Posts tagged - antidepressants

Take the Poison and the Antidote and Call Me in the Morning

Posted on: November 14, 2017, in: , , , , ,

death pixabayBigPharma is busily creating poisons and antidotes, and making big bucks on both. The latest is Ingrezza, an antidote for tardive dyskinesia, caused by antipsychotic medications. Tardive dyskinesia causes uncontrollable motions of face and body such as sticking out the tongue, waving the arms, moving the lips and so on. Often it’s permanent. One of the problems with Ingrezza is “somnolence” so it can put you to sleep and you might snore, but hopefully your arms will stop waving and your mouth will stop moving. With lots of research, BigPharma will soon have some kind of speed-type stuff to handle that sleepy side-effect stuff. And a 30-count bottle of 40mg Ingrezza tablets will cost you – or the taxpayers if you have some kind of universal health coverage – about $5,275.

Other examples of the poison/antidote paradigm are all the street drugs – which were all invented by BigPharma – and now with medication assisted treatment, addicts get off the illegal street drug poisons and get onto the prescription medication antidotes like methadone, which are really actually poisons themselves, but at least they are billable under Medicaid and insurance and BigPharma can profit from them unlike the street drugs they invented but can no longer monetize.

But as the rehab people can tell you, methadone is an opioid which is actually harder to kick than heroin, as it takes longer to metabolize. Luckily, the psychiatrists have already decreed that addiction is a chronic disease, just exactly like diabetes, for example, and so lifelong medication assisted treatment is prescribed. So there’s little danger of addicts, or patients as they are now called, getting off the stuff for good, unless they die, and BigPharma has a drug to prevent that.

Somewhere  along the way, when the poisons/antidotes/poisons get too much for the body, BigPharma has a real antidote called Naloxone or Narcan that shuts off the effects of opioids temporarily and allows the addict/patient to begin breathing again. It doesn’t stop the addiction – which, as you will recall, is officially a lifelong disease – so poison antidote Narcan, poison, antidote, Narcan will likely continue until death of the addict/patient.

IMHO, BigPharma should be required to do amends on all the poisonous crap they have poured into the public bloodstream, by funding drug rehab centers around the country that have as a product a person stably off all drugs. In addition, Congress could implement this 12-step program to get America off drugs. Maybe then we could get back to a real life where drugs are only for real diseases.

No Comments

The Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Railroad

Posted on: November 01, 2017, in: , , , , , , ,

robot pixabayYou take 200 depressed people, implant wires into their brains. Half of the implants you charge with electricity, half you don’t, to get a good control group. Results? A flop, but some people want to keep the implants after the test. Why? Well, as studies have established, depressed people feel better when people ask them how they feel, with a live person running their fingers through those wires in the head. Ethics aside, the big question is – who will pay for these implants, the follow ups, the flashlight batteries, and after the subject’s demise the autopsy, brain slicing and microscopy?

The patients won’t be paying, because as psychiatry transitions from pharmaceuticals that don’t work to implants that won’t work (electroceuticals they are called) bigpharma needs trillion-dollar revenues to overcome generic drug competition, expiring patents, the gradually rising specter of drug side effects such as mass murder, and basically, the fact that popular drugs like antidepressants don’t work, or work only because of “the placebo effect.” And to fund this transition we’re talking big money, that can only come from Medicare, the Veterans Administration, insurance companies or best of all, a single-payer health care system that operates on “from each according to ability, to each according to need.”

This is the beginning, IMHO, of a drive to get deep brain implants, and their cousins, “transcranial magnetic stimulation” paid for not as freaky science experiments but as legitimate treatments for mental and physical disorders. And that means some big bucks, in the “Trillion-with-a-T” range. In exchange, perhaps we can one day plug into our computers and learn to play the piano or dance the tethered tango.

In the meantime, to get us accustomed to the idea, we’re already implanting RFID dog-tracking chips in people for their own good and to give them immediate access to buy stuff from the snack machine, login to computers and use pay toilets. It’s like those spy movies where the guy — to get off the grid — must dig a tracking chip out of his arm with a steak knife.

First to get the implants will be guys with big federal government pockets. Veterans with VA benefits and PTSD, most likely, on lifetime subscription plans paid for by adding to our Chinese debt. Anyway, we’re being railroaded down the track of bad ideas fueled by good sci-fi movies. And – I have to do this – as the Borg always said, “resistance is futile.“

No Comments

The Opioid Crisis: A BigPharma Marketing Scheme?

Posted on: October 26, 2017, in: , , , , , ,

There’s lots of attention now on treating opioid addicts. In the news this week, FDA Commissioner  Scott Gottlieb said that the government would focus on Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) to help all the addicts hooked on opioids. But not everybody likes that idea.

“If we’re just substituting one opioid for another,” said Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, in the same news article. “We’re not moving the dial much.” Price may have been referring to the idea – pushed by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical firms  – that addiction is a lifelong mental disease, and needs lifelong “treatment” with other opioids manufactured and sold by BigPharma. One hooked person is a lifelong customer, regardless of whether the addiction began on the street or in a doctor’s office.

Big pharma created heroin (Bayer) and LSD (Sandoz). Merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine, distributed cocaine and invented MDMA. OxyContin which started the latest “opioid crisis” was created by German scientists and pushed into society by Purdue Pharma. Crystal meth was first created in Japan and after World War II Abbott Laboratories won FDA approval for meth as a remedy for alcoholism and weight gain. Fentanyl, responsible for the majority of opioid overdose deaths, was invented by Janssen Pharmaceutica.

Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)  takes people addicted to heroin, for example, and switches them to legal pharmaceutical products such as methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone. So much for the poison.

BigPharma also markets the antidote. A drug to use in cases of opioid overdose, called Naloxone  (Also called Narcan and Evzio).  Thousands of first responders, doctors, and family members of addicts or those on opioid pain relievers now carry this opioid antidote. The cost of a dose just jumped from $575  to about $4,500 according to Wired Magazine, and has a shelf life of 18-24 months.

So poison plus antidote, it’s all good if you’re BigPharma. Create all the nasty drugs to hook people, get your reps to push prescription opioids, hook thousands, create a crisis, and divert the addicts to Medication Assisted Treatment on other opioids you can bill insurance for. The ones that overdose, give them a $4500 shot of Naloxone and keep them alive and using.

And since drug addiction is a mental disease, the psychs get in on the fun as well, prescribing shrink meds that have lots of side effects like mass shootings, after which psychs can offer counseling in the form of more prescriptions. And now that marijuana legalization is spreading, the psychs have conveniently discovered that smoking weed creates psychosis, which needs treatment, pharmaceuticals, etc. And down the rabbit hole we go.

 

No Comments

Five Strikes Against Antidepressants

Posted on: October 26, 2017, in: , , , ,

NO DRUGS pixabayWhat’s wrong with antidepressants? Five things, for starters. Studies show them being only slightly more efficacious than placebos, increasing the incidence of “suicidality,” significantly increasing the risk of death, and when taken by pregnant women, increasing the incidence of mental illness in their children. And while most of these studies were fairly recent, pharmaceutical companies have for some time not been reporting negative effects of their products.

There are a few other things. Antidepressants, well, they depress people, and they cost a lot more than exercise and cutting sugar from the diet, which work about as well as the antidepressants. The only reason you might want to take them, or recommend them to a friend, is if you would like to help boost the income of the world’s highest paid pharmaceutical and health care CEOs.

No Comments

An Open Letter to Dr. Joshua Gordon, Director NIMH

Posted on: October 25, 2017, in: , , , ,

Dr. Joshua Gordon
Director, National Institute of Mental Health
25 Oct. 2017

Dear Dr. Gordon,

I was encouraged by something you said in an interview with the Washington Post recently:

“All these off-label uses of any of our psychiatric medications result from desperation on the part of both patients and physicians who don’t know what else to do for their patients . . . The evidence for any of them is nonexistent or minimal. But we don’t have good alternatives. We don’t have evidence-based treatments that really do the job. So that means that people turn to whatever can help them in a symptomatic way . . . It’s a problem that’s borne out of the fact that our treatments just don’t work, or don’t work well, for a substantial fraction of our patients.”

Many people have decried the use of antidepressants, for example, as studies show them being only slightly more efficacious than placebos, increasing the incidence of “suicidality,” significantly increasing the risk of death, and when taken by pregnant women, increasing the incidence of mental illness in their children. And while most of these studies were fairly recent, pharmaceutical companies have for some time not been reporting negative effects of their products.

Research does show that simple measures such as cutting sugar from the diet, and engaging in exercise do help reduce depression, have few side effects and cost patients or the treasury little to nothing.

I hope you will have the interest and ability help transition the psychiatric profession back to talk therapy, and off the money train of harmful, ineffective and expensive pharmaceuticals. Your own agency found that simple postcards and phone calls reduced the risk of suicide in patients as effectively as other more harmful treatments.

Also it seems that as pharmaceuticals become less popular, psychiatry is reverting to “electroceuticals” psychedelics and electroconvulsive therapy. I say reverting, because in the 1960s the MKULTRA project investigated these same methods as mind control techniques. Electroceuticals, for example, as developed by Dr. Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado for MKULTRA were then called “Stimoceivers” and “Chemitrodes.” Please look elsewhere for remedies.

Thanks, and good luck on your new post.

Best,

Wayne Edward Hanson
wehanson@aol.com

No Comments

India Escapes Psychiatry (So Far)

Posted on: October 14, 2017, in: , , , ,

Mental Health pixabayAccording to an article in The News Minute, some Indian states have less than 10 psychiatrists, and the Health Ministry is trying to change that. Instead of sensibly working to reduce the number of shrinks to zero, incredibly, India is trying to attract more of them!

According to the World Health Organization, over five crore Indians [one crore is 10 million] suffered from depression in 2015 and had the highest estimated number of suicides.

Perhaps the Health Ministry should review the figures: Psychiatrists find that prescribing drugs pays much better than communicating, and so they nearly always treat depression with antidepressants. If the Health Ministry succeeds in attracting a passel of shinks and their prescription pads here is what could happen:

First: Placebos are nearly as effective as antidepressants, and placebos cost less and have fewer side effects, such as suicide. Yes, one of the side-effects of antidepressants is suicide!

Second: A study revealed that communication works better at preventing suicide than antidepressants. But like the dinosaur, psychiatrists who can communicate have gone extinct in the survival of the richest.

Third: A 15-year study of Swedish women showed that instead of reducing suicides as expected, antidepressants actually increased the incidence of suicide.

Fourth: Antidepressants increase the risk of death by 33 percent as they block the absorption of serotonin by organs that need it.

Fifth: A Duke University study back in 2000 established that physical exercise was as effective at treating depression as Zoloft.

Sixth: Cutting out sugar in the diet –according to another study — reduced depression by 23%.

Seventh: Testing of antidepressants has ignored negative effects of the drugs according to Scientific American, and so statements of safety are as suspect as statements of efficacy.

Seventh: Those of Asian heritage have largely turned down psychiatric medications, as has India. China and India have huge populations and thus are prime targets for psychiatrists and their pharmaceutical partners.

So in Summary: If the Indian Ministry of Health wants to increase suicides and depression, empty the treasury, and make things worse all around, bring on the psychs! If, on the other hand, the Ministry wants to decrease suicides and depression, then find people who can communicate effectively with people who are depressed, dispense placebos, promote physical exercise, cut down sugar in the diet and get rid of the psychiatrists already in each state.

No Comments

Electroshock Roundup

Posted on: October 05, 2017, in: , , , ,

Cerletti's original electroshock machine adapted from a slaughterhouse pig-shocker. Photo by Francesca.pallone

Cerletti’s original electroshock machine adapted from a slaughterhouse pig-shocker. Photo by Francesca.pallone

In a PETA release, a USDA inspector recently witnessed meat plant workers electroshocking a pig multiple times  as it shrieked and struggled hanging from a chain. And for those who quibble that shocking pigs has nothing to do with electroshocking human beings? Inventor Ugo Cerletti got the idea for electroshocking humans from watching pigs being electroshocked to make them docile before their throats were cut. And cannibals once called human entrees “long pig” because they taste alike. But I digress.

Norway has evidently been shocking people for their own good, but without their consent, and Pennsylvania is trying to ban the use of electroshock on children a move perhaps sparked by the FDA’s decision to reduce the threat level of bolts of juice through the brain so that everybody can now enjoy it.

Utah is using a device to shoot electricity into the ears of prisoners to stop opioid cravings, and finally just for a change of pace, in the UK, mental patients are being taught magic tricks to boost self-esteem. Perhaps they can use it to better hide the antidepressants they are supposed to be swallowing.

No Comments

Depressed? Antidepressants an Expensive Scam

Posted on: October 03, 2017, in: , , , ,

According to Scientific American, one out of 10 Americans take anti-depressants, and they are the most commonly taken prescription drugs in America.

But antidepressants are a scam. “An in-depth analysis of clinical trials,” said the Scientific American story subhead “reveals widespread underreporting of negative side effects, including suicide attempts and aggressive behavior.”

Other studies established that antidepressants are only slightly better at dealing with depression than placebos, and the slight difference might be because of the “placebo effect” of the antidepressants. The more it costs, the better it should work, right?

Another report said that cutting down on sugar reduces depression.

Exercise PixabayA number of studies say that exercise reduces depression. A Duke University study back in 2000 for example, found exercise just as effective as Zoloft for kicking clinical depression and better than Zoloft for keeping it away. But 17 years later, doctors are prescribing antidepressants instead of exercise because — well, it’s easier and there’s big money in it. What’s the actual cost for a hit of Zoloft? $169 for 30 25 mg tablets. Maybe your copay is much less, but somebody is paying the difference, and that’s why bigpharma keeps pushing this stuff.

And then there’s death. Antidepressants significantly increased the risk of death, according to a study.

A recent report from the National Institute of Mental Health showed that one of the better treatments for those who have attempted suicide is written and verbal communication and cognitive behavioral therapy.

And finally, if you’re pregnant, a 16-year study of one million Danish children found that use of antidepressants during pregnancy increased the probability of mental illness in the children.

No Comments

Antidepressants Increase Risk of Death 33 Percent

Posted on: September 18, 2017, in: ,

Use of antidepressants increase the risk of death by 33 percent, according to an article published in Medicalxpress,  as they block the absorption of serotonin by organs – such as the heart, kidneys, lungs and liver – that require serotonin for proper functioning. ” I think people would be much less willing to take these drugs,” said study co-author Marta Maslej, “if they were aware how little is known about their impact outside of the brain, and that what we do know points to an increased risk of death.”

No Comments

Communication, Affinity Better Suicide Prevention Than Pills

Posted on: September 18, 2017, in: , , ,

Some 500,000 people are treated each year in U.S. hospital emergency rooms after harming themselves. So what’s the best way to help them? Turns out communication and affinity work better and cost less than most other treatments at preventing subsequent suicide attempts, according to a study by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Sending postcards at monthly intervals; making phone calls to offer support and encourage follow-up treatment; and cognitive behavioral therapy were found to reduce suicide risk from 30-50 percent.

As for antidepressants? They actually increase the rate of suicides, according to a recent Swedish study.

No Comments

← Older posts
Newer posts →