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Antidepressants for Every Man, Woman & Child

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, children, health care, medical care, National Center for Health Statistics study, Obamacare, psychoactive drugs

I recently posted on some telling “health” statistics in the U.S. It’s so refreshing to know what Americans are really fighting for with regard to health care, because the strong belief of some is that every American has the right to be on as many drugs as their neighbor. For the mass American mentality–that’s health! Awesome.

Americans are fighting for their inalienable right to drug their children. Yes, they are…that’s health, remember? If parents can’t understand their children, and public school officials can’t understand their children, then their good doctors will be there to help. Yes…with anti-depressants. In fact, more children are on psychoactive drugs today than on any other drug ever before in history.

Is it me? Do I just not understand health or health care? Are we blessed–part of the “haves”–if we can get antidepressants for our children? Ohhhhh…maybe I’d better go back to doctor school. I thought health and wellness was something else.

According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics study published in September 2011, antidepressants were the third most common prescriptiondrugtaken by Americans of all ages in 2005–2008.

And from 1988-1994 through 2005-2008, the rate of antidepressant use in the United States among all ages increased nearly 400%.

Isn’t that awesome? Aren’t we so fortunate here in the U.S.? Hope Obamacare brings antidepressant drugging to every citizen in the nation, especially children. It’s our right to NOT be sad. Yay, Obamacare!!!

Here go some more stats for you:

  • 11% of Americans aged 12 years and over take antidepressant medication.
  • Females are more likely to take antidepressants than are males, and non-Hispanic white persons are more likely to take antidepressants than are non-Hispanic black and Mexican-American persons.
  • About one-third of persons with severe depressive symptoms take antidepressant medication.
  • More than 60% of Americans taking antidepressant medication have taken it for 2 years or longer, with 14% having taken the medication for 10 years or more.
  • Less than one-third of Americans taking one antidepressant medication and less than one-half of those taking multiple antidepressants have seen a mental health professional in the past year.

I love these statistics. They show how much healthier we are as a result of the mass antidepressant prescription campaign. Thank you Obamacare, for caring so much that you want me and my children to have as many antidepressants as we need. No more sadness for us. We are so fortunate to have real health care in this country; and so fortunate that we may all get even more courtesy of our federal government and caring medical industry. Truly awesome.

American “Health” Booming

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dynamic Chiropractic, health care, medications, National Center for Health Statistics study, prescription drugs

I would love to share some interesting, if not telling, “health” statistics with you. Remember from an earlier post that most people in western society use the term health care to describe medical care, but I’ll let you decide how to define things. A big thank you to Don Petersen and Dynamic Chiropractic for alerting me to these numbers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics study published in September 2011, the percentage of Americans on prescription drugs in a given month has risen from 39.1 percent (1988-94) to 47.2 percent (2005-08). So nearly half of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug!

But wait! It gets better. In the U.S. as of 2008 (you can assume the numbers are even higher today), in any given month:

  • 20.8% of all people are on three or more prescription drugs.
  • 11 %  of all people are on five or more prescription drugs.
  • 25.3%  of children and teens (under the age of 18) are on at least one prescription drug.
  • 52.4%  of all women are on at least one prescription drug.
  • 90.1%  of seniors (ages 65 and older) are on at least one prescription drug.
  • 65%  of seniors are on three or more prescription drugs.
  • 36.7%  of seniors are on five or more prescription drugs.

Nice! And which drugs are Americans popping like Pez?

  • Children (under 12 years of age): asthma (5.7% of children are taking prescription drugs for this), asthma/allergies (3.9% of children), infections (3.7% of children).
  • Teens (ages 12-19): attention deficit disorder (6.1%), asthma (5.4%), antidepressants (4.8%).
  • Adults (ages 20-59): antidepressants (10.8%), pain relief (10.1%), cholesterol-lowering drugs (8.4%).
  • Seniors (60+ years): cholesterol-lowering drugs (44.9%), beta-blockers (26.4%), diuretics (19.9%).
But wait! It gets better. As Don Petersen points out in his article,

“Common over-the-counter drugs like acetaminophen (paracetamol) have been found to increase the risk of asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema in children. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are associated with erectile dysfunction. Early antibiotic use increases the risk of asthma and allergies in children. Antidepressants are associated with an increased risk of stroke. For children and adolescents, 90 percent of office visits are ‘associated with unapproved usage of antidepressant medication.’

Finally, a recent study found that expectant mothers who take antidepressants within the year before their babies are born increase the likelihood that the babies will be born with autism. The study found that the risk of a baby being born autistic more than doubled if the mother took antidepressants within a year of the child’s birth. For those mothers who took antidepressants during their first trimester of pregnancy, their babies were almost four times more likely to be born autistic compared to babies of mothers who did not take antidepressants.”

A couple of thoughts before directing you to Don Petersen’s Dynamic Chiropractic video explaining these recent findings. First, let me address the bright side: There are still ~10% of older Americans  (ages 65 and older) on NO drugs! That’s a darn-near miracle considering the massive pressure older people are on to take medications from their doctors, the mass media propaganda, and the inevitable aches, pains and illnesses they encounter (like we all do).

Second, although about half of all Americans are on one medication or another, half are not. Yes, I believe that medications are useful and necessary under certain circumstances, but these numbers tell me that either Americans are sicker than ever before in history (a distinct possibility considering the foods they routinely eat, the amount of soda they ingest, and how many drugs they currently take), OR they are just so indoctrinated by the the medical “health” paradigm that to the American psyche this is health.

In any case, 50% of all Americans are drug free in any given month, so they are experiencing, and hopefully, caring for their health. I guess in today’s pharmaceutical climate that’s something to be grateful for. Watch the video below to get more of an understanding on the current medication stats–forgive me, health stats–for Americans in 2012.

Easy Ain’t Always What it Seems

By On · Add Comment · In 60 Minutes, antidepressants, depression, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), placebo, prescription drugs, selective publication, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

60 Minutes did a great piece over the weekend on the business of depression–that’s right, BIG business–and whether the product that’s being sold to America (and the rest of the western world) is actually doing what it’s supposed to. Some experts (myself included) believe that the popular (read: highly prescribed) depression drugs–the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)–don’t do a whole lot for people that are moderately depressed, and the data seems to back up that notion.

However, antidepressants continue to be some of the most prescribed drugs in the U.S., and most of those people fall in the center of a bell-shaped curve. In other words, most people taking antidepressants probably aren’t getting much from them, as Harvard psychologist and researcher, Irving Kirsch articulates in the video. According to his research, many of the studies that show antidepressants not doing much more than placebo have been hidden by the manufacturers who lead the studies.

We call this selective publication, and I’ve been reporting on this phenomenon within the antidepressant manufacturing industry for over four years. In 2008, research showed that only one third of the studies conducted on SSRI antidepressants ever made its way out to the public. Can you guess which third gets published?

In the 60 Minutes piece below, you’ll see Dr. Thomas Laughren, FDA Director of the Division of Psychiatry Products rationalize why it only takes two favorable studies–even if ten come back unfavorable–for a drug to get approval by the FDA. Oddly, he doesn’t mention “cha-ching $$$” anywhere in the piece. Hmmm…

Listen, I’m all for big business–a capitalist to the core–but there’s something wrong with pushing a drug onto millions of people, including children as young as six years old, when it isn’t doing exactly what it’s supposed to. And I wouldn’t care except there is also evidence that some of the side effects aren’t benign, or whether they are permanent. And that’s playing with people’s lives.

Again, I do not pull the public out of the equation because too many people are looking for an easy way out–and antidepressants sure promise that. Watch the piece below to see why easy ain’t always what it seems to be.

Prescription Drug Deaths Up and Climbing

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, anxiety medications, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, direct to consumer advertising, drug overdose, drugs, Fentanyl, medicine, pain pills, pharmaceutical companies

Congratulations medicine, you’ve done it!  You’ve now helped drugs pass traffic fatalities as a cause of death in the U.S.  Bravo!  That’s right, pushers–37,485 people die every year from prescription drug overdoses, according to preliminary data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

While most other causes of preventable death are declining, drug deaths continue to rise.  Many blame the increases in prescriptions for pain pills and anxiety medications.  Well intentioned doctors, wanting to spare their patients from pain and suffering, have doled out these meds for years in a sort of illogical haze.  As a result, prescription drug deaths have double over the last decade, with a person overdosing every 14 minutes.

Back in the day when I was a coming up, celebrities and rock stars were ODing on heroin, cocaine, speedballs, barbiturates, and other illicit drugs, but not today!  Oh no, the new millennium is the era of Oxycontin, Vicodin, Xanax and antidepressants like Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil.  And we musn’t forget the legalized speed, Ritalin. 

Public health experts are now calling the current prescription drug trends “epidemic.”  Well no shiitake mushrooms–’bout time!  Pain killers and anti-anxiety meds are highly addictive and especially lethal when combined with other drugs, like alcohol.  And users (abusers) span every demographic from elderly ladies (like my patient on daily Fentanyl patches–100 times more potent than morphine) to children (known to get into their parents stash with tragic results).  Prescription drugs kill more people than heroin and cocaine combined.  Booyah!  Something we can all be proud of…

Why what do you mean, Campos?  Nobody is off the hook on this one: Yes, doctors are to blame because they dole out these drugs like candy.  Yes, the pharmaceutical industry is to blame because they have aggressively marketed drugs to doctors by incentivizing high prescription volumes with trips and other gifts, as well as to the public through direct-to-consumer adds in magazines and on television.  And yes, the public is the most to blame because they’ve been asking for these drugs by name.  Why?  Because it’s an easy way to get high.  And who doesn’t like getting high?

But the most important lesson to be learned from all this is that everything comes with it’s flip side.  So yes, your doctor can help you get high…or stay out of pain…or fool you into thinking you’re happy all the time…but not without a price.  And that price is often life.  Your game, your choice–the newest numbers just show how many people are playing.

P.E.–Believe the Hype?

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, Priligy, PSD502

E.D. or P.E.? No problem, Mon–we’ve got a drug for every penile predicament. That’s erectile dysfunction and now premature ejaculation for those of you not familiar with the LOL/OMG vernacular. You’ve got it–drug makers have created a spray and a pill and that help delay ejaculation. Hallelujah for modern medicine! I can see the three hour porn scene on the horizon.

PSD502–which combines the drugs lidocaine and prilocaine–is sprayed on the head of the penis before intercourse. A study of men in Canada, Poland and the United States found that those treated with the spray five minutes before intercourse were able to delay ejaculation up to five times longer than those who used a placebo. In addition, men who used the spray and their partners reported improved sexual satisfaction. Throw in a little Viagra and WATCH OUT!

Johnson & Johnson has also developed a pill called Priligy that delays ejaculation. The company studied the product on several hundred men who had a typical ejaculation time of about 36 seconds. After using the product, the typical time from penetration to ejaculation was about 2.6 minutes, about a two minute increase–not a big deal for most of you stallions, but for the typical P.E. sufferer…that’s heaven.

As exciting as this news is, controversy looms: Some people in health care circles believe, accurately in my opinion, that too many disorders these days are created only after a drug has been developed. This is certainly the case with antidepressants, and probably with erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation, too.

Listen, no doubt some men can’t hold on for dear life, but enough to create a mega-selling drug in the Viagra vein? I doubt it. Variation exists in all physiological functions, including staying power–and there’s no shame in that, but let’s hear the arguments:

According to Dr. Wayne J. G. Hellstrom, professor of urology at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans and, not surprisingly, previous consultant for Johnson & Johnson, “[Premature ejaculators] don’t usually last in their relationships.” Excuse the pun. He goes on to say that 20 to 30 percent of men experience premature ejaculation at some point in their lifetimes.

But Leonore Tiefer, a clinical associate professor in the psychiatry department at the New York University School of Medicine specializing in sexual disorders, believes that pharmaceutical companies are medicalizing every aspect of our daily lives, from mood to sleep to sexual function. My regular readers know I agree with this wholeheartedly. If you haven’t had the chance to check out to my podcast on lifestyle drugs (episode 3), it’s definitely worth the listen.

Tiefer says, “Rapid ejaculation as opposed to slow ejaculation is common, but there is slow and fast everything in the world: slow and fast walkers, slow and fast eaters, slow and fast breathers. When you tell someone they are a fast ejaculator, it makes it sound like there is a right time to ejaculate and, if you ejaculate before, it’s a medical problem.”

She goes on to say, “It is going to become a problem once enough publicity is given to it.”

Exactly. Don’t let me ruin the party but…come on (not too quickly, now)! Thirty percent? Uh huh. Today, marketing is everything in the world of pharmaceutical sales. And sadly, it even dictates disorder classifications. That’s the world we live in.

Depressed Canadian Loses Benefits over Facebook

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Chippendales, depression, disability, Facebook, Manulife insurance, Nathalie Blanchard

A Canadian woman on long-term sick leave for depression says she lost her benefits because of pictures posted on Facebook.

According to a recent report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Nathalie Blanchard of Quebec has been on leave from her job at IBM for the last year. She had been receiving monthly payments from insurance giant Manulife, but the payments dried up this fall. Apparently, according to Ms. Blanchard anyway, she was told she lost benefits because of pictures posted on Facebook showing her having a good time at various activities, including a night out at a Chippendales bar show club.

Manulife denies that they would drop coverage solely based on information published on Web sites such as Facebook. However, they did say that they have evidence that Blanchard is no longer depressed. Hmmm. Blanchard states that she went partying on her doctor’s advice to go out and have a good time to help her forget her problems. Double hmmm….

I guess when you have such a weak classification of a disorder as depression is, eventually you’ll have a fiasco like this one. Listen, depression as a medical diagnosis is BS. Who doesn’t get depressed? Sure some people go off the deep end, but does it really warrant in excess of $31 billion in lost productivity per year (U.S. figures); does it really warrant mass antidepressant therapy; does it really warrant massive insurance payouts in disability? Does it…really?

Well I guess if it does, then there will always be a fine line that insurance adjusters will monitor. Just like with physical disability, an insured collecting monthly payments will have their life scrutinized. Who hasn’t heard of people on permanent disability filmed lifting heavy objects, doing housework and other activities proving that they can, in fact, work? Duh! Same thing will happen with mental health issues.

Can’t say whether Facebook pictures of somebody enjoying Chippendales dancers constitutes improved mental status (could argue either way), but remember it’s a fine line. It seems to me that if you are too depressed to work, you are probably too depressed to go out socializing. Or put another way, if you can find joy and purpose in male strippers, or anything for that matter, getting your behind to work will probably good for you in the long run.

Something Exciting About Anti-Depressants

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, Lexapro, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin, spinal cord injuries

Finally, something to get excited about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)–they might just have a future in spinal cord injury rehabilitation. That’s right, your regular ol’ run-of-the-mill antidepressants have been shown to get people with spinal cord injuries walking faster. Now that’s exciting!

A study conducted at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago built on previous studies showing that giving animals serotonin-like drugs after spinal cord injuries promoted recovery of walking when paired with an intensive training program. It looked at 50 patients with partial spinal cord injuries, 34 of which could walk, albeit slowly, previous to the study. All 50 went through an eight-week rehabilitative walking program on a treadmill, assisted by a robot or physical therapist. Up to 40 percent of their body weight was supported in a harness.

Five hours before training, some were given 10 mg of Lexapro, and some a placebo. Although both groups showed overall improvement, the Lexapro group did so faster. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors–like Prozac, Lexapro, Luvox and Zoloft–work by preventing the reuptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin by the nerve cells of the brain. In so doing, they allow the concentration of serotonin to remain elevated in the neural synapses, regulating mood (debatable but the reigning theory, anyway).

In this case, the drugs appear to work by increasing muscle spasms that people with spinal cord injuries typically experience, says George Hornby, a research scientist involved in the study. Most doctors consider these spasms negative, but Hornsby and colleagues believe that they mimic reflexes, which spinal cord injury patients “rely on [to walk].”

The volunteers only received the antidepressants on the day of training, yet the benefits continued long after the drug was out of their systems. Hornby thinks the drug is strengthening the residual connections between the brain and the spinal cord. “It helps you drive that muscle harder, and it’s easier for the brain to activate the muscle,” he said.

I find this research exiting because, along with the obvious, I pretty much think antidepressants are more hype than help. Oh, they change brain chemistry, no doubt; and these changes lead to mood alteration, but is this type of mood alteration ultimately what’s best for the person taking them? Not as far as I can see.

But I also acknowledge that all coins have a flip side; and in the gold-standard antidepressant therapy, we now have a tails to the “we cure depression” heads of the biochemical theory of mental “illness”. With these latest findings, I hail the possibilities of helping people with spinal cord injuries walk again–sooner, and maybe even better than the current recovery rate and results. So hang on tight people because you may never hear this out my brain again, but bravo! to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Lexapro Paradox

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, melamine, pediatricians, pharmaceutical industry
More trouble for the antidepressant drug industry, as federal prosecutors accuse Forest Laboratories, makers of Celexa and Lexapro, two popular antidepressants, of improperly attempting to sway pediatricians to prescribe the drugs to kids. All this on the heels of the FDA’s approval for the use of Lexapro in treating depression in children.

According to recent reports, the US Justice Department accused Forest of wrongly pushing their product onto pediatricians with inducements like spa visits, fishing trips and tickets to sporting events and Broadway shows. Neither Celexa nor Lexapro had been approved for kids until Lexapro won the FDA’s nod on Friday. The federal complaint also includes allegations of Forest pushing aside a study showing Celexa as inneffective for pediatric use, and having their sales staff promote another favorable study instead.

This shouldn’t come as any surprise to regular readers of this blog. I’ve reported similar stories on GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Paxil, another popular antidepressant, who may have hid evidence of suicide risk in their product. I’ve also reported on studies showing antidepressants to be no more effective than taking a sugar pill.

Why would the makers of these most widely sold drugs have to hide important data and woo doctors to push their products? Easy–it’s big time money. Not your simple inordinate-bonuses-for-executives-during-tough-economic-times greed as we’re seeing today. It’s much, much bigger than that. We are talking long-term-hook-a-generation-on-useless-and-dangerous-drugs to “treat” a difficult, yet normal, human condition called depression. It’s an outrage.

I’m going to step out on a limb and speak the truth here: The pharmaceutical industry, particularly the makers of antidepressant drugs, is amoral. The only factor important to this outfit is profiteering. I do not make these claims lightly. I am a strong believer in the capitalist system, and believe that economic markets help drive human progress. But I also believe that commerce should be attached to products and services that help people, not just opportunities to make money at any cost. So when companies exhibit a disregard for the betterment of their customer base, I think they should be considered criminal. In other words, I feel no sorrow for the Chinese businessmen sentenced to death for putting the toxic chemical, melamine, into milk products to pass the necessary protein requirements in their watered down product. Perhaps if the same punishment was held over the heads of greedy pharmaceutical execs, we’d see a lot less shenanigans going on in that industry.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

By On · Add Comment · In American Psychiatric Association (APA), antidepressants, black box warning, drug companies, medical seminars
Well, hallelujah. There is hope. Apparently some doctors see a problem in accepting gifts from drug companies, too. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) will be considering a proposal from some of its members to halt the practice of medical seminars being funded by pharmaceutical companies. No guarantee that the board will also see it as a problem, but this is a good start.

Drug companies have been courting doctors for years, with trinkets, luxury trips, and cash. It’s not uncommon for doctors to earn big bucks speaking in favor of one drug or another (of course we mean name brands). And antidepressants are high on that list. Considering the questionable effectiveness, and the even more shaky science behind these highly over-prescribed drugs, and you can only imagine why pharmaceutical courting exists.

Here is the problem: When doctors are paid by a pharmaceutical company–like Wyeth, makers of Effexor, let’s say–then do you think those doctors will recommend any other option? When full-on seminars are sponsored by drug companies, do you think that most attendees will be prescribing Effexor like crazy on Monday? Do you think drug companies will place their product in anything but the most positive light? That’s exactly how drugs like Prozac, Luvox, Paxil, Celexa, Lexapro, and Zoloft received black box warnings after they had been on the market for several years, despite the fact that research showed a hightened risk for violence and suicidal tendencies in children. Do you think the manufacturers of these drugs disclosed these very important findings to their seminar attendees?

But once again, thank goodness some doctors and medical groups like the APA see the inherent problem. As former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell, says,

“It is self-evidently absurd to look to a company for information about a product it makes. Why can’t doctors, who are among the most privileged members of society, pay for their own continuing medical education? Why have they abdicated that responsibility to the companies who make drugs?”

And for those doctors who think they are above being persuaded, Dr. Angell adds,

“There are still those who feel strongly that they can hear things but it doesn’t influence their practice. But the evidence points the other way.”

Precisely.

More Risks Tied to Antidepressants

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, gastrointestinal bleeding, magic bullet, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Seems like the risks keep piling up for antidepressants. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Paxil have enough side effects to fill a book, like:

  • Dry mouth
  • Urinary retention
  • Blurred vision
  • Constipation
  • Sedation (can interfere with driving or operating machinery)
  • Sleep disruption
  • Weight gain
  • Headache
  • Nausea
  • Gastrointestinal disturbance/diarrhea
  • Abdominal pain
  • Inability to achieve an erection (limp D)
  • Inability to achieve an orgasm (men and women)
  • Loss of libido
  • Agitation
  • Anxiety

They have also been proven to increase suicidality (have you read my book?). And if taken with monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), another type of antidepressant, the combination can kill you. But if that ain’t enough, a new study has come out linking the SSRI antidepressants to intestinal bleeding. Woowee! Ever poop blood, boy? Keep taking that Prozac and you just might.

Never fear, though, medical science has an answer. According to the research team, the gastrointestinal bleeding associated with antidepressant use can be easily remedy with…a simple antacid. No really, a magic bullet is all that’s needed. So if you’re hooked on antidepressants you should rest assured that by simply countering with an acid-suppressing medication, your risk for GI bleeding will be almost nil. You’ll simply need to deal with the other annoying side effects of the SSRIs and possibly a few more caused by the antacid. Piece of cake! Ain’t science grand?

And who may we thank for this study? Why AstraZeneca, that’s who…you know, the makers of Nexium and Prilosec, those quite useful acid-suppressing drugs that you’ll need to combat GI bleeding, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah……..

A Strange Double Standard

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, ephedra, GlaxoSmithKline, Metabolife, Paxil, pharmaceutical, weight loss drugs
So let’s say there is a supplement company selling a weight loss product that has ephedra in it. Ephedra, as you may know, was banned by the FDA in 2004 due to a high rate of serious side effects and ephedra-related deaths. Now let’s say that said supplement company, full well knowing the adverse health risk of ephedra, goes ahead to manufacture and sell this product to the public anyway. Should this company be held liable for any harm done to the public health? Should they be fined, punished, or shut down? What are the necessary measures to be taken to assure this doesn’t happen again?

If you believe that the supplement company acted out of negligence and greed, and compromised public health, then you probably also believe that the company should be punished to the full extent possible. Now what if it wasn’t a supplement company at all, but a pharmaceutical manufacturer instead. And let’s say the compound in question wasn’t ephedra but Paxil, the popular antidepressant, what would you say then?

Well that’s exactly what happened to ephedra–can anyone say Metabolife?–and it’s happening now with Paxil. In the Metabolife fiasco, Metabolife International Inc. the manufacturer of Metabolife 356, at its height a several hundred million dollar a year product, pled guilty to filing fraudulent tax returns and was sentenced to pay a criminal fine of $600,000, and more than a billion dollars in personal injury claims. Along with the banning of its most popular product, the monetary penalties buried the company which filed for bankruptcy in 2005.

So what will happen to GlaxoSmithKline PLC, makers of the mega best-selling antidepressant Paxil, which was the fifth-most prescribed antidepressant in the United States as early as 2006? A U.S. Department of Justice investigation is being conducted into whether the drug maker withheld data about the suicide risks of Paxil. Just another day at the office for antidepressant manufacturers. I’ve already reported on this and similar stories in earlier posts (and here, and here)–seems to be par the course with these massive money making meds. According to recent reports, the Justice Department is looking into GlaxoSmithKline’s marketing practices, pushing their product despite having information that the antidepressant increased the risk of suicidal tendencies in its takers.

So what will happen to GlaxoSmithKline? My guess, probably not much. They’ll fight the allegations professing the high road. They’ll lie and say they didn’t know about the risks. And when they eventually found out, they’ll say, they then took appropriate measures. I mean, what else could they possibly say? They’ll get slapped with a fine and warning. For a multi million dollar company like Metabolife that might cause ruin. But for a multi billion dollar company like Glaxo, well…it won’t do much. And I’m sure GlaxoSmithKline will be just fine. They’ll go on, business as usual.

Thalidomide’s Gift to Public Policy

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, birth defects, drugs, Frances Oldham Kelsey, pharmaceutical, Thalidomide
Rah, rah, rah! Three cheers for Thalidomide! Three cheers for the morning sickness pill of the 1950’s that led to thousands of birth defects.

Three cheers? Yes, because if it were not for the tragedy of Thalidomide, we wouldn’t have the regulations we have today for new pharmaceutical drugs. And we certainly wouldn’t be aware of the practice of withholding relevant and crucial information by pharmaceutical drug companies trying to pass their products off at any and all costs. Please take the time to read the history of Thalidomide here, and of the lone voice who refused to approve the drug for sale in the United States, FDA reviewer Frances Oldham Kelsey. When you do, you’ll see how lax our earlier laws were concerning drug approval.

At that time, pharmaceutical companies needed only to show that a drug was safe, and with a little trickery, it was easy to get things through. After the Thalidomide tragedy, though, the FDA changed the rules and required drugs to be both safe and effective. That means that manufacturers had to show that the drug actually did something beneficial–this prevented drugs from being “tried” on the public, as Thalidomide was in the U.S. Although it was never approved for sale, about 20,000 Americans received Thalidomide on a trial basis, including several pregnant women. Most birth defects were seen in Europe, but there were seventeen Americans born with birth defects caused by this drug.

We also have to thank Thalidomide for keeping us on our toes today. It’s exactly what I think about when I hear of antidepressant manufacturers hiding results. If you’ve got to hide ’em, there has got to be something terribly wrong. As I’ve said a thousand times over–when there’s big money involved, don’t count on human decency to make right decisions. And if it weren’t for Thalidomide…we might not know the full extent of that statement. So thank you Thalidomide for opening our eyes.

Antidepressants Don’t Work

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, biochemical theory, depression, freedom of information, Hull University, mental health, mental illness, pharmaceutical, placebos chemical
Yes, it’s true: The mega best-selling pharmaceutical mental health panacea called antidepressants just don’t work. When speaking about antidepressant therapy I usually try to be fair and say, “antidepressants might work for some people,” but frankly, that’s a bunch of horse shot. Study after study after study comes out exposing these most over-prescribed meds for the frauds they actually are; so I just can’t bear to keep perpetuating the lie. Antidepressants don’t work! At least not for what they’re supposed to work for, that’s for sure.

Take this latest study out of Great Britain which looked at previously undisclosed data of 47 clinical trials conducted by the drug companies themselves. The data became available through the U.S. freedom of information laws. I pointed out in an earlier post that many drug companies hide relevant information to make their product appear beneficial. Lots of money is made as a result of this practice, even if the information only stays hidden for a brief time.

But what makes the antidepressant sham so shameful is that, as a treatment option for depression, it has been treated as the holy grail of the biochemical theory of mental illness. I discuss this fallacy in detail in my upcoming book, The Six Keys To Optimal Health. It is one of the most faulty scientific theories to ever be unleashed upon the public. And it has been heavily propagandized for one reason only: Antidepressant therapy brings big bucks.

Oh, don’t get me wrong: people who take antidepressants feel something. Most of these drugs simulate speed, so lots of people get high from them. But since it’s a medically prescribed substance, they wouldn’t call it high. Oh no, instead they might say evened-out; calm; or “balanced”. Yeah right, balanced. You’ve got to check out this article on parents requesting drugs to give their college kids an “edge”. Nice, Dad; hook Junior–he’s worth it.

Here’s the truth as stated by research team leader Professor Irving Kirsch of Hull University, in northern England, who conducted the study, “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very great. This means that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments.”

He goes on to say, “Given these results, there seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit.” And I tell you, like me before him, he’s just being nice. It’s only a matter of time before the good professor gets fed up and proclaims the truth to the world as I have: Antidepressants don’t work! Time to give them up.

Questionable Science

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, chemical imbalance, depression, drug studies, Pfizer, Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil

Yet another shameful mark against the manufacturers of chemical antidepressants, and another knock against the fallacy that is the chemical imbalance theory of depression. New reports disclose that almost one third of antidepressant drug studies are never published in the medical literature, and that virtually all of those that are hidden happen to show the drug being tested did not work.

The scandal doesn’t stop there. In some of the studies that were published “unfavorable results have been recast to make the medicine appear more effective than it really is”, says the study’s lead researcher Erick Turner of the Oregon Health & Science University (see the full study, here).

Nice job. Way to do what it takes to dupe the world into buying a faulty theory and a whole bunch of worthless drugs. There’s a term for this type of dirty science: It’s called “selective publication”. Selective publication is printing only the result that fit the theory or the desired outcome of the research team. It’s without an inkling of a doubt the most unethical practice that can happen in science; it’s right up there with “cooking the books”–the practice of changing data so that the desired outcome appears to occur. Sham science. Garbage. Despicable. And the makers of our favorite zombie drugs–Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil–are guilty of both. According to Turner, “It tells you where they placed their bets before they saw the data.”

He goes on to say, “Not only were positive results more likely to be published, but studies that were not positive, in our opinion, were often published in a way that conveyed a positive outcome.” As an example, of five studies relating to Pfizer’s Zoloft, three showing the drug to be ineffective were never published. And according to the report, “A fourth study, ruled questionable by the FDA, was written and published to make it appear that the drug worked.” Purely scandalous!

I spend a lot of ink on the fallacy of the biochemical theory of depression in my upcoming book, The Six Keys To Optimal Health. Even without this new information I pretty much dismantle the rationale and the practice of widespread antidepressant use in our society. I truly feel this is the number one public health danger of our generation. A lot of people have a lot of emotion attached to this issue. Sorry folks, the science is just not there, no matter what the popular information machine and the so-called authorities have been telling us–and this new report proves it, plain and simple. Expect much more truth about popular (and dangerous) antidepressant drugs to be uncovered in the near future. Sure looks like this deception is swaying on a house of cards.

Ratso Schizo!

By On · Add Comment · In antidepressants, biochemical cause, brain, delusions, depression, genetic engineering, mood changes, paranoia, schizophrenia

Scientists have been genetically engineering laboratory mice to develop the physical and psychological characteristics of schizophrenia. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, used genetic engineering techniques to create mice that suffer from delusions, mood changes and paranoia – the same symptoms human schizophrenics suffer from. They say the findings will help in the understanding and treatment of this disorder, especially in how external factors, like stress or viruses, might aggravate symptoms. Take a peek here to see what one of theses rodents looks like

My only question is this: How did they observe delusions in rodents? A delusion is a pathologically false belief, and I just can’t imagine what a mouse would have to do to be labeled that! Perhaps it was an incorrigible conviction that a cat was a hunk of cheese, or something like that. Either way, it’s cruel and unusual – placing that cat in front of a cheese-hallucinating mouse. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either. Animal rights groups are up in arms over this study. They do not believe its necessary to “create” animals with this type of disorder, since schizophrenia is a “uniquely human feature.”

I’d have to agree. But there is an insistence within medical science to find the biochemical cause of mental illness – the same nonsense they have been trying to convince us of regarding depression for the last two decades. Find a biochemical cause, develop a biochemical “cure” – a new pharmaceutical, that is. At least that’s the rationale anyway.

Unfortunately, things are not that simple. When it comes to the human brain, there is still so much we do not yet know. At this time, not one shred of evidence points toward depression having a biochemical cause – but antidepressants are now the number one prescribed medication in the U.S.! Woohoo! Party! I talk at length about depression and antidepressant drug therapy in my upcoming book – The Six Keys To Optimal Health. And I guarantee you, it’s an eye-opener.

OK, now my other only question: If antidepressants are so good, why aren’t prescriptions going down? Hmmm…makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

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