DO NOT MISS FOX NATIONAL NEWS CHANNEL THIS SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16TH 9PM EASTERN TIME
(check local listings for your area)
FOX NATIONAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT DOUGLAS KENNEDY ONCE AGAIN TAKES ON THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS AND PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS ON THE FOX NATIONAL NEWS SHOW "HANNITY'S AMERICA"
As many of you know, Fox National News producer and correspondent Douglas Kennedy was the first television producer to expose the link between school shootings and antidepressant drugs in his groundbreaking 2002 Fox News series, "Deadly Drugs." For the last 5 years he has become the most outspoken TV correspondent on this issue. A recent USA Today article called "More Reporters Embrace an Advocacy Role, " cited high profile "social journalists advocacy work" and included such national figures as Oprah Winfrey, ABC World News' Bob Woodruff, NBC's Anne Curry and ABC's Diane Sawyer, and Fox News' Douglas Kennedy as the leading journalist taking on the issue of the dangers of psychiatric drugs prescribed to millions of kids, "You can be objective and still take on an issue that is important to society and to you personally," Kennedy said.
This Sunday, Douglas once again takes on the psycho/pharmaceutical cartel for doling out drugs that are turning kids into killers. He says that this is his most hard hitting expose to date. You don't want to miss this. Sunday Night. Fox National News Channel. I encourage everyone concerned about this issue to tape, Tivo or better yet -- watch this show and tell everyone you know to do the same.
Showing posts with label seroquel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seroquel. Show all posts
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Omaha Mall Shooter Robert Hawkins ; Former Foster Child Had Been "Treated" For ADHD, Depression
TELL ME WHEN - WHEN - WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO STOP!!!!
WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO STOP DRUGGING OUR YOUTH?
WHEN???? ISN'T IT ALREADY TIME? NO ISN'T IT LONG PAST DUE?
Omaha Mall Shooter Robert Hawkins ; Former Foster Child Had Been "Treated" For ADHD, Depression!
Todd Landry, the director of Nebraska's child services, defended the role his agency has played in Hawkins' life. He laid out a string of specific services, including a group home, that helped care for Hawkins. He also put a price tag of $265,000 on the treatments and services rendered.
"This tragedy was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate quality of services for a youth that needed them," Landry said.
"This tragedy was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate quality of services for a youth that needed them," Landry said.
Police: Omaha Mall Shooter Stepped Off Elevator, Started Firing
Victims Included Six Department Store Workers, Two Customers at Omaha Mall
Warren says the video shows Hawkins entering the Von Maur department store in Omaha's Westroads Mall on the second level.
The video, which authorities said today they will release at the conclusion of the investigation, reportedly shows Hawkins taking the elevator to the third floor where the shooting began. He can be seen firing off shots as soon as he exits a third-floor elevator, Warren said.
Hawkins then walked to a customer service area, shot several people and then himself.
Before the shooting spree, Hawkins left a note in the home of his adopted family that said he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore. He also wrote, "Now I'll be famous." He apparently also left text and phone messages for several friends.
Before the shooting spree, Hawkins left a note in the home of his adopted family that said he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore. He also wrote, "Now I'll be famous." He apparently also left text and phone messages for several friends.
"The weapon that was used was an AK-47 assault weapon. We believe that Hawkins obtained the firearm from his stepfather. We believe that Robert Hawkins stole the firearm. It had been stored at his father's," Warren said. Authorities are not yet sure whether the weapon was legally owned.
The shooting had concluded by the time officers arrived on the scene, Warren said.
The Westroads mall was closed today.
Victims Are Identified
Today the victims were identified as Gary Sharp, a customer and resident of Lincoln, Neb.; John MacDonald, 66, a customer and resident of Council Bluffs, Iowa; Angie Shuster, 35, an employee; Maggie Webb, 24, an employee; Janet Jorgenson, 66, an employee; Diane Trent, 55, an employee; Gary Joy, 56, an employee; and Becky Flynn, 47, an employee.
Jeff Shaffart, who was shot in the arm by Hawkins, was shopping with his wife for a dress for their 2-year-old daughter. He told "Good Morning America" today that he thought balloons had popped or construction work was going on.
"It didn't dawn on me at the time I'd been shot," Shaffart said, adding that he didn't see the gunman. It wasn't until he saw blood on his fingers that he realized he had been hit. As he ducked for cover among other frightened shoppers, Shaffart said that he got separated from his wife. The sheriff arrived and essentially directed people out of the mall with a shotgun raised, reuniting the man with his wife.
'Lost Pound Puppy'
People who knew Hawkins say he was an "introverted troubled young man."
Though the first widely released picture of the gunman shows a mop-topped teen, Wednesday, he wore a military-style haircut and black outfit, witnesses said.
Hawkins, from Bellevue, Neb., was kicked out by his family about a year ago. He moved in with a friend's family, and Debora Maruca-Kovac and her husband welcomed him into their home and tried to help the teen.
"When he first came in the house, he was introverted, a troubled young man who was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted," Maruca-Kovac said in a TV interview.
Todd Landry, the director of Nebraska's child services, defended the role his agency has played in Hawkins' life. He laid out a string of specific services, including a group home, that helped care for Hawkins. He also put a price tag of $265,000 on the treatments and services rendered.
"This tragedy was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate quality of services for a youth that needed them," Landry said.
She also told the Omaha World-Herald that the night before the shooting, Hawkins and her sons showed her a rifle — the same type used in the shooting.
She said she didn't think much of it — the gun looked too old to work.
ABC News affiliate KETV in Omaha reported that police and federal agents executed a search warrant late Wednesday night at the house where Hawkins' biological mother reportedly lives.
Records in Sarpy and Washington counties show Hawkins had a felony drug conviction and several misdemeanor cases filed against him, including an arrest 11 days before the shooting for underage drinking. He was due again in court in two weeks.
Maruca-Kovac said Hawkins was fired from his job at a McDonald's this week and had recently broken up with his girlfriend. She said he phoned her at 1 p.m. Wednesday, telling her he had left a note. She tried to get him to explain.
'It's too Late'
"He said, 'It's too late,'" and hung up, Maruca-Kovac said. She says she then called Hawkins' mother.
Maruca-Kovac went to her job as a nurse at the Nebraska Medical Center, where victims of the shooting soon began to arrive.
The first 911 call came in at 3:42 p.m. ET.
Police snipers and SWAT teams were on the scene inside the busy shopping mall within six minutes, police said. The mall was placed on lockdown early Wednesday as shoppers were allowed out, but no one was permitted to enter the mall.
Employees and shoppers at the mall's Von Maur department store described hiding in offices and storerooms for about half an hour, but the shooting, which apparently were random, was already over and Hawkins lay dead on the third floor.
'Bang, Bang, Bang'
'Bang, Bang, Bang'
Roxanne Philp, an employee inside the Von Maur store on the third floor, told "GMA" that the last thing she remembered after the gunshots rang out was crawling on the floor toward a back exit.
"We have some gift-wrapping tables with the door on one end," Philp said. "I climbed inside of there and was trying to get the door closed tight so he couldn't see me."
Philp said she heard moaning from the other side of the door, but she just laid there waiting for the gunfire to stop, which it abruptly did. "You want to help the people that you love and the people you don't even know but want to help," she said. "It's just not the situation for it."
Charissa Totten, also working on the third floor of the store, immediately thought about helping guide shoppers toward the backrooms. "I kind of flagged them to the door," she told ABC News. "And then I actually stayed in the doorway because I was afraid there might be someone who hadn't made it into the backroom yet."
It's a holiday shopping nightmare that many in Omaha will have a difficult time shaking. Carol Pardon, who was shopping inside the department store when the rampage began, said it was agonizing to sit and watch as a fellow shopper nearby was hit.
'I Couldn't Help Him, I Couldn't Go to Him'
"I couldn't help him, I couldn't go to him," Pardon said. "That scene, watching his blood, you know, drift along the tiles of the Von Maur department store, that's a scene I'll never forget."
President Bush was in town for a fundraiser in Omaha, but left at about 3 p.m. ET, before the shooting, which took place around 4 p.m. ET.
Friday night members of the Omaha police bomb squad were called to the same mall when a grenade was found in the parking lot. Security guards at the mall found the explosive intact and the bomb squad safely retrieved the device.
The Von Maur store is part of a 22-store Midwestern chain. The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to its Web site.
It was the second mass shooting at a mall this year. In February, nine people were shot, five of them fatally, at Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. The gunman, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, was shot and killed by police.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Woman who jumped from Yonkers building had attempted suicide five years ago
Things that make you go Hmmmm...
Note she was taking ..
300 milligrams of Seroquel and 100 milligrams of Trazodone. Seroquel treats bipolar disorder and Trazodone treats depression.
YONKERS - A troubled 32-year-old woman who jumped to her death from a fifth-floor window Thursday night tried to commit suicide five years ago by plunging into the Hudson River, and a 71-year-old captain of the city's U.S. Volunteer Life Saving Corps died saving her life.
Francesca Perez was the person whom Capt. Frank Kendrick of Yonkers saved after she jumped off the City Pier on Sept. 11, 2002, police said. He died of a heart attack while saving Perez.
"Oh, God, that is so awful," the captain's widow, Kay Kendrick, said yesterday after hearing about the suicide. "I feel so bad for her. I never wanted to say anything bad about her because Frank lost his life. This must have been just another burden she was carrying on her shoulders."
Kay Kendrick, who watched from the pier while her husband saved Perez, said she still has visions of the woman's face in the water even though she did not know her name at the time.
"I used to call her the angel that came for Frank," she said.
Frank Kendrick has been honored in Yonkers for saving the woman and many other lives in the Hudson River.
Kendrick's widow added, "I just wish that the doctors could have helped her."
Police Capt. Frank Intervallo, whose officers were sent to the 15-21 Caryl Ave. apartment building and found Francesca Perez's body, said, "It is tragic that people feel the need to take their own lives. People with mental health issues become more disturbed during the wintertime and as we close in on the holidays.
"In terms of Frank (Kendrick), it is ironic," Intervallo said. "It cost the life of one of her rescuers. You have to think that he wasn't wasting his life. He gave her five more years."
Francesca Perez had a history of mental problems and was recently released from St. Joseph's Medical Center's psychiatric center, said her 62-year-old mother, Angelina Perez.
She then went to live with her mother in her fifth-floor Caryl Avenue apartment. Her mother has legal custody and has cared for her daughter's 2-year-old son, Jared.
Francesca Perez lost her own apartment in a Riverdale rooming house when she went into the hospital, her mother said.
In an interview yesterday, Angelina Perez, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic, detailed what happened Thursday before her daughter's death. That account differed from her statements to a Journal News reporter the night her daughter died.
At times during yesterday's interview, Angelina Perez wept and screamed uncontrollably.
Perez said her daughter asked for $6 to buy cigarettes Thursday morning, then headed to New York City for back therapy. She returned less than two hours later.
"She was very tired," Perez said.
The mother and daughter had coffee together in their kitchen when Perez told her mother she had been vomiting. She also told her mother she was planning to get her a birthday present once she received her disability check. Perez's birthday is on Monday.
Between 12:30 and 1 p.m., Angelina Perez said, her daughter laid down on the sofa in the living room because she was tired. She was restless and took her medication for schizophrenia. Still restless, she went into the bedroom.
Angelina Perez said she went into the bedroom to take care of Jared.
"She (Francesca) said, 'Mommy, I can't sleep,' " Angelina Perez said.
She said her daughter looked as if she was about to cry.
With her mother in the bedroom with the child, Francesca Perez went into the living room, which is between the bedroom and the kitchen, and turned up the volume of the television, her mother said.
"I heard a noise like something breaks," she said.
She said she left Jared in the bedroom and rushed to the kitchen and looked out the window.
"My daughter was on the floor and all the blood was on her head," she said. "I will never forget that for all my life."
Francesca Perez was her only child.
Police said she apparently jumped out of the kitchen window.
"It was without warning," said police Capt. Fred Hellthaler. "There was no standoff."
Police were called to the scene at 2:37 p.m. and found the woman dressed in black pants, a black shirt and brown socks in front of the building. She was dead.
Intervallo said Angelina Perez told them that her daughter might be pregnant, so she was raced to St. Joseph's Medical Center in an attempt to save the baby, but doctors found she was not pregnant.
Mitchell Edwards, 50, a former boyfriend of the suicide victim, said she was always mentally troubled and that her mother had to care for Jared because she was not able to do it herself.
"I was shocked this morning when I found out," said Edwards, who was in the apartment with Angelina Perez trying to console her.
According to police records, Francesca Perez was taking 300 milligrams of Seroquel and 100 milligrams of Trazodone. Seroquel treats bipolar disorder and Trazodone treats depression.
Francesca Perez had served in the U.S. Army and was a graduate of Iona College.
Original Article- Woman who jumped from Yonkers building had attempted suicide five years ago.
Note she was taking ..
300 milligrams of Seroquel and 100 milligrams of Trazodone. Seroquel treats bipolar disorder and Trazodone treats depression.
YONKERS - A troubled 32-year-old woman who jumped to her death from a fifth-floor window Thursday night tried to commit suicide five years ago by plunging into the Hudson River, and a 71-year-old captain of the city's U.S. Volunteer Life Saving Corps died saving her life.
Francesca Perez was the person whom Capt. Frank Kendrick of Yonkers saved after she jumped off the City Pier on Sept. 11, 2002, police said. He died of a heart attack while saving Perez.
"Oh, God, that is so awful," the captain's widow, Kay Kendrick, said yesterday after hearing about the suicide. "I feel so bad for her. I never wanted to say anything bad about her because Frank lost his life. This must have been just another burden she was carrying on her shoulders."
Kay Kendrick, who watched from the pier while her husband saved Perez, said she still has visions of the woman's face in the water even though she did not know her name at the time.
"I used to call her the angel that came for Frank," she said.
Frank Kendrick has been honored in Yonkers for saving the woman and many other lives in the Hudson River.
Kendrick's widow added, "I just wish that the doctors could have helped her."
Police Capt. Frank Intervallo, whose officers were sent to the 15-21 Caryl Ave. apartment building and found Francesca Perez's body, said, "It is tragic that people feel the need to take their own lives. People with mental health issues become more disturbed during the wintertime and as we close in on the holidays.
"In terms of Frank (Kendrick), it is ironic," Intervallo said. "It cost the life of one of her rescuers. You have to think that he wasn't wasting his life. He gave her five more years."
Francesca Perez had a history of mental problems and was recently released from St. Joseph's Medical Center's psychiatric center, said her 62-year-old mother, Angelina Perez.
She then went to live with her mother in her fifth-floor Caryl Avenue apartment. Her mother has legal custody and has cared for her daughter's 2-year-old son, Jared.
Francesca Perez lost her own apartment in a Riverdale rooming house when she went into the hospital, her mother said.
In an interview yesterday, Angelina Perez, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic, detailed what happened Thursday before her daughter's death. That account differed from her statements to a Journal News reporter the night her daughter died.
At times during yesterday's interview, Angelina Perez wept and screamed uncontrollably.
Perez said her daughter asked for $6 to buy cigarettes Thursday morning, then headed to New York City for back therapy. She returned less than two hours later.
"She was very tired," Perez said.
The mother and daughter had coffee together in their kitchen when Perez told her mother she had been vomiting. She also told her mother she was planning to get her a birthday present once she received her disability check. Perez's birthday is on Monday.
Between 12:30 and 1 p.m., Angelina Perez said, her daughter laid down on the sofa in the living room because she was tired. She was restless and took her medication for schizophrenia. Still restless, she went into the bedroom.
Angelina Perez said she went into the bedroom to take care of Jared.
"She (Francesca) said, 'Mommy, I can't sleep,' " Angelina Perez said.
She said her daughter looked as if she was about to cry.
With her mother in the bedroom with the child, Francesca Perez went into the living room, which is between the bedroom and the kitchen, and turned up the volume of the television, her mother said.
"I heard a noise like something breaks," she said.
She said she left Jared in the bedroom and rushed to the kitchen and looked out the window.
"My daughter was on the floor and all the blood was on her head," she said. "I will never forget that for all my life."
Francesca Perez was her only child.
Police said she apparently jumped out of the kitchen window.
"It was without warning," said police Capt. Fred Hellthaler. "There was no standoff."
Police were called to the scene at 2:37 p.m. and found the woman dressed in black pants, a black shirt and brown socks in front of the building. She was dead.
Intervallo said Angelina Perez told them that her daughter might be pregnant, so she was raced to St. Joseph's Medical Center in an attempt to save the baby, but doctors found she was not pregnant.
Mitchell Edwards, 50, a former boyfriend of the suicide victim, said she was always mentally troubled and that her mother had to care for Jared because she was not able to do it herself.
"I was shocked this morning when I found out," said Edwards, who was in the apartment with Angelina Perez trying to console her.
According to police records, Francesca Perez was taking 300 milligrams of Seroquel and 100 milligrams of Trazodone. Seroquel treats bipolar disorder and Trazodone treats depression.
Francesca Perez had served in the U.S. Army and was a graduate of Iona College.
Original Article- Woman who jumped from Yonkers building had attempted suicide five years ago.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Eleven States Have Now Sued Antipsychotic Makers
More Lawsuits to come..
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel claims that Janssen engaged in a direct, illegal, nationwide program of promotion of the use of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for non-medically necessary uses. McDaniel accused the companies of deceptive marketing practices that pushed doctors to prescribe Risperdal much more than necessary. The lawsuit also accuses drugmakers of not including warnings on Risperdal's bottle about adverse effects such as neurological problems, weight gain and diabetes.
For articles and lawsuits on all the state lawsuits filed so far, see here: www.psychsearch.net/lawsuits.html
9 states have sued Eli Lilly regarding Zyprexa - Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia.5 states have sued Janssen regarding Risperdal - Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvana2 states have sued AstraZeneca regarding Seroquel - Pennsylvania, South Carolina
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200711210636DOWJONESDJONLINE000498_FORTUNE5.htm
Arkansas AG Suing JNJ Over Anti-Psychotic Drug Marketing
November 21, 2007: 06:36 AM EST
LITTLE ROCK (AP)--Drug companies improperly marketed an anti-psychotic drug, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel claimed Tuesday as he asked a state judge to force the firms to repay millions shelled out by the state's Medicaid program for unnecessary prescriptions.
McDaniel filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc., Janssen LP and Johnson & Johnson Inc. (JNJ). In the filing, McDaniel said the companies "engaged in a direct, illegal, nationwide program of promotion of the use of Risperdal for non-medically necessary uses."
New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson is the parent company of both Janssen Pharmaceutica and Janssen LP.
The lawsuit did not specify how much the state is seeking, but McDaniel has estimated that the state's Medicaid program spent about $200 million over eight years to pay for prescriptions for Zyprexa, Seroquel and Risperdal. The lawsuit filed Tuesday focuses solely on Risperdal.
Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for McDaniel's office, said the state will file similar complaints about the marketing of the other drugs. McDaniel has said other companies that will be targeted include Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) of Indianapolis and AstraZeneca PLC (AZN), a joint venture by a British firm and a Swedish firm.
McDaniel has said the drugs were prescribed for uses not approved by federal regulators or indicated in labeling. McDaniel accused the companies of deceptive marketing practices that pushed doctors to prescribe Risperdal much more than necessary.
The lawsuit also accuses drugmakers of not including warnings on Risperdal's bottle about adverse effects such as neurological problems, weight gain and diabetes.
Ambre Morley, a spokeswoman for Janssen, defended the company and said it fully disclosed all information about Risperdal to doctors and government agencies.
23,729 petition signatures against TeenScreen: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel claims that Janssen engaged in a direct, illegal, nationwide program of promotion of the use of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for non-medically necessary uses. McDaniel accused the companies of deceptive marketing practices that pushed doctors to prescribe Risperdal much more than necessary. The lawsuit also accuses drugmakers of not including warnings on Risperdal's bottle about adverse effects such as neurological problems, weight gain and diabetes.
For articles and lawsuits on all the state lawsuits filed so far, see here: www.psychsearch.net/lawsuits.html
9 states have sued Eli Lilly regarding Zyprexa - Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia.5 states have sued Janssen regarding Risperdal - Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvana2 states have sued AstraZeneca regarding Seroquel - Pennsylvania, South Carolina
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200711210636DOWJONESDJONLINE000498_FORTUNE5.htm
Arkansas AG Suing JNJ Over Anti-Psychotic Drug Marketing
November 21, 2007: 06:36 AM EST
LITTLE ROCK (AP)--Drug companies improperly marketed an anti-psychotic drug, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel claimed Tuesday as he asked a state judge to force the firms to repay millions shelled out by the state's Medicaid program for unnecessary prescriptions.
McDaniel filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc., Janssen LP and Johnson & Johnson Inc. (JNJ). In the filing, McDaniel said the companies "engaged in a direct, illegal, nationwide program of promotion of the use of Risperdal for non-medically necessary uses."
New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson is the parent company of both Janssen Pharmaceutica and Janssen LP.
The lawsuit did not specify how much the state is seeking, but McDaniel has estimated that the state's Medicaid program spent about $200 million over eight years to pay for prescriptions for Zyprexa, Seroquel and Risperdal. The lawsuit filed Tuesday focuses solely on Risperdal.
Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for McDaniel's office, said the state will file similar complaints about the marketing of the other drugs. McDaniel has said other companies that will be targeted include Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) of Indianapolis and AstraZeneca PLC (AZN), a joint venture by a British firm and a Swedish firm.
McDaniel has said the drugs were prescribed for uses not approved by federal regulators or indicated in labeling. McDaniel accused the companies of deceptive marketing practices that pushed doctors to prescribe Risperdal much more than necessary.
The lawsuit also accuses drugmakers of not including warnings on Risperdal's bottle about adverse effects such as neurological problems, weight gain and diabetes.
Ambre Morley, a spokeswoman for Janssen, defended the company and said it fully disclosed all information about Risperdal to doctors and government agencies.
23,729 petition signatures against TeenScreen: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guard
NewsTarget.com
Originally published November 19 2007
Following the State of Maryland's threats against parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, children were herded into a Price George County courthouse being guarded by armed personnel with attack dogs. Inside, the children were forcibly vaccinated, many against their will, under orders from the State Attorney General, various State Judges and the local School Board Director, all of whom illegally conspired to threaten parents with imprisonment if they did not submit their children to vaccinations.
The State of Maryland has now turned to Gestapo tactics to force its medical will upon the People, stripping parents of any right to decide how they wish to protect their own children from infectious disease. Health authorities there have already announced their intent to essentially kidnap parents and throw them in jail, removing them from their children for up to thirty days if they continue to refuse to have their children vaccinated. This will all be conducted at gunpoint, with armed personnel and attack dogs at the ready, making sure nobody steps out of line, and suppressing any attempt at public dissent against the Orwellian vaccination policies.
The entire campaign against these parents is blatantly illegal. There is no law in Maryland requiring the vaccination of children, thus parents who refuse to do so may not be legally charged with violating any law. Instead, Maryland health and school authorities are using Gestapo-like tactics, threatening to charge the parents with child truancy violations, criminalizing them for daring to protect their children from the dangerous chemicals found in vaccines (including thimerosal, a chemical additive containing a neurotoxic form of mercury).
The desperation of organized medicine is becoming increasingly apparent
As more and more parents are becoming informed about the dangers of vaccinations and their link to autism, state health authorities are increasingly turning to "Gunpoint Medicine" to force the People to submit to the poisons of conventional medicine. Parents who attempt to save their children from deadly chemotherapy chemicals are being arrested and having their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services.
(see http://www.newstarget.com/Abraham_Cherrix.html )
Oncologists who used to be armed only with radiation machines and chemotherapy injectors and now arming themselves with U.S. Marshals and other local law enforcement authorities who are using loaded firearms to enforce "the will of the State" against parents who resist.
Even the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) announced its strong opposition to the Maryland "Gunpoint Medicine" vaccination campaign. In a press release published Nov. 16, the AAPS states:
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons today condemned the “vaccine roundup” executed in Prince George’s county Maryland this week, and promised to do everything it can to support parents who refuse to immunize their children.
“This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights,” said Kathryn Serkes, director of policy for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the few national physician groups that refuse corporate funding from pharmaceutical companies.
In a scenario reminiscent of cattle round-ups, the state’s attorney has issued summons to more than 1600 parents of children who have not provided certificates of immunization for their children. But instead of toting a cattle prod, this state’s attorney chooses to wield a syringe to keep the “herd” in line.Read the rest of the press release at:
http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nr-11-16-07.php
Gunpoint Medicine: Why drug pushers must now rely on Gestapo tactics
Conventional (pharmaceutical) medicine is the only system of medicine in the world that is so unpopular with informed consumers that it must be administered at the barrel of a gun. There is no other system of medicine anywhere in the world that resorts to such tactics to recruit patients.
At the Nov. 17th event in Maryland, activists Jim Moody and Kelly Ann Davis from SafeMinds (http://www.safeminds.org/) were able to get in front of TV news cameras and voice their opposition to the coerced vaccination policy. Yet, amazingly, most parents just lined up like cattle ready to be branded, not bothering to question the sanity or legality of the very system in which they were now agreeing to participate.
A health freedom blog called Center for the Common Interest (http://www.commoninterest.info/) also covered the event, and it reports that a local activist named Donovan Hubbard videotaped the event and plans to make the video available online.
(NewsTarget would like to contact Donovan and / or publicize his video. If you know of a way we can contact him, please call us at (520) 232-9300 to let us know...)
What's next for Gunpoint Medicine?
As the truth continues to emerge about the extreme dangers of vaccinations and pharmaceuticals, Big Pharma is becoming increasingly desperate to coerce the public into relying on its products. It is now working closely with state authorities (including Governors of several states) to mandate the use of vaccinations on young children. This results in the criminalization of parents who refuse to subject their children to these dangerous chemicals.
In effect, Big Pharma is hoping to turn natural health followers into criminals.
The FDA has already criminalized nutritional supplement companies who dare to tell the truth about the health benefits of their supplements.
Read the true history of armed FDA raids on vitamin companies here: http://www.newstarget.com/021791.html
Next, parents who refuse to subject their children to the chemical pharmaceuticals proposed by Big Pharma will be criminalized, rounded up and incarcerated for "refusing to comply with public health policy." This is all being done by the State in the name of "protecting the children" from their own natural health parents.
(Insane, isn't it, to think that protecting your child from toxic chemicals is now a criminal act in the United States?)
The end game of all this is to apply Gunpoint Medicine tactics to everyone: Adults and senior citizens included. Anyone suffering from high cholesterol, for example, who does not submit to Big Pharma's statin drugs could be arrested, strapped to a table and medicated against their will. People with cancer could be arrested for choosing to treat that cancer with safe and effective botanical medicines instead of patented, high-profit Big Pharma drugs. If you think the prisons are full enough right now from all the arrests for marijuana possession and other victimless crimes, just wait until the State starts arresting all the natural health moms and dads across the country who refuse to participate in the utterly insane and extremely harmful system of medicine that now dominates U.S. health care today.
The State is very clear about medicine: If you want to remain a free citizen, you must submit to the synthetic drugs made by the very same corporations that now control government health regulators.
Any person who resists such "treatments" will be branded a threat to public health --
A designation just beneath "terrorist" in the eyes of many government bureaucrats.
As such, they believe there is no limit to the level of force they may use to coerce such people into submitting to Big Pharma's chemicals. Today, it's armed guards with attack dogs. Tomorrow, it might be water boarding or other torture methods. Think that's impossible? Think again: Just five years ago, nobody in their right mind would have thought that parents who did not want to get their children vaccinated would end up in prison, their children kidnapped by state authorities and forced to subject themselves to dangerous chemical injections at gunpoint. Yet that is precisely what is happening right now in the state of Maryland. It happened on Saturday, in fact.
Where is the outrage?
What's most interesting about this issue of using the threat of imprisonment to force vaccinations upon children is not necessarily who is speaking out against it, but who has chosen to remain silent.
The American Medical Association, for example, has said nothing in opposition to the policy. Neither has the Food and Drug Administration. Where is the outrage from the Maryland Hospital Association? None of these organizations seem to have a problem with Gunpoint Medicine. The idea of rounding up parents and coercing their children into receiving injections of toxic chemicals does not seem to bother these organizations. And why should it? All of these organizations are closely tied to Big Pharma. They're all in favor of vaccinations for all, it seems, and I have no doubt that some individuals in these organizations (especially the AMA) are strongly in favor of the Gunpoint Medicine coerced vaccination policy being played out in Maryland right now.
Organized medicine believes the People are too stupid to be allowed to make their own health decisions. Bureaucrats and physicians should be the ones making these decisions, we're told, and any person who disagrees with such decisions should be labeled a criminal, arrested and prosecuted. This is no exaggeration. It is, in fact, a shockingly accurate description of Maryland's current vaccination policy.
It wasn't too long ago that Americans would have stood up and rallied against this kind of medical tyranny. The major news networks would have denounced Maryland's vaccination policy with strong language and harsh accusations. People would have been marching in the streets, demanding their health freedom. But today, it's a different America. The People are drugged up on pharmaceuticals and dosed on fluoride. They're too intoxicated to think straight, and they're frightened into submission by a fear-based government that invokes domestic tyranny at every opportunity to control and manipulate the People into doing whatever it wants.
The "free" America we all once knew is long gone, and it has been replaced with The United States of Corporate America, where police tactics are now used to enforce hazardous public health policies, and the people who run the State no longer think there's anything wrong with rounding up the population at gunpoint and performing large-scale medical experiments on their children. That's what modern vaccines are, after all: A grand medical experiment whose effects will only become known after a generation of mass poisoning has come and gone.
Original Article and disclaimer ..
Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guard
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. Newstarget.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NewsTarget.com/terms.shtml
Originally published November 19 2007
Following the State of Maryland's threats against parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, children were herded into a Price George County courthouse being guarded by armed personnel with attack dogs. Inside, the children were forcibly vaccinated, many against their will, under orders from the State Attorney General, various State Judges and the local School Board Director, all of whom illegally conspired to threaten parents with imprisonment if they did not submit their children to vaccinations.
The State of Maryland has now turned to Gestapo tactics to force its medical will upon the People, stripping parents of any right to decide how they wish to protect their own children from infectious disease. Health authorities there have already announced their intent to essentially kidnap parents and throw them in jail, removing them from their children for up to thirty days if they continue to refuse to have their children vaccinated. This will all be conducted at gunpoint, with armed personnel and attack dogs at the ready, making sure nobody steps out of line, and suppressing any attempt at public dissent against the Orwellian vaccination policies.
The entire campaign against these parents is blatantly illegal. There is no law in Maryland requiring the vaccination of children, thus parents who refuse to do so may not be legally charged with violating any law. Instead, Maryland health and school authorities are using Gestapo-like tactics, threatening to charge the parents with child truancy violations, criminalizing them for daring to protect their children from the dangerous chemicals found in vaccines (including thimerosal, a chemical additive containing a neurotoxic form of mercury).
The desperation of organized medicine is becoming increasingly apparent
As more and more parents are becoming informed about the dangers of vaccinations and their link to autism, state health authorities are increasingly turning to "Gunpoint Medicine" to force the People to submit to the poisons of conventional medicine. Parents who attempt to save their children from deadly chemotherapy chemicals are being arrested and having their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services.
(see http://www.newstarget.com/Abraham_Cherrix.html )
Oncologists who used to be armed only with radiation machines and chemotherapy injectors and now arming themselves with U.S. Marshals and other local law enforcement authorities who are using loaded firearms to enforce "the will of the State" against parents who resist.
Even the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) announced its strong opposition to the Maryland "Gunpoint Medicine" vaccination campaign. In a press release published Nov. 16, the AAPS states:
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons today condemned the “vaccine roundup” executed in Prince George’s county Maryland this week, and promised to do everything it can to support parents who refuse to immunize their children.
“This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights,” said Kathryn Serkes, director of policy for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the few national physician groups that refuse corporate funding from pharmaceutical companies.
In a scenario reminiscent of cattle round-ups, the state’s attorney has issued summons to more than 1600 parents of children who have not provided certificates of immunization for their children. But instead of toting a cattle prod, this state’s attorney chooses to wield a syringe to keep the “herd” in line.Read the rest of the press release at:
http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nr-11-16-07.php
Gunpoint Medicine: Why drug pushers must now rely on Gestapo tactics
Conventional (pharmaceutical) medicine is the only system of medicine in the world that is so unpopular with informed consumers that it must be administered at the barrel of a gun. There is no other system of medicine anywhere in the world that resorts to such tactics to recruit patients.
At the Nov. 17th event in Maryland, activists Jim Moody and Kelly Ann Davis from SafeMinds (http://www.safeminds.org/) were able to get in front of TV news cameras and voice their opposition to the coerced vaccination policy. Yet, amazingly, most parents just lined up like cattle ready to be branded, not bothering to question the sanity or legality of the very system in which they were now agreeing to participate.
A health freedom blog called Center for the Common Interest (http://www.commoninterest.info/) also covered the event, and it reports that a local activist named Donovan Hubbard videotaped the event and plans to make the video available online.
(NewsTarget would like to contact Donovan and / or publicize his video. If you know of a way we can contact him, please call us at (520) 232-9300 to let us know...)
What's next for Gunpoint Medicine?
As the truth continues to emerge about the extreme dangers of vaccinations and pharmaceuticals, Big Pharma is becoming increasingly desperate to coerce the public into relying on its products. It is now working closely with state authorities (including Governors of several states) to mandate the use of vaccinations on young children. This results in the criminalization of parents who refuse to subject their children to these dangerous chemicals.
In effect, Big Pharma is hoping to turn natural health followers into criminals.
The FDA has already criminalized nutritional supplement companies who dare to tell the truth about the health benefits of their supplements.
Read the true history of armed FDA raids on vitamin companies here: http://www.newstarget.com/021791.html
Next, parents who refuse to subject their children to the chemical pharmaceuticals proposed by Big Pharma will be criminalized, rounded up and incarcerated for "refusing to comply with public health policy." This is all being done by the State in the name of "protecting the children" from their own natural health parents.
(Insane, isn't it, to think that protecting your child from toxic chemicals is now a criminal act in the United States?)
The end game of all this is to apply Gunpoint Medicine tactics to everyone: Adults and senior citizens included. Anyone suffering from high cholesterol, for example, who does not submit to Big Pharma's statin drugs could be arrested, strapped to a table and medicated against their will. People with cancer could be arrested for choosing to treat that cancer with safe and effective botanical medicines instead of patented, high-profit Big Pharma drugs. If you think the prisons are full enough right now from all the arrests for marijuana possession and other victimless crimes, just wait until the State starts arresting all the natural health moms and dads across the country who refuse to participate in the utterly insane and extremely harmful system of medicine that now dominates U.S. health care today.
The State is very clear about medicine: If you want to remain a free citizen, you must submit to the synthetic drugs made by the very same corporations that now control government health regulators.
Any person who resists such "treatments" will be branded a threat to public health --
A designation just beneath "terrorist" in the eyes of many government bureaucrats.
As such, they believe there is no limit to the level of force they may use to coerce such people into submitting to Big Pharma's chemicals. Today, it's armed guards with attack dogs. Tomorrow, it might be water boarding or other torture methods. Think that's impossible? Think again: Just five years ago, nobody in their right mind would have thought that parents who did not want to get their children vaccinated would end up in prison, their children kidnapped by state authorities and forced to subject themselves to dangerous chemical injections at gunpoint. Yet that is precisely what is happening right now in the state of Maryland. It happened on Saturday, in fact.
Where is the outrage?
What's most interesting about this issue of using the threat of imprisonment to force vaccinations upon children is not necessarily who is speaking out against it, but who has chosen to remain silent.
The American Medical Association, for example, has said nothing in opposition to the policy. Neither has the Food and Drug Administration. Where is the outrage from the Maryland Hospital Association? None of these organizations seem to have a problem with Gunpoint Medicine. The idea of rounding up parents and coercing their children into receiving injections of toxic chemicals does not seem to bother these organizations. And why should it? All of these organizations are closely tied to Big Pharma. They're all in favor of vaccinations for all, it seems, and I have no doubt that some individuals in these organizations (especially the AMA) are strongly in favor of the Gunpoint Medicine coerced vaccination policy being played out in Maryland right now.
Organized medicine believes the People are too stupid to be allowed to make their own health decisions. Bureaucrats and physicians should be the ones making these decisions, we're told, and any person who disagrees with such decisions should be labeled a criminal, arrested and prosecuted. This is no exaggeration. It is, in fact, a shockingly accurate description of Maryland's current vaccination policy.
It wasn't too long ago that Americans would have stood up and rallied against this kind of medical tyranny. The major news networks would have denounced Maryland's vaccination policy with strong language and harsh accusations. People would have been marching in the streets, demanding their health freedom. But today, it's a different America. The People are drugged up on pharmaceuticals and dosed on fluoride. They're too intoxicated to think straight, and they're frightened into submission by a fear-based government that invokes domestic tyranny at every opportunity to control and manipulate the People into doing whatever it wants.
The "free" America we all once knew is long gone, and it has been replaced with The United States of Corporate America, where police tactics are now used to enforce hazardous public health policies, and the people who run the State no longer think there's anything wrong with rounding up the population at gunpoint and performing large-scale medical experiments on their children. That's what modern vaccines are, after all: A grand medical experiment whose effects will only become known after a generation of mass poisoning has come and gone.
Original Article and disclaimer ..
Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guard
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. Newstarget.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NewsTarget.com/terms.shtml
Monday, November 19, 2007
Bipolar Kid or Bad Parents?
It's so funny that I came accross this article now after I know so much more about Drugging our children into a stupor/suicide/or Homicide!
Nearly 25 years ago I had an a acquaintance who had two children that I considered at the time to be perfectly normal children under five active fun and small tornados when they were bored -NORMAL HEALTHY CHILDREN!
I only had one child at the time and I never understood what their mothers problem was, she complained day in and day out about how difficult her kids were.
I could'nt see it but what I did notice was that this woman was a fat lazy woman who herself didn't have the energy to deal with these two beautiful active children.
She was somewhat related to me so I found myself in her company more often that I would have if I were given the choice. Forgive me but she was [and probably still is] a whinny- woe is me- kind of person and I have no tolerance for that kind of person.
Anywho, one day the kids seemed different to me, I noticed they were lethargic compared to the children I had known and loved, so I inquired of the mother about what I noticed.
Her reply still forms knots in my stomach, she said "I couldn't deal with them anymore-the Dr put them on [insert name of psychotropic drugs- I can't remember which one it was]"
That was the last time I was in her company, I refused to sit around watching those children sluring their words so that their mother could sit on her fat &%^$ and not chase after them.
So why am I sharing this almost 25 years later? I guess I am feeling guilty that I didn't do anything to help those kids, I didn't try hard enough, I barely stated to their mother that I felt it was HER with the problem and not her children- however instead of doing more I walked away. I believe I have forgiven myself for that now, but thinking of that time in my life and what those children had to endure at the hands of thier lazy mother and thier over zelous Dr, always makes me angry.
Sad part is recently I came accross another mother that is doing the same thing to her beautiful son, and it makes me want to vomit, because I do not know this mother well enough to say anything to her about her inabililty to understand what it takes to raise a pre teen who is the victim of a recent divorce where both of his parents are severely dysfuntional.
This child needs HIS PARENTS in therapy HE DOES NOT NEED TO BE MEDICATED!
Ehhhhh, if I could control others actions the world would be a much better place, but I can't so I do what I can and pray these sysfuntional parents see the light before it's to late.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Bipolar kids or bad parents?
At the urging of parents, doctors are medicating far too many kids who just need a better upbringing, according to Dr. Elizabeth J. Roberts who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and the author of "Should You Medicate Your Child's Mind?"
Sunday, November 18, 2007
On Dec. 13, 2006, 4-year-old Rebecca Riley died, drowning in her own lung secretions. Her death was the direct result of psychiatric medications which had been prescribed to her for a presumed diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- a diagnosis first given to her when she was only 2 years old.
In September 2007, researchers at Columbia University reported that there had been a 40-fold increase in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder from 1994 to 2003 -- an increase which has shown no signs of slowing.
Worse than the current frenzy to diagnose children with bipolar disorder is the practice of medicating kids as young as 2 with the kinds of psychiatric medications that were once prescribed only to psychotic adults. The shocking reality is that the use of these potent anti-psychotic drugs in children increased more than 500 percent between 1993 and 2002.
This dramatic rise in childhood bipolar disorder has spurred a raging debate in the mental health field. Some psychiatrists insist that this incredible increase is entirely due to the identification of mentally ill children who had been previously overlooked.
Yet a 4,000 percent increase in childhood mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, is simply implausible and difficult to justify based solely on improved diagnostic techniques. To the contrary, in the 30-plus years that I have been treating, educating and caring for children -- half of that time as a child psychiatrist -- I have found that the approach to diagnostics in psychiatry clearly has deteriorated over time, not improved.
There was a time when doctors insisted on hours of evaluation with a child and his parents before venturing a psychiatric diagnosis or prescribing a medication. Today many of my colleagues brag that they can complete an initial assessment of a child and write a prescription in less than 20 minutes. Many parents have told me it took a previous doctor less than five minutes to diagnose and medicate their child.
How, then, is it possible that in 2007 doctors are now able to identify hundreds of thousands of previously missed cases of bipolar disorder in children by reducing the time they spend with patients from multiple hours to just a few minutes?
On the other hand, there simply is no possible way that the number of children who actually have bipolar disorder has increased from approximately 20,000 to 800,000 in a nine-year period. Yet the arguments of skeptics are being dismissed by academics in psychiatry. Research psychiatrists appear to be more invested in defending their research conclusions -- funded by pharmaceutical companies -- than engaging in a meaningful discussion to examine these preposterous demographics.
What I find more astounding than the claim that there are 800,000 American children with bipolar disorder is the fact that there are that many children whose conduct is so aberrant that their parents are seeking psychiatric treatment for them.
The symptoms, which are regarded as evidence of bipolar disorder, usually are what most people recognize as ordinary belligerence. Children who have anger outbursts, who refuse to go to bed, who are moody and self-centered under the current standard of care in child psychiatry are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To most rational human beings, these behaviors describe an ill-mannered, immature and poorly disciplined child. Nonetheless, the temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized by doctors as the mood swings of bipolar disorder.
The over-indulgent parenting practices of the past 20 years have created a generation of dysfunctional children who are becoming increasingly more entitled, defiant and oppositional. In a poll by Associated Press-Ipsos, 93 percent of people surveyed said that today's parents are not doing a good job when it comes to teaching their kids to behave. According to Dan Kindlon, a Harvard psychologist, 50 percent of the parents he interviewed described themselves as more permissive than their parents had been.
The permissive parents of spoiled children seek refuge from blame by using the excuse that their child's angry outbursts are the result of a chemical imbalance. Since a psychiatric condition is completely beyond a parent's control, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder is the perfect alibi. Once a child has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a parent feels absolved of guilt or responsibility for the child's misbehavior and therefore, the parents' discipline practices cannot be called into question.
Parents looking for a psychiatric explanation for their child's misbehavior will find an abundance of support in the media and on the Web for the conclusion that their child's temper tantrums are due to a psychiatric disease rather than the result of bad parenting. Psychiatrists, for their part, are more than willing to accept, without question, the assessment offered by a parent. Doctors have found it easier and less contentious to comply with a parent's wish to have their child diagnosed with a psychiatric condition than to confront the parent with the notion that their own weak parenting is the root cause of the child's aberrant behavior.
Using the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, doctors then justify the sedation of these children with powerful psychiatric drugs. Even though some children treated with anti-psychotics may be temporarily sedated, their belligerent attitude continues unchanged. Of the many children I treat every year who had been previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, not one of them stopped throwing tantrums after being treated with psychiatric medications. Yet doctors continue to misdiagnose and overmedicate children to appease frustrated parents in spite of the many serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.
Tragically, as in the death of Rebecca Riley, her parents administered the multiple medications prescribed by their psychiatrist for Rebecca's "bipolar disorder" until the meds killed her. A few weeks ago, in an interview on 60 Minutes, Rebecca's mother told Katie Couric that she now believes that her four-year-old daughter had been misdiagnosed, had never been bipolar, and that Rebecca was simply mischievous.
When it comes to misdiagnosing and overmedicating children, doctors have an unwitting, though not unwilling, accomplice -- the parent. Ultimately, it is the parent who is the gatekeeper for their child's health-care delivery. It is the parent who pursues psychiatric treatment for their child, fills the prescriptions and administers the medications. Parents have a duty to protect their children from the folly of this disastrous approach to childhood behavior problems.
Instead of grooming, feeding and educating the next generation of Americans to be the fittest, brightest, most competent contributors on the planet, we have indulged, placated and spoiled our children into dysfunctional misfits. We are teaching our children to use a psychiatric diagnosis to excuse their antisocial behaviors. This will inevitably lead to a greater reliance on psychiatric medications, which unfortunately do not endow an individual with improved self-control or maturity.
Under the guise of treating childhood bipolar disorder, the spoiling of American children not only undermines their healthy social development, but it also puts them at great risk for the serious medical complications inherent in the use of psychiatric medications, including death.
The End
As a closing note I need to say, if anyone spends any time on this blog getting to know the author [Me] it will become clear that I have issues with abusing our children in any way shape or form. I have major issues with child anything but protective services making money for the government incentives causing them to tell parents [via the threat of taking the child] that they can-not dicipline their children.
What are we left with?
Wake up america we are left with drugged children that only needed some guidance, dicipline lots of love and BOTH parents in thier lives.
These issues are all related and this is why I rant about divorce, the system, DV, child anything but protective services, drugging our children, and how the system parenting our children is guaranteed to leave us with a dysfuntional future generation.
God help us all!
Nearly 25 years ago I had an a acquaintance who had two children that I considered at the time to be perfectly normal children under five active fun and small tornados when they were bored -NORMAL HEALTHY CHILDREN!
I only had one child at the time and I never understood what their mothers problem was, she complained day in and day out about how difficult her kids were.
I could'nt see it but what I did notice was that this woman was a fat lazy woman who herself didn't have the energy to deal with these two beautiful active children.
She was somewhat related to me so I found myself in her company more often that I would have if I were given the choice. Forgive me but she was [and probably still is] a whinny- woe is me- kind of person and I have no tolerance for that kind of person.
Anywho, one day the kids seemed different to me, I noticed they were lethargic compared to the children I had known and loved, so I inquired of the mother about what I noticed.
Her reply still forms knots in my stomach, she said "I couldn't deal with them anymore-the Dr put them on [insert name of psychotropic drugs- I can't remember which one it was]"
That was the last time I was in her company, I refused to sit around watching those children sluring their words so that their mother could sit on her fat &%^$ and not chase after them.
So why am I sharing this almost 25 years later? I guess I am feeling guilty that I didn't do anything to help those kids, I didn't try hard enough, I barely stated to their mother that I felt it was HER with the problem and not her children- however instead of doing more I walked away. I believe I have forgiven myself for that now, but thinking of that time in my life and what those children had to endure at the hands of thier lazy mother and thier over zelous Dr, always makes me angry.
Sad part is recently I came accross another mother that is doing the same thing to her beautiful son, and it makes me want to vomit, because I do not know this mother well enough to say anything to her about her inabililty to understand what it takes to raise a pre teen who is the victim of a recent divorce where both of his parents are severely dysfuntional.
This child needs HIS PARENTS in therapy HE DOES NOT NEED TO BE MEDICATED!
Ehhhhh, if I could control others actions the world would be a much better place, but I can't so I do what I can and pray these sysfuntional parents see the light before it's to late.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Bipolar kids or bad parents?
At the urging of parents, doctors are medicating far too many kids who just need a better upbringing, according to Dr. Elizabeth J. Roberts who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and the author of "Should You Medicate Your Child's Mind?"
Sunday, November 18, 2007
On Dec. 13, 2006, 4-year-old Rebecca Riley died, drowning in her own lung secretions. Her death was the direct result of psychiatric medications which had been prescribed to her for a presumed diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- a diagnosis first given to her when she was only 2 years old.
In September 2007, researchers at Columbia University reported that there had been a 40-fold increase in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder from 1994 to 2003 -- an increase which has shown no signs of slowing.
Worse than the current frenzy to diagnose children with bipolar disorder is the practice of medicating kids as young as 2 with the kinds of psychiatric medications that were once prescribed only to psychotic adults. The shocking reality is that the use of these potent anti-psychotic drugs in children increased more than 500 percent between 1993 and 2002.
This dramatic rise in childhood bipolar disorder has spurred a raging debate in the mental health field. Some psychiatrists insist that this incredible increase is entirely due to the identification of mentally ill children who had been previously overlooked.
Yet a 4,000 percent increase in childhood mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, is simply implausible and difficult to justify based solely on improved diagnostic techniques. To the contrary, in the 30-plus years that I have been treating, educating and caring for children -- half of that time as a child psychiatrist -- I have found that the approach to diagnostics in psychiatry clearly has deteriorated over time, not improved.
There was a time when doctors insisted on hours of evaluation with a child and his parents before venturing a psychiatric diagnosis or prescribing a medication. Today many of my colleagues brag that they can complete an initial assessment of a child and write a prescription in less than 20 minutes. Many parents have told me it took a previous doctor less than five minutes to diagnose and medicate their child.
How, then, is it possible that in 2007 doctors are now able to identify hundreds of thousands of previously missed cases of bipolar disorder in children by reducing the time they spend with patients from multiple hours to just a few minutes?
On the other hand, there simply is no possible way that the number of children who actually have bipolar disorder has increased from approximately 20,000 to 800,000 in a nine-year period. Yet the arguments of skeptics are being dismissed by academics in psychiatry. Research psychiatrists appear to be more invested in defending their research conclusions -- funded by pharmaceutical companies -- than engaging in a meaningful discussion to examine these preposterous demographics.
What I find more astounding than the claim that there are 800,000 American children with bipolar disorder is the fact that there are that many children whose conduct is so aberrant that their parents are seeking psychiatric treatment for them.
The symptoms, which are regarded as evidence of bipolar disorder, usually are what most people recognize as ordinary belligerence. Children who have anger outbursts, who refuse to go to bed, who are moody and self-centered under the current standard of care in child psychiatry are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To most rational human beings, these behaviors describe an ill-mannered, immature and poorly disciplined child. Nonetheless, the temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized by doctors as the mood swings of bipolar disorder.
The over-indulgent parenting practices of the past 20 years have created a generation of dysfunctional children who are becoming increasingly more entitled, defiant and oppositional. In a poll by Associated Press-Ipsos, 93 percent of people surveyed said that today's parents are not doing a good job when it comes to teaching their kids to behave. According to Dan Kindlon, a Harvard psychologist, 50 percent of the parents he interviewed described themselves as more permissive than their parents had been.
The permissive parents of spoiled children seek refuge from blame by using the excuse that their child's angry outbursts are the result of a chemical imbalance. Since a psychiatric condition is completely beyond a parent's control, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder is the perfect alibi. Once a child has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a parent feels absolved of guilt or responsibility for the child's misbehavior and therefore, the parents' discipline practices cannot be called into question.
Parents looking for a psychiatric explanation for their child's misbehavior will find an abundance of support in the media and on the Web for the conclusion that their child's temper tantrums are due to a psychiatric disease rather than the result of bad parenting. Psychiatrists, for their part, are more than willing to accept, without question, the assessment offered by a parent. Doctors have found it easier and less contentious to comply with a parent's wish to have their child diagnosed with a psychiatric condition than to confront the parent with the notion that their own weak parenting is the root cause of the child's aberrant behavior.
Using the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, doctors then justify the sedation of these children with powerful psychiatric drugs. Even though some children treated with anti-psychotics may be temporarily sedated, their belligerent attitude continues unchanged. Of the many children I treat every year who had been previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, not one of them stopped throwing tantrums after being treated with psychiatric medications. Yet doctors continue to misdiagnose and overmedicate children to appease frustrated parents in spite of the many serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.
Tragically, as in the death of Rebecca Riley, her parents administered the multiple medications prescribed by their psychiatrist for Rebecca's "bipolar disorder" until the meds killed her. A few weeks ago, in an interview on 60 Minutes, Rebecca's mother told Katie Couric that she now believes that her four-year-old daughter had been misdiagnosed, had never been bipolar, and that Rebecca was simply mischievous.
When it comes to misdiagnosing and overmedicating children, doctors have an unwitting, though not unwilling, accomplice -- the parent. Ultimately, it is the parent who is the gatekeeper for their child's health-care delivery. It is the parent who pursues psychiatric treatment for their child, fills the prescriptions and administers the medications. Parents have a duty to protect their children from the folly of this disastrous approach to childhood behavior problems.
Instead of grooming, feeding and educating the next generation of Americans to be the fittest, brightest, most competent contributors on the planet, we have indulged, placated and spoiled our children into dysfunctional misfits. We are teaching our children to use a psychiatric diagnosis to excuse their antisocial behaviors. This will inevitably lead to a greater reliance on psychiatric medications, which unfortunately do not endow an individual with improved self-control or maturity.
Under the guise of treating childhood bipolar disorder, the spoiling of American children not only undermines their healthy social development, but it also puts them at great risk for the serious medical complications inherent in the use of psychiatric medications, including death.
The End
As a closing note I need to say, if anyone spends any time on this blog getting to know the author [Me] it will become clear that I have issues with abusing our children in any way shape or form. I have major issues with child anything but protective services making money for the government incentives causing them to tell parents [via the threat of taking the child] that they can-not dicipline their children.
What are we left with?
Wake up america we are left with drugged children that only needed some guidance, dicipline lots of love and BOTH parents in thier lives.
These issues are all related and this is why I rant about divorce, the system, DV, child anything but protective services, drugging our children, and how the system parenting our children is guaranteed to leave us with a dysfuntional future generation.
God help us all!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Long Term Use of Ritilan and Concerta
Ritalin and Concerta are two of the favorite weapons used to destroy the Natural Elite
(the Brightest and Bravest) of the population: the so-called hyperactive children.
Long term use of Ritalin ineffective and may stunt children's growth
Child Health News Published: Tuesday, 13-Nov-2007
Long term use of Ritalin is ineffective and may stunt children's growth
Child Health News Published: Tuesday, 13-Nov-2007
The study called the 'Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD' has been monitoring the treatment of 600 children across the U.S. since the 1990s; it reveals that drugs such as Ritalin are no more effective than therapy over a three year treatment period.
In 1999, the study concluded that after one year medication worked better than behavioural therapy for ADHD and that finding influenced medical practice on both sides of the Atlantic, and prescription rates multiplied.
Professor William Pelham of the University of Buffalo, the study's co-author, says the beneficial impact of the medications were exaggerated in the first study and the idea that if children were medicated longer they would have better outcomes was not the case.
Professor Pelham says in the long run there are "no beneficial effects" of medication and the impact was instead seemingly negative as the children had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) in Britain is currently revising the treatment guidelines for ADHD and are devising new strategies which will involve training for parents as well as "behavioral interventions".
Doctors in the UK have warned before about treating children with behavioral problems with powerful anti-psychotic drugs which have dangerous side effects such as, insomnia, dizziness, heart problems, and even death.
In 2006 drugs like Concerta and Ritalin were prescribed to about 55,000 British children, costing the NHS £28m.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. estimates 4.4 million youth ages 4-17 have been diagnosed with ADHD , and in 2003, 2.5 million youth were receiving medication the disorder.
Tranquillizers such as Risperdal and Zyprexa were originally designed for the treatment of psychosis and schizophrenia in adults, are now being used to calm hyperactive children even though they have been linked to several health problems.
Professor Pelham suggests that behavioral therapy and Omega-3 should be the first steps in helping a child with ADHD.
(the Brightest and Bravest) of the population: the so-called hyperactive children.
Long term use of Ritalin ineffective and may stunt children's growth
Child Health News Published: Tuesday, 13-Nov-2007
Long term use of Ritalin is ineffective and may stunt children's growth
Child Health News Published: Tuesday, 13-Nov-2007
The study called the 'Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD' has been monitoring the treatment of 600 children across the U.S. since the 1990s; it reveals that drugs such as Ritalin are no more effective than therapy over a three year treatment period.
In 1999, the study concluded that after one year medication worked better than behavioural therapy for ADHD and that finding influenced medical practice on both sides of the Atlantic, and prescription rates multiplied.
Professor William Pelham of the University of Buffalo, the study's co-author, says the beneficial impact of the medications were exaggerated in the first study and the idea that if children were medicated longer they would have better outcomes was not the case.
Professor Pelham says in the long run there are "no beneficial effects" of medication and the impact was instead seemingly negative as the children had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) in Britain is currently revising the treatment guidelines for ADHD and are devising new strategies which will involve training for parents as well as "behavioral interventions".
Doctors in the UK have warned before about treating children with behavioral problems with powerful anti-psychotic drugs which have dangerous side effects such as, insomnia, dizziness, heart problems, and even death.
In 2006 drugs like Concerta and Ritalin were prescribed to about 55,000 British children, costing the NHS £28m.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. estimates 4.4 million youth ages 4-17 have been diagnosed with ADHD , and in 2003, 2.5 million youth were receiving medication the disorder.
Tranquillizers such as Risperdal and Zyprexa were originally designed for the treatment of psychosis and schizophrenia in adults, are now being used to calm hyperactive children even though they have been linked to several health problems.
Professor Pelham suggests that behavioral therapy and Omega-3 should be the first steps in helping a child with ADHD.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
A letter to the Editor
Lawrence Journal World and News
Lawrence, Kansas
Mental illness
November 16, 2007
To the editor:
Gun control is the wrong target to stop atrocities like the Virginia Tech shootings. It is time to look at the true cause of the killings: antidepressants. In the Virginia tech shooting, Columbine and seven other shootings, psychiatric drugs were the common factor.
The Food and Drug Administration has already stated that antidepressants cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations and hostility. The black warning labels on these drugs were put there for a reason, and these drugs are given to people without proper cause and too freely.
Now, President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health wants to screen all schoolchildren for mental illness. The law has been passed in some states, and the program is called TeenScreen. Normal kids are labeled mentally ill with an array of disorders such as mathematics disorder, reading disorder, conduct disorder, just to name a few. This is ludicrous, and parents need to be aware of what is happening so they don’t let their children fall into a statistic.
Despite the evidence linking psychiatric drugs to suicide and violence, these drugs are prescribed to millions of children and teens based on subjective diagnoses made without any physical tests, such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays.
It is time to take a stand and quit drugging our children. Let them have a life, not be turned into zombies because someone doesn’t want to “put up with them.”
Melanie Wertin,
Lecompton
Letter to the editor here: http://www2.ljworld.com/submit/letter_to_the_editor/
Lawrence, Kansas
Mental illness
November 16, 2007
To the editor:
Gun control is the wrong target to stop atrocities like the Virginia Tech shootings. It is time to look at the true cause of the killings: antidepressants. In the Virginia tech shooting, Columbine and seven other shootings, psychiatric drugs were the common factor.
The Food and Drug Administration has already stated that antidepressants cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations and hostility. The black warning labels on these drugs were put there for a reason, and these drugs are given to people without proper cause and too freely.
Now, President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health wants to screen all schoolchildren for mental illness. The law has been passed in some states, and the program is called TeenScreen. Normal kids are labeled mentally ill with an array of disorders such as mathematics disorder, reading disorder, conduct disorder, just to name a few. This is ludicrous, and parents need to be aware of what is happening so they don’t let their children fall into a statistic.
Despite the evidence linking psychiatric drugs to suicide and violence, these drugs are prescribed to millions of children and teens based on subjective diagnoses made without any physical tests, such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays.
It is time to take a stand and quit drugging our children. Let them have a life, not be turned into zombies because someone doesn’t want to “put up with them.”
Melanie Wertin,
Lecompton
Letter to the editor here: http://www2.ljworld.com/submit/letter_to_the_editor/
Friday, November 16, 2007
High on life: the biggest health care fraud in history?
As a new study suggests treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with drugs can do more harm than good, one lifelong 'sufferer' questions whether the condition even exists.
It was probably nailing my teacher’s coat to the desk while he was still wearing it that did it. That and glueing his packet of peanuts to the classroom ceiling, at a precisely-calculated five millimetres beyond his furthest reach.
It was the climax of what I – and most of my pre-teen classmates – considered a sustained comedy campaign, a bit of light-hearted high-jinx designed to redress the teacher-student balance of power. It wasn’t my first and nor would it be my last, even though this particular incident triggered a catastrophic sense of humour failure in said faculty member, who mysteriously vanished overnight.
Had I been born a decade or so later, I doubt I’d be writing this today. Rather than spending almost 20 years inventing new ways to terrorise a succession of teachers, lecturers and employers – fuelling other forms of creativity, including writing, in the process – I’d have been given a massive dose of Ritalin and left in a corner to rot.
Ancient roots
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), described by Hippocrates as early as 493BC, is billed by the modern medical fraternity as a neurological disorder usually characterised – especially in children – by inattentiveness, restlessness, forgetfulness and hyperactivity. Genetic in nature, it affects around five per cent of the world’s population and is often treated with a combination of medications, behaviour modification, lifestyle changes and counselling.
In 1999, a study in the US concluded that, after a period of 12 months, medication was more effective in the treatment of ADHD than behavioural therapy. In the years since, prescriptions in the UK have tripled. Around 500,000 children in Britain are currently believed to have ADHD. Of those, 55,000 are on medication, at an annual cost to the NHS of roughly £28m.
Recent revelation
But new research – by the authors of the original study – suggests drugs don’t work in the long-term and, alarmingly, their impact may actually be negative. Take 14-year-old Craig Buxton, whose family kept a video diary of his behaviour. The footage, which was screened on Panorama, shows in shocking detail his night terrors, explosive tantrums and relentless acts of aggression. At one point, Craig breaks down and cries: “Why am I like this, mum? I don’t want to feel like this, I don’t want to be like this. Help me.” He has been taking ADHD medication for a decade.
Critics are now questioning whether this so-called chronic developmental disorder is really a disorder at all. Dr Fred Baughman, a child neurologist on the other side of the Atlantic, has spent his professional life examining hundreds of children supposedly suffering from ADHD – and has found nothing abnormal or diseased about them. Nor has he found any hard evidence to suggest ADHD is actually a disease, or that it needs any treatment other than willpower, love and support. As he puts it, “it is the biggest health care fraud in history.”
An expert opines
Speaking to MSN UK News, Dr Baughman said: “I have discovered and described real diseases and, having examined hundreds said to have this ‘disorder’ or ‘disease’, I have Fred Baughman found nothing wrong, abnormal or diseased about them. I have also found no proof in the medical scientific literature of the world that ADHD is an objective, demonstrable abnormality, disease or disorder. It is the biggest health care fraud in history.
“The bigger-than-ADHD picture is that they – psychiatry in collusion with Big Pharma – have pledged to call all emotional and behavioural, psychological or mental symptoms ‘diseases’ due to chemical imbalances of the brain, needing not willpower, not love, support or adaptability, but ‘chemical balancers’ – in other words, pills.”
Cash cow
A conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But when drug-making leviathans in the US (the pursuit-of-superficial-perfection capital of the world) have dedicated ADHD sales forces, you can’t help but wonder who’s really creating the demand. One thing is beyond question: there is an awful lot of money to be made selling drugs – and not just the illegal ones. In the current climate of offspring-as-accessories, any quick-fix for children perceived as less than perfect is unlikely to gather any dust on the shelves.
There are, of course, some children who genuinely need pharmaceutical intervention. However, more often than not, this so-called disorder is really the result of combining excessively spirited children with criminally sub-standard parenting skills – quite the Molotov cocktail. In cases where a child becomes disruptive due to lack of parental care, affection or stimulation, the impairment belongs not to the child, but to the surrounding adults.
Simply semantics
Let’s take another look at those symptoms listed earlier: inattentiveness, restlessness, forgetfulness and hyperactivity. In non-medical speak: fidgeting, forgetting things, talking excessively, running around a lot and being easily distracted. What child isn’t? The problem here is one of perspective. I was thrilled to be alive and found my teachers’ monotonous tones, disinterest in their subject and failure to challenge me a total turn-off. They, in turn, found me disruptive (which I was: it helped relieve the brain-putrefying boredom).
But the real concern isn’t the noisy kids vaulting over furniture and terrorising their teachers (within reason), it’s the quiet children who are completely incapable of engaging with the people around them: the silent insular ones, who go unnoticed by society until they massacre their school mates.
If I ever have children (which I won’t), and they turn out to be unusually spirited (which they would), I like to think I’d turn not to pharmaceutical drug barons, but to Hippocrates, who described people exhibiting ADHD-type behaviour as “restless souls” with a simple “overbalance of fire over water.” The physician-scientist’s remedy for this overbalance? “Barley rather than wheat bread, fish rather than meat, water drinks, and many natural and diverse physical activities.' Beats being doped up to the eyeballs any day.
An opinion piece by Laura J Snook, MSN UK News Editor November 13, 2007
It was probably nailing my teacher’s coat to the desk while he was still wearing it that did it. That and glueing his packet of peanuts to the classroom ceiling, at a precisely-calculated five millimetres beyond his furthest reach.
It was the climax of what I – and most of my pre-teen classmates – considered a sustained comedy campaign, a bit of light-hearted high-jinx designed to redress the teacher-student balance of power. It wasn’t my first and nor would it be my last, even though this particular incident triggered a catastrophic sense of humour failure in said faculty member, who mysteriously vanished overnight.
Had I been born a decade or so later, I doubt I’d be writing this today. Rather than spending almost 20 years inventing new ways to terrorise a succession of teachers, lecturers and employers – fuelling other forms of creativity, including writing, in the process – I’d have been given a massive dose of Ritalin and left in a corner to rot.
Ancient roots
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), described by Hippocrates as early as 493BC, is billed by the modern medical fraternity as a neurological disorder usually characterised – especially in children – by inattentiveness, restlessness, forgetfulness and hyperactivity. Genetic in nature, it affects around five per cent of the world’s population and is often treated with a combination of medications, behaviour modification, lifestyle changes and counselling.
In 1999, a study in the US concluded that, after a period of 12 months, medication was more effective in the treatment of ADHD than behavioural therapy. In the years since, prescriptions in the UK have tripled. Around 500,000 children in Britain are currently believed to have ADHD. Of those, 55,000 are on medication, at an annual cost to the NHS of roughly £28m.
Recent revelation
But new research – by the authors of the original study – suggests drugs don’t work in the long-term and, alarmingly, their impact may actually be negative. Take 14-year-old Craig Buxton, whose family kept a video diary of his behaviour. The footage, which was screened on Panorama, shows in shocking detail his night terrors, explosive tantrums and relentless acts of aggression. At one point, Craig breaks down and cries: “Why am I like this, mum? I don’t want to feel like this, I don’t want to be like this. Help me.” He has been taking ADHD medication for a decade.
Critics are now questioning whether this so-called chronic developmental disorder is really a disorder at all. Dr Fred Baughman, a child neurologist on the other side of the Atlantic, has spent his professional life examining hundreds of children supposedly suffering from ADHD – and has found nothing abnormal or diseased about them. Nor has he found any hard evidence to suggest ADHD is actually a disease, or that it needs any treatment other than willpower, love and support. As he puts it, “it is the biggest health care fraud in history.”
An expert opines
Speaking to MSN UK News, Dr Baughman said: “I have discovered and described real diseases and, having examined hundreds said to have this ‘disorder’ or ‘disease’, I have Fred Baughman found nothing wrong, abnormal or diseased about them. I have also found no proof in the medical scientific literature of the world that ADHD is an objective, demonstrable abnormality, disease or disorder. It is the biggest health care fraud in history.
“The bigger-than-ADHD picture is that they – psychiatry in collusion with Big Pharma – have pledged to call all emotional and behavioural, psychological or mental symptoms ‘diseases’ due to chemical imbalances of the brain, needing not willpower, not love, support or adaptability, but ‘chemical balancers’ – in other words, pills.”
Cash cow
A conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But when drug-making leviathans in the US (the pursuit-of-superficial-perfection capital of the world) have dedicated ADHD sales forces, you can’t help but wonder who’s really creating the demand. One thing is beyond question: there is an awful lot of money to be made selling drugs – and not just the illegal ones. In the current climate of offspring-as-accessories, any quick-fix for children perceived as less than perfect is unlikely to gather any dust on the shelves.
There are, of course, some children who genuinely need pharmaceutical intervention. However, more often than not, this so-called disorder is really the result of combining excessively spirited children with criminally sub-standard parenting skills – quite the Molotov cocktail. In cases where a child becomes disruptive due to lack of parental care, affection or stimulation, the impairment belongs not to the child, but to the surrounding adults.
Simply semantics
Let’s take another look at those symptoms listed earlier: inattentiveness, restlessness, forgetfulness and hyperactivity. In non-medical speak: fidgeting, forgetting things, talking excessively, running around a lot and being easily distracted. What child isn’t? The problem here is one of perspective. I was thrilled to be alive and found my teachers’ monotonous tones, disinterest in their subject and failure to challenge me a total turn-off. They, in turn, found me disruptive (which I was: it helped relieve the brain-putrefying boredom).
But the real concern isn’t the noisy kids vaulting over furniture and terrorising their teachers (within reason), it’s the quiet children who are completely incapable of engaging with the people around them: the silent insular ones, who go unnoticed by society until they massacre their school mates.
If I ever have children (which I won’t), and they turn out to be unusually spirited (which they would), I like to think I’d turn not to pharmaceutical drug barons, but to Hippocrates, who described people exhibiting ADHD-type behaviour as “restless souls” with a simple “overbalance of fire over water.” The physician-scientist’s remedy for this overbalance? “Barley rather than wheat bread, fish rather than meat, water drinks, and many natural and diverse physical activities.' Beats being doped up to the eyeballs any day.
An opinion piece by Laura J Snook, MSN UK News Editor November 13, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Ambiguous Loss- Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
I came accross this article today on a web site titled Exiled Mothers.
Although the name sounds like the article is for women only it applies to all of us that have to deal with Ambiguous loss in our lives.
It is however written for a site that deals with mothers that lost their children to adoption, if we are able to read deeper into the whole meaning, it applies to all of us that have lost the loves of our lives [Our Children]. No matter what the cause.
Book Review: Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
by Pauline Boss.
ISBN: 0-674-01738-2
Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1999
Book Review by Sandra Pace
Many people deal with unresolved and ambiguous losses in their lives. Ironically, these ambiguous losses are often more difficult to deal with than "definitive" losses such as death or divorce, where one has a period of grieving and then can move on in life. This slim volume describes ambiguous losses in a way that makes them comprehensible. The book also points to ways to deal with them.
Pauline Boss describes ambiguous losses as those where a family member is physically absent, but psychologically present because it’s unclear whether they are dead or alive. She gives examples of soldiers missing in action or kidnapped children, and those where children are lost to adoption.
The second type of ambiguous loss is where the person is physically present, but psychologically absent, such as with Alzheimer’s or other diseases, or in the grip of addictions or chronic mental illnesses. The results of both of these types of loss are the same, however, in that the grief is not resolved because the ambiguous loss is in the situation, outside the person. The outside force that freezes the grief is the uncertainty and ambiguity of the loss, she says.
Ambiguous loss is the most stressful loss people can face, Boss’s research shows. When people suffering these losses are evaluated in the traditional way, she argues they often look dysfunctional, exhibiting anxiety, depression and somatic illnesses. They feel incompetent, as it destroys one’s sense of mastery. Ambiguous losses can freeze people in place so that they can’t move on with their lives. These losses can traumatize, leading to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and ambiguous losses typically are a long-term situation that traumatize and immobilize, rather than a single event that has flashback effects. People feel helpless, and no longer act, because they cannot have their hopes raised and dashed so many times.
Though not the focus of the book, Boss makes specific reference to the losses in adoption, and the effects on the mother who loses her child to adoption. She indicates that for the mother and for many of the adopted people, knowing each other is necessary to resolve the loss, even if their search yields news that is less than ideal. She feels that adoptive families should recognize that their boundaries are fluid and include the children’s first parents, and that leaving unspoken ambiguity about the family structure is unhealthy for the children.
Pauline Boss indicates that with ambiguous losses, there is no right answer for resolving them. Each person must create the best possible answer for the moment, and understand that the answer will need to be revised in the face of changing circumstances. Complicated losses may seem hopeless and irresolvable, but the power to change can never be taken from us, she says. . The confusion we feel is due to the ambiguity rather than to anything we did or didn’t do. She describes denial as an adaptation that can be useful, but over time becomes less function. It is neither something to avoid nor to advocate. What assists the most is a combination of optimism and realistic thinking. People can manage this with support from their own community and the professional community. Of course, for those who have lost their children or their first parents to adoption, this understanding is sometimes more difficult to find.
It is in reunion that I personally can relate to Pauline Boss’ explanation that we must temper our hunger for mastery and learn to redefine our relationship to the person we’ve lost. The pain of losing my child and the joy of him finding me again led me to want to regain what had been lost: I wanted to be a mother to my son. However, as I came to know him, I realized that I had to constantly redefine what I hoped for in the situation. In the end, the relationship I have built with my son is deep and loving, but it is not entirely a mother/son relationship. There is ambiguity in it. This ambiguity is not my fault, and it is not his fault. It is inherent in the flawed institution of closed adoption. The situation is wrong; we are not. We are damaged by it, and learning to heal from it.
Boss recommends that seeking information is an initial step to resolving ambiguous loss, thus giving support to first parents and those adopted to search for and find each other. She recommends that therapists help people to understand what ambiguous loss is, and that it’s normal to feel ‘stuck’ in the grip of it. It is the situation, not the person, that is sick, she says. A strength of the book is Boss’ understanding that individuals are unique and that each person needs to find their own way to resolve the loss. She sees that people need time for respite as well as time to engage the loss.
Finally, Boss echoes Franklin “Man’s Search for Meaning,” saying we must make meaning of our losses. She has found four factors which affect how we find meaning in our losses:
Our family of origin and early social experiences affect what meaning we see in situations. This is where we develop rules, roles, and rituals for making sense out of loss.
One’s spirituality influences how we make sense of losses.
Our own optimism or pessimism affects our thinking about our losses.
Our view of the world also affects how we make meaning of our losses. Is we see the world logically, as a fair and just place, we find it hard to tolerate ambiguous loss, because we see it as what we deserve. On the other hand, if we see that bad things can happen to good people, and that an external force caused the loss, it is still tragic, but this frees the person to act again. Hence, understanding the greed of society for the children of unwed mothers, and the lack of protection and support for these mothers, means that they can stop seeing themselves as wholly to blame for losing their children.
I would highly recommend this book for all parents who have lost children to adoption, and those adopted also. Though the book deals with many types of ambiguous losses, and only in a small way specifically with adoption losses, the applicability of the information is clear and helpful to those of us who’ve lost by adoption.
____________________________________________
"Contrary to popular belief, mothers don't go on in this world after "giving up" a child, enjoying their lives and forgetting the child ever existed. Even though people would love to think this is true, its not the reality of the situation for most of us. Our lives are colored by the tramatic event and we are never the same afterwards. Most of us grieve for years .... Losing a child to adoption in many ways is worse than losing a child to death. With death we have closure to some degree, with adoption we know that we have a child out there in the world somewhere. ... and we know we love them sight unseen." - Jaymie Frederick, first mother, professional searcher and licensed PI
Although the name sounds like the article is for women only it applies to all of us that have to deal with Ambiguous loss in our lives.
It is however written for a site that deals with mothers that lost their children to adoption, if we are able to read deeper into the whole meaning, it applies to all of us that have lost the loves of our lives [Our Children]. No matter what the cause.
Book Review: Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
by Pauline Boss.
ISBN: 0-674-01738-2
Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1999
Book Review by Sandra Pace
Many people deal with unresolved and ambiguous losses in their lives. Ironically, these ambiguous losses are often more difficult to deal with than "definitive" losses such as death or divorce, where one has a period of grieving and then can move on in life. This slim volume describes ambiguous losses in a way that makes them comprehensible. The book also points to ways to deal with them.
Pauline Boss describes ambiguous losses as those where a family member is physically absent, but psychologically present because it’s unclear whether they are dead or alive. She gives examples of soldiers missing in action or kidnapped children, and those where children are lost to adoption.
The second type of ambiguous loss is where the person is physically present, but psychologically absent, such as with Alzheimer’s or other diseases, or in the grip of addictions or chronic mental illnesses. The results of both of these types of loss are the same, however, in that the grief is not resolved because the ambiguous loss is in the situation, outside the person. The outside force that freezes the grief is the uncertainty and ambiguity of the loss, she says.
Ambiguous loss is the most stressful loss people can face, Boss’s research shows. When people suffering these losses are evaluated in the traditional way, she argues they often look dysfunctional, exhibiting anxiety, depression and somatic illnesses. They feel incompetent, as it destroys one’s sense of mastery. Ambiguous losses can freeze people in place so that they can’t move on with their lives. These losses can traumatize, leading to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and ambiguous losses typically are a long-term situation that traumatize and immobilize, rather than a single event that has flashback effects. People feel helpless, and no longer act, because they cannot have their hopes raised and dashed so many times.
Though not the focus of the book, Boss makes specific reference to the losses in adoption, and the effects on the mother who loses her child to adoption. She indicates that for the mother and for many of the adopted people, knowing each other is necessary to resolve the loss, even if their search yields news that is less than ideal. She feels that adoptive families should recognize that their boundaries are fluid and include the children’s first parents, and that leaving unspoken ambiguity about the family structure is unhealthy for the children.
Pauline Boss indicates that with ambiguous losses, there is no right answer for resolving them. Each person must create the best possible answer for the moment, and understand that the answer will need to be revised in the face of changing circumstances. Complicated losses may seem hopeless and irresolvable, but the power to change can never be taken from us, she says. . The confusion we feel is due to the ambiguity rather than to anything we did or didn’t do. She describes denial as an adaptation that can be useful, but over time becomes less function. It is neither something to avoid nor to advocate. What assists the most is a combination of optimism and realistic thinking. People can manage this with support from their own community and the professional community. Of course, for those who have lost their children or their first parents to adoption, this understanding is sometimes more difficult to find.
It is in reunion that I personally can relate to Pauline Boss’ explanation that we must temper our hunger for mastery and learn to redefine our relationship to the person we’ve lost. The pain of losing my child and the joy of him finding me again led me to want to regain what had been lost: I wanted to be a mother to my son. However, as I came to know him, I realized that I had to constantly redefine what I hoped for in the situation. In the end, the relationship I have built with my son is deep and loving, but it is not entirely a mother/son relationship. There is ambiguity in it. This ambiguity is not my fault, and it is not his fault. It is inherent in the flawed institution of closed adoption. The situation is wrong; we are not. We are damaged by it, and learning to heal from it.
Boss recommends that seeking information is an initial step to resolving ambiguous loss, thus giving support to first parents and those adopted to search for and find each other. She recommends that therapists help people to understand what ambiguous loss is, and that it’s normal to feel ‘stuck’ in the grip of it. It is the situation, not the person, that is sick, she says. A strength of the book is Boss’ understanding that individuals are unique and that each person needs to find their own way to resolve the loss. She sees that people need time for respite as well as time to engage the loss.
Finally, Boss echoes Franklin “Man’s Search for Meaning,” saying we must make meaning of our losses. She has found four factors which affect how we find meaning in our losses:
Our family of origin and early social experiences affect what meaning we see in situations. This is where we develop rules, roles, and rituals for making sense out of loss.
One’s spirituality influences how we make sense of losses.
Our own optimism or pessimism affects our thinking about our losses.
Our view of the world also affects how we make meaning of our losses. Is we see the world logically, as a fair and just place, we find it hard to tolerate ambiguous loss, because we see it as what we deserve. On the other hand, if we see that bad things can happen to good people, and that an external force caused the loss, it is still tragic, but this frees the person to act again. Hence, understanding the greed of society for the children of unwed mothers, and the lack of protection and support for these mothers, means that they can stop seeing themselves as wholly to blame for losing their children.
I would highly recommend this book for all parents who have lost children to adoption, and those adopted also. Though the book deals with many types of ambiguous losses, and only in a small way specifically with adoption losses, the applicability of the information is clear and helpful to those of us who’ve lost by adoption.
____________________________________________
"Contrary to popular belief, mothers don't go on in this world after "giving up" a child, enjoying their lives and forgetting the child ever existed. Even though people would love to think this is true, its not the reality of the situation for most of us. Our lives are colored by the tramatic event and we are never the same afterwards. Most of us grieve for years .... Losing a child to adoption in many ways is worse than losing a child to death. With death we have closure to some degree, with adoption we know that we have a child out there in the world somewhere. ... and we know we love them sight unseen." - Jaymie Frederick, first mother, professional searcher and licensed PI
Friday, October 26, 2007
World Experts Demand End to Child Drugging in the US - Part I
Washington, DC: On October 12, 2007, experts in the field of psychiatry and child development from all over the world arrived in Washington to attend the annual conference of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology.
This year's conference focused on one specific goal - to end the mass-prescribing of psychiatric drugs to children.
In addition to the seminars and presentations by psychiatric experts and academics, other presenters and speakers at the conference varied from patients and leaders of patient advocacy groups to social workers, nurses, educators, authors and lawmakers.
The conference included presentations on the serious health risks associated with the new generation of psychiatric drugs now commonly prescribed to children, including attention deficit medications, antidepressant drugs and atypical antipsychotics.
Much of the outrage expressed by speakers and attendees alike stemmed from the recommendation by the Bush Administration's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to conduct "universal" mental illness screening of all Americans from the age of "0" on up to the oldest living citizen.
The main topics of debate included the recommendations by the NFC to screen public school children in all 50 states with a program called TeenScreen and the implementation in many states of programs modeled after TMAP (Texas Medication Algorithm Project), a treatment plan that mandates the use of the new expensive psychiatric drugs with all patients diagnosed with mental disorders who are covered by public health care programs such as Medicaid.
The new generation of antidepressant drugs include Prozac and Cymbalta by Eli Lilly; Paxil marketed by GlaxoSmithKline; Zoloft by Pfizer; Celexa and Lexapro from Forest Laboratories; Effexor by Wyeth, as well as generic versions sold by Barr Pharmaceuticals, Ranbaxy Labs and Genpharm.
The new generation of atypical antipsychotics include Zyprexa by Eli Lilly; Risperdal marketed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subdivision of Johnson & Johnson; Abilify by Bristol-Myers Squibb; Clozaril sold by Novartis, and Geodon by Pfizer.
Many of the presentations at the conference focused on the pharmaceutical industry's role in the invention of both TMAP and TeenScreen and the many financial ties between the drug makers, the Bush administration, a group of psychiatrists, and state policy makers largely credited with the creation and promotion of these two programs.
Minnesota Pediatrician Dr Karen Effrem produced a briefing booklet and CD entitled, "The Dangers of Universal Mental Health Screening," which is available at the ICSPP web site at http://www.icspp.org/.
During her presentation, Dr Effrem explained the history of TMAP and TeenScreen, a 52-question computerized self-administered questionnaire that takes 10 minutes to complete and was developed by Columbia University Children's Psychiatric Center.
"The New Freedom Commission, TMAP and TeenScreen," Dr Effrem notes, "appear to be a blatant political/pharmaceutical company alliances that promote medication, and more precisely, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotics, which are at best of questionable benefit and come with deadly side effects."
During the portion on TeenSceen, Dr Effrem cited one study which found an 82% false-positive rate in students screened, meaning that if 100 students were tested, 82 were wrongly flagged as having some mental disorder. "TeenScreen's extremely high false-positive rate makes the test virtually useless as a diagnostic instrument," she stated.
According to Dr Effrem, it is "difficult, if not impossible" to diagnose young children accurately, due to very rapid developmental changes. "Often, adult signs and symptoms of mental disorders in adults are characteristics of normal development in children and adolescents," she explains.
Since the arrival of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors antidepressants (SSRI's) and atypical antipsychotics on the market, countless studies have shown the so-called "wonder drugs" to be ineffective and harmful to children. But for years, drug companies have manipulated data, suppressed negative clinical trials and published only the studies that showed positive results.
The truth is that the mass drugging of the entire population in the US with SSRI's has accomplished nothing when it comes to reducing suicidality. According to a June 2005 study, primarily funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, although people who were likely to attempt suicide were far more likely to be treated with antidepressants in 2001-2003, the rates for suicide attempts, gestures and ideation remained basically unchanged for over a decade.
To reach their conclusions, the researchers analyzed a survey of close to 10,000 adults and compared it to a similar survey conduced 10 years earlier for the years 1990-1992.
The prescribing rates for psychiatric drugs increased every year during that time period. On January 13, 2005, WebMD reported a government study that reviewed the patterns of treatment from the mid-1990's to 2001, and found more Americans than ever were being treated for depression, substance abuse and mental disorders but that the treatment was most often limited to drugs alone.
The cost of mental health drugs rose 20% each year, and according to study, about 80% of the increase could be explained by the increased prescribing of antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics.
A "Myth and Fact Sheet" presented at the conference reports that, in 2003, more money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on antibiotics and asthma medications.
By tugging at the heartstrings of parents in claiming TeenScreen is a suicide prevention tool, the drug profiteers have managed to set up the bogus screening program in towns and cities all across America, and the promoters never seem to tire of using the line that suicide is the third leading cause of death in teens and adolescents in the US. However, experts explain that the rate of suicide remains high on the list only because persons in this age group seldom die of any causes.
During his presentation at the conference, neurologist Dr Fred Baughman, a recognized authority on psychotropic drugs and author of "The ADHD Fraud," stated: "Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry married and launched the joint market strategy of calling all emotional and behavioral problems 'brain diseases', due to 'chemical imbalances', needing 'chemical balancers' - pills."
"Every time parents are lead to believe that their child's emotional or behavioral problems are a 'disease' due to an abnormality in the brain," Dr Baughman says, "they are lied to."
He discussed the overdose death of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley in December 2006, who was diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar Disorder when she was only 2-and-a half-years old. She was kept on a cocktail of 3 psychiatric drugs, none of which were FDA approved alone for a child her age, much less together, until the time of her death.
The title of his presentation was, "Who Killed Rebecca Riley," and Dr Baughman placed the blame squarely on the gang of industry shills who are largely credited with the invention and promotion of ADHD and Bipolar Disorders in small children, including among others, Dr Joseph Biederman, Dr Steven Hyman, Dr Jerome Groopman and Dr David Shaffer, the brainchild credited with inventing TeenScreen.
The Fact Sheet reports a 2006 review of the FDA's MedWatch adverse event database, which found 45 deaths in children due to toxicity of antipsychotics.
Dr Baughman calls the use of the "chemical imbalance theory," the "biggest health care fraud" and "mass character assassination" in human history, and says it must be abolished.
Dr Dominick Riccio, executive director of the ICSPP, also weighed in on the "chemical imbalance" theory and said that child drugging in the US is based on a "hypotheses with no validity," propagandized by the pharmaceutical industry.
He warned that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to validate the "chemical imbalance" used to justify the drugging of America's "most precious commodity," and "if we continue to damage our children, there will be hell to pay down the line.
" Dr Riccio called for "integrity" in the psychiatric profession and told professionals in attendance, "if you do not understand child development, you should not work with children."
Washington psychiatrist, Dr Joseph Tarantolo, warned that the new selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants are not "selective," "the drugs are cannons," he said. He also explained that the "so-called" antipsychotic drugs do not affect psychosis, "they deaden a person's response to life."
According to Dr Tarantolo, because the drugging began 10 or 15 years ago, "we are going to have an epidemic of young adults with yet-to-be-determined neurological problems due to the long term use of psychotropic drugs."
He says an epidemic is defined as 1% of the population and warns that there will be far more than 1% injured by these drugs.
The bribing of prescribing doctors in the field of psychiatry is rampant.
A June 26, 2007, report by the Attorney General of Vermont of payments made to doctors by drug companies during the period July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006, shows that, by category, psychiatrists were the largest beneficiaries, and 11 psychiatrists received a combined total of $502,612.02, or more than 22% of the overall total of all payments.
For the past 4 years, psychiatric drug makers have remained high on the list of the top 10 spenders in Vermont, with Paxil maker Glaxo holding the number one position in both 2003 and 2004. An analysis of Minnesota disclosure records by the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, reported by the Pioneer Press, found a similar windfall for shrinks in that state between 2002 and 2006, with psychiatrists receiving combined payments of $7.38 million.
However, the drug maker's off-label sales of antipsychotics are now under fire due to the greed involved in the billings submitted for Medicaid patients. In September 2007, Arkansas became the latest state to sue the drug makers when it announced the filing of a lawsuit against Lilly, Janssen and AstraZeneca for "improper and unlawful marketing," of their drugs and concealing the serious health risks associated with their use.
The Medicaid fraud lawsuits seek to recover not only the money paid for the antipsychotics but also the cost of medical care for all the patients who were injured by the drugs known to cause drastic weight gain, abnormal blood sugars and diabetes.
The bribing of shrinks may be coming to an end as well because, in addition to Medicaid fraud lawsuits, states are also going after the prescribers. On August 16, 2006, the Houston Chronicle reported that five doctors in Texas were notified that they needed to return the Medicaid money paid for drugs they prescribed as part of a two-year effort to better regulate how children are prescribed psychiatric drugs in that state.
The Chronicle reported that a review of a two-month period of Medicaid records in 2004 determined that over 63,000 foster children were on stimulants, antipsychotics or antidepressants, with nearly one-third of the kids taking drugs from more than one of the three classes at the same time and that doctors had filed 114,315 claims worth over $17 million.
The experts at the ICSPP conference reported that the over-prescribing of attention deficit drugs is also out of control, even after the new warnings were issued. The ICSPP Fact Sheet notes that the new labeling changes for ADHD medications include: "Sudden death has been reported in association with CNS stimulant treatment at usual doses in children and adolescents with structural cardiac abnormalities or other serious heart problems."
"Treatment emergent psychotic or manic symptoms, e.g., hallucinations, delusional can be caused by stimulants at usual doses," the warning also notes.
Psychiatrist Dr Grace Jackson, author of "Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs," says the fact that cardiovascular risks are associated with ADHD drugs is not news. "As early as 1977," she says, "research documented the cell changes associated with heart muscle enlargement in a chronic consumer of Ritalin."
"The connection between stimulants, cardiovascular disability, and death has long been documented in the medical literature," she states.
However, no slow down in prescribing rates for these drugs is likely. In 2005, according to a December 15, 2006, report by Research and Markets, the value of the ADHD market was $2.6 billion, and it is now the 9th largest segment of the CNS market with growth of 8% year-on-year. Approximately 90% of global sales were derived from the US in 2005, and by 2012, global sales are forecast to reach $4.3 billion.
In February 2007, the FDA finally directed the drug makers to develop Patient Medication Guides to inform patients about the adverse effects of Adderall, Concerta, Daytrana, Desoxyn, Dexedrine, Focalin, Metadate CD, Methylin, Ritalin and Strattera.
However, experts say children are being damaged by ADHD drugs in ways that will never show up in a pamphlet. According to child psychiatrist Dr Stefan Kruszewski, "children who are medicated early do not learn to develop coping strategies that work as they move through different developmental stages."
"We are encouraging a generation of youngsters to grow up relying on psychiatric drugs rather than on themselves and other human resources," says Dr Peter Breggin, ICSPP founder and author of, "Talking Back to Ritalin."
"In the long run, we are giving our children a very bad lesson," he warns, "that drugs are the answer to emotional problems." "The problem with the diagnostic assessment of ADHD," Dr Kruszewski explains, "is that the prescreening statement is so inclusive that virtually every child meets prescreening criteria and therefore every child, under prevailing treatment modalities, becomes eligible for 'chronic' medication therapies."
He also points out that, once children are screened, "they become 'eligible' for additional screening for conditions such as social anxiety, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and too often end up on even more drugs.
" Dr David Stein, author of, "Unraveling the ADD/ADHD Fiasco," also warns that stimulant drugs are "near the top of the heap of potentially addictive drugs."
He says there is no way of pinpointing which children are at risk of becoming addicted, and "psychiatry has an extremely poor track record for treating addiction problems."
Advocates against school screening have set up a web site that lists the TeenScreen locations throughout the US, which also posts a petition for people opposed to the program to sign at [TEENSCREEN-LOCATIONS]
Original Article - World Experts Demand End to Child Drugging in the US - Part I
This year's conference focused on one specific goal - to end the mass-prescribing of psychiatric drugs to children.
In addition to the seminars and presentations by psychiatric experts and academics, other presenters and speakers at the conference varied from patients and leaders of patient advocacy groups to social workers, nurses, educators, authors and lawmakers.
The conference included presentations on the serious health risks associated with the new generation of psychiatric drugs now commonly prescribed to children, including attention deficit medications, antidepressant drugs and atypical antipsychotics.
Much of the outrage expressed by speakers and attendees alike stemmed from the recommendation by the Bush Administration's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to conduct "universal" mental illness screening of all Americans from the age of "0" on up to the oldest living citizen.
The main topics of debate included the recommendations by the NFC to screen public school children in all 50 states with a program called TeenScreen and the implementation in many states of programs modeled after TMAP (Texas Medication Algorithm Project), a treatment plan that mandates the use of the new expensive psychiatric drugs with all patients diagnosed with mental disorders who are covered by public health care programs such as Medicaid.
The new generation of antidepressant drugs include Prozac and Cymbalta by Eli Lilly; Paxil marketed by GlaxoSmithKline; Zoloft by Pfizer; Celexa and Lexapro from Forest Laboratories; Effexor by Wyeth, as well as generic versions sold by Barr Pharmaceuticals, Ranbaxy Labs and Genpharm.
The new generation of atypical antipsychotics include Zyprexa by Eli Lilly; Risperdal marketed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subdivision of Johnson & Johnson; Abilify by Bristol-Myers Squibb; Clozaril sold by Novartis, and Geodon by Pfizer.
Many of the presentations at the conference focused on the pharmaceutical industry's role in the invention of both TMAP and TeenScreen and the many financial ties between the drug makers, the Bush administration, a group of psychiatrists, and state policy makers largely credited with the creation and promotion of these two programs.
Minnesota Pediatrician Dr Karen Effrem produced a briefing booklet and CD entitled, "The Dangers of Universal Mental Health Screening," which is available at the ICSPP web site at http://www.icspp.org/.
During her presentation, Dr Effrem explained the history of TMAP and TeenScreen, a 52-question computerized self-administered questionnaire that takes 10 minutes to complete and was developed by Columbia University Children's Psychiatric Center.
"The New Freedom Commission, TMAP and TeenScreen," Dr Effrem notes, "appear to be a blatant political/pharmaceutical company alliances that promote medication, and more precisely, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotics, which are at best of questionable benefit and come with deadly side effects."
During the portion on TeenSceen, Dr Effrem cited one study which found an 82% false-positive rate in students screened, meaning that if 100 students were tested, 82 were wrongly flagged as having some mental disorder. "TeenScreen's extremely high false-positive rate makes the test virtually useless as a diagnostic instrument," she stated.
According to Dr Effrem, it is "difficult, if not impossible" to diagnose young children accurately, due to very rapid developmental changes. "Often, adult signs and symptoms of mental disorders in adults are characteristics of normal development in children and adolescents," she explains.
Since the arrival of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors antidepressants (SSRI's) and atypical antipsychotics on the market, countless studies have shown the so-called "wonder drugs" to be ineffective and harmful to children. But for years, drug companies have manipulated data, suppressed negative clinical trials and published only the studies that showed positive results.
The truth is that the mass drugging of the entire population in the US with SSRI's has accomplished nothing when it comes to reducing suicidality. According to a June 2005 study, primarily funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, although people who were likely to attempt suicide were far more likely to be treated with antidepressants in 2001-2003, the rates for suicide attempts, gestures and ideation remained basically unchanged for over a decade.
To reach their conclusions, the researchers analyzed a survey of close to 10,000 adults and compared it to a similar survey conduced 10 years earlier for the years 1990-1992.
The prescribing rates for psychiatric drugs increased every year during that time period. On January 13, 2005, WebMD reported a government study that reviewed the patterns of treatment from the mid-1990's to 2001, and found more Americans than ever were being treated for depression, substance abuse and mental disorders but that the treatment was most often limited to drugs alone.
The cost of mental health drugs rose 20% each year, and according to study, about 80% of the increase could be explained by the increased prescribing of antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics.
A "Myth and Fact Sheet" presented at the conference reports that, in 2003, more money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on antibiotics and asthma medications.
By tugging at the heartstrings of parents in claiming TeenScreen is a suicide prevention tool, the drug profiteers have managed to set up the bogus screening program in towns and cities all across America, and the promoters never seem to tire of using the line that suicide is the third leading cause of death in teens and adolescents in the US. However, experts explain that the rate of suicide remains high on the list only because persons in this age group seldom die of any causes.
During his presentation at the conference, neurologist Dr Fred Baughman, a recognized authority on psychotropic drugs and author of "The ADHD Fraud," stated: "Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry married and launched the joint market strategy of calling all emotional and behavioral problems 'brain diseases', due to 'chemical imbalances', needing 'chemical balancers' - pills."
"Every time parents are lead to believe that their child's emotional or behavioral problems are a 'disease' due to an abnormality in the brain," Dr Baughman says, "they are lied to."
He discussed the overdose death of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley in December 2006, who was diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar Disorder when she was only 2-and-a half-years old. She was kept on a cocktail of 3 psychiatric drugs, none of which were FDA approved alone for a child her age, much less together, until the time of her death.
The title of his presentation was, "Who Killed Rebecca Riley," and Dr Baughman placed the blame squarely on the gang of industry shills who are largely credited with the invention and promotion of ADHD and Bipolar Disorders in small children, including among others, Dr Joseph Biederman, Dr Steven Hyman, Dr Jerome Groopman and Dr David Shaffer, the brainchild credited with inventing TeenScreen.
The Fact Sheet reports a 2006 review of the FDA's MedWatch adverse event database, which found 45 deaths in children due to toxicity of antipsychotics.
Dr Baughman calls the use of the "chemical imbalance theory," the "biggest health care fraud" and "mass character assassination" in human history, and says it must be abolished.
Dr Dominick Riccio, executive director of the ICSPP, also weighed in on the "chemical imbalance" theory and said that child drugging in the US is based on a "hypotheses with no validity," propagandized by the pharmaceutical industry.
He warned that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to validate the "chemical imbalance" used to justify the drugging of America's "most precious commodity," and "if we continue to damage our children, there will be hell to pay down the line.
" Dr Riccio called for "integrity" in the psychiatric profession and told professionals in attendance, "if you do not understand child development, you should not work with children."
Washington psychiatrist, Dr Joseph Tarantolo, warned that the new selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants are not "selective," "the drugs are cannons," he said. He also explained that the "so-called" antipsychotic drugs do not affect psychosis, "they deaden a person's response to life."
According to Dr Tarantolo, because the drugging began 10 or 15 years ago, "we are going to have an epidemic of young adults with yet-to-be-determined neurological problems due to the long term use of psychotropic drugs."
He says an epidemic is defined as 1% of the population and warns that there will be far more than 1% injured by these drugs.
The bribing of prescribing doctors in the field of psychiatry is rampant.
A June 26, 2007, report by the Attorney General of Vermont of payments made to doctors by drug companies during the period July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006, shows that, by category, psychiatrists were the largest beneficiaries, and 11 psychiatrists received a combined total of $502,612.02, or more than 22% of the overall total of all payments.
For the past 4 years, psychiatric drug makers have remained high on the list of the top 10 spenders in Vermont, with Paxil maker Glaxo holding the number one position in both 2003 and 2004. An analysis of Minnesota disclosure records by the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, reported by the Pioneer Press, found a similar windfall for shrinks in that state between 2002 and 2006, with psychiatrists receiving combined payments of $7.38 million.
However, the drug maker's off-label sales of antipsychotics are now under fire due to the greed involved in the billings submitted for Medicaid patients. In September 2007, Arkansas became the latest state to sue the drug makers when it announced the filing of a lawsuit against Lilly, Janssen and AstraZeneca for "improper and unlawful marketing," of their drugs and concealing the serious health risks associated with their use.
The Medicaid fraud lawsuits seek to recover not only the money paid for the antipsychotics but also the cost of medical care for all the patients who were injured by the drugs known to cause drastic weight gain, abnormal blood sugars and diabetes.
The bribing of shrinks may be coming to an end as well because, in addition to Medicaid fraud lawsuits, states are also going after the prescribers. On August 16, 2006, the Houston Chronicle reported that five doctors in Texas were notified that they needed to return the Medicaid money paid for drugs they prescribed as part of a two-year effort to better regulate how children are prescribed psychiatric drugs in that state.
The Chronicle reported that a review of a two-month period of Medicaid records in 2004 determined that over 63,000 foster children were on stimulants, antipsychotics or antidepressants, with nearly one-third of the kids taking drugs from more than one of the three classes at the same time and that doctors had filed 114,315 claims worth over $17 million.
The experts at the ICSPP conference reported that the over-prescribing of attention deficit drugs is also out of control, even after the new warnings were issued. The ICSPP Fact Sheet notes that the new labeling changes for ADHD medications include: "Sudden death has been reported in association with CNS stimulant treatment at usual doses in children and adolescents with structural cardiac abnormalities or other serious heart problems."
"Treatment emergent psychotic or manic symptoms, e.g., hallucinations, delusional can be caused by stimulants at usual doses," the warning also notes.
Psychiatrist Dr Grace Jackson, author of "Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs," says the fact that cardiovascular risks are associated with ADHD drugs is not news. "As early as 1977," she says, "research documented the cell changes associated with heart muscle enlargement in a chronic consumer of Ritalin."
"The connection between stimulants, cardiovascular disability, and death has long been documented in the medical literature," she states.
However, no slow down in prescribing rates for these drugs is likely. In 2005, according to a December 15, 2006, report by Research and Markets, the value of the ADHD market was $2.6 billion, and it is now the 9th largest segment of the CNS market with growth of 8% year-on-year. Approximately 90% of global sales were derived from the US in 2005, and by 2012, global sales are forecast to reach $4.3 billion.
In February 2007, the FDA finally directed the drug makers to develop Patient Medication Guides to inform patients about the adverse effects of Adderall, Concerta, Daytrana, Desoxyn, Dexedrine, Focalin, Metadate CD, Methylin, Ritalin and Strattera.
However, experts say children are being damaged by ADHD drugs in ways that will never show up in a pamphlet. According to child psychiatrist Dr Stefan Kruszewski, "children who are medicated early do not learn to develop coping strategies that work as they move through different developmental stages."
"We are encouraging a generation of youngsters to grow up relying on psychiatric drugs rather than on themselves and other human resources," says Dr Peter Breggin, ICSPP founder and author of, "Talking Back to Ritalin."
"In the long run, we are giving our children a very bad lesson," he warns, "that drugs are the answer to emotional problems." "The problem with the diagnostic assessment of ADHD," Dr Kruszewski explains, "is that the prescreening statement is so inclusive that virtually every child meets prescreening criteria and therefore every child, under prevailing treatment modalities, becomes eligible for 'chronic' medication therapies."
He also points out that, once children are screened, "they become 'eligible' for additional screening for conditions such as social anxiety, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and too often end up on even more drugs.
" Dr David Stein, author of, "Unraveling the ADD/ADHD Fiasco," also warns that stimulant drugs are "near the top of the heap of potentially addictive drugs."
He says there is no way of pinpointing which children are at risk of becoming addicted, and "psychiatry has an extremely poor track record for treating addiction problems."
Advocates against school screening have set up a web site that lists the TeenScreen locations throughout the US, which also posts a petition for people opposed to the program to sign at [TEENSCREEN-LOCATIONS]
Original Article - World Experts Demand End to Child Drugging in the US - Part I
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Big Big WIN for Parents and Children
There you have it, CPS and its employees can not threaten parents with court orders or the removal of children because parents assert their 4th and 14th Amendment Rights and refuse to cooperate. Parents do not have to cooperate with CPS what so ever and CPS employees have to go away when parents deny them access to their home and children. They must conclude their investigation without the cooperation of the parents and children.
CPS workers are trained and instructed in this unconstitutional practice in order to conduct an unreasonable search and seizure of the home and child. They are to lie and threaten any way they can.
All parents who were threatened should file a federal lawsuit against DCF, their workers, their supervisors and the police.
Thomas Dutkiewicz
October 22, 2007
Federal Judge Rules Social Worker Fear Tactics Unconstitutional
A federal court in Arizona has ruled that an unsupported threat to place children in custody, made to coerce cooperation with a social services investigation, violates the constitutional guarantee of family privacy and integrity.
As detailed in the March/April 2007 issue of the Court Report, social workers and sheriff’s deputies had come to the home of Home School Legal Defense Association members John and Tiffany Loudermilk, demanding entry based on a six-week-old anonymous tip that the newly constructed home was unsafe for children. The Loudermilks declined consent, as was their right under the Fourth Amendment. After an escalating confrontation at the front door that lasted 40 minutes, the social workers, backed by no fewer than four deputies, threatened to take the Loudermilks’ children into custody and place them in foster care if the Loudermilks continued to deny them entry to their home. An assistant attorney general repeated this threat to HSLDA attorney Thomas Schmidt, who was assisting the Loudermilks during the confrontation.
Under this duress, Mr. and Mrs. Loudermilk allowed the social workers and sheriff’s deputies inside. Within five minutes, the social workers determined that the anonymous tip was false and left.
HSLDA filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Loudermilk family, alleging that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that the unjustified threat to remove the children was a separate constitutional violation of the family’s Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy and family integrity. The social workers and assistant attorney general moved to dismiss the claims, arguing that neither the search nor the threat to remove the children violated the Loudermilks’ constitutional rights.
On September 27, 2007, the judge ruled in the Loudermilks favor, stating: “Defendants persisted in their threats to remove the children if Plaintiff Parents did not consent to the search, stating that [they] could arrest or handcuff the Parents in front of the children. Based on the allegations set forth in the Amended Complaint, viewed in Plaintiff’s favor, no reasonable official would have believed that his or her conduct was authorized by state or constitutional law.” With regard to the assistant attorney general, the court ruled that “Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that [the attorney] . . . by ‘threat’ exerted ‘coercive pressure’ on them to allow the search of their home so that their children would not be removed.”
The judge’s ruling allows the case to proceed to trial. “The ruling in this case makes it clear that threatening to remove children to gain a parent’s cooperation is unconstitutional,” said James R. Mason, Senior Counsel for HSLDA. “We hope that this ruling will change this common tactic used by investigative caseworkers all over the country.”
Judge’s Ruling in the Loudermilk Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Thomas M. Dutkiewicz, PresidentSpecial Family Advocate on Constitutional ProtectionConnecticut DCF WatchP.O. Box 9775Forestville, CT 06011-9775860-833-4127Admin@connecticutdcfwatch.comwww.connecticutDCFwatch.com
P.S. Check out our web site for the FREE handbook on parental rights. There is also a manual on "reasonable efforts" with sections for Attorneys, Judges and Agencies.
CPS workers are trained and instructed in this unconstitutional practice in order to conduct an unreasonable search and seizure of the home and child. They are to lie and threaten any way they can.
All parents who were threatened should file a federal lawsuit against DCF, their workers, their supervisors and the police.
Thomas Dutkiewicz
October 22, 2007
Federal Judge Rules Social Worker Fear Tactics Unconstitutional
A federal court in Arizona has ruled that an unsupported threat to place children in custody, made to coerce cooperation with a social services investigation, violates the constitutional guarantee of family privacy and integrity.
As detailed in the March/April 2007 issue of the Court Report, social workers and sheriff’s deputies had come to the home of Home School Legal Defense Association members John and Tiffany Loudermilk, demanding entry based on a six-week-old anonymous tip that the newly constructed home was unsafe for children. The Loudermilks declined consent, as was their right under the Fourth Amendment. After an escalating confrontation at the front door that lasted 40 minutes, the social workers, backed by no fewer than four deputies, threatened to take the Loudermilks’ children into custody and place them in foster care if the Loudermilks continued to deny them entry to their home. An assistant attorney general repeated this threat to HSLDA attorney Thomas Schmidt, who was assisting the Loudermilks during the confrontation.
Under this duress, Mr. and Mrs. Loudermilk allowed the social workers and sheriff’s deputies inside. Within five minutes, the social workers determined that the anonymous tip was false and left.
HSLDA filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Loudermilk family, alleging that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that the unjustified threat to remove the children was a separate constitutional violation of the family’s Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy and family integrity. The social workers and assistant attorney general moved to dismiss the claims, arguing that neither the search nor the threat to remove the children violated the Loudermilks’ constitutional rights.
On September 27, 2007, the judge ruled in the Loudermilks favor, stating: “Defendants persisted in their threats to remove the children if Plaintiff Parents did not consent to the search, stating that [they] could arrest or handcuff the Parents in front of the children. Based on the allegations set forth in the Amended Complaint, viewed in Plaintiff’s favor, no reasonable official would have believed that his or her conduct was authorized by state or constitutional law.” With regard to the assistant attorney general, the court ruled that “Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that [the attorney] . . . by ‘threat’ exerted ‘coercive pressure’ on them to allow the search of their home so that their children would not be removed.”
The judge’s ruling allows the case to proceed to trial. “The ruling in this case makes it clear that threatening to remove children to gain a parent’s cooperation is unconstitutional,” said James R. Mason, Senior Counsel for HSLDA. “We hope that this ruling will change this common tactic used by investigative caseworkers all over the country.”
Judge’s Ruling in the Loudermilk Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Thomas M. Dutkiewicz, PresidentSpecial Family Advocate on Constitutional ProtectionConnecticut DCF WatchP.O. Box 9775Forestville, CT 06011-9775860-833-4127Admin@connecticutdcfwatch.comwww.connecticutDCFwatch.com
P.S. Check out our web site for the FREE handbook on parental rights. There is also a manual on "reasonable efforts" with sections for Attorneys, Judges and Agencies.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Please Vote lets show this school we are behind them!
A school board in the state of Virginia was brave enough to take a stand by sending out the real story about the "Mental disorder" known as ADHD and the drugs prescribed to treat it.
ADHD is not a medical condition and there are no blood tests, brain scans or chemical imbalance tests to prove any child has a "brain condition" requiring the administration of drugs.
ADHD drugs have been documented by the US FDA to cause psychosis, hallucinations, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. Psychiatric/Pharmaceutically funded front groups like CHADD
(mentioned in the below article) want to keep parents in the dark .
Please vote here: http://...com/yob4bu
(right side of article)
Should the Portsmouth School Board have sent a flier on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to parents?
Yes 67.22%
No 31.84%
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=135015&ran=160257&tref=po
ADHD is not a medical condition and there are no blood tests, brain scans or chemical imbalance tests to prove any child has a "brain condition" requiring the administration of drugs.
ADHD drugs have been documented by the US FDA to cause psychosis, hallucinations, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. Psychiatric/Pharmaceutically funded front groups like CHADD
(mentioned in the below article) want to keep parents in the dark .
Please vote here: http://...com/yob4bu
(right side of article)
Should the Portsmouth School Board have sent a flier on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to parents?
Yes 67.22%
No 31.84%
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=135015&ran=160257&tref=po
Saturday, October 20, 2007
School Board SLAMS ADHD Drugs!! And is Criticzed Please Vote
Below is an email I received from Teen Screen..
A school board in the state of Virginia was brave enough to take a stand for parental rights and informed consent, by sending out the real story about the "Mental disorder" known as ADHD and the drugs prescribed to treat it.
ADHD is not a medical condition and there are no blood tests, brain scans or chemical imbalance tests to prove any child has a "brain condition" requiring the administration of drugs.
ADHD drugs have been documented by the US FDA to cause psychosis, hallucinations, heart attack, stroke and sudden death.
Psychiatric/Pharmaceutically funded front groups like CHADD want to keep parents in the dark, evidenced by their statements in the article below.
Please vote here:
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=135015&ran=160257&tref=po
Should the Portsmouth School Board have sent a flier on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to parents?
You can also send a letter to the editor here: letters@pilotonline.com
And you can backup the entire school board by sending an e-mail here: kathy.chambliss@pps.k12.va.us
Please note: Below the article is information on CHADD.
Virginian-Pilot
Portsmouth School Board's ADHD flier draws fire
By CHERYL ROSS , The Virginian-Pilot
© October 19, 2007
PORTSMOUTH
Last month, the School Board sent a warning to parents about the “harmful effects” of drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Much of the flier’s information was taken from the Internet, including from a Web site run by a group founded by the Church of Scientology
This week, six national organizations and eight local groups sent a letter requesting that the School Board retract the flier and send a new one stating that ADHD is a disease that requires treatment.
The groups include the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Tidewater chapter of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
The flier was sent “to instill fear in parents,” said E. Clarke Ross, CEO of the Landover, Md.-based national office of CHADD. “It’s not based on published science, but on propaganda.
“This is the first time I’ve heard of this kind of propaganda being officially disseminated from a school system to its pupils,” Ross said.
In recent years, some parents, doctors and researchers have said that too many children are being misdiagnosed with the disease and, as a result, have been over medicated.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, about 4.4 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD by a health care professional, and about 2.5 million children are being treated with medication.
The Portsmouth School Board began discussing ADHD at the urging of long time member Elizabeth Daniels.
Daniels said she is concerned about the welfare of children.
In the early 1980s, Daniels said she cared for an 11 -year-old girl whom doctors said was hyperactive. She said she believes the child was being treated with Ritalin, which made the girl groggy. When the child was taken off the drug, Daniels said she was alert and happier.
Daniels said she and the Virginia School Boards Association last year turned to the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics for information about ADHD. The organizations did not respond to the board’s questions, Daniels said.
However, Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she answered the association’s questions in November 2006. Kraft sent The Virginian-Pilot a copy of the November-dated e-mail to the state School Boards association.
She said the group is regularly contacted by parents about the disease.
In August, the Virginia School Boards Association sent a flier to every superintendent in the state similar to the one distributed to Portsmouth parents. It was sent as a courtesy to Daniels, a former president of the association, said Frank E. Barham, executive director of the group.
The association suggested that individual superintendents and School Boards consider whether to distribute the information further. Earlier this week, Barham said he thinks that Portsmouth is the only board to send the information to parents.
CHADD has requested that the association send a new flier to school divisions with information stating that ADHD is a disease.
Barham said he doesn’t understand why the flier has caused so much controversy. As far as he’s concerned, the matter is closed. “We will not be distributing any more materials on the issue,” he said.
In September, the Portsmouth School Board voted 6-2 to send the flier to the division’s parents. Board members Jean H. Shackelford and Betty N. Hudgins voted against it. Board member B. Keith Nance Sr. was absent.
“It’s up to doctors to tell parents what to do with their children,” Hudgins said in a recent interview.
Shackelford said, “I do not believe that I, as a School Board member who is not a member of the medical profession, have the knowledge or the right to advise parents about any medical or psychiatric issues associated with their children,” she said.
Superintendent David C. Stuckwisch said in an interview this week that he told board members he had reservations about the flier. The issue should rest between a doctor and a patient, he said.
Chairman James Bridgeford said in a recent interview the School Board does not support or denounce the flier’s contents but simply voted to send it as “an informational letter.” The flier contains a disclaimer that “the school division neither endorses nor denounces” its contents.
Board member Sheri H. Bailey said she approved the flier to “encourage folks to get information pro and con to make a decision to medicate or not to medicate.”
Daniels said she hasn’t received any criticism about the flier from parents. However, she said, she’s heard about concerns that information in the flier was taken from Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a California-based group with ties to the Church of Scientology.
The connection to the church, Daniels said, is irrelevant.
"That is totally and completely unimportant and makes me think that people are not concerned with what the issue is,” she said. She also said that CHADD is biased because it receives money from the pharmaceutical industry.
Bryan Goodman, spokesman for CHADD, which has about 14,000 members nationally, said the organization’s public policy committee works separately from its financial development department. No more than 30 percent of the group’s funding can come from the pharmaceutical industry, he said.
Dr. Jeffrey Katz, local coordinator of Tidewater CHADD, said he is concerned that some parents might take the School Board’s flier “as the gospel” and may be discouraged from seeking treatment or may stop treatment.
Martha Scalf said she was angered by the flier that her 11-year-old son, who suffers from ADHD, brought home from Churchland Elementary.
“The things that were on there were unbelievable,” she said. Scalf said she has no problem with opposing viewpoints but children should not have been given access to the flier’s contents. The flier was folded and not sealed in an envelope, she said.
Scalf said her child’s pediatrician will discuss the flier’s contents with him.
CHADD representatives said in their letter that they want the School Board to “immediately distribute a flier to every household with a school-age child clarifying the facts about ADHD as supported by the research cited in the attached fact sheet.”
The fact sheet states that ADHD is real, that treatment for it is effective, and that failing to treat it can have severe consequences.
Stuckwisch said it is up to the School Board to decide how to respond to the request. Bailey said Wednesday she was unaware of CHADD’s request.
The US FDA has warned that ADHD drugs can cause heart attack, stroke, sudden death, psychosis and hallucinations.
In 1992, CHADD received $50,000 from pharmaceutical interests.
By 1994, this had reached $400,000 and by 2001, $700,000.
In 1995, the DEA issued a Methylphenidate (Ritalin) background paper, stating: "The DEA has concerns that the depth of the financial relationship with the manufacturer was not well known to the public, including CHADD members, that have relied upon CHADD for guidance as it pertains to the diagnosis and treatment of their children."
On September 26, 2002, the CEO of CHADD, E. Clarke Ross, testified before Congress that the group's financial relationship to ADHD drug manufacturers is "on our website. It's in our IRS returns." This information is not obvious on the "National Resource" website; it is in CHADD's annual report. Unless someone knew where to look, it would not be easily found.
CHADD claims that ADHD is a "neurobiological" disorder, despite the fact that there is no science-based evidence to support this. CHADD's website fails to inform people of the considerable difference in medical opinion regarding the validity of ADHD.
Pediatric neurologist, Fred Baughman, who has discovered real physical diseases, says that by claiming ADHD is a "disease" or "neurobiological" it makes it so "real and terrible that the parent who dares not to believe in it, or allow its treatment, is likely to be deemed negligent, and no longer deserving of custody of their child." He adds, "This is a perversion of science and medicine and is a lie."
CHADD defers to the 1999 Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health when citing ADHD as a neurobiological disorder, yet the Surgeon General's report, the DSM-IV, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Practice Guideline for ADHD, do not confirm or state that ADHD is a "neurobiological" disorder. In fact, the Surgeon General provided no conclusive evidence to support this theory—a fact CHADD neglects to mention on its website.
When pressed recently by Insight Magazine on the scientific validity of ADHD, E. Clarke Ross finally responded, "It really is a matter of belief."
The DEA warned that most of the material prepared for public consumption by groups like CHADD does not address the potential or actual abuse or Ritalin. It is portrayed as a benign, mild substance that's not associated with abuse or any serious side effects. In fact, Ritalin and several other ADHD drugs are Schedule II drugs in the same category as cocaine and morphine.
In a token gesture to balanced coverage, CHADD devotes about four pages to negating alternative interventions, while using 10 pages to espouse the virtues of psychotropic drugs. The known and documented side effects of these drugs are downplayed as "mild and typically short-term," contradicting medical and scientific reports showing serious side effects, including death
A school board in the state of Virginia was brave enough to take a stand for parental rights and informed consent, by sending out the real story about the "Mental disorder" known as ADHD and the drugs prescribed to treat it.
ADHD is not a medical condition and there are no blood tests, brain scans or chemical imbalance tests to prove any child has a "brain condition" requiring the administration of drugs.
ADHD drugs have been documented by the US FDA to cause psychosis, hallucinations, heart attack, stroke and sudden death.
Psychiatric/Pharmaceutically funded front groups like CHADD want to keep parents in the dark, evidenced by their statements in the article below.
Please vote here:
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=135015&ran=160257&tref=po
Should the Portsmouth School Board have sent a flier on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to parents?
You can also send a letter to the editor here: letters@pilotonline.com
And you can backup the entire school board by sending an e-mail here: kathy.chambliss@pps.k12.va.us
Please note: Below the article is information on CHADD.
Virginian-Pilot
Portsmouth School Board's ADHD flier draws fire
By CHERYL ROSS , The Virginian-Pilot
© October 19, 2007
PORTSMOUTH
Last month, the School Board sent a warning to parents about the “harmful effects” of drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Much of the flier’s information was taken from the Internet, including from a Web site run by a group founded by the Church of Scientology
This week, six national organizations and eight local groups sent a letter requesting that the School Board retract the flier and send a new one stating that ADHD is a disease that requires treatment.
The groups include the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Tidewater chapter of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
The flier was sent “to instill fear in parents,” said E. Clarke Ross, CEO of the Landover, Md.-based national office of CHADD. “It’s not based on published science, but on propaganda.
“This is the first time I’ve heard of this kind of propaganda being officially disseminated from a school system to its pupils,” Ross said.
In recent years, some parents, doctors and researchers have said that too many children are being misdiagnosed with the disease and, as a result, have been over medicated.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, about 4.4 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD by a health care professional, and about 2.5 million children are being treated with medication.
The Portsmouth School Board began discussing ADHD at the urging of long time member Elizabeth Daniels.
Daniels said she is concerned about the welfare of children.
In the early 1980s, Daniels said she cared for an 11 -year-old girl whom doctors said was hyperactive. She said she believes the child was being treated with Ritalin, which made the girl groggy. When the child was taken off the drug, Daniels said she was alert and happier.
Daniels said she and the Virginia School Boards Association last year turned to the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics for information about ADHD. The organizations did not respond to the board’s questions, Daniels said.
However, Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she answered the association’s questions in November 2006. Kraft sent The Virginian-Pilot a copy of the November-dated e-mail to the state School Boards association.
She said the group is regularly contacted by parents about the disease.
In August, the Virginia School Boards Association sent a flier to every superintendent in the state similar to the one distributed to Portsmouth parents. It was sent as a courtesy to Daniels, a former president of the association, said Frank E. Barham, executive director of the group.
The association suggested that individual superintendents and School Boards consider whether to distribute the information further. Earlier this week, Barham said he thinks that Portsmouth is the only board to send the information to parents.
CHADD has requested that the association send a new flier to school divisions with information stating that ADHD is a disease.
Barham said he doesn’t understand why the flier has caused so much controversy. As far as he’s concerned, the matter is closed. “We will not be distributing any more materials on the issue,” he said.
In September, the Portsmouth School Board voted 6-2 to send the flier to the division’s parents. Board members Jean H. Shackelford and Betty N. Hudgins voted against it. Board member B. Keith Nance Sr. was absent.
“It’s up to doctors to tell parents what to do with their children,” Hudgins said in a recent interview.
Shackelford said, “I do not believe that I, as a School Board member who is not a member of the medical profession, have the knowledge or the right to advise parents about any medical or psychiatric issues associated with their children,” she said.
Superintendent David C. Stuckwisch said in an interview this week that he told board members he had reservations about the flier. The issue should rest between a doctor and a patient, he said.
Chairman James Bridgeford said in a recent interview the School Board does not support or denounce the flier’s contents but simply voted to send it as “an informational letter.” The flier contains a disclaimer that “the school division neither endorses nor denounces” its contents.
Board member Sheri H. Bailey said she approved the flier to “encourage folks to get information pro and con to make a decision to medicate or not to medicate.”
Daniels said she hasn’t received any criticism about the flier from parents. However, she said, she’s heard about concerns that information in the flier was taken from Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a California-based group with ties to the Church of Scientology.
The connection to the church, Daniels said, is irrelevant.
"That is totally and completely unimportant and makes me think that people are not concerned with what the issue is,” she said. She also said that CHADD is biased because it receives money from the pharmaceutical industry.
Bryan Goodman, spokesman for CHADD, which has about 14,000 members nationally, said the organization’s public policy committee works separately from its financial development department. No more than 30 percent of the group’s funding can come from the pharmaceutical industry, he said.
Dr. Jeffrey Katz, local coordinator of Tidewater CHADD, said he is concerned that some parents might take the School Board’s flier “as the gospel” and may be discouraged from seeking treatment or may stop treatment.
Martha Scalf said she was angered by the flier that her 11-year-old son, who suffers from ADHD, brought home from Churchland Elementary.
“The things that were on there were unbelievable,” she said. Scalf said she has no problem with opposing viewpoints but children should not have been given access to the flier’s contents. The flier was folded and not sealed in an envelope, she said.
Scalf said her child’s pediatrician will discuss the flier’s contents with him.
CHADD representatives said in their letter that they want the School Board to “immediately distribute a flier to every household with a school-age child clarifying the facts about ADHD as supported by the research cited in the attached fact sheet.”
The fact sheet states that ADHD is real, that treatment for it is effective, and that failing to treat it can have severe consequences.
Stuckwisch said it is up to the School Board to decide how to respond to the request. Bailey said Wednesday she was unaware of CHADD’s request.
The US FDA has warned that ADHD drugs can cause heart attack, stroke, sudden death, psychosis and hallucinations.
In 1992, CHADD received $50,000 from pharmaceutical interests.
By 1994, this had reached $400,000 and by 2001, $700,000.
In 1995, the DEA issued a Methylphenidate (Ritalin) background paper, stating: "The DEA has concerns that the depth of the financial relationship with the manufacturer was not well known to the public, including CHADD members, that have relied upon CHADD for guidance as it pertains to the diagnosis and treatment of their children."
On September 26, 2002, the CEO of CHADD, E. Clarke Ross, testified before Congress that the group's financial relationship to ADHD drug manufacturers is "on our website. It's in our IRS returns." This information is not obvious on the "National Resource" website; it is in CHADD's annual report. Unless someone knew where to look, it would not be easily found.
CHADD claims that ADHD is a "neurobiological" disorder, despite the fact that there is no science-based evidence to support this. CHADD's website fails to inform people of the considerable difference in medical opinion regarding the validity of ADHD.
Pediatric neurologist, Fred Baughman, who has discovered real physical diseases, says that by claiming ADHD is a "disease" or "neurobiological" it makes it so "real and terrible that the parent who dares not to believe in it, or allow its treatment, is likely to be deemed negligent, and no longer deserving of custody of their child." He adds, "This is a perversion of science and medicine and is a lie."
CHADD defers to the 1999 Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health when citing ADHD as a neurobiological disorder, yet the Surgeon General's report, the DSM-IV, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Practice Guideline for ADHD, do not confirm or state that ADHD is a "neurobiological" disorder. In fact, the Surgeon General provided no conclusive evidence to support this theory—a fact CHADD neglects to mention on its website.
When pressed recently by Insight Magazine on the scientific validity of ADHD, E. Clarke Ross finally responded, "It really is a matter of belief."
The DEA warned that most of the material prepared for public consumption by groups like CHADD does not address the potential or actual abuse or Ritalin. It is portrayed as a benign, mild substance that's not associated with abuse or any serious side effects. In fact, Ritalin and several other ADHD drugs are Schedule II drugs in the same category as cocaine and morphine.
In a token gesture to balanced coverage, CHADD devotes about four pages to negating alternative interventions, while using 10 pages to espouse the virtues of psychotropic drugs. The known and documented side effects of these drugs are downplayed as "mild and typically short-term," contradicting medical and scientific reports showing serious side effects, including death
Under the Frequently Asked Questions section of CHADD's website, alternatives are referred to as "controversial interventions." It states that "many people turn to treatments which claim to be useful, but which have not been shown to be truly effective in accord with standards held by the scientific community." Here again CHADD does what it accuses others of, using "a tactic designed to startle and scare the American public," and one motivated by pharmaceutical vested interests.
To counter its critics, CHADD forwards the views of at least one convicted felon with a bent for kidnapping and who happens to also support psychotropic drug treatment of children. His long history of criminality includes convictions for breaking and entering, conspiracy, theft, the use of stolen credit cards, and threatening to detonate a bomb in a jewelry shop unless $100,000 in jewels was handed to him. According to one psychiatric report, this criminal "does not seem to profit from his past experiences and…does not realize he has a responsibility to society to control his behavior." Such is the caliber of opinion that CHADD promotes on its government- and pharmaceutical-funded website in its efforts to silence alternative views about treatment and care of children said to have ADHD.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
