A recent study says that adult-onset ADHD is probably very rare or non-existent. According to a story in the NYTimes, psychiatrists had previously estimated that up to 10 percent of adults had the disorder. Instead of ADHD, researchers found most cases caused by marijuana use or mood disorders.
Posts tagged - psychiatry
What’s Wrong with Mixing Electricity and Brains?
Most people are familiar with movies about drugs, hypnosis, electroshock and so forth that are used to manipulate and control human beings. But they’re science fiction, right? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Terminal Man, The Matrix, Total Recall, The Manchurian Candidate all feture stories about mental manipulation and control.
A little closer to reality One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest showed how electroconvulsive therapy can be used to control and suppress human beings. It was filmed at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, and created a wave of revulsion against electroshock that continues today, and is one obstacle that electroshock advocates must hurdle.
You may be surprised to discover that there are electroshock advocates who are still zapping brains. Most people think the practice died out in the early 1960s, back when author Ernest Hemingway had 15 electroshock treatments, went home, put a shotgun in his mouth and blew the top of his head off.
But psychiatrists are still putting electrodes on the sides of people’s heads and shooting current through their brains. About 100,000 people per year endure the process. Those advocates make it seem nicer these days, they put the patient to sleep first, and inject them with muscle relaxant so that they don’t break so many teeth and bones from spasms and contractions. Some even load up the body with insulin to make it go into convulsions. It has the advantage of reducing the electric bill, just an overdose of insulin and presto, you have a dazed and confused person who doesn’t seem so crazy.
Electricity even when used with good intentions often ends up in the heavy hands of control. We’ve used jolts of electricity as punishment in many ways. Electric cattle fences, cattle prods, tasers, electric shock collars for dogs, etc. Ivar Lovaas, a UCLA professor who died in 2010 began putting autistic kids barefooted on electrical wires. He’d turn on the current until they did something non-autistic, then he’d turn off the current. On off, on off,like a light switch over and over to condition the dog – or children rather – to act less autistic. Slaps, yelling, etc. were also used but electricity was the centerpiece.
And now, with the advance of technology, we’ve got subtle and not so subtle ways of using electricity to control others. Surveillance technology from closed circuit cameras to electronic ankle bracelets, GPS monitoring of cell phone locations, etc. But perhaps the most intrusive new technology is putting wires in people’s brains in something the psychs call deep brain stimulation. This electrical stimulation of the brain – like electroshock – has its own 1950s bad example.
In the early 1950, it was a secret government project called MKULTRA – don’t worry, this is not “tinfoil on head” stuff – here’s a document from the Supreme Court describing the program: “Between 1953 and 1966,” said the Supreme Court, “the Central Intelligence Agency financed a wide-ranging project, code-named MKULTRA, concerned with ‘the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.’” One project in MKULTRA was controlling the human mind with chemical and electrical brain implants. It was spurred by the Cold War and the idea was to figure out how to control the enemy’s minds and save money on bullets.
Since the project was bound to create outrage if discovered, it was kept secret for a while and when it was exposed, the CIA Director destroyed most of the records. But enough data leaked out that it was pretty big news.
Since secret government projects often appear on Wikileaks, this time around — in my opinion — a project similar to MKULTRA is being conducted in the open, albeit under cover of how electricity, wired into the brain, can cure brain diseases, epilepsy, speed up learning and so forth. It’s funded by the Department of Defense. Sound familiar? The keyword is “electroceuticals,” a combination of “electricity” and “pharmaceuticals.” And DARPA the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding it.
Another idea is to control minds with wireless electricity, so much less messy. There could be little emitters all up and down the streets making everyone very passive, or happy or normal. But that sounds like science fiction again.
So when you hear about these marvelous new techniques in which electricity makes athletes stronger, makse students smarter, makes epilepsy disappear, stops compulsions and obsessions, and cures all sorts of intractable diseases — just stop a minute and remember that this stuff can be — and probably will be — used for some new and exotic flavor of mind control.
Those of Asian Heritage Not Falling for Psychiatric Medicalization
Asians have traditionally resisted the lure of psychiatrists and their drugs, and so the psychs have intensified their efforts to turn Asians into consumers of mental health services. While nearly 20% of Americans seek mental health treatments, less than 10% of those of Asian heritage do so. The psychs – with their strategy of medicalization of many normal behaviors – are trying to establish that those of Asian heritage are as mentally ill as the rest of Americans who have been convinced through direct-to-consumer ads that they have “restless leg syndrome,” “caffeine-induced sleep disorder,” “compulsive shopping disorder,” or “disruptive behavior disorder not otherwise specified” that need treatment with psychoactive drugs.
This “disagnostic inflation” according to one psychiatrist appears as medicalization, DSM imperialism and other descriptive terms whereby ordinary or quirky behaviors well within the bounds of acceptance in society are redefined as psychiatric disorders for which some expensive dangerous psychoactive drug is just the ticket.
As an example of “diagnostic creep” Autism was once a rare but severe disorder which just grew and grew, including less severe behaviors, such as children who don’t play well with others and so forth. Then in 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 – used to bill insurance for disorders voted into existence by psychiatrists – pulled all the lesser behaviors into a gigantic category called “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
But according to Swedish and Danish studies of more than a million children, there was no real increase in autism even while those diagnosed with autism increased significantly. “Two-thirds of the increase in autism diagnoses in Denmark were due to the way the disorder is diagnosed and monitored,” said a report .
Electroshock Roundup
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.
Las Vegas Shooter on Psych Drugs
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, mass murderer Stephen Paddock, was prescribed the anti-anxiety drug Valium in June, and also in 2016. The drug, which is also known as diazepam, was reported to create an increased risk of aggressive behavior, according to a Finnish study of some 960 people, reported by CBS.
According to the CBS article “the odds of committing homicide were 31 percent higher during time periods when offenders were on antidepressants, versus when they were not.” But the article quickly went on to say that the danger was insignificant, and psychiatrists, as could be expected, agreed.
Notably, Scientology actress Kirstie Alley was scorned on Monday when she said that psychiatric drugs contributed to many mass shootings. And the Citizens Commission for Human Rights has been saying that for years. None of that now seems so far-fetched, especially since investigators have so far been unable to find a motive for the largest mass shooting in American history.
Depressed? Antidepressants an Expensive Scam
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.
A 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.
Shrinks, Witch Finders, Gourd Rattlers and Snake Oil Salesmen Decide Who is Fit to be President
Well, the psychs are at it again. A bunch of shrinks — who get together at conventions, have a few drinks, listen to a pharmaceutical marketing expert and then vote on what’s crazy and what isn’t — have diagnosed the President of the United States as nuts in a new book. And a few thin-skinned media pundits who have been verbally taken to task for slanted or anti-Trump reporting have joined the “Trump is nuts” crowd.
Perhaps what tipped the scale was when Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier quit the President’s Manufacturing Council after the President’s condemnation of the Charlottesville tragedy was slow in coming. In a notable swipe at big pharma, Trump tweeted: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” That must have sent a shiver of alarm through the $1 trillion global pharmaceutical markets.
The “Trump is nuts” movement is just the latest episode of a long history of psychs of various stripes lusting for the authority to decide who should be in charge, and who is “defective” and should be marginalized or institutionalized. There are crazy people, of course, but psychiatrists have no idea how to diagnose them and have yet to cure anybody. Instead, they prescribe drugs that amp up “homicidal ideation,” increase the risk of death by 33%, and which are no more effective at curing anybody than sugar pills. Nevertheless, they issue their pronunciamentos as if they knew what they were doing.
What they are doing is wedging their way into key decision-making posts, becoming gatekeepers at choke points to a better life. In education, for example, psychologists developed standardized tests to put a stamp of scientific legitimacy on racism and discrimination.
Psychs want the authority to decide who is admitted to university and who is rejected, who gains a scholarship and who should stay home, who is hired and who is unemployed. In the past, intelligence tests were used to exclude racial groups from immigration, higher education and employment. Those judged feebleminded were often sterilized.
Psychiatry has also been used to discredit individuals who rebel or are critical of leaders. Whistleblowers are prime targets. Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, for example, were labeled “narcissistic” over and over again, painting them with a personality disorder.
And after all, who in their right mind would disagree with some “Dear Leader” but the insane? The Soviets, Chinese, North Koreans, and others put political dissidents into mental institutions where they may be locked up , drugged, electroshocked and removed from the normal course of legal protection.
In 1964, the American Psychiatric Association polled members to see if Barry Goldwater was fit to become president. They showed their hand a bit early on that one, and the “Goldwater Rule” was thereby enacted which states that psychiatrists may not comment on the mental health of a public figure they have not personally examined and been granted permission to disclose the findings.
Last year, an NPR Morning Edition segment titled “Hidden Factors in your Brain Help to Shape Beliefs on Income Inequality” was a bit more subtle. It cited a research study that supposedly shows that political opinions are actually a matter of brain function, and — by implication — people who tolerate income inequality have a mental defect.
Nevertheless, in the era of President Donald Trump, a few psychs have decided to break their own code of ethics and pronounced Trump afflicted with “grandiosity” and “narcissism,” among others.
Head shrinkers and snake-oil salesmen may not override the decision of the American people as to who is qualified to be president, and any attempts to do so should be seen in context as an attack on the credibility of the presidency and a forwarding of the psych agenda. Like the high priests and witch finders of old they deal in suspicion and accusation and would increase their control and their power at the expense of the Constitution. The latest move is a bill by Rep. Ted Lieu to require a White House Psychiatrist who would evidently have some authority if a President did or said unusual things.
Any position as powerful as President of the United States is always a target of detractors, people with an axe to grind, as well as outright enemies. In the Constitution are enshrined mechanisms whereby Congress can impeach and remove a President from office for cause. That standard has not been reached, and no group of witch finders, gourd rattlers and snake oil salesmen need be consulted.
How to Get All Americans on Drugs
The problem we psychiatrists and pharmaceutical CEOs face is how to hook more than 323 million people in the United States. Those 323 million people are living their lives and many don’t realize they should be on drugs. Fortunately, one in six are already taking psychoactive drugs, so the problem might not be so tough after all. That leaves some 270 million more to go. And a year ago, ABC News reported that: 21.5 million people aged 12 and older had a substance use disorder in 2014.
OK, so that leaves about 248 million total that aren’t on regular psychoactive drugs. About 40,000 people died last year of opioid overdoses, so that helps trim the odds, but it’s a slow process, and about 4 million babies were born in the same period, and even though from .06 percent to .34 percent of them were born addicted to opioids, they keep arriving and most are born clean. Luckily, kids – especially boys – don’t like to sit still and thus they drive teachers crazy, so we put at least 10 percent of the teachers on antidepressants and about 11 percent of children aged 4-17 are on ADHD drugs. As they get older, well, you know how teenagers love drugs!
By the time they get to be teenagers, 15 percent have all the indicators of lifetime alcohol abusers, and 16 percent are confirmed drug abusers. But even though drugs are easy for them to access — 81 percent have the opportunity to use illicit substances, unfortunately only about 42.5 percent actually tried them. So we’ve got to do better at getting them to try drugs, and then lace them with opioids or Fentanyl to make those kids permanent users.
Once we’ve got those low-hanging fruit, though, the tough part starts, and we need a plan, as there’s a lot of people still resisting psychoactive drugs and cutting into our profits and our control. Medical offices are doing their part, asking patients if they have pain and prescribing heavy opioids for it. But “the opioid crisis” as the whiners call it, is giving opioids a bad name. Luckily we’ve got “direct to consumer” ads for prescription drugs so that bumped our sales up 30 percent or more, but we’ve got a lot more to do. So the next step is a bit of a detour, but stay with me, it will all make sense in a moment.
The first step is to legalize street drugs, starting with marijuana. About 20 states have legalized it for medical use which is pretty easy to establish for most people. “Ow! My back hurts,” is about all it takes. Eight states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, and there’s not much push-back on it, surprisingly. Luckily, parents and grandparents from the 1960s – who smoked weed with 1-3 percent THC – don’t realize that the THC in these new varieties can be as high as 37 percent. And very bright marijuana dispensaries are putting THC in gummy bears, cookies, candy and berry smoothies, to draw in the younger crowd.
The next step is to legalize heroin, methamphetamine, etc. Now if you don’t think that’s possible, hold on to your hat. Oregon has already decriminalized possession of small amounts, and a California ballot measure would legalize psychedelic mushrooms, and that’s just the beginning.
So with marijuana legalized, opioids all over the place, the next step is something called “Harm Reduction.” This is where we really scoop up the undrugged. Here’s how it sounds, goes something like this: “The war on drugs is lost, you can’t keep people off drugs, the kids are going to experiment, so we might as well legalize everything, and make it safe to use. Give the kids clean needles, drugs that aren’t laced with other stuff, give them a safe place to use. Kids are going to experiment, so let’s make it safe for them to do so. Keep government out of things we do to our own bodies, follow the libertarian ideal, use drugs if you want. Stuff like meth that makes you crazy, well just be careful, you know.”
So here’s our opportunity. Drugs are going to hook millions of people. Couple shots of meth and bang! We have a psycho who needs lifelong maintenance care. Kids on opioids just trippin’ away, everybody smoking powerful weed. We’re already discovering – surprise surprise – that marijuana use causes psychosis, which should bring in lots of visits to psychiatry, during which they can prescribe “Medication Assisted Treatment” or MAT. So what you do with MAT is switch the user from an opioid or meth or weed to methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone. Those are legal drugs that we manufacture, and with the Affordable Care Act’s parity between physical and mental health, it’s all paid for by the taxpayers. And by the way, methadone is super addictive as well, and the psychiatrists have deemed drug dependence an illness that is lifelong, so we have a lifetime income for every customer we treat.
But now comes the beautiful part. Our pharmaceutical companies can now produce ecstasy, heroin, oxycontin, methamphetamine, codeine, all that lovely stuff. We’re all rigged up to produce billions of pills, and make trillions of dollars, and we are all legal, so people trust our products. Then we drop the prices to squeeze out all the other competitors, then we own the drug business, and almost all of those 323 million people are our customers, paying us trillions of dollars.
But wait, there’s more! With all those overdoses, we also have a drug for that! Evzio, for example, will save those dying of overdoses, and costs $4,500/dose. With everyone on opioids, every first responder, cop, teacher, parent, doctor, nurse, bartender, drill sargeant, minister is going to need one! Bonanza!
Right now, in 2017, BigPharma — I think we’re justified in calling ourselves that, don’t you? — BigPharma is making more than $1 trillion a year in revenue on drugs, with a 21 percent profit margin, and some 7,000 new drugs in development. Oh sure, we have our detractors, the Scientologists, drug abuse organizations, parents, law enforcement, but we alone practically support the media networks with direct to consumer drug ads, we support state and local governments with taxes on drug sales, and in a few years we will run this country. We’ve been spreading lies about Scientology since 1950, but more needs to be done.
Pablo Escobar controlled the government of Colombia with cocaine drug money, but he’s small potatoes compared to what we will do to Planet Earth! Viva Farmaceutico! Viva Psiquiatria! Viva Mucho Dinero!
The Return of Government Mind Control Programs
CIA Director Richard Helms, who in 1973 tried to destroy all trace of MKULTRA.
Back during the Cold War, the government – worried about Soviet, Chinese and North Korean brainwashing – began experimenting with mind control techniques. One of the worst was MKULTRA. According to government records: “Between 1953 and 1966,” said the Supreme Court, “the Central Intelligence Agency financed a wide-ranging project, code-named MKULTRA, concerned with ‘the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.’ The program consisted of some 149 subprojects which the Agency contracted out to various universities, research foundations, and similar institutions. At least 80 institutions and 185 private researchers participated. Because the Agency funded MKULTRA indirectly, many of the participating individuals were unaware that they were dealing with the Agency.”
Unfortunately, in 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKULTRA records destroyed. Fortunately, some 20,000 documents were later discovered, and in 2001 some surviving information was declassified and thus much of the impact of this program became public record.
What was discovered were horrific experiments – many conducted with unwitting subjects – using drugs such as LSD, electroshock, and unconsciousness to eliminate memories or to plant false ones. “Psychic driving” by Dr. Ewen Cameron, killing an elephant with LSD by Louis Jolyon West and electrical and chemical brain implants by Manuel Rodriguez Delgado.
Recently, Rodriguez Delgado’s work with implants that delivered electricity and chemicals directly to the brain (which he called stimoceivers and chemitrodes respectively) have returned with more advanced technology, disguised as help and healing. “Electroceuticals,” developed by GlaxoSmithKline and other drug firms, are electronic brain implants to replace the heavy hand of psychopharmaceuticals with their no-better-than-placebo results, skyrocketing costs, unpredictable and sometimes lethal side effects, and competition by generic drug equivalents.
Pharmaceutical companies, the military and psychiatry are again hard at work to recreate the same mind-control techniques supposedly abandoned almost 70 years ago. Consider that DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency predicts that within a few years, scientists will gain the ability to wipe out a PTSD-causing memory and replace it with something else. Flowers and sunny days, perhaps. DARPA’s “Electrical Prescriptions” program (ElectRx) seeks to develop “… real-time biosensors and novel neural interfaces using optical, acoustic, electromagnetic, or engineered biology strategies…” Like MKULTRA, mind control experiments are targeted on veterans – in World War II they were afflicted with “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” and in recent times, it’s “PTSD.” It seems that veterans in trouble are convenient targets for experiments in mind control.
And Louis Jolyon West’s psychedelic druggings are back again as well. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) seeks to use MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and similar drugs to “treat” PTSD and other conditions.
So can the government, big pharma and psychiatry be trusted with mind control? In the 1950s they secretly implemented a mind control agenda with MKULTRA using drugs, electrical stimulation and electroshock. Do they deserve a second chance with the latest and greatest technology? Have they reformed?
In 2013 Edward Snowden exposed a secret NSA surveillance program called Prism. Twenty years earlier, the Clinton Administration tried to implement the Clipper Chip that would put a government backdoor in all computers and networks. That flopped amid public outrage, but it seems now that the government went ahead anyway snooping into phone records, Internet, email and other communications.
The FDA just decided to lower the risk category of electroconvulsive “therapy” so children can receive it, and pharmaceuticals are now a $1.5 trillion dollar economic giant. So no, these psychedelic, electrode implanting, pill pushing electroshocking cretins cannot be trusted and must be stopped.
Pregnant? Taking Antidepressants? Don’t
A study of a million Danish children revealed the following: “In utero exposure to antidepressants was associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders.” The study, published by the British Medical Journal and reported in Science Daily, studied the children over a period of 16 years. Eight percent of children who had not been exposed to antidepressants in the womb were later diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, compared to 14.5 percent of children born to women who began taking antidepressants during pregnancy.
The study posited that mental disorders are influenced by heredity and that use of antidepressants increased the expression of that heredity. However, as detailed in many other studies “the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses is still a serious problem, and the National Institute of Mental Health says that about 13 percent of children aged 8-15 had a diagnosable mental illness in one year of study. However, those included children who couldn’t sit still in class (ADHD) who didn’t do what they were told (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and so on, down the long trail of disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which are decided by psychiatrists who vote on what to include. The DSM’s shoddy inclusions and exclusions of disorders and clamoring for insurance billing has been so controversial lately, that even the National Institute of Mental Health has withdrawn support. Suffice it to say that if you are pregnant, or expect to be soon, it’s better to abstain from alcohol, antidepressants, thalidomide, etc. And Consumer Reports also has a list of 10 over-the-counter drugs to avoid during pregnancy.
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