs that do them some good are fortunate.

Those who get the drugs and are not helped are unfortunate.

But those who get drugs that do them harm and people won't
listen are double unfortunate. Unfortunate to have been
drugged, and unfortunate to have found that no one who is
supposed to know about these things understand that the
drugs caused the problem

cut some more..

>Leah believes that "Medical professionals and the public must be
>informed of the very serious risks that are associated with SSRIs." He
>noted that warnings may negatively affect sales and not please the
>industry, but said, "the FDA was created as an independent regulatory
>agency to serve the interests of the American public, not Big Pharma."

The FDA is not a vacuum. The top at FDA operates under the
oversight of Congressional politicians and are appointed
by the executive branch with consent of congress as far as I
know. The FDA could not possibly have done so many bad
things if it were not for at least a tacit permission or
negligence of the Congress and Executive branch of the
United states.

So it is not the FDA itself that should get the blame. But
rather those who get elected and choose to have the FDA be a
political rather than a scientific entity.

And the blame can go beyond even Congress and the Executive
branch. It can be given to the e doctors who can not figure
things out for themselves. If it were to differ from what
they are told by the supposed research, medical journals,
drug reps etc. And to the Medical schools who train them (or
miss train them).

If we had good doctors then it might not matter so much that
the special interests sort of run the country. Because then
no matter what the government did or did not do, less people
would get attacked with psychotropic drugs from the people
they trusted the most.

cut out some more

>Many readers might want to advise these people to go to government
>officials with these horror stories, the people who can punish drug
>companies for hiding adverse reactions and not warning people about
>the dangers associated with drugs.
>
>The problem is they already have. The tragic stories above were
>relayed to officials during the February 2, 2004, FDA hearing.
>
>Its now 18 months later, and needless to say, nobody has been
>punished.

Do not expect anyone to be punished. There isn't anyone
capable of punishing anyone who is not part of the blame.
And people are not going to punish themselves. Hopefully as
more and more of the stories get out from the patient's
viewpoint rather than from the doctor's or govt viewpoint,
maybe things will get better?

One could of course try to get someone else elected, but
even if that was possible it is not clear much would change.

>Evelyn Pringle
>epringle05@yahoo.com
>
>(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an
>investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government)
>