Most people sense there is something up with the increase in psychiatric drugging correlating with more suicides, school shootings, health problems and disability. You may sense there’s more to the story that the mainstream media often hides. Here are some sources that might be helpful in putting together the pieces of the puzzle.
http://www.antipsychiatry.org/drsmith1.htm
General Principles:
(1) “Mental illnesses,” even severe ones, are relational. Psychiatry, by focusing almost exclusively on biology, is making itself increasingly irrelevant.
(2) Psychoactive substances provide at best, temporary relief, but always make things worse in the long run. They make things worse directly (chemically) and indirectly by distracting from the real issues.
(3) All psychoactive substances have rebound and withdrawal-related problems. “Relapse” rates, in general, during withdrawal from psychiatric drugs, are about 10 times higher than would be expected if the drug had never been taken.
(4) “All biopsychiatric treatments share a common mode of action — the disruption of normal brain function” (Peter Breggin, M.D., Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Springer Pub. Co., 1997, p. 3). Drugs never correct imbalances. They never improve the brain. They “work” by impairing the brain and dampening feelings in various ways.
http://www.alternet.org/story/153634/7_reasons_america%27s_mental_health_industry_is_a_threat_to_our_sanity
“A generation ago, psychiatrists admitted that their diagnoses were unreliable and agreed that this was a major scientific problem. So in 1980, in an attempt to eliminate this embarrassment, they created the DSM-III with concrete behavioral checklists and formal decision-making rules, but they failed to correct the problem. Psychiatric diagnoses remain unreliable, but now psychiatry no longer talks about the unreliability problem.”
“A generation ago, psychiatrists admitted that their diagnoses were unreliable and agreed that this was a major scientific problem. So in 1980, in an attempt to eliminate this embarrassment, they created the DSM-III with concrete behavioral checklists and formal decision-making rules, but they failed to correct the problem. Psychiatric diagnoses remain unreliable, but now psychiatry no longer talks about the unreliability problem.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/17/seven-facts-about-americas-mental-health-care-system/
1. The United States spends $113 billion on mental health treatment. That works out to about 5.6 percent of the national health-care spending, according to a 2011 paper in the journal Health Affairs.
1. The United States spends $113 billion on mental health treatment. That works out to about 5.6 percent of the national health-care spending, according to a 2011 paper in the journal Health Affairs.
2. Mental health dollars mostly go toward prescription drugs and outpatient treatment.
Big Pharma Pockets $711 Billion in Profits by Price-Gouging Taxpayers and Seniors
“Drug makers charge customers in the U.S. – especially the government – vastly more for the same drugs than they do in places like Canada and Europe, where government health plans bargain with the drug companies to protect their citizens. Per capita drug spending in the U.S. is about 40 percent higher than in Canada, 75 percent greater than in Japan and nearly triple the amount spent in Denmark.
The drug companies say they must impose higher prices in the U.S. to pay for research that enables them to innovate and develop new drugs that save our lives. But that’s not true. Half of the scientifically innovative drugs approved in the U.S. from 1998 to 2007 resulted from research at universities and biotech firms, not big drug companies, research shows. And despite their rhetoric, drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223
Last year, US giant Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company by pharmaceutical revenue, made an eye-watering 42% profit margin. As one industry veteran understandably says: “I wouldn’t be able to justify [those kinds of margins].”
Last year, US giant Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company by pharmaceutical revenue, made an eye-watering 42% profit margin. As one industry veteran understandably says: “I wouldn’t be able to justify [those kinds of margins].”
http://www.rethinkingpsychiatry.org/wasting-the-taxpayers-medicaid-dollars-on-psychiatric-drugs/
“There have been double-digit increases in yearly Medicaid drug spending with psychiatric drugs representing the largest percentage of that cost. [i] Psychiatric medications are among Medicaid’s most costly and commonly prescribed drugs. [ii] While Medicaid officials (many former pharmaceutical industry employees) reported concerns about the effects of restricting access to drugs for those with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, but these officials do not seem adequately concerned about the growing numbers of adverse effects, episodes of violence, fatalities and suicides on these medications. Side effects of psychiatric medications can include seizures, low blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, diabetes, tardive dyskinesia (a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movement), and other extrapyramidal symptoms (neurological side effects).”
As part of our book launch campaign, we will be collecting blogs from people who have been affected by these concerns. If you’d like your story to be included, please email orangedot@mail.com with one or two paragraphs summarizing your blog. Stay tuned for more info on the orange dot photo and video project associated with this movement.
